Please note, this is a proposal, not a passed resolution. And I have no idea how many members it would take to submit a resolution, so it could be two weirdos or have huge internal chapter support.
Edit: It appears I have started a struggle session. I apologise.
For the record, my own view on this is that it is well intentioned, but extremely poorly designed and (likely) to be poorly implemented as well. In one of my comments below, I say "I don’t think DSA, a predominantly white and PMC organization, is at all equipped to handle this in a way that doesn’t create more problems. To me, it would make more sense to have a Black socialist org be given the $ to do as they see fit, if this is a path the chapter votes on. It screams of white guilt rather than building power, and individual charity rather than mutual aid.". AFROSOC is an internal DSA org, as I understand it.
And I feel this is a textbook example of "charity vs mutual aid", with this decidedly being charity.
I feel like a lot of the talk around reparations looks like how Lenin describes Russian Economism. Too focused on improving the conditions of the workers without teaching the workers the political nature of their struggle, so you get stuff like this where what is essentially racially means tested mutual aid becomes understood as a political act in and of itself when it's actual role in a capitalist system should be just to keep people from dying. The Panthers understood reparations as a step in a political program of black anti-imperialism and black equality/self reliance but, to me at least, reparations alone has little difference from any other social policy like medicare for all. I think that kind of goes both ways though where a lot of people would laud the DSA for establishing a free clinic or some sort of mutual aid based healthcare program whereas this is mocked because of its racial character. I don't think you can deny the necessity of some form of reparations in a political program, and obviously this isn't the correct way to do it, but the special conditions of the different races in the US must be taken into consideration when attempting to organize them.
Idk what I'm getting at here but maybe someone can get something from it.
Edit: I thought about it a bit and I think I know what I'm getting at.
Whether this is charity or mutual aid or this distinction between those two is irrelevant. We need political programs to achieve things. In the absence of a program any action is just flailing around trying to improve people's material conditions as Russian Economism was and how charities function. Mutual aid is not revolutionary by itself and neither is this thing the Seattle DSA has come up with(not that this is necessarily bad, but it is clearly not revolutionary and at best functions as mutual aid cloaked in revolutionary language).
Reparations are necessary
For reparations to be effective they need to be a political victory. That means they must be conceded by the state (or taken). To do this we must engage in class struggle, which means applying pressure to various strategic points within the class system to act in certain ways. While I am not sure of the best way to proceed from there, it obviously includes things like organizing black workers, organizing sympathetic or class conscious whites, and pressuring the big bourgeoisie to give in to our demands under threat of revolt.
What this means is that if Seattle DSA wants to begin fighting for actual reparations, they should lay out a framework for how they plan to achieve that goal and begin practicing that framework until it fails and must be adjusted or until it is successful. It will likely include a broad list of demands laid out by multiple different groups since blacks alone don't seem to be strong enough to win political battles in this country. Then the struggle must be carried out together. Solidarity must be built between these groups so that when the program is successful, they are not divided by some demands being met but not others. Solidarity between these groups will be built by a socialist organization, both by teaching the importance of solidarity and facilitating it's development.
Removed by mod