Quantico DSA on Twitter
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I post a lot of fake bits on here for laughs and catharsis but this is absolutely real and it is the dumbest thing that this organization has ever produced and it will not surprise you to learn it comes from its most dysfunctional chapter. pic.twitter.com/aJcqDngbaY— Quantico DSA (@QuanticoDSA) November 18, 2020

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.

  • 777 [none/use name]
    1·
    4 years ago

    The existence of mutual aid to disenfranchised people is not a charity project nor is it why leftists have "no power" (in the west) but you do you my friend :)

        • hauntingspectre [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          To me, reparations is a "corporate" or state act, versus an individual or small group. In addition, reparations is for all, not few. At this level, of one chapter, it seems much more like charity.

          Now, reparations are far away (unfortunately), so is this at least something? Yes. But I think it's too performative and scattershot rather than systemic power building or mutual aid.

            • hauntingspectre [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Yeah, it sounds like we just have different definitions of reparations. To me, an individual can't make reparations for a historical atrocity - that has to come from the state that performed that atrocity. Leaving it at the individual leads to too much individualistic thinking/blame assigning/blame dodging and is likely to create tension within the group.

              But I have no problem with individuals doing the acts you described, I just can't think of it as reparations?

              Honestly, I might just be being a nerd about the word!

          • hauntingspectre [he/him]
            1·
            4 years ago

            Naw, we aren't libs who means test like that. Census answers only, everyone involved receives the same amount, and we move forward.

      • 777 [none/use name]
        1·
        4 years ago

        What's your game plan to immediately improve the material conditions of Black and Black Trans people during a period of national crisis?

        • Bedandsofa [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I mean, what's your game plan for immediately improving the material conditions of black and black trans people during a period of (inter)national crisis? Because doing reparations with a few hundred dollars in DSA dues isn't going to do that, especially because the crisis isn't limited to black or black trans people, working class people have less spending power rn in general, and DSA dues are fairly low to begin with.

          Also side point, but important point--Marxists talk about "material conditions" basically to describe the conditions of life produced by capitalism. It's not really used to refer to how much more money that this or that working class person has in their pocket because of a reform or a mutual aid project or whatever, especially because we live in a system where surplus gets sucked up. This is significant, because the only way to actually raise material conditions is to transform the mode of production and society to produce better conditions of life for working class people. Socialism is the basis for improving material conditions for the working class.

          • 777 [none/use name]
            1·
            4 years ago

            This is a thread about the critique of opening a mutual aid fund to Black people, beloved.

            If a Black trans person hit you up today and said they're struggling with employment and needed funds to move out of an abusive housing situation, or at least someone to spread their GFM to get more visibility to it, would you assist them or lecture them about how you can't assist them because that would just be doing charity?