Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Workers World Party: tailist whateverism

Lack of principles and a desire to please and appeal to the political shortcomings and backwardness of contacts encountered in the mass movement has been a defining characteristic of Workers World Party's brand of tailist "whateverism."

Well-expressed here:

Excerpt:

....The union halls are great, but we have to get out to the hood. We have to make [Vladimir] Lenin relevant to the ghettos and barrios. And what that means is that we may have to give people the Black Panther Party first before we give them Marx and Engels, particularly in Black and Brown communities. Most of all, we have to be open-minded. We have to listen to new ideas and new perspectives. We have to be able to evolve without sacrificing our principles.

Just to share a brief example, while Monica and I were on the campaign trail, at one of our branch stops we met a young sister who had expressed her interest in “decolonizing the mind.” Though she did describe herself as an anti-racist and anti-capitalist, she wasn’t interested in Marx and Engels. And I can totally understand why.

For most Black people, that’s all we’ve taught: the work of old white men. Just because she was resistant to Karl Marx, doesn’t mean that she’s off target....

Full article here:

http://www.workers.org/2016/12/06/the-living-struggle-putting-revolutionary-theory-into-practice/#.WEgSLXNOnqA

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments