"Get Out" and the Exploitation of Black Labor

[Spoiler Alert]

First off, If you haven't yet seen Jordan Peele's "Get Out:" Watch it. It truly is a masterpiece; blending comedy, horror, and social critique into a one-of-a-kind mixture.

Going into the film, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I'd heard universal praise, but felt apprehensive after seeing the deluge of bizarre identity-politics rooted analysis flowing through my Facebook feed. Coming out of it, there's so much to say. But I'd like to focus on one tendency in the film which most of the think-pieces ignored: the role of black labor.

Chris, the protagonist, is meeting the parents of his girlfriend Rose for what ought to be an awkward, but innocuous, visit. One problem: she's white and he's black. Rose reassures Chris that race won't be an issue to her liberal parents. But from the beginning, Rose's reassurances ring hollow. Rose's family employs three black servants and bombard Chris with various degrees of racism. In particular, interactions with Rose's father, Dean, expose the tropes of liberal racism. It's impossible not to cringe watching Dean trying to connect with Chris by "speaking his language," repeatedly alluding to his support for Barack Obama, and a litany of other microagressions.

But the film transitions from an uncomfortable and upsetting portrayal of everyday racism to horror when the purpose of this racism is shown: the control of black bodies.

The Armitage family hypnotizes and brainwashes black people to give a coterie of mainly bourgeois whites the ability to inhabit black bodies. This twist in the story appears first as a horrifying venture into a nightmare world. But this turn to dark fantasy reveals the real nightmare of racial terror in this country. The real horror of racism in the film and in everyday life is not located in the individual prejudice which liberals see as the main site of oppression. Rather, the horror arise from the fact that these individual prejudices are deeply rooted within broader systems of power and dominance. And these systems create racist discourse as a means of ensuring the super-exploitation of black people. All of the stereotypes and prejudices Chris is subjected to throughout the film are rooted in the real threat of physical and mental exploitation. To these bourgeois whites, Chris is nothing more than a vessel for physical labor. Thus, the film highlights the key role that the super-exploitation of black people's labor plays in the system of white supremacy.

Not only does the film pinpoint the locus of racial oppression; it also illustrates the potential of resistance. Chris ultimately escapes being doomed to "the sunken place" and enslavement. This escape also represents an ideological rejection of accomodationism, or the attempt to function in white society without fundamentally challenging its structures. And ultimately Chris escapes exploitation through the violence of self-defense.

"Get Out" is one of the most politically astute films I've seen on race; a clear reflection of the radicalization accompanying the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Ultimately: great film, great politics.

Watch it.

Recovering Ohio's Radical History: A Series

(Photo from The Toiler, Newspaper of the Communist Labor Party in Ohio)

Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, one can't shake a sense of latent conservatism. Support for Kerry, Obama, or Bush, placed you firmly on the Left in a community where Trump signs glared menacingly from the well-maintained lawns of well-maintained suburbanites only a few months back. And I swear to you, if there's not a McDonald's a block down, there's a church on the corner instead.

Radicalizing in this context, it's difficult not to feel alone. Being radical meant checking The Communist Manifesto out from the library, being a contrarian in high-school classes, and appearing (and being) disgruntled.

Years later, I've begun to realize that Ohio is not a hopelessly traditional place. Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and a variety of social movements have taken root and radicalized significant sections of people. And that's also meant the rebirth of a socialist movement, with organizations growing and popping up across the state.

But this isn't the first time: the periods of radicalization during the 1910s, the 1930s, and the 1960s which swept the United States didn't leave Ohio untouched.

In the late 1910s, industrial workers in Ohio flocked to the Socialist Party, creating a significant challenge to the entrenched two-parties in the cities. The party had a significant foreign-born population, often with direct links to the Marxist and radical movements sweeping Europe during the time. And after the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Ohio Socialist Party began identifying openly with the nascent world communist movement. This support led them to be expelled as a bloc by the right-wing leadership of the Socialist Party. Thereafter, many former members joined the Communist Labor Party and later the Communist Party.

In the 1930s, the wave of radicalization during the height of the Great Depression created a hearing for the Communist Party message in the industrial cities throughout Ohio. And during the ensuing Red Scare of the 1950s, members of the Communist Party were intimated, harassed, and sometimes arrested, in Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland.

And finally, during the late 1960s, the movement for Black Liberation, Women's Liberation, and the movement to stop the Vietnam war flourished throughout the state. After the Kent State massacre, where the National Guard opened fire on an anti-war demonstration, killing 4 and injuring 9, mass demonstrations led universities like The Ohio State University to shut down for weeks. And simultaneously, the Black Panther Party and other communist organizations began taking root once again in Ohio. In the late 1970s, even the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party and the Trotskyist International Socialist Organization had bases in Cleveland.

In the coming weeks and months, I'm hoping to gather together some of these resources on the radical legacy of Ohio.

The recovering of such history is in one sense an entertaining endeavor; a novelty of sorts. However, doing such work is also of crucial importance for the growth of the revolutionary socialist movement. One of the real historical cruelties is how the neoliberal turn of the last 40 years has forcibly broken the links between the radicals of the past and the present. Without the knowledge of their successes and failures, we must start from scratch again.

So here's to rebuilding those links, and to reclaiming our past!

A Marxist Critique of Libertarianism: Reflections on my Debate with Yaron Brook

Last Thursday, I participated in a debate with Yaron Brook, the president of the Ayn Rand Institute, on the topic of the morality of Capitalism. And it was just as... interesting... as I expected. It's interesting when your opposition is plainly visible: a plethora of white men in suits.

As anticipated, Brook's arguments were basic anti-communism and simplistic posturing. But I'd like to consider some aspects of libertarianism to aid in the Marxist critique of the trend.

So firstly, what is libertarianism? Though it, like many ideologies, is marked by a strong degree of diversity, its fundamental idea is the complete identification of the free market with liberty.

The fundamental principle of libertarianism is its fundamental flaw. Let's look at it historically. It is true that in a limited sense that the rise of capitalism and the "free" market was a liberating phenomenon. Bourgeois revolutions and processes broke up the old system of feudalism. In that sense the development of capitalism was historically progressive.
 
However, the liberation of the market necessitated too the literal enslavement of peoples. As Marx eloquently remarks in Das Kapital: "The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production." Even the birth of capitalism was contradictory. To produce free labor, unfree labor was necessary. The creation of capital thus was was a product of the most intense exploitation.

Brook's response to the question of slavery expressed many of the fundamental flaws inherent to libertarianism: idealism, ahistoricity, moralism. The whole basis of his outlook was the embrace of those "positive" aspects of capitalism; the rebirth of the rhetoric of freedom and liberty, the development of the surplus, etc. while denying the factors which underpin them. All of the problems which capitalism has produced were attributed to feudalism, or, more ridiculously, socialism.

He even denied the role of resistance by the oppressed in bringing about reform under capitalism, specifically in regards to the abolition of slavery. Brook argued that slavery was wiped out in the South due to the Northern capitalists recognition that feudalism was outmoded in terms of capital accumulation. What nonsense! Northern capitalists wanted to prevent the extension of slavery, not to abolish it. Only the struggle of slaves themselves in the Civil War and the agitation of abolitionists pressured the Northern government to campaign for abolition to ensure victory in the war.

The logic of Brook's response was present in his whole analysis of reform under capitalism: reduce reform to the imperatives of capital, deny the agency of the oppressed in struggle.

Libertarians claim to see everything in terms of the individual. This focus leaves them blind to their own position.

Though libertarians seek to deny the existence of class, their positions are a distinctive indicator of their class position: that of the petty-bourgeoisie. The petty-bourgeoisie exists as an intermediary class between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in capitalist society. Their position as an intermediary class is always under threat, and thus they are driven to extremes on the left and right. Ultimately, sections of the petty-bourgeoisie express themselves through libertarianism because of the material interest small business owners have in challenging big capital while maintaining the overall system. But the funny thing is libertarianism is doomed to historical irrelevance precisely because it reflects the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie and not the bourgeoisie!

The capitalist state manages the common affairs of the capitalist class, and the capitalists recognize and compete for access to the state. No section of the capitalist class has a legitimate interest in the overall reduction of penetration of the state in society.

On the questions of history and analysis, libertarianism provides nothing. And even at the level of ideals, it flounders:

Liberty and self-interest today are only accorded to the 1%.

Socialism means liberation for the 99%