the bastards' last stand

Over the last few weeks I have been reading and listening to a lot of Adoph Reed Jr. and listening to episodes of the podcast The Dig with Daniel Denvir , specifically his interviews with Barbara and Karen Fields , Nancy Fraser , Asad Haider , and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor . As a result of this immersion I'm recognizing a clarification of my own thinking around identity, intersectionality, and what for now I'll call restorative justice. I'm using restorative justice in recognition of the structures that serve capital in the US and as a catch-all recognition of the need to address the effects of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and threat to any "identity" not mentioned. If it's not apparent, even as my thinking clarifies my ability to voice that clarity remains somewhat fractured. That discontinuity is the result of the sometimes purposefully obscuring ways in which we discuss these issues. In a recent episode of Dead Pundits Society Reed said: what&

Let's start from the shared assumption that the United States was born from the genocide of indigenous and African people; the indigenous people killed for the land and its resources, the Africans for the labor to harvest those resources, driving down the value of labor for low wage free workers. The nation has yet to collectively reconcile that history or commit to any form of restorative justice for it. It would be fair to say of the nation that created a system of chattel slavery while still referring to itself as the Land of the Free with no sense of irony or shame that finding institutions, policies, or programs without racist origins, exceptions, or execution would be as rare as a total solar eclipse. It's helpful to start there because it's reflective of the actual reality of our nation. It's also helpful to start there because there's a strange social media narrative that people promoting universal programs to deliver medical services to everyone and provi