[Contrition] I apologize for being rude to this forum.

I thought I would try some diplomacy here. The last few days I have got a lot of feedback from members of this chat after I called it racist. My instinct would be to make fun of you more and to bag on you with my friends online. After everything that's happened this week, though, I don't really feel like laughing. So I apologize for painting with such a broad brush. I do think some of you are racist, but most of you are just curious or confused, and you dislike some aspects of the American left. I certainly understand that impulse. I should have led with that instead of criticizing others.

I do worry that a lot of the theory you fellows promote is a bit poorly constructed. For starters, "identity politics" started as a response to the failures of class-centered politics, and you have to depart from that truth. It was the ability of cynical opportunists in working class parties to attempt to bargain with the ruling class to carve out economic gains that made women and racialized/colonized peoples to criticize and organize independently of these corrupt mass parties. The attempt to force this organize back into mass movements really is often a crass attempt to reassert the power of chauvinism within these movements. Accepting that requires maturity and ability to work with people where they are, rather than endlessly shaming the more confused aspects of feminism and anti-racism. In short, identity politics at its best was never ignorant of class politics, it just saw how powerless such politics could be in reality when it came into contact with existing privileges and powers.

Anyway, I've said my piece. I started a podcast with Muslim Tom called You Can't Win in order to work through some of these problems. It's not great yet but we are trying to build a community and get better over time. And we're having a blast doing it.

So yeah. That's where we are. I don't expect or anticipate a response, our relationship can be as distant or as friendly as we want going forward, when things are settled and comfortable and people adjusted. Life is crazy, and hard, but most unfair of all, short, and these connections and emotions don't reveal themselves every day.

Thanks for reading, Donald