Why is it that when anarchists decide to address patriarchy and racism they almost inevitably defend patriarchal and racist practice? Because anarchism doesn’t have a useful critique of racism and patriarchy. Sometimes individuals will borrow good analysis from other ideologies, but most straight up anarchists? They don’t care. They pretend like they care, but if they actually gave a shit they would develop an ideology that isn’t tailored to defend white men as a class. They have nothing serious to say.

As examples, have a look at this or this. Here we have a couple of anti-capitalists who have no trouble whatsoever using the racist speech of a Prime Minister who is making war on the working class as an excuse to air their own white-man’s dumb-assery while agreeing with the fucker’s arguments. One expects the left-libertarian near-capitalist crop of dorky white dudes who really like weed, pornography and market pricing to engage in this sort of thing. One expects better from self-described communists. Who says “There is nothing inherently good in itself about diversity.” or “The solution to social tensions like this…is to promote working class unity against all of our enemies – whatever direction they are coming from.”? Nobody who gives a shit about racism, that’s for sure.

These “radicals” seem not to understand what race or gender are and how they intersect with economic class. They seem blind to racial minorities and women as exploited social classes and seem blind to the fact that white male is a social category created in order to exploit and oppress women and people of color. They claim it’s all down to economic class but within that category they assert that everything is atomized and individual. Suddenly we working people exist on a flattened social plane where we can all rally, as individuals, around lovely concepts like equality. It’s always time to talk about patriarchy within the Muslim community, it’s never time to talk about patriarchy among white people. It’s always time to caricature attempts people of color make to bring their issues into the conversation, it’s never time to talk about how white people are the reason people of color are oppressed.

The working class isn’t what they seem to think it is. There is a lot of seeming ignorant going on here. I don’t buy it. I think they know exactly what they are doing and are acting in conscious solidarity with the white male class. They might not put it in those terms even to themselves, but I’ve learned that when an anarchist starts defending equality his real intention is to defend the status quo.

Not all anarchists think like this, but most of the ones I know or know of who don’t have left the movement in frustration, or no longer strongly identify with it. That pisses me off, and it seems like it might be time to borrow what’s actually useful from anarchist ideology and throw out the rest.