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Class Notes
Eschewing both left-wing political clichés and stereotyped opinions derived from the 1960s civil rights era, Adolph Reed Jr. has forged his own intellectual path. In this impressive collection of essays, Reed turns his keen intellect on a variety of issues, many of which revolve around the decline of the American Left since the '60s and the rise of race-based demagogues like Louis Farrakhan. He also examines what he sees as the hopeless nihilism expressed in hip-hop music, debunks the belief that black anti-Semitism is on the rise, and analyzes the phenomenon of black intellectuals acting as cultural gatekeepers for whites all the way back to Booker T. Washington. A political science professor at New York City's New School of Social Research and the author of W.E.B. Du Bois and American Political Thought and Stirrings in the Jug, Reed confronts fellow thinkers such as Robin D.G. Kelley, William Julius Wilson, and others on the topic of American poverty in a firm, though respectful, way. Reed has carefully observed what has been going on in the United States for nearly 35 years and is capable of expressing cultural highs and lows with admirable clarity and sensitivity. "The failure of disciplined strategic thinking on the left is a serious problem," he writes. "It reflects and stems from the extreme demoralization and isolation that has plagued us for two decades. We'll never be able to build the kind of movement we need unless the left can find its moorings and approach politics once again as an instrumental, rather than an expressive, activity." --Eugene Holley Jr.
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First published January 1, 2000
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About the author
Adolph L. Reed Jr.
21 books133 followersAdolph Leonard Reed Jr. is an American professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in studies of issues of racism and U.S. politics. He has taught at Yale, Northwestern, and the New School for Social Research and he has written on racial and economic inequality.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
January 27, 2021
Maybe it's just me finishing this book on a particularly sunny day, but this book instilled a bright enthusiasm in me. I reckon it's frequently narrowly used as a battering ram against 'identity politics', which it undeniably is, but it's also a positive testimony to what "an organizing approach to politics" has achieved, and will achieve again. We have a world to win.
Historical materialism is the ideology of the socialist movement. Not because of any particular transcendent truth, but because it allows you to see history move as the consequence of concrete struggles by concrete groups and institutions. Adolph Reed Jr doesn't use the term often in his book -- only once, actually. But the paragraphs just before are so paradigmatic of the entire book I'm gonna quote them in full:
These politics are dispensed over the course of thirty-something shorts essays, informed by Reed's background as a labor organizer and former black nationalist. The unspoken common denominator is a constant struggle against reification: abstractions of an aspect of a real phenomenon that within a certain discourse take on a life of their own, and end up being blamed for causing the associated phenomenon. For instance, in popular US mythology, the poverty of the poor has often been blamed on their status as an "underclass": the poor suffer from such a backward culture and attitudes, that they cause their own poverty. In the same way he turns against the concept of race: as the later Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life argues, "race" is the consequence of a racist discourse that seeks to explain the disproportional poverty and oppression of the nonwhite population, not its cause. Countering white nationalism (an obviously dangerous ideology) with other ethnic solidarities makes any real organizing very difficult, as it starts off by sorting individuals into racial categories, after which they then need to prove their commitment to not being racist before being allowed to organize in multiracial organizations. This attitude of suspicion runs counter to the ambition of mass parties, who themselves are the precondition of any significant victories for any oppressed constituencies. No political constituency is a given before it is organized along those lines, around concrete political demands and a realistic way of obtaining them, and it is within those struggles that solidarity will spread the most -- any other cause-effect interpretation is a recipe for defeatism.
I'm rambling so I'll wrap up here, but this is really good stuff. One caveat. Funny how apparently at the time Cornel West was pretty somewhat of a racial liberal and hence a target of Reed's, coating mystifying racial appeals with the language of radicalism, while nowadays he's pretty much a socialist and him and Reed often share platforms. This is where Reed might overstep his own criticism: identitarian ideology might be toxic to the "organizing approach to politics", but it does work to "wake" people up from an apolitical state. A more interesting question then, might be: how do you funnel political enthusiasm, misdirected but genuine, into functional organizing? Reed clearly believes in head-on confrontation, and he hasn't gotten any milder with the years . But won't that push people away more than educate them? I'm biased towards open class politics, but pragmatism always get in the way of the ideals, and the historical verdict isn't clear yet.
Historical materialism is the ideology of the socialist movement. Not because of any particular transcendent truth, but because it allows you to see history move as the consequence of concrete struggles by concrete groups and institutions. Adolph Reed Jr doesn't use the term often in his book -- only once, actually. But the paragraphs just before are so paradigmatic of the entire book I'm gonna quote them in full:
Relying on formulaic social theory and slogans makes it difficult to connect with the experience of ordinary people. And desperation to forge some kind of connection leads to the pursuit of any alliance, no matter how repugnant to progressive interests. Single-minded focus on an arcane objective makes it possible to rationalize anything. So, for example, trade-union activists who are unable to win rank-and-file workers over to their “revolutionary” programs will apologize for Farrakhan and the protofascist militia movement, soft-pedal opposition to sexism and homophobia, support tax-cut politics, and retreat from support for reproductive freedom and agressive policy intervention to promote racial and gender equality. The appeal of such defective politics is understandable. Nevertheless, we need a better politics than this. Instead of an ultimately self-defeating, feel-good approach, we need a politics that rests on careful, nuanced analysis of the social conditions we live in, grounded on and shaped by a concrete project of advancing the struggle for progressive social transformation. We need, that is, a politics that proceeds from a subtle form of what used to be called historical materialism. (195)
These politics are dispensed over the course of thirty-something shorts essays, informed by Reed's background as a labor organizer and former black nationalist. The unspoken common denominator is a constant struggle against reification: abstractions of an aspect of a real phenomenon that within a certain discourse take on a life of their own, and end up being blamed for causing the associated phenomenon. For instance, in popular US mythology, the poverty of the poor has often been blamed on their status as an "underclass": the poor suffer from such a backward culture and attitudes, that they cause their own poverty. In the same way he turns against the concept of race: as the later Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life argues, "race" is the consequence of a racist discourse that seeks to explain the disproportional poverty and oppression of the nonwhite population, not its cause. Countering white nationalism (an obviously dangerous ideology) with other ethnic solidarities makes any real organizing very difficult, as it starts off by sorting individuals into racial categories, after which they then need to prove their commitment to not being racist before being allowed to organize in multiracial organizations. This attitude of suspicion runs counter to the ambition of mass parties, who themselves are the precondition of any significant victories for any oppressed constituencies. No political constituency is a given before it is organized along those lines, around concrete political demands and a realistic way of obtaining them, and it is within those struggles that solidarity will spread the most -- any other cause-effect interpretation is a recipe for defeatism.
I'm rambling so I'll wrap up here, but this is really good stuff. One caveat. Funny how apparently at the time Cornel West was pretty somewhat of a racial liberal and hence a target of Reed's, coating mystifying racial appeals with the language of radicalism, while nowadays he's pretty much a socialist and him and Reed often share platforms. This is where Reed might overstep his own criticism: identitarian ideology might be toxic to the "organizing approach to politics", but it does work to "wake" people up from an apolitical state. A more interesting question then, might be: how do you funnel political enthusiasm, misdirected but genuine, into functional organizing? Reed clearly believes in head-on confrontation, and he hasn't gotten any milder with the years . But won't that push people away more than educate them? I'm biased towards open class politics, but pragmatism always get in the way of the ideals, and the historical verdict isn't clear yet.
Read
May 6, 2021This stellar collection of essays (most of which were first printed in issues of the Village Voice) was released in 2000—yet, the issues discussed here have only become amplified through their aggregation via social media platforms. The essays are grouped into three categories which (1) combat the “personal is political” modes of “resistance” as it particularly relates to black political involvement, (2) combat strange technical notions of equality and their bizarre manifestations in American political life, and (3) offers practical ways forward to move beyond the essentialist deadlock which the self-proclaimed “left” finds itself in.
A running thread in this collection is Reed’s aversion to the use of words such as “community” and “grassroots” to refer to a mystical-like black voting bloc who all thinks and does alike. The presumption here is that the black “community” does not suffer from the same contradictions as other groups (i.e. whites) stemming from class and status. Thus, the question of proper treatment of issues in relation to blacks in America takes a tone of the paranoiac, “what must They think of us? (whites)” This racial-cultural essentialization of the “community” results in a deadlock where blacks are never addressed fully as equal citizens called upon to participate in a political decision-making process…
“But who exactly is the “community”? How can we assess the claims of those who purport to represent it? These questions are seldom raised, much less answered. A strain of Jeffersonian romanticism obscures them among the left, for whom community implies an organic entity animated by a collective mind and will. From that perspective we don’t need to ask how the community makes its decisions, how it forms its will, because it reflects and almost mystical identity of interest and common feeling.
[…]
Because whites by and large don’t see black Americans as a complex population of differentiated individuals, the organic community imagery seems reasonable and natural to them.”
Instead, whites look for black spokespeople to speak on “the community’s" behalf. It goes without saying that this is particularly the case when this spokesperson does not effectively challenge the way in which political power is actually distributed and maintained, which would, of course, need to take on the difficult task of historical materialist analysis which went beyond charges of the perils of “whiteness” or the “authenticity” of cultural “blackness.” This theme of the pitfalls of the “leadership” impulse reaches a fever pitch in the essay, ‘What Are the Drums Saying, Booker?’, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the need for whites to have access to their black-whisperer in the form of the black-public-intellectual. Instead, Reed argues that:
“What the current environment demands from black intellectuals who would comment on public affairs is not more whining about disparagement of the “black body” in Western culture (as if that were news) or examination of representations of representations or noodling about how, if we apply the right spin, everything black people do is resistance or oppression. And most of all, there is no need for interpretations that presume an uncomplicated, conveniently mute black reality; there’s already a surfeit of analysis propelled by the collective black subject—“black people want, feel, etc.” As is true on the left generally, what is desperately called for is stimulation of informed discussion among black Americans, and between blacks and others, that presumes proprietorship of the institutions of governance and policy processes on an identical basis with other citizens and aims at crafting agendas that define and realize black interests accordingly.”
The other main strand I found was Reed’s excellent citation of the morality play of the “responsibility” ethos as it began to spring up on both the so-called left and the right after Reagan and the failure of McGovern (which still haunts us to this day, I’m afraid…). Though cloaked in a cloth most Americans do not find fault with, this ethos is used to justify some of the most horrific theories normalized in public discourse—that there is a sector of the population (usually with darker skin... fancy that!) who essentially belongs to a different species of person. This characterization is ever-more dangerous when you throw into the mix the rigid biological claims such as those found in ‘Bell Curve.’ If some of us are hard-wired criminals and derelicts, why, what’s the point of fighting for reform and access to resources? Such a figuration of the problem lets the government off the hook as a body which ought to be responsible to the people… and breeds the atomized cynicism I’m sure we’ve all cozied up to at some point in our lives.
It is refreshing to hear all of this. Reed is a statist, and I respect that. I think many who consider themselves to be in the left find it fashionable to proclaim their orientation against “The State” and simply leave it at that. It’s what fosters this docile “everyday resistance” politics which does not beg of us to actually engage with power and assume responsibility for its equitable, proper distribution. Call yourself whatever you will, but an engagement with power is absolutely necessary if you wish to change the game. No, the aim is not to help people make choices and exercise a flimsy democratic right—surely, the goal is to enable people to determine their own choices. This can only result from being unafraid of engaging with power in a real way. So yes, your revolutionary ideas do need to, eventually, become principles of governance. That probably sounds boring, but this is something we need to think about. Reed knows this. Hell, as an organizer, he *does* this. Reed’s analysis of the left’s slow decline into lukewarm parables which used to be the handmaid of the right, particularly as it relates to black public life, is second to none.
A running thread in this collection is Reed’s aversion to the use of words such as “community” and “grassroots” to refer to a mystical-like black voting bloc who all thinks and does alike. The presumption here is that the black “community” does not suffer from the same contradictions as other groups (i.e. whites) stemming from class and status. Thus, the question of proper treatment of issues in relation to blacks in America takes a tone of the paranoiac, “what must They think of us? (whites)” This racial-cultural essentialization of the “community” results in a deadlock where blacks are never addressed fully as equal citizens called upon to participate in a political decision-making process…
“But who exactly is the “community”? How can we assess the claims of those who purport to represent it? These questions are seldom raised, much less answered. A strain of Jeffersonian romanticism obscures them among the left, for whom community implies an organic entity animated by a collective mind and will. From that perspective we don’t need to ask how the community makes its decisions, how it forms its will, because it reflects and almost mystical identity of interest and common feeling.
[…]
Because whites by and large don’t see black Americans as a complex population of differentiated individuals, the organic community imagery seems reasonable and natural to them.”
Instead, whites look for black spokespeople to speak on “the community’s" behalf. It goes without saying that this is particularly the case when this spokesperson does not effectively challenge the way in which political power is actually distributed and maintained, which would, of course, need to take on the difficult task of historical materialist analysis which went beyond charges of the perils of “whiteness” or the “authenticity” of cultural “blackness.” This theme of the pitfalls of the “leadership” impulse reaches a fever pitch in the essay, ‘What Are the Drums Saying, Booker?’, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the need for whites to have access to their black-whisperer in the form of the black-public-intellectual. Instead, Reed argues that:
“What the current environment demands from black intellectuals who would comment on public affairs is not more whining about disparagement of the “black body” in Western culture (as if that were news) or examination of representations of representations or noodling about how, if we apply the right spin, everything black people do is resistance or oppression. And most of all, there is no need for interpretations that presume an uncomplicated, conveniently mute black reality; there’s already a surfeit of analysis propelled by the collective black subject—“black people want, feel, etc.” As is true on the left generally, what is desperately called for is stimulation of informed discussion among black Americans, and between blacks and others, that presumes proprietorship of the institutions of governance and policy processes on an identical basis with other citizens and aims at crafting agendas that define and realize black interests accordingly.”
The other main strand I found was Reed’s excellent citation of the morality play of the “responsibility” ethos as it began to spring up on both the so-called left and the right after Reagan and the failure of McGovern (which still haunts us to this day, I’m afraid…). Though cloaked in a cloth most Americans do not find fault with, this ethos is used to justify some of the most horrific theories normalized in public discourse—that there is a sector of the population (usually with darker skin... fancy that!) who essentially belongs to a different species of person. This characterization is ever-more dangerous when you throw into the mix the rigid biological claims such as those found in ‘Bell Curve.’ If some of us are hard-wired criminals and derelicts, why, what’s the point of fighting for reform and access to resources? Such a figuration of the problem lets the government off the hook as a body which ought to be responsible to the people… and breeds the atomized cynicism I’m sure we’ve all cozied up to at some point in our lives.
It is refreshing to hear all of this. Reed is a statist, and I respect that. I think many who consider themselves to be in the left find it fashionable to proclaim their orientation against “The State” and simply leave it at that. It’s what fosters this docile “everyday resistance” politics which does not beg of us to actually engage with power and assume responsibility for its equitable, proper distribution. Call yourself whatever you will, but an engagement with power is absolutely necessary if you wish to change the game. No, the aim is not to help people make choices and exercise a flimsy democratic right—surely, the goal is to enable people to determine their own choices. This can only result from being unafraid of engaging with power in a real way. So yes, your revolutionary ideas do need to, eventually, become principles of governance. That probably sounds boring, but this is something we need to think about. Reed knows this. Hell, as an organizer, he *does* this. Reed’s analysis of the left’s slow decline into lukewarm parables which used to be the handmaid of the right, particularly as it relates to black public life, is second to none.
Read
October 6, 2021Oddly trotted out in the Youtube/Twitter era of leftism after years of relative obscurity, Adolph Reed often gets vaunted by the anti-wokescold left as a sort of avatar of class-first politics, and caricatured by their enemies as a despicable class reductionist, who would probably get called a "nazbol" or some such thing if he was white. The thing is that both standpoints are themselves hopelessly reductionist.
In Class Notes, at least, he's neither. He's a remarkably thoughtful, pragmatically minded socialist intellectual who sees how identity politics fit comfortably within the neoliberal framework, but who also has a deep-seated awareness of "privilege" as broadly construed. In other words, he practices a real intersectionality (not the boardroom kind), with no patience for any view that slides into parody. In fact his impatience takes the form in the volleys he launches against anyone and everyone, including every prominent fellow black leftist (Cornel West, bell hooks, Michael Eric Dyson, and Henry Lewis Gates all get shat upon), and even when I disagree, it's an argument worth considering.
Above all else, he's utterly unforgiving of notions like "community" and "culture," whether that's the phony postmodernism of '90s intellectuals, the black liberals who rally around the black church, or the Moynihans et al who carry on about the "underclass" while ignoring material conditions. And he does so with a witty, often viciously snarky voice that recalls the finest essays of Joan Didion and James Baldwin. As Roger Ebert used to say, two thumbs way up.
In Class Notes, at least, he's neither. He's a remarkably thoughtful, pragmatically minded socialist intellectual who sees how identity politics fit comfortably within the neoliberal framework, but who also has a deep-seated awareness of "privilege" as broadly construed. In other words, he practices a real intersectionality (not the boardroom kind), with no patience for any view that slides into parody. In fact his impatience takes the form in the volleys he launches against anyone and everyone, including every prominent fellow black leftist (Cornel West, bell hooks, Michael Eric Dyson, and Henry Lewis Gates all get shat upon), and even when I disagree, it's an argument worth considering.
Above all else, he's utterly unforgiving of notions like "community" and "culture," whether that's the phony postmodernism of '90s intellectuals, the black liberals who rally around the black church, or the Moynihans et al who carry on about the "underclass" while ignoring material conditions. And he does so with a witty, often viciously snarky voice that recalls the finest essays of Joan Didion and James Baldwin. As Roger Ebert used to say, two thumbs way up.
August 15, 2008
Adolph Reed, where have you been all my life? Class Notes is a collection of essays on black politics, the labor movement, left strategy, the "underclass" debate, the suckiness of liberals, and a range of other issues, all addressed with Reed's ascerbic wit and razor sharp political analysis. His introductory analysis of the retreat of the left into the academy and postmodern identity politics since the 1960s should be required reading for all leftists. His essay "What Do the Drums Say, Booker" should be put in the same category, as it definitively debunks the claims of the last wave of "black public intellectuals" to "Voice ofthe Black Community" status and manages to be completely hilarious at the same time. What's best about Reed's perspective is that it allows him to walk and chew gum at the same time; while recognizing the need for historically oppressed identity groups to organize around their specific grievances, he argues persuasively that these oppressions are ultimately experienced through political economy and that class organization in the interest of all working people needs to remain the foundation of a real progressive political movement. This seems so painfully obvious to me, but unfortunately, many of us on the left have lost sight of this reality. How I wish Reed was an Honorary Co-Chair of my own organization (Democratic Socialists of America) rather than Cornel West. I think we'd be much better off.
October 4, 2020
Read this first in 08, thought it was breezy/interesting, thought his attacks on rivals like ME Dyson ("Pigmeat Markham meets Baudrillard") and C West were amusing.
Read it again in 2020, after he ripped into writer Angela Nagle on a podcast. The signs of A Reed's real positions are evident throughout:
-- admitting to "voting blue no matter who" and throwing in with that coalition during the Reagan era, admitting that didn't work during the Clinton era (he did this again during the Trump era, of course)
-- essentially admitting his beefs w/ ME Dyson (a superior writer) and C West (far better on the mic, for what it's worth) are over primacy in the "movement."
-- basically signing on to the standard libdem policy proposals, when actually giving policy advice rather than fulfilling his usual function of serving as the "opposition within the opposition" (i.e., the boundary police on the "last frontier" of the last, the "farther frontier").
-- noting in passing around p. 180 that wage inequality could be fixed most easily by laws tied to race and gender, not earnings. Hardly the stuff of a "class man," but so be it.
Also: these are trifling newspaper essays, and attained an elevated importance among the supposedly "tougher" fringe of the Chapo/dirtbag left merely by dint of their readability. There's nothing groundbreaking here.
Toss this baby out with the bathwater.
Read it again in 2020, after he ripped into writer Angela Nagle on a podcast. The signs of A Reed's real positions are evident throughout:
-- admitting to "voting blue no matter who" and throwing in with that coalition during the Reagan era, admitting that didn't work during the Clinton era (he did this again during the Trump era, of course)
-- essentially admitting his beefs w/ ME Dyson (a superior writer) and C West (far better on the mic, for what it's worth) are over primacy in the "movement."
-- basically signing on to the standard libdem policy proposals, when actually giving policy advice rather than fulfilling his usual function of serving as the "opposition within the opposition" (i.e., the boundary police on the "last frontier" of the last, the "farther frontier").
-- noting in passing around p. 180 that wage inequality could be fixed most easily by laws tied to race and gender, not earnings. Hardly the stuff of a "class man," but so be it.
Also: these are trifling newspaper essays, and attained an elevated importance among the supposedly "tougher" fringe of the Chapo/dirtbag left merely by dint of their readability. There's nothing groundbreaking here.
Toss this baby out with the bathwater.
October 9, 2019
Adolph Reed Jr is one of my favorite left-wing intellectuals. This collection of essays primarily focuses on political strategy, racism, and inequality. Reed provides a valuable materialist insight into the unique features of black communities and politics as well. He is very critical of the Postmodern turn of the academic left and substance less identity politics while still taking a strong class based and anti-racist position himself. Ultimately, I found this book somewhat inspiring and refreshing. He breaks down many problems I have with the modern left, but he both understands them better than I and what potential solutions may be. I highly recommend it.
February 23, 2013
Once again Adolph Reed, Jr. outdoes himself with salient commentary on the contemporary political innefectualness that plagues the left. His commentary on Public Intellectuals and the rise of Barack Obama were prescient. Reed shows once again why he is one of the few serious intellectuals we have on the left.
May 28, 2020
Incredible political writing. Very funny. I'm amazed that this book is 20 years old and still rings so true.
June 13, 2020
Adolph Reed is not only a compelling, straightforward, and remarkably engaging writer, he is also fearless. His collection of occasional pieces and topical essays together make for an excellent collection and introduction to his central themes: the diversity of black American politics and perspectives, the centrality of economic inequality, and the urgent need for state-oriented political activity that is rigorous, intelligent, and implementable.
Another clear theme across these essays, and foregrounded by the introduction, is that Reed has little time for the vague pronouncements of theory after the linguistic turn and less time for the increasingly dominant performances of cultural criticism, as he argues that both of these traditions unhelpfully guise their accommodations with the status quo in a misleading and ineffectual language of resistance. He thus prises apart the claims of identity politics from their effects to argue that politics based in particularist identities form the burgeoning paralysis of socially atomized, politically active neoliberalism.
It's bracing stuff, and you don't need to agree with Reed to see the clarity of his arguments. Reed's mode of critique here clearly occupies a moment in many ways alien to our own but bears lessons for contemporary political analysts and strategists. His central concerns are certainly timely: poverty, exploitation, racialized power, political agency, and the active participation of a broad assortment of people in political movements.
Another clear theme across these essays, and foregrounded by the introduction, is that Reed has little time for the vague pronouncements of theory after the linguistic turn and less time for the increasingly dominant performances of cultural criticism, as he argues that both of these traditions unhelpfully guise their accommodations with the status quo in a misleading and ineffectual language of resistance. He thus prises apart the claims of identity politics from their effects to argue that politics based in particularist identities form the burgeoning paralysis of socially atomized, politically active neoliberalism.
It's bracing stuff, and you don't need to agree with Reed to see the clarity of his arguments. Reed's mode of critique here clearly occupies a moment in many ways alien to our own but bears lessons for contemporary political analysts and strategists. His central concerns are certainly timely: poverty, exploitation, racialized power, political agency, and the active participation of a broad assortment of people in political movements.
July 9, 2023
I've read bits and pieces of writing from Adolph Reed Jnr over the past few years and heard him on a few podcasts and always been impressed by him. This collection of essays reinforces my view. He is a trenchant thinker, and an excellent writer. In this collection he examines race and class in America and demonstrates that he is one of the most valuable and incisive intellectuals we have on the Left today. He is absolutely fearless and can be a savage critic, which helps explain why he can be a controversial figure. But his clarity of thought, practical experience of some courageous organizing and his absolute commitment to changing the world for the better mean he is worth paying attention to if you share his interests.
September 2, 2020
This book is worth re-reading.. which I should probably do before giving an extensive and deserved treatment to the thoughts and ideas Reed puts forth. For now a few thoughts.
I had a professor whose historical understanding was vast and seemingly all-encompassing. Nonetheless, he told me once that the best thing about philosophy through philosophical writing is its never being out-of-date; that is, even philosophical schools of thought whose main tenets have fallen entirely out of favour present one the opportunity for a particular object of historical interest as much as a tour of thought as thought. History, in the form of historical writing he told me, did not always hold in this same sense.
Reading Reed today I would now like to extend this idea to political writing: good political writing will always maintain a kind of relevance, in part and like philosophy because of its ability to demonstrate how and not simply what someone should think. How to approach a splintering left politics, for instance, or how to think in terms of worn-out and idealist leftist tendencies, et cetera, serve to demonstrate Reed's commitment to the instrumental as opposed to purely expressive forms of political action.
A critique of another's political stance with no substantive response or formulation of one's own, i.e. expressing opposition, can often act in favour of those you hope to oppose.
A purely expressive politics exists and operates within a framework of existing tendencies and historical realities; it rides the waves of both action and inaction, leverages its attitudes off of existing realities often enough without concern for those realities themselves, it complicates and individualizes the experience of the political as the personal. No solidarity movement, at home nor abroad, can be built off the purity of the individual as an abstraction, which the politics of individualism has proven, and the borrowing of such abstractions from an oppositional heritage-based self-understanding rooted in the tyrannical pursuit of "civilization" as a colonial construction mentality with ever-new packaging in contemporary culture. The main concern of gaining cultural hegemony is representation in things like already established consumer markets, thus stripping the political dimension of a reality prior to the purchases we are allowed to make, the forms of entertainment we take in, the clothes we wear, and so on.
(It is telling on this front that the response to the carbon tax here in Canada by fervent industry-defenders, besides a purposeful turn away from 'their' science, meaning the global scientific community, to 'ours' meaning a bought and sold intelligentsia operating through the think tank
apparatus, was also meted out along consumer lines of increased prices in grocery stores.)
Thus the discussion of the responsibility of the individual in one class context is turned against communities whose political inaction, a sign of being left in the dark while "civilization" is held to be booming all around, is the fault of themselves and themselves alone. The failures of a large enough portion of the American public to understand social-structural forces as a dance between badly-formed racial and class categories with their pressures on political institutions, the destructive nature of industry on our ecology, and other super-citizenry (meaning those over and above any individual citizen) issues become filtered through the language of individual responsibility - no housing, rampant-drug use, crumbling infrastructure? Try cleaning up and going to church. Global warming, polar caps melting, and carbon-emissions at an all-time high? Have you recycled adequately this week or turned off your lights before leaving the house?
Alongside the abstraction of the individual as the sole vehicle for social change Reed delineates the mythological idea of the "community" as it was currently is held against the people. Just as the individual is told to set his house in order before he has any expectation of changing the world (an incredible irony considering the state of the housing crisis and the history of the politics of housing in America) the community as a symbolic entity must gain some sense of a monolithic nature in order to have any sway in politics. In other words, it is the lack of black community, not any political economic carry-over from pre-Civil Rights, the Jim Crow era, and a historical subjugation of chattel slavery that has lead to generational inequities in the American conception of 'blackness' as defined from without.
There is much more to touch upon here, but I will simply say this for now: this idealist politics, using abstractions to belie the reality of the instrumental policy and impact of state apparatuses on citizens, has lead to the funnelling of the ideas of race, gender, and similar lines of oppressive social structures to be slowly but surely embraced in academic settings and ever-moving from institutional analysis and policy-based action to the academic context of expressive politics, whose presence carries its own tensions and contradictions as well: the perpetual underclass, the working class and so on, generally alienated from such high falutin settings, finds the abstractions and symbolism of a right-wing politic to beat the ever-moving target of academic representationalism and more contemporarily, intersectionality and the boogie-man of today's iteration of cancel culture.
Reed largely demonstrates a return to the political as rooted more deeply than the cultural - a discussion of culture already demonstrates a moving of the goalpost from action to reflection, pressing issue politics built off of demonstrable unity with a sort of conceptual-theological unity which though much-needed is often enough used against the policy battles of the "instrumental" left coalition. Reed's contention is the need to realign the interests of the left with its fight to dispel a mythological anti-establishment resistance movement, to face head on the need for coalition building to undertake any form of effective political action, and to understand the left as an organizing force not one of disorganization.
I had a professor whose historical understanding was vast and seemingly all-encompassing. Nonetheless, he told me once that the best thing about philosophy through philosophical writing is its never being out-of-date; that is, even philosophical schools of thought whose main tenets have fallen entirely out of favour present one the opportunity for a particular object of historical interest as much as a tour of thought as thought. History, in the form of historical writing he told me, did not always hold in this same sense.
Reading Reed today I would now like to extend this idea to political writing: good political writing will always maintain a kind of relevance, in part and like philosophy because of its ability to demonstrate how and not simply what someone should think. How to approach a splintering left politics, for instance, or how to think in terms of worn-out and idealist leftist tendencies, et cetera, serve to demonstrate Reed's commitment to the instrumental as opposed to purely expressive forms of political action.
A critique of another's political stance with no substantive response or formulation of one's own, i.e. expressing opposition, can often act in favour of those you hope to oppose.
A purely expressive politics exists and operates within a framework of existing tendencies and historical realities; it rides the waves of both action and inaction, leverages its attitudes off of existing realities often enough without concern for those realities themselves, it complicates and individualizes the experience of the political as the personal. No solidarity movement, at home nor abroad, can be built off the purity of the individual as an abstraction, which the politics of individualism has proven, and the borrowing of such abstractions from an oppositional heritage-based self-understanding rooted in the tyrannical pursuit of "civilization" as a colonial construction mentality with ever-new packaging in contemporary culture. The main concern of gaining cultural hegemony is representation in things like already established consumer markets, thus stripping the political dimension of a reality prior to the purchases we are allowed to make, the forms of entertainment we take in, the clothes we wear, and so on.
(It is telling on this front that the response to the carbon tax here in Canada by fervent industry-defenders, besides a purposeful turn away from 'their' science, meaning the global scientific community, to 'ours' meaning a bought and sold intelligentsia operating through the think tank
apparatus, was also meted out along consumer lines of increased prices in grocery stores.)
Thus the discussion of the responsibility of the individual in one class context is turned against communities whose political inaction, a sign of being left in the dark while "civilization" is held to be booming all around, is the fault of themselves and themselves alone. The failures of a large enough portion of the American public to understand social-structural forces as a dance between badly-formed racial and class categories with their pressures on political institutions, the destructive nature of industry on our ecology, and other super-citizenry (meaning those over and above any individual citizen) issues become filtered through the language of individual responsibility - no housing, rampant-drug use, crumbling infrastructure? Try cleaning up and going to church. Global warming, polar caps melting, and carbon-emissions at an all-time high? Have you recycled adequately this week or turned off your lights before leaving the house?
Alongside the abstraction of the individual as the sole vehicle for social change Reed delineates the mythological idea of the "community" as it was currently is held against the people. Just as the individual is told to set his house in order before he has any expectation of changing the world (an incredible irony considering the state of the housing crisis and the history of the politics of housing in America) the community as a symbolic entity must gain some sense of a monolithic nature in order to have any sway in politics. In other words, it is the lack of black community, not any political economic carry-over from pre-Civil Rights, the Jim Crow era, and a historical subjugation of chattel slavery that has lead to generational inequities in the American conception of 'blackness' as defined from without.
There is much more to touch upon here, but I will simply say this for now: this idealist politics, using abstractions to belie the reality of the instrumental policy and impact of state apparatuses on citizens, has lead to the funnelling of the ideas of race, gender, and similar lines of oppressive social structures to be slowly but surely embraced in academic settings and ever-moving from institutional analysis and policy-based action to the academic context of expressive politics, whose presence carries its own tensions and contradictions as well: the perpetual underclass, the working class and so on, generally alienated from such high falutin settings, finds the abstractions and symbolism of a right-wing politic to beat the ever-moving target of academic representationalism and more contemporarily, intersectionality and the boogie-man of today's iteration of cancel culture.
Reed largely demonstrates a return to the political as rooted more deeply than the cultural - a discussion of culture already demonstrates a moving of the goalpost from action to reflection, pressing issue politics built off of demonstrable unity with a sort of conceptual-theological unity which though much-needed is often enough used against the policy battles of the "instrumental" left coalition. Reed's contention is the need to realign the interests of the left with its fight to dispel a mythological anti-establishment resistance movement, to face head on the need for coalition building to undertake any form of effective political action, and to understand the left as an organizing force not one of disorganization.
July 30, 2020
Great book and will have to revisit soon to really digest the arguments. Read this at the suggestion of Michael Brooks RIP, Left is Best.
March 27, 2008
I first read this book several years ago and have been coming back to it ever since, along with everything else Reed has ever written. He has probably been the most influential thinker/writer for me in the past 3-4 years. He really offered a way of thinking about class, race, American politics and left strategy that I was hungering for. He is really one of the shrewdest political thinkers alive. As for being a "black public intellectual"... he's got more honest substance in one essay than all the blathering Cornell Wests and Michael Eric Dysons have in their entire oeuvre combined. Anyways, this book is a great and very readable intro to Reed's thought.
And he's actually an ACTIVIST too! Especially with the Labor Party. I almost wish he wasn't as active as he is so that he would write more.
And he's actually an ACTIVIST too! Especially with the Labor Party. I almost wish he wasn't as active as he is so that he would write more.
August 11, 2024
This is a compendium of essays from Reed, mostly (if not all) set in the 1990s. The topics covered give a very thorough and instructive left critique of all that flows within our neoliberal moment (especially that which postures to the left of it). I highly recommend "The Curse of Community" in particular!
August 31, 2020
I remember standing outside of class in college and listening to my favorite professor talking to a fellow student (this was probably '96). I remember the professor was asked how he felt about identify politics. Memory being what it is, I recall the professor resignedly muttering he didn't like them at all. I've been thinking a lot about that exchange for the last year as a lot of ink has been spilled about "class reductionism" on the Left and about how those that center class in a political project don't pay sufficient heed to the discrete problems racism creates for a universalist political project.
Adolph Reed's "Class Notes" was published in 2000 and mainly focuses on domestic politics in the 1990s. What's striking about the book is it doesn't feel old. Before I purchased it I thought, uh-oh, I love the current stuff I'm reading by Reed (most of it published on nonsite.org and in The New Republic and Common Dreams), but is this stuff from 20-25 years ago going to be any good? It is. It's all fantastic. Whether he's writing about Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, Cornell West, or Michael Eric Dyson, because his critique is firmly grounded in Marxian thought and reflects his fidelity to a socialist project, the principled ideas he has in 2020 are the same ones he held in 1995. They sound as fresh and powerful then as they do now. But I'm getting ahead a bit and perhaps describing Reed in a way he might not always describe himself (Marxist and Socialist). And this reticence for labeling, especially when it’s done in a performative way to redound to the speaker credibility or authenticity he or she hasn’t earned, really grinds Reed’s gears. The bullshit Reed cuts through in 2020 in his attempt to argue for a politics that centers real material improvements in people’s lives was the same bullshit he cut through then arguing on behalf of substantively materialist project.
Reed doesn’t like people who aren’t really representative of any constituency speaking as if they are. And what Reed means by a real constituency are people with addresses, phone numbers, union cards, etc. In other words, people should speak on behalf of those who have elected them or chosen them by some formal mechanism, and as a result are accountable and subject to having their representative status revoked. Everyone else in front of a camera with a mic in his or her face proclaiming to speak for this or that ascriptive group--women, Blacks, Latinx, Native-Americans--is running a grift to a smaller or larger degree.
Reed is a materialist and so his critiques are ultimately concerned with advancing a politics that makes people’s lives better is substantive ways: universal healthcare, quality education and free college, higher wages, stronger unions, affordable housing, etc. As a socialist he starts from the premise that every single human being’s life is of equal worth. As a Marxist, he believes that the material conditions of our lives determine behavior, proclivities, attitudes, performance, etc. This type of Leftist critique (structural, materialist, universal, anti-individualist, anti-identitarian, anti-cultural) is back in the sun as a result of the political space opened up by the Sanders’ campaigns of the last five years. Publications like Jacobin and Current Affairs and a host of smaller ones and podcasts (Chapo Trap House) have created cultural spaces to center material analyses. This intellectual space has allowed a new generation to become familiar with the works of Reed and other scholars working within this problematic (race, class, identity, universal programs) such as Cedric Johnson and Walter Benn Michaels.
The reason I mention the above is it’s thrilling to read “Class Notes” and see Reed was essentially making the same arguments throughout the 90s. At that time he was publishing in The Nation, The Progressive and Village Voice. It’s illuminating to read what Reed had to say about scholars who have been in the public eye like Henry Louis Gates and Cornell West for quite some time. Reed’s critique is always grounded in political-economy so even when he’s dressing to down hustlers and grifters, the reader gains insight about how careers (both in academia and the cultural sphere) are advanced or stalled depending on the rhetorical lens they deploy. And in the nineties in liberal circles, in an era of the solidification of the neo-liberal order, the rhetorical lens was rarely universalist or materialist.
I think I first heard of Adolph Reed Jr. when I came across an article by Cedric Johnson (originally published on Jacobin) in which Johnson critically engages with the work of Ta-Nehsisi Coates. In Between the World and Me by Coates there is a contradiction in the identitarian frame by which Coates examines being Black in America and a paragraph in the book where he quotes Barbara Fields and refers to Racecraft by Barbara and her sister, Karen. By quoting the Fieldses, Coates introduces a contradiction his book never untangles: namely Coates’s identification as a Black man, pride of being a Black man, assertion of the uniqueness of the Black experience with the Fields’ belief that race is the child of racism; that there is no race without the racism that brings the object of exploitation to life as a race, and by bringing a race to life reifies the ascriptive characteristics of the exploited. The reason this isn’t just an academic point is because of the tension that presently exists on the Left about the role identity politics (and an identitarian framing in general) should or needs to play in Left political project.
Reed, and Johnson, both come down firmly on the side that believes in order to further a mass political movement that is grounded in improving the material conditions for working Americans an identitarian framing of political struggle must be jettisoned. An identitarian framing only succeeds at dividing the working class as opposed to bringing them together to pursue egalitarian policies. The mean-tested programs that are achieved in the wake of identitarian politicking, while improving the lives of those ascriptive groups that are helped if their qualify for the program, weaken the ability for mass working-class coalitions to come together for more substantive and durable egalitarian programs. Both Reed and Johson have written in-depth of this electoral problematic in many places (Johnson in his excellent From Revolutionaries to Race Leaders and Reed in a number of excellent academic articles published on nonsite.org and in the New Labor Forum).
I strongly, strongly recommend reading anything you can get you hands on written by Adolph Reed Jr. Reed is one of those rare thinkers and writers about whom I can say it doesn’t matter if I don’t have much knowledge about the topic he’s exploring. With his insight and powerful voice, he alone makes the topic interesting. My only complaint is that he doesn’t publish more. Or maybe he has and I just haven’t found the pieces yet. As I mentioned, I’ve found several scholarly articles he’s written on New Labor Forum and one can find on nonsite.org an absolutely epic response to two authors who wrote a jeremiad against him and published on Jacobin. Reed’s response is a tour de force corrective of their faulty critique (in essence that Reed isn’t strong enough in his anti-racist exhortations; this critique is sometimes aimed at Reed due to his ongoing critical engagement with the Movement for Black Lives). Anyway, I keep hoping Reed will publish a new book, or a new collection of essays, about socialism, universalism, identity politics, where we go from here--basically all the issues that made up the post-mortems of the Sanders campaign.
Adolph Reed's "Class Notes" was published in 2000 and mainly focuses on domestic politics in the 1990s. What's striking about the book is it doesn't feel old. Before I purchased it I thought, uh-oh, I love the current stuff I'm reading by Reed (most of it published on nonsite.org and in The New Republic and Common Dreams), but is this stuff from 20-25 years ago going to be any good? It is. It's all fantastic. Whether he's writing about Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, Cornell West, or Michael Eric Dyson, because his critique is firmly grounded in Marxian thought and reflects his fidelity to a socialist project, the principled ideas he has in 2020 are the same ones he held in 1995. They sound as fresh and powerful then as they do now. But I'm getting ahead a bit and perhaps describing Reed in a way he might not always describe himself (Marxist and Socialist). And this reticence for labeling, especially when it’s done in a performative way to redound to the speaker credibility or authenticity he or she hasn’t earned, really grinds Reed’s gears. The bullshit Reed cuts through in 2020 in his attempt to argue for a politics that centers real material improvements in people’s lives was the same bullshit he cut through then arguing on behalf of substantively materialist project.
Reed doesn’t like people who aren’t really representative of any constituency speaking as if they are. And what Reed means by a real constituency are people with addresses, phone numbers, union cards, etc. In other words, people should speak on behalf of those who have elected them or chosen them by some formal mechanism, and as a result are accountable and subject to having their representative status revoked. Everyone else in front of a camera with a mic in his or her face proclaiming to speak for this or that ascriptive group--women, Blacks, Latinx, Native-Americans--is running a grift to a smaller or larger degree.
Reed is a materialist and so his critiques are ultimately concerned with advancing a politics that makes people’s lives better is substantive ways: universal healthcare, quality education and free college, higher wages, stronger unions, affordable housing, etc. As a socialist he starts from the premise that every single human being’s life is of equal worth. As a Marxist, he believes that the material conditions of our lives determine behavior, proclivities, attitudes, performance, etc. This type of Leftist critique (structural, materialist, universal, anti-individualist, anti-identitarian, anti-cultural) is back in the sun as a result of the political space opened up by the Sanders’ campaigns of the last five years. Publications like Jacobin and Current Affairs and a host of smaller ones and podcasts (Chapo Trap House) have created cultural spaces to center material analyses. This intellectual space has allowed a new generation to become familiar with the works of Reed and other scholars working within this problematic (race, class, identity, universal programs) such as Cedric Johnson and Walter Benn Michaels.
The reason I mention the above is it’s thrilling to read “Class Notes” and see Reed was essentially making the same arguments throughout the 90s. At that time he was publishing in The Nation, The Progressive and Village Voice. It’s illuminating to read what Reed had to say about scholars who have been in the public eye like Henry Louis Gates and Cornell West for quite some time. Reed’s critique is always grounded in political-economy so even when he’s dressing to down hustlers and grifters, the reader gains insight about how careers (both in academia and the cultural sphere) are advanced or stalled depending on the rhetorical lens they deploy. And in the nineties in liberal circles, in an era of the solidification of the neo-liberal order, the rhetorical lens was rarely universalist or materialist.
I think I first heard of Adolph Reed Jr. when I came across an article by Cedric Johnson (originally published on Jacobin) in which Johnson critically engages with the work of Ta-Nehsisi Coates. In Between the World and Me by Coates there is a contradiction in the identitarian frame by which Coates examines being Black in America and a paragraph in the book where he quotes Barbara Fields and refers to Racecraft by Barbara and her sister, Karen. By quoting the Fieldses, Coates introduces a contradiction his book never untangles: namely Coates’s identification as a Black man, pride of being a Black man, assertion of the uniqueness of the Black experience with the Fields’ belief that race is the child of racism; that there is no race without the racism that brings the object of exploitation to life as a race, and by bringing a race to life reifies the ascriptive characteristics of the exploited. The reason this isn’t just an academic point is because of the tension that presently exists on the Left about the role identity politics (and an identitarian framing in general) should or needs to play in Left political project.
Reed, and Johnson, both come down firmly on the side that believes in order to further a mass political movement that is grounded in improving the material conditions for working Americans an identitarian framing of political struggle must be jettisoned. An identitarian framing only succeeds at dividing the working class as opposed to bringing them together to pursue egalitarian policies. The mean-tested programs that are achieved in the wake of identitarian politicking, while improving the lives of those ascriptive groups that are helped if their qualify for the program, weaken the ability for mass working-class coalitions to come together for more substantive and durable egalitarian programs. Both Reed and Johson have written in-depth of this electoral problematic in many places (Johnson in his excellent From Revolutionaries to Race Leaders and Reed in a number of excellent academic articles published on nonsite.org and in the New Labor Forum).
I strongly, strongly recommend reading anything you can get you hands on written by Adolph Reed Jr. Reed is one of those rare thinkers and writers about whom I can say it doesn’t matter if I don’t have much knowledge about the topic he’s exploring. With his insight and powerful voice, he alone makes the topic interesting. My only complaint is that he doesn’t publish more. Or maybe he has and I just haven’t found the pieces yet. As I mentioned, I’ve found several scholarly articles he’s written on New Labor Forum and one can find on nonsite.org an absolutely epic response to two authors who wrote a jeremiad against him and published on Jacobin. Reed’s response is a tour de force corrective of their faulty critique (in essence that Reed isn’t strong enough in his anti-racist exhortations; this critique is sometimes aimed at Reed due to his ongoing critical engagement with the Movement for Black Lives). Anyway, I keep hoping Reed will publish a new book, or a new collection of essays, about socialism, universalism, identity politics, where we go from here--basically all the issues that made up the post-mortems of the Sanders campaign.
April 15, 2021
I never really had any intention of reading Reed because I knew of his reputation as a contrarian and class reductionist. But when a reading group I was in picked it as a choice I thought, eh, fine. I'm so glad I read this. There were things I didn't like--it's repetitive, especially in the second half, Reed is definitely unfair to some people, and I think it's slightly hypocritical that he criticizes liberals/progressives for not having concrete answers but then doesn't offer a lot himself (he does offer some! Also, he's absolutely not a class-reductionist and I have no idea how that ever stuck). But there are many great takes in here, and a lot of tough but necessary critiques of particular brands of noblesse-oblige progressivism that don't take organizing around material conditions seriously enough. There were many, many moments that really resonated with me, reminding me of all kinds of bullshit I've encountered in organizing--it's really stunning how the same dynamics repeat themselves over and over again in different groups and organizations. There are probably better books about organizing strategy and anti-racist, anti-capitalist politics and materialist critiques of liberalism (I like the Fields sisters more, although Reed is more accessible). Honestly, I would recommend it to people who think they hate or disagree with Adolph Reed more than anything else.
(Also--if you also find the second half a little repetitive and are considering putting the book down, at least skip to the end and read the last 4 essays, which are some of the best. He really does save the good stuff for the end).
(Also--if you also find the second half a little repetitive and are considering putting the book down, at least skip to the end and read the last 4 essays, which are some of the best. He really does save the good stuff for the end).
September 1, 2025
in the post instagram/tiktok era, the idea of the "left" (related: "leftist", "progressive", etc. especially as contrasted with "liberal" rather than "conservative") has become associated less with a form of politics and more with a form of "costuming" -- usually defined by the words you use ("latinx"/"folx" or endless debates about the moral term to use for people who are homeless or disabled), the media you consume (books, music, but also tiktoks and reels), and in a very superficial way, the way dress (piercings/blue hair but also a toni morrison quote on a tote bag)
this set of essays, by a hoary old-school marxist, is required reading for everyone who describes themselves as leftist or progressive, especially those who are deeply connected with and/or consume american culture and contemporary politics. he emphasizes the need for a leftist *politics*, based on a *theory of change*, and continuous clear-eyed evaluation of praxis to see whether your methods (protest marches or wearing esoteric brooches or putting black photos on instagram etc) are actually working.
he specifically asks for contrasting lifestyle choices and youth fads (hip-hop music, from his era) as explicitly NOT the same as political activity. he mocks people like bell hooks (and other pop activists, a category he scathingly calls "black intellectuals") as conflating personal financial gain ("pay me to write books, give talks, and attend panel discussions") with the politics of actually organizing in pursuit of a specific political outcome.
unfortunately, my personal view is that the US cannot have a true left-wing movement because it is a post-materialist society, with even the poorer classes as way too wealthy or at least deeply integrated into capital (e.g. nearly a fifth of the country are millionaires, petit bourgeoisie like teachers and working class people like sanitation workers earn 6 figures in many cities, and moreover almost everyone's life savings/pensions are tied up in 401k's that follow the stock market). so by definition, there is no distinction between labour and capital in the vast majority of the county. so using the 1970s playbook in 2025 is guaranteed to fail, but a bigger question remains -- is there any space left for the "left" at all in such a society?
this set of essays, by a hoary old-school marxist, is required reading for everyone who describes themselves as leftist or progressive, especially those who are deeply connected with and/or consume american culture and contemporary politics. he emphasizes the need for a leftist *politics*, based on a *theory of change*, and continuous clear-eyed evaluation of praxis to see whether your methods (protest marches or wearing esoteric brooches or putting black photos on instagram etc) are actually working.
he specifically asks for contrasting lifestyle choices and youth fads (hip-hop music, from his era) as explicitly NOT the same as political activity. he mocks people like bell hooks (and other pop activists, a category he scathingly calls "black intellectuals") as conflating personal financial gain ("pay me to write books, give talks, and attend panel discussions") with the politics of actually organizing in pursuit of a specific political outcome.
unfortunately, my personal view is that the US cannot have a true left-wing movement because it is a post-materialist society, with even the poorer classes as way too wealthy or at least deeply integrated into capital (e.g. nearly a fifth of the country are millionaires, petit bourgeoisie like teachers and working class people like sanitation workers earn 6 figures in many cities, and moreover almost everyone's life savings/pensions are tied up in 401k's that follow the stock market). so by definition, there is no distinction between labour and capital in the vast majority of the county. so using the 1970s playbook in 2025 is guaranteed to fail, but a bigger question remains -- is there any space left for the "left" at all in such a society?
July 3, 2020
A collection of insightful essays and musings reflecting on the state of the American left as constituted in racial politics. Reed's most famous for his criticism of the methodology of identity politics activism, though the material contained here is far more nuanced than the public spats that have been levelled at him. In many ways he simply reiterates and focuses on dismantling the notion of 'organic community' in favour of radical constructivism within which to constitute progressive activism. Identity is still an invaluable insight, but it's lost in a confusion where class becomes an identity rather than part of an analysis of social relations if one does pursue the Marxian line. To Reed, race, gender, sexuality, etc. are locuses of state domination that are constituted in class, to which he spends a lot of time across his essays by focusing on the failures of communitarianism in black activism and the double standard imposed by the American media towards the 'black community', failing to see that it is subject to intra-racial class antagonisms and dynamics that are normalised by an appeal to organic community leaders being sponsors for brokerage politics. Whilst the book is pretty old in the specific issues and grievances it discusses, the rhetoric and the call for a sustained leftist movement remain nonetheless potent, least of all because the issues discussed show that despite all the movements and changes in the intervening time, Reed makes a good point in demonstrating how little progress has been achieved in terms of racial justice.
July 29, 2020
I was considering giving this book a 2 star rating when I started it. I thought it would be a watered down critique of identity politics that would have just as much basis in reality as what it opposes. However, even through the vitriol that Reed has for his opponents, he's able to actually bring great insights to the table.
This is especially eye opening to me, a white Canadian, who makes the mistake of treating race as a monolithic issue. This book really talks about what is important in the future of justice and debunks a lot of criticisms against some things that could seem easy to oppose (affirmative action, statutes, etc.)
Obviously there's a lot of work to be done but Reed does point to what needs to be done. He's obviously lost more than he's won and he himself is sort of a academic liberal that he criticizes often in this book, so why I gave it 4/5. The irony that this book is hard to read and boring at times is sort of lost on him, I guess.
I don't think he's maybe the best person to ask about the state of race in 2020 but I do think he points to some of the issues that have gotten us here. He's also not shy about calling out those who go to bat for media when the prevailing narrative needs to be reiterated.
Very interesting book.
This is especially eye opening to me, a white Canadian, who makes the mistake of treating race as a monolithic issue. This book really talks about what is important in the future of justice and debunks a lot of criticisms against some things that could seem easy to oppose (affirmative action, statutes, etc.)
Obviously there's a lot of work to be done but Reed does point to what needs to be done. He's obviously lost more than he's won and he himself is sort of a academic liberal that he criticizes often in this book, so why I gave it 4/5. The irony that this book is hard to read and boring at times is sort of lost on him, I guess.
I don't think he's maybe the best person to ask about the state of race in 2020 but I do think he points to some of the issues that have gotten us here. He's also not shy about calling out those who go to bat for media when the prevailing narrative needs to be reiterated.
Very interesting book.
September 17, 2020
This might be the most important book on politics I've ever read. I could go into detail about Reed's incisive analyses, razor-sharp wit combined with a humane understanding of flawed human actors, and complete lack of respect for arbitrary shibboleths and received 'wisdom'. But more important is the effect it had on me - during the course of reading this book I joined a political party and started taking my first steps in real-world (ie. not online) activism, joined a union, reflected on and adjusted my political beliefs and strategies, and became significantly less judgemental and more focused on goals in my politics. Anyone who cares about progressive politics needs to read this, especially if, like me, you feel the Left is largely stuck in the muck right now. Reed shows us a way out - not an easy one its true, but he's convinced me there is no easy way to do politics that won't trap us in the status quo.
December 21, 2020
An incisive take on liberal politics during the 90s and earlier that calls into question the intentions and motivations behind race-based political rhetoric, initiatives and movements. I was particularly interested in the last two chapters, which covered ideology and practice. My one qualm -- and it's particularl to me and any reader looking for insightful syntheses of class and race theory -- is that the book description on Amazon promises thinking on a race-class approach to American politics, and it isn't present in a singular essay. It's interspersed throughout such that you have to read between the lines.
February 15, 2021
An absolute fantastic collection of incisive and insightful essays. I wish all the Dems, and also progressives and leftists, who are championing ideas based on race essentialism would at least acknowledge these arguments. I don't expect they would all leave behind their essentialist arguments but if they could at least intelligently counter what is presented here it would be helpful to many of us who are skeptical of this approach. This is must read stuff.
March 28, 2025
Although some of the personalities and issues discussed in this book may seem dated, it is still a very relevant book. Many of the issues discussed such as underclass ideology, the focus on culture rather than political economy, and issues with identity politics, to name a few, are issues still affecting us to this day. Adolph is a very good and succinct writer, this is a solid book and more people should read it, learn about the importance of class, and make sure to take some notes!
Read
June 7, 2019A series of blazing - with as much, if not more, light than heat - polemics against essentialism and sectarianism which read as relevantly to the modern day as if they were first published in the late '10s as the late '90s. In the few places where it seems to stumble, it's from taking the second-order, as-perceived view of something.
November 25, 2020
A searingly insightful, brilliant, and scathing collection of essays from America's most caustic mind on the Left. I can think of very few (if any) who match his erudition, commitment, wisdom, wit, or rigor: the don of literary-leftist dons. If implementing his political program were only half as easy as churning out some of the finest prose in the English language.....
November 13, 2023
In these essays Reed carves up accepted ideas of Black America in concise and precise prose. Takes conventional wisdom about issues of race and left/liberal politics and shows the inanity of most of it, forcing you to realize much of what hasn't worked won't ever work. Until the working classes unite nothing will change. Granted, he says that more eloquently and convincingly than I do.
May 10, 2025
Meh, bog standard social democratic politics + substitution of witticisms and overheated (bordering on unfair) rhetoric for arguments against his ideological opponents + occasionally enjoyable if somewhat purple prose = this book
March 16, 2018
I like the highly informed and critical look on race and politics on the American scene... very worthy read.
September 13, 2019
Essay: "What are the drums saying, Booker?"
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews