Re: [Marxism] Forwarded from John O'Brien

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 4/20/2004 8:03:19 AM Central Standard Time, lnp3@xxxxxxxxx
writes:

>My first activism was at the age of 13 when I joined the Harlem branch
of the NAACP and soon after was in CORE and Friends of SNCC (the high
school group) and then the NCCJ in my high school - which allowed me to
participate in the historic Civil Rights Movement in the South, where as
a teenager I was beaten, bitten by dogs and placed in an open field
enclosed by a fence with adults.  It was in this movement that I met
people involved in the traditional pacifist groups which I joined.  I
then became won over to revolutionary socialism in November 1966 - and
soon after with my mentors Fred Halstead and others in the SWP - I
joined the YSA.  I still have high regard for Fred Halstead and the
other comrades who worked so hard for the beliefs we all shared and the
struggles and experiences we shared.<

Reply

I find your life story absolutely fascinating. If my words are sharp I will
try and tone them down. Lou has kicked me off before and he was correct. I am
doing better with a certain lumpen type mentality, although I am not lumpen and
in fact come from the most high paid workers and the labor lieutenants of
capital in America.

On the question of Gay Liberation, I have had a difficult time with
exposition. On another listserver Lou stated he could kick me off if I wrote 
and stated
what I said on Marxmail. It took me considerable time to understand why he
stated that. As an individual I have a very different theoretical point of view
concerning homosexuality.

I am not against homosexuality because I don't think you can be "in favor" of
human sexuality. Human sexuality is . . . sexuality. Nor do I want to sound
patronizing.

Yes, I make mistakes in exposition. I tried to relay some of my personal
experiences and talked about my youngest brother who was Gay and died of AIDS. 
His
life cycle led me to the hospital ward and the AIDS movement and a study of
the science of metabolism.

This exposition came off in the flavor of "some of my best friends are Gay .
. . black . . . , etc."

I got beat up, but can take an ass whipping . . . especially if I am wrong.

I forget how painful this was for me and just started crying.

The police would arrest my baby brother - a chocolate colored gorgeous man,
for wearing "women pants" - "hot pants" and strolling down the street. My older
brother - the International Rep in the UAW, and I would get him out of jail
and end up fighting in the police station and getting our ass kicked, because
some fucking cop has something smart to say about Kofi.

Fuck these mutherfuckers . . .man.  Fuck their laws and concepts. Fuck um.

I will be more careful because I do not want to be patronizing.

No one need anyone approval to "be."

How can I say this, without making things worse?

Ideology and the realm of ideas is not real life. The new aspects of the
social movement called Gay Liberation or Gay Rights, had to evolved an ideology
that welded its combatants together in a cohesive force. I do not care what the
ideology of an aspect of the social movement says or how it describes itself.

The sanctity of human life - the individual, is precious and higher than
ideology. I am coming out of the box thumping and fighting to the death.

Our lives are more similar than meets the eye. I dropped out of school at age
16 - 1968, and got into Community College for one semester - around 1993, to
take a course on chemistry and biology to save my baby brother. My mother was
a nurse and I had long ago rejected her modality, which was based on the
metaphysics of properties.

When I write about these things comrade think I am bullshiting but I come out
of the best paid strata of the proletariat in American history.

At the Community College, I told the folks that I was a high school drop out
and they gave me a test. I aced the test and they demanded to pay all of my
fees if I went to their Community College. Hell, I was a union worker and my
benefits pay for tuition.

I joined the social movement at age 11, passing out literature for the
Freedom Now Party in Michigan. Uncle Leroy ran for Secretary of Treasure on the
Freedom Now Party ballot. To my knowledge the only two Freedom Now Parties to
achieve ballot status state wide was in Mississippi and Michigan.

I have thought about what is called homosexuality for a very long time.
Before the advent of property sex had no social significance in the ideological
sense. Sex between women and men, men and men, women and women, had no goddamn
social significance. I tried to articulate this and got shut down because of my
tone and unclarity.

If homophobia is a property relation - and it is, then in the realm of
theory, we are talking about ideological categories used to justify oppression 
and
exploitation, that will begin to dissolve with the overthrow of property forms.

We have entered the "undiscovered country."

I am not "anti" but seeking my highest ground.

Am I Gay?

I don't think so . . . but ain't that my business . . . who I choose to sleep
with?

See . . . and I am jumping . . . Baldwin was the best of us.

U feel me?

Melvin P.

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