Re: [Marxism] Review: When Skateboards Will be Free

[guava tree <theguavatree@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 9:53 AM, Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Saïd Sayrafiezadeh's When Skateboards Will Be Free
> by Louis Proyect
> Book Review
>

good review.

His parents really screwed up in not buying him a skateboard. As most people
in America know, this is probably the number one sport that will gain you
instant altercations with the police. And once you have an altercation with
the police you usually don't look at society in the same way.

Here are some youtube videos of cops harassing and being violent with kids
who are pretty young:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GgWrV8TcUc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH6AYVn2yw4

the last one gets more violent around 2:13

Usually parents don't want their children to have skateboards because
they're bourgeois, or bourgeois-aspiring and don't want their children
"loitering", breaking the law, hanging out with a counterculture. I wonder
if any of these motives unconsciously factored into his mother's decision?
As opposed to the ridiculous reason that after the revolution "skateboards
will be free" so you can't have one now -- one could say the same thing
about a birthday cake, but in that case, it would be obvious that *it's not
about the cake*

of course like most everything else skateboarding is also a business and
subject to the capitalistic dynamic, but I think there is more room in the
sport of skateboarding for alternative ideas about private property, power,
the police to develop. this would have been even more the case in the late
70s.
________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu