Griffin Snyder Medium 10/14

I found this week’s reading very interesting, as the authors critique the views of the already very radical James Cone on the nature of all Black life and the levels of oppression not just without, but also within the Black community. This focus on womanist (as opposed to Black feminist) critique of Cone and White society as well as the discussions of Black subjectivity and unique approaches to religion reminded me of discussions I have had in other classes like Challenges of Modernity. We had an in depth discussion a few weeks ago about the necessity of intersectionality in civil rights during our discussions of Marx. My point in the discussion was that I saw that in the early civil rights movements, men controlled nearly all of the discourse around social change, and silenced the voices of Black women and LGBT people among others, who were not afraid of calling out the oppression that existed (and continues to exist) within the Black community that would not be solved unless the oppressors (men) were forced to hear the complaints of the groups in Black society that were different and therefore not given a voice or role in the discourse whenever men could stop it. This connects to Marx and the Communist Manifesto through its discussions of the need for solidarity across all people, regardless of race, culture, gender, or anything other than class differences. Marx’s worldview says that people have no reason to be divided by anything other than class, and that the true cause of these oppressions is Capitalism, and only by overthrowing Capitalist society can all people live equally. Although I am not sure that Pinn, Floyd-Thomas, and Long would consider themselves to be Marxists (they might be though), their ideas align with similar themes in Marxism about fighting against all oppression and changing the system to be equal for all people.