"Race Reductionism" Threatens to Doom the Left

This essay was published at CounterPunch in 2022. It critiques the idea of reparations for slavery (from a Marxist point of view), and more generally the prioritization of identity politics over class struggle. Many leftists who, in effect, have such skewed priorities are unaware of it. The fact is that, to build a broad political movement that is electorally viable, issues of race and gender have to be subordinated to class struggle (that is, incorporated within a movement defend by class grievances).