Long thread re: social media & left politics. Although I've kept my accounts, I don't post much on social media because the culture of left political debate is so toxic. After being attacked repeatedly for my politics, I realized that 90% of online bullies are cis-hetero men.

After eschewing social media, I decided to engage in political education and debate via podcasts. After a few short months, I realized that 90% of left podcasts are run by (mostly white) men and almost exclusively feature the opinions and voices of cis-hetero (again, white) men.

I'm a professor in a typical American university where 50-80% of all tenured faculty are still cis-hetero white men. I am an intellectual in an academic culture where men still dominate discourse about history and power. Even left intellectualism is dominated by the works of men.

This leads me to conclude that the aggressiveness, destructiveness, and arrogance of left media and intellectual behavior mostly boils down to the pervasive patriarchy that still dominates left culture in the US.

Most left engagement is about bashing, trashing, denouncing, canceling and dogpiling. No wonder working class people of color, women, and Indigenous folks are suspicious of socialism. I almost walked away from organizing because of the way I was treated by leftists (mostly men).

I'm sick of this dickswinging behavior, dominated by men and domineering behavior that destroys reputations, lives, organizations, and movements. I didn't become a socialist to circle jerk about my political fantasies or fulfill my own dogma or need for validation or supremacy.

I became a socialist to build power and liberate my people and the planet from the violent grips of liberalism and imperialism. I became a socialist because I believe in cooperation and compassion and dignity and militant optimism.

I became a socialist because I believe that our best selves emerge from genuine material struggle with our relatives, not from hot takes on social media. I became a socialist because I wanted to put my intellectual training to work for revolution, not petit bourgeois interests.

I became a socialist to join the millions of other colonized and oppressed peoples who have struggled for their own dignity. Socialism is a global community united in our dignified and militant struggle for decolonization and liberation from the violence of liberalism.

Whatever constitutes the majority of left culture in the US is not the kind of socialism (or communism or anarchism) I want to be a part of. Socialists don't excuse rape or sexism in their organizations. Socialists don't abuse and demean one another.

We deserve some goddamn space and support to experiment with socialism, to do the careful work of entering into ethical relations with one another, and to build organizations and movements from literally nothing, all in a profoundly anti-communist environment.

The hyper-masculinity and misogyny that currently counts for "left" culture in the US must end. It does nothing but destroy and mame and silence. Young revolutionaries in the US are taught these habits when we first enter the movement.

It takes a lot of work to undo these habits, especially when you're expected to engage this way as a matter of minimum entry into the political milieu of the left. It must end. The stakes are so high and my patience is gone. No more excuses. Just stop.