The Failings of Legal Reforms and Electoral Politics

THE FAILINGS OF ELECTORAL POLITICS AND LEGAL REFORMS

Using the " master ' s tools " in a settler colonial state inherently limits the potential for radical change. Thus, it' s necessary to find avenues of resistance that don 't reinforce state institutions. While Black anarchists have argued this for decades, many are written off as being unrealistic and utopic.

But the reality is that the current system cannot be “fixed” because it operates on inequality. The global pandemic has laid bare these violent inequalities that capitalism creates and maintains. We were in crisis before COVID-19 hit and now conditions have only been exacerbated.

Despite what liberals might say, we cannot vote our way out of this mess-especially within our corrupt two party system.

The agenda of the Democratic party does not align with the material needs of Black people and other oppressed groups. Their desire to preserve the settler colonial state and the afterlives of slavery is evident by their support for police and prisons, the Iraq War, post 9/11 demestic policy, and various other projects of the US empire that are antithetical to liberation. 9

The Law Will Not Save Us

The law reform agenda individualizes racism; for example, discrimination law says racism is about bad individuals that deliberately make discriminatory choices and must be punished, rendering systemic racism invisible. Other major disparities are not even considered violations like access to education, health, employment, housing, and clean air and water. Ultimately, law reforms help to refine the system by allowing it to claim equality and fairness while it continues to target and kill the most vulnerable people while only partially or temporarily mitigating harm of less vulnerable groups. For the law to hold a white supremacist settler state accountable, it would have to destroy itself. Take for example, hate crime laws, which do nothing to stop violence against trans and queer people. A lot of this violence actually happens within the criminal legal system, which hate crime laws give more resources to. 10

If certain populations (like Black and Indigenous people) have already been excluded from the social contract of the US since its founding, any progress we might get from elections and legal reforms are conditional at best. Let’ s not forget that everything gained from the state can be reversed. As Malcolm X said “Any time you beg another man to set you free, you will never be free. Freedom is something that you have to do for yourselves. ” We need to take a transformative approach and organize with principles grounded in radical love and solidarity instead of trying to make capitalist, white supremacist, heteropatriarchal, transphobic, etc. systems include us. The work of mutual aid is a way for people to build autonomy and challenge the state!