Minority Leftists

[CommieCoss]

For my entire history of being a leftist, I've wondered why people who are oppressed aren't usually more radical. Is there any specific reason why there aren't more females, racial and religious minorities, indigenous people, proletariat, etc. that are leftists? From what I can tell, a majority of the revleft (both this site and IRL) consists of young, middle class, caucasian, males. I could be wrong, but that is the impression I get.

[Ostrinski]

I've often wondered this as well. Not just minorities either though, the impression seems to be that there are many more radical students than workers.

[NewLeft]

It's difficult to answer the question. I think it has to do with the left not being attractive to minorities because they might find it alienating. There's that article “Marxism is as Alien to My Culture as Capitalism.”

[El Oso Rojo]

I am a gay black male who lives on social security and go to a community college, but it because people are busy working and trying to make end meet. Also, so leftist including me are or were afraid to go into certain areas, while the white marxists i know grew up in the hood.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

I'm Bi-racial (black and white), 28, and upper middle class. I've met a plethora of black leftist, who are indubitably radical, but a copious of blacks trend liberal.

The plurality of your socialists are going to be young, white, middle class males. The reason being is, they're a bulky part of the Western population. In addition, most Asians, and Africans don't discover these types of sites, leaving people of European descent to become active members of Revleft.

African Socialism and Ujamaa are heavily followed economic models in Africa.

This has given me an inkling. I'm going to start an Anarcho-Syndicalist page on Facebook and provide people of color information upon Socialism, and Revleft.

[CommieCoss]

Yeah, it seems like leftist circles are almost more inclined to welcome non-minorities, and that "outsiders" might feel awkward taking part. Maybe it also has to do with people being conditioned to lean more/less towards socialism. I think this is a problem that needs to be addressed, since it is the oppressed that we are supposed to be standing up for.

[Manic Impressive]

On the question of women a lot off it is to do with patriarchy. Women are in many cases the sole provider for their children meaning they have to spend more time looking after the kids on top of working, many women simply don't have the spare time that men have. The other thing might be that politics is still very much seen as a male interest. Just thinking of how me and my younger sister were raised my parents were always talking to me about politics from as early as I can remember. I can't remember them once talking to my sister about the same things. Perhaps things were just more politicized when I was growing up or perhaps there was some unconscious sexism from my parents.