Label me not

The coverage of my resignation as co-chair of Pat Buchanan's Reform Partypresidential campaign came complete with a variety of political labels todescribe me. "Odd Bedfellows" read the headline of a New York Times magazinesection interview with me which sported the subhead: "The only female blackMarxist psychologist to run for high office discusses her brief career asco-chairman of Pat Buchanan's campaign."

Other coverage of my decision to reject Buchanan's candidacy because ofhis turn away from our left/right coalition and my subsequent endorsement ofinsurgent John Hagelin in the Reform Party presidential primary includedreferences to me as a "liberal activist" and in the venerable New York Timesas a "Marxist-Leninist."

Not long after these stories broke an unemployed journalist called me todo an interview about my political philosophy. "It's not everyday that theNew York Times magazine does a sympathetic piece on a Marxist, much less aMarxist-Leninist," this journalist told me somewhat excitedly. "Usually theyhave to be dead. And sometimes being dead isn't enough, unless you've beenmurdered by the CIA or overthrown in a military coup helped along byrenegade Pentagon advisors. Neither applies to you. So maybe it's time totalk about you being a Marxist-Leninist, and all."

Since this unemployed journalist was an old acquaintance, not to mentionunemployed, I agreed to do the interview, with some misgivings. Fending offexplanations by description is not my favorite activity. But I figured a lotof people were probably wondering about all this language, so I did it.However, as the unemployed journalist was just that -- unemployed -- it wasdifficult to get the story published. So I decided to see the thing through,by putting it in this week's column:

Unemployed Journalist: How would you describe yourselfpolitically?

Fulani: I don't describe myself politically. I am myself. You andthe rest of the media do the describing.

UJ: OK, what terms would you use to characterize your politicalbeliefs?

Fulani: There are no labels that accurately apply.

UJ: What do you believe in?

Fulani: I am against exploitation. I don't believe one personshould exploit another for profit.

UJ: So you don't believe in capitalism?

Fulani: Of course I believe in capitalism. It exists. I don'tbelieve in Santa Claus. He doesn't. I don't support capitalism.

UJ: People call you a Marxist, which means they take you to be afollower of Karl Marx. Have you read much of his work?

Fulani: A little more than most people; less than people who areexperts.

UJ: What did you learn from reading him?

Fulani: I learned capitalism is a system based on the exploitationof one human being over another. That's how the system operates.

UJ: What else did you learn?

Fulani: That was quite a bit. It took me a long time to learn it.

UJ: But didn't the failure of communism prove Marx wrong?

Fulani: No. All kinds of experiments fail. But if you believe inthe theory, the premises and the principles, you try to construct bettermodels of it.

UJ: Models of what?

Fulani: Of a process by which the exploitation of men and women byother men and women can be reorganized.

UJ: What about V.I. Lenin? What have you learned from him?

Fulani: I learned that the wealth of some nations is dependentupon the super-exploitation of other nations.

UJ: Anything else?

Fulani: That if you want to effect progressive changes, you haveto build organizations that are committed to using nothing less than all oftheir resources to effect progressive changes.

UJ: That seems simple enough. Why is Lenin so demonized?

Fulani: He was adamantly opposed to capitalism and imperialism andhe was an effective organizer, so the people who supported capitalism andimperialism demonized him.

UJ: What about his reputation for being anti-democratic andauthoritarian?

Fulani: I never met the man, but it's probably true. There arelots of authoritarian figures running around, including most fathers in mostfamilies. They don't get demonized for being authoritarian. Lenin does.Something else must be going on.

UJ: So, based on the views of Marx and Lenin that you justdescribed, would you call yourself a Marxist-Leninist?

Fulani: I'm not interested in putting labels on what I stand for.I'm interested in what I stand for. Labeling is not a neutral activity, andit is typically done in ways that are unfair and often hurtful. When I saidto you earlier that I am against exploitation, you didn't have much to sayin response. And, of course, you didn't -- unless you're ready to say, Ohno, I'm for the exploitation of human beings. You have noresponse to that, and so that's when the labels come in. It's very easy todemonize someone by calling them a Marxist-Leninist, even if you'recongratulating them for breaking with Pat Buchanan. There's a kind of mixedmessage in a lot of this coverage. The liberal media is saying, on the onehand: Good for her, she dumped Buchanan. And on the other: Butdon't forget, she's a Marxist-Leninist. She still might turn out to betrouble.

UJ: You said earlier that the failure of communism didn't meanthat Marxian premises were wrong, but just that the experiment failed andthat new models had to be created. What are those models?

Fulani: Marx was a very firm believer in democracy and in Americandemocracy, in particular. He understood radical democracy is an emancipatorytool. (My colleague, the philosopher and psychologist Fred Newman, would say"tool and result," based on the writings of the early Soviet psychologistLev Vygotsky.) I share Marx and Newman's views and I'm trying to extend andexpand democracy in an effort to advance the movement against exploitationand for human emancipation. There's a lot of work to do here. That's why Idon't have time for labels.