Label me not

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

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

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

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

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Unemployed Journalist: How would you describe yourself
politically?

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

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

Fulani: There are no labels that accurately apply.

UJ: What do you believe in?

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

UJ: So you don't believe in capitalism?

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

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

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

UJ: What did you learn from reading him?

Fulani: I learned capitalism is a system based on the exploitation
of 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 in
the theory, the premises and the principles, you try to construct better
models of it.

UJ: Models of what?

Fulani: Of a process by which the exploitation of men and women by
other 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 dependent
upon the super-exploitation of other nations.

UJ: Anything else?

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

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

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

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

Fulani: I never met the man, but it's probably true. There are
lots of authoritarian figures running around, including most fathers in most
families. 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 just
described, 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, and
it is typically done in ways that are unfair and often hurtful. When I said
to you earlier that I am against exploitation, you didn't have much to say
in response. And, of course, you didn't -- unless you're ready to say, Oh
no, I'm for the exploitation of human beings. You have no
response to that, and so that's when the labels come in. It's very easy to
demonize someone by calling them a Marxist-Leninist, even if you're
congratulating them for breaking with Pat Buchanan. There's a kind of mixed
message in a lot of this coverage. The liberal media is saying, on the one
hand: Good for her, she dumped Buchanan. And on the other: But
don't forget, she's a Marxist-Leninist. She still might turn out to be
trouble.

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

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