Collective Liberation Simplified

Power has a tendency to centralize, and the more it does, the more the working class (the 99 percent) faces economic exploitation, political disenfranchisement, and social inequality–difficulties that can be broadly classified as “oppression.” They’re all linked. Different groups within the working class (men, women, people of color, immigrants, scapegoats-of-the-year) face these issues in different ways, but we all face them.

Some people face multiple forms of oppression at once. They might be at the intersection of racism, sexism, or any number of things. They teach us intersectionality: that is, is the understanding that everybody’s oppression is connected.

Fighting any one thing at the expense of another is bound to fail. That’s why we should never be too busy with our own liberation that we fail to lend a hand in someone else’s. When we do, we are working toward collective liberation.

Any questions? Read these next.

“The Combahee River Collective Statement”

and

“Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy” by Andrea Smith

and

“Refusing to Wait: Anarchism and Intersectionality” by Deric Shannon and J. Rogue