A POCO Editor’s Reflection On The Site in 2011

As 2011 comes to a close, i want to take the time to look back at the past year of the site.  The impetus behind the creation of the site was to, as Dr. João Costa Vargas says, imagine the unimaginable.  So throughout my reflections over the past year of the site, the question to be asked is “did everything We produce fall within these parameters?”

As stated i stated in a WPFW interview with Dr. Jared Ball, We would have preferred to have called the site “people who have been colonized” as opposed to “people of color”, but We had a clear understanding of the level of political vocabulary that the general populace might have (the world being what is).  Thus the site can have the “people of color” moniker all the while it exists as a quintessence of anti-colonial struggles; more importantly We expose the fallacy of a postmodernist analysis of the world and expose it for it really is, neo-colonialism.  So the fulcrum of this site’s ontological being is on national liberation-period.  Some might ask, “Well a lot of your articles have a heavy socialist leaning.  So how can you be nationalists and socialists?  Ha, gotcha you motherfucker!”   To which We will happily respond with, “No you didn’t motherfucker!”

The late, great, revolutionary psychiatrist, and African revolutionary (by way of Martinique), answered this question a long time ago in his seminal text The Wretched Of The Earth.  The following is an excerpt from that text in which Fanon describes a colonized subjects initial recognition that something is wrong in their world and their first attempt at action:

These colonial subjects are militant activists under the abstract slogan: “Power to the proletariat,” forgetting that in their part of the world slogans of national liberation should come first.  The colonized intellectual has invested his aggression in his barely veiled wish to be assimilated to the colonizer’s world.  He has placed his aggression at the service of his own interests, his interest as an individual. (22)

Notice how Fanon here is specifically talking to the colonized intellectual,  You see in settler colonial societies such as America, it is the colonized intellectual that will be the first to protect the interest of the colonizer under the guise of some sort of appeal to colonized nationalism.  For instance, I recall when Obama was running for president in 2008; the African colony here in the United States took to the political line of “Obama shouldn’t talk about Black people’s issues because he will ruin HIS chances of becoming president.”  As Fanon accurately pointed out, this national bourgeoisie line is not for the betterment of the oppressed nation as a whole, but to aid in the facilitation of assimilation of a few individuals from an oppressed nation into the oppressor colonizing nation; then what the national bourgeoisie from the oppressed nation (once fully assimilated or made president…LOL) will rush quickly to state to the masses of his people “Go home, our struggles are finally over.”  Think about Obama, Mr. Post Racial.  The colonized masses educated by the colonizer (if they were lucky/unlucky enough) formally, or from just residing in a colonial world, have been inculcated to believe that what’s good for individuals is what is best for the whole of all societies (liberalism 101). “It’s a Black man in the white house, so the entire Black nation’s problem has disappeared with the ‘success’ of this one individual.”  But We know better than that don’t We.  So at the center of all of the posts this site publishes come from the position of revolutionary nationalism; we don’t advocate reactionary nationalism or racialist views (even though We have been accused of it, but I’ll get to that later).

            So you might be saying to yourself “Ok so your site is about     revolutionary nationalism at its core so how can you be anti-capitalist as well.”  Well Devil’s Advocate, I’m glad you asked that.  Again we shall refer back to Fanon’s text (let the church choir say Amen!):

The basic issue with which we are faced is not the unequivocal choice between socialism and capitalism such as they have been defined by men from different continents and different periods of time.  We know, of course, that the capitalist way of life is incapable of allowing us to achieve our national and universal project.  Capitalist exploitation, the cartels and monopolies, are the enemies of the underdeveloped countries.  On the other hand, the choice of a socialist regime, of a regime entirely devoted to the people, based on the principle that man is the most precious asset, will allow us to progress faster in greater harmony, consequently ruling out the possibility of a caricature of society where a privileged few hold the reins of political and economic power without a thought for the nation as a whole.  (56)

And there you have it; the ideological basis for everything this site represents.  So the editors of this site have a very lucid understanding that when We post articles (or when We even do research with the help of many left leaning resources) that We are very cognizant that we don’t have the luxury of having a sovereign nation, thus the most revolutionary question to be posed is not that of socialism (i wish it was that simple), we are colonized!  What passes itself off as “the left” never amalgamates (revolutionary nationalism/anti-capitalism) this ideological position-if anything it tries to obfuscate the two (as if they are incompatible with one another).  This is done because (at best) of the ignorance that one has due to privilege, and this privilege will manifest itself in a narcissistic worldview (think European Enlightenment, male privilege, or “Why doesn’t every speak English?”).  And at worst, “the left” does this because they know full well that to take this position will negate their privilege, a privilege that they explicitly know comes from past, present, (and predicated on) future exploits of the current political economy.  Think about the true purpose of assimilation.  Again, this site imagines the imaginable. 

            So let’s use the most popular post of this site (one we didn’t produce by the way.  Shout out to Neo-Prodigy!) 10 Conversations On Racism I’m Sick Of Having With White People.  Now this post was a gift and a curse.  It was a gift in the sense that everything We post is grounded with the aforementioned ideological basis in mind (I say “in mind” because everything that we post doesn’t have to be explicitly 100% within our ideological basis.  There always points of intersection. We take the stand that all oppression must be abolished), where it became a curse was that this post began to overshadow all of the original work we produce.  For instance, in 2011, we did interviews as diverse as critically acclaimed writer Derrick Jensen to Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson (another critically acclaimed writer and activist as well), why, because everyone we interviewed are tired of this foul rotten system that chews people up and spits them out under the guise of “progress”, “universalism”, “democracy”, or whatever euphemism imperialism decides to use to achieve their dubious goals at any given moment; but what took center stage was a plethora of Anti-Black comments.  About 100% percent of the critical (I use “critical” as a euphemism.  A lot of comments ranged from your typical Anti-Black comments such as “go back to Africa” to some very weird ones that actually made me laugh do to their simplistic if not utterly retarded nature “You know Black people are just ugly.  There have nasty hair, they smell as well.”  No joke!  Then you had the disturbing ones, the death threats!) comments where all Anti-Black.  Let’s be clear on two points from jump: in an Anti-Black world you don’t have to be white to have Anti-Black sentiments and just because comments are blatantly Anti-Black doesn’t mean that other colonized people aren’t being demeaned in the process.

            For example, the classic statement of “I’m Black and…” or “I’m mixed and…”  What will follow is a diatribe on Blackness.  And what is supposed to give these statements their credibility is the fact that it comes from someone with an ontological position of Blackness (for the person who self identifies as “mixed” their proximity to Blackness is less than the person who is Black).  The Black person will go on to list a litany of character flaws of Black people, and will talk of how they overcame racism through hard work (civilization/assimilation) so they have been cured of their ontological handicap, and if they did it then other Black people can, no excuses (it’s similar to people trying to provide treatment for homosexuality.  The MAJOR difference is whereas homosexuality is seen as a transgression into what has been deemed by “respectable” society as perverse behavior, the Black’s existence is perverse.  Thus homosexual’s anxiety lies at the point of sexual intercourse, whereas the Black’s anxiety comes as soon as they step into the world, no action deemed as a transgression needed, they are the quintessence of transgression.)  Then there were the people how like prefer to self identify as “mixed”.  It is always an argument about “my nice white momma or daddy.”

            For the record, when you read the article, Neo-Prodigy never once said he was Black;  yet instill all of the critical comments were rooted in Anti-Blackness.  Now both Black and “mixed” Anti-Black critical comments on this post came from an analysis that was rooted in a racialist analysis of the world.  What they did either consciously or unconsciously, were to pose Blackness as the problem and how they overcame their Blackness; they used an individual (their personal lives) as a historical critique of racial discrimination.  They would use character flaws that they posed as innate to Black people as the sole reason that Black people didn’t get ahead in a political economy that was created for the benefit of Western civilization (all the while positioning themselves on how they overcame them or where distanced from them by being clear to point out the were “mixed”.  Ahhhh the biological argument!  And you called us racialist!).  So institutional critiques were substituted for individual ones (Look at Oprah).  Nowhere in these comments did they imagine the unimaginable.  For instance, why for all the “mixed” people who tried to use this politically charged identifier (checkout my interview with Dr. João Costa Vargas) as an instant proximity and distance to Blackness simultaneously, assume that some us on the editorial staff don’t have someone in our families who is “mixed” or white.  I’ll tell you why because they were using a racialist politic.  So you tried to accuse Us of being racialists but in trying to prove your accusations you inadvertently proved yourself to be the embodiment of everything you repudiate.  So you basically burned your own draws; because when you take an objective historical analysis of racial discrimination in the world your “nice white momma or daddy” argument doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.  To take it to a personal level goes to show just how much of a bigot you really are; hence the first thing that comes out of your mouth when you talk about racial discrimination is, “I’m mixed,” to which i will respond “How many times did you get called a ‘nigger’ before you decided to preempt being identified with Blackness, by always having the first thing that come out of your mouth be, “I’m mixed and I’m proud!”  The same goes for Black folks who try hard to self identify as “African-American”; in a strange dialectical way the racists comments from this article affirmed what I already knew in regards to me being an African, “Go back to Africa you fucking NIGGER!”  Our mistake we make is when we take offense to being called an African, “I ain’t no African, I’m American!”  The question you have to ask who benefits from imposing these false identities on us.  It’s all political.  It’s like this, you are either pregnant or not pregnant there is no in between.  “Oh baby, I’m just a little pregnant.”  Shiiit.  So basically you either white or not in an Anti-Black world; anything that can be codified as an “in-between” category is politically created to maintain the status quo.  Again, We at this site are trying to help people imagine the unimaginable.

            Now before I go into how Anti-Blackness also adversely affects other oppressed nations I want to quote radical scholar Dr. Joy James from her book Resisting State Violence:

In a society where texts by whites are considered merely texts and those by “others” are labeled “ethnic texts,” race remains an identifying marker as well as an expression of dominance.  The realities of racial dominance, though, are often obscured by rhetoric.  (45)

And what do you suppose this rhetoric looks like:  “You know why talk about black issues?  Let’s talk about ALL issues.”  “If blacks learned how to talk to THE GENRAL POPULACE, and not offend EVERYBODY then maybe they could get support.”  Just a few examples that demonstrate that whiteness is everybody, whiteness encompasses all issues, move over whiteness is HUAMNITY! Does anyone remember “WORLD HISTORY” class in grammar and high school?  You remember how we always started off in Greece.  Also remember “THE REINENSSANCE” period in history?  It can’t be called the European renaissance period, because this might suggest that this particular historical period was a point in time that was unique to Europe, therefore hoisting it from the inaccurate historical position it currently holds as being a period of history of the entire world.  So anything that falls outside the realm of true importance we need not bother to learn, Europe is the world! 

            Along those same lines, just a quick caveat, when you can negate the historical legacy of the genocidal policies aimed at colonized people, that is the only time when I will accept that there is something called “reverse racism” (basically I never will).  Everyone has the ability to be prejudice, shit everyone is in their own way, but racist, fuck that.  You name me one institutional policy enacted by a colonized nation that has done irreversible damage to white people (I don’t want to hear about how Cedric “The Black Bully” stole your lunch money either).  The term “reverse racism” points to the fact that discrimination normally points not to white people but to ones that society deem as “the other”.  It’s like trying to point out men can possible be the victims of domestic violence (I did actually know a dude whose woman use to go up side his head), but come on, that by no means is the norm.  And even if that one woman  beat that dude up, that does not negate that he didn’t have male privilege in a patriarchal world.  So think about it like this, the next time Tyrone “I took Your Job” drives by you in his Lexus he doesn’t deserve, you can rest assured that a cop will pull Ty over and constantly remind him of his worth in this society; even if Ty’s salary might put him an elevated class then a poor white, remember Ty is still “That Nigger Ty”.  Poor and white trumps rich and Black any day (remember the Shirley Sherrod incident?  The Black neo-colonial President without any evidence rushed to fire Sherrod, but when it comes to anything dealing with the colonized he needs to investigate or wait.  Remember when he was about to get inaugurated, when in December 2008 the people of Palestine where under siege? That whole “one president at a time excuse“.  Way to go Obama!  NOT!).

            Now, let’s examine see how Anti-Blackness adversely effects other colonized nations.  I suppose comments like these were meant to be a compliment to other non-Black/non-white nations, “You know Latinos and Asians now how to act.  I like them better then black people.  Give me one of them over a black any day!”  Awww isn’t that sweat!  Mr. Colonizer (aka Master) has a favorite dog!  Tell me if I’m mistaken when I read comments like these, other people of color who aren’t Black being described like a dog that can be more easily trained.  It’s insulting as fuck!  In a Ant-Black world, the Black holds the static position of always being that which is “evil”, and everything that isn’t Black (but not white) is simply less “evil”.  Again it’s all political.  Who does this benefit? “The Left” want us as colonized people to always drop the race (colonial) question because they say it divides the working class; well your [white] working class solidarity (remember they take the fact that they have a nation for granted.  In a colonial setup, the colonizer can only maintain their position when they use colonized nations resources and productive capacity for their own benefit.  It’s a [colonizer/white] working class that is created on the nationalism based in the colonial nation) destroys my NATIONALISM.  Recall what Fanon said above.  Now, our colonized nations all have a different relationship with Western Imperialism, but we have more in common as oppressed nations they we do with the venerated [white] working class, WE ARE ALL COLONIZED!  We shouldn’t be rooted in Eurocentric thought, meaning that there is not one standard of oppression model to follow; that’s what the [white] working class tries to do with their analysis.  Anything in this world that purports to be “universal” in terms of culture is white; they don’t have to say white because they have constructed a world on our “otherness” status. 

            So when i think back to all the work We produced as editors of this site in 2011, i have to answer with a resoundingly assured “HELL FUCKING YEAH!” We imagined the unimaginable.  This article thought brought the bigots out in mass was in line with the best traditions of the body of work We produce, the bigots just let me know they don’t know about IKONOKLAST SPEAKS!, Watershed, and The People Of Color Organize podcast!  But I know all you supporters know about it, I know you all weren’t offended (here we are dumb “niggers” “illegal wetbacks” “Engine savages” “Terror supporters” but the bigots were offended by language that they said “made me as a white person feel uncomfortable” Fanon says in The Wretched Of The Earth, “The first thing the colonial subject learns is to remain in his place and not to overstep its limits”, page 15.  Well call the editors of this site NO LIMIT SOLDIERS/I THOUGHT I TOLD YA!  If we are so goddamned inferior why don’t you leave us alone and let us self implode.  I know why because you know it not to be true.  And remember being of color, gay, a women, doesn’t mean you can’t be an agent of white supremacist patriarchy.).  Check our archives for 2011, We accomplished amazing achievements, not in isolation but because we reached out to people who could imagine the unimaginable; 2012 here We fucking come!

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