By freelark
If I’m to be a white ally, I figure I should take some of the burden off people of color to explain what’s wrong with some of the things white people say. With that in mind I’ve decided to compile a list of things that white people — specifically, white activists — should never say.
While reading this list, keep in mind that I’m drawing heavily from my own experience. There are plenty of fucked up things white people can say. However, with one exception I’ve decided to focus on blatantly racist comments that I’ve heard first hand. Also, I tend to mention anarchists a lot, because I used to be an anarchist, so I organized with other anarchists. This does not mean that white anarchists have a monopoly on racism. In many cases one could substitute the term social liberal or socialist for anarchist, and the point would still be applicable.
1. “They belong to that religion.”
I have yet to visit an activist group with religious homogeneity. That said, in my experience certain religious views are more acceptable among activists than others. If a disproportionate number of the people who hold a religious stance are European or of European descent, the stance is acceptable. So it’s okay to be an atheist, a pagan, or a Quaker. If a religious stance doesn’t meet this criterion, it tends to be viewed with suspicion.
In the U.S. white activists reserve scorn for the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) that they have for few other religious institutions. It would be outside the scope of this piece to argue that the RCC is good or bad. But I will point out that it’s folly to treat Catholics as a monolithic, univocal group that stands opposite of everything activists believe in. Individual Catholics have differences of opinion on pretty much everything, and often membership to the church (as is the case with so many other religious institutions) has more to do with wanting to preserve family or community ties than with adhering to a certain set of doctrines. If white people don’t want to alienate people of color from their organizing, they’re going to have to learn to show more tolerance for the religions they adhere to.
2. “All nationalism is bad.”
The idea that all nationalism, including ethnic nationalism, is bad is often rooted in anarchism, an ideology that was first propounded by European men in the nineteenth century and which since then has drawn more than its fair share of white thinkers. Even if we set this aside, white people who raise the “all nationalism is bad” objection often miss the point that the essence of ethnic nationalism has nothing to do with what anarchists mean by state and everything to do with racial or ethnic identity.
It’s important to keep in mind that some people link themselves to a nation in order to express racial or ethnic identity rather than allegiance to a state. If white people can avoid doing this, this doesn’t mean that they’re all awesome anti-statists; rather it means that they have the privilege of being part of the group that is seen as the default racial or ethnic group. When white activists forget this, it’s a disaster in the making. For example, I once saw an activist remove a poster from a wall, simply because it said (when translated), “I am as Puerto Rican as the coquí.” The message, which should be obvious to anyone who claims to be anti-racist, has nothing to do with a particular state; it is that one’s ethnic identity is something to be proud of.
3. “I know what it’s like to face racist oppression; I face oppression too.”
No, unless you’ve experienced racism you do not know what it’s like to experience racism.
I used to find this response somewhat confusing. Surely, racist oppression isn’t completely disanalogous to other kinds of oppression, right? After all, don’t we use much the same vocabulary — words like privilege, oppression, and intersectionality — while discussing all kinds of oppression? And can’t someone who faces one sort of opression gain insight into another by making a comparison? I think the answer to all these questions is a very cautious yes — cautious because there’s a danger lurking just around the corner. If comparing racist oppression to your oppression helps you realize that something you said or did was racist, then it’s probably a good thing that you made the comparison. Even so, before you share your insight with the world you should run it by someone who faces both kinds of oppression, because no matter how oppressed or well-intentioned you may be, you’re still coming from a perspective of white privilege and you may be wrong about something crucial. Better yet, start reading the works of people who face multiple kinds of oppression and let them guide you into appropriate analogies.
The danger of white people’s comparisons is that often the only “insight” gained from analogy is that because the white people making it are oppressed, they can never be racist. This denies one of the central components of anti-oppression work which is that the oppressed have unique insight into their oppression by virtue of having experienced the oppression, including the ways in which it is disanalogous to other kinds of oppression. This is important, because it may be that it was just these disanalogous elements were at play when you said what you did five minutes ago and that what you said is therefore racist for reasons you don’t understand. Not incidentally, the unique knowledge that an oppressed group has is known as the epistemic privilege of the oppressed. If your goal is to eliminate inequality, you don’t want to appropriate one of the few kinds of privilege that oppressed people have, do you?
Though many examples of analogies gone wrong could be listed, I’ll give only one here — one that’s limited to activist circles. Some activists are inclined to make statements like, “I know what it’s like to be black; I’m an anarchist.” I think what often happens is that white activists identify one sort of oppression, such as state oppression, as the Big Evil. They don’t see that other oppressive forces besides the Big Evil are at work and therefore they fail to see that some people face oppression that they don’t comprehend. If you’re white and have gone to jail for political reasons, that is unfortunate, but this does not mean you know what it’s like to be a person of color. As a white person, you have the privilege of choosing whether or not to engage in political activities that may land you in jail; people of color can abstain from such activities and still end up in jail simply for being people of color. As a white person, you will probably be treated better in jail than a person of color who is your counterpart. As a white person, you don’t know what it’s like to experience the racist oppression people of color experience outside of jail. As a white person, you don’t know what it’s like to be a person of color in white activists’ space, hearing white people say that they know exactly what it’s like to experience racist oppression. In short it is incredibly myopic to think that one point of (apparent) commonality gives white people insight into what it’s like to be people of color.
4. “If we focus on this other kind of oppression, racism will disappear.”
In the previous section I noted a tendency of white people to fail to see any oppression outside of the oppression they consider the Big Evil. In a related phenomenon white people will, while perhaps acknowledging that orther kinds oppression exist, argue that without the Big Evil other forms of oppression would not exist. Therefore anyone who confronts other kinds of oppression is only treating symptoms; the only cure for society’s ills is to fight the Big Evil. The Big Evil could be statism, sexism, or any number of other things, but I’d like to focus on classism, because in my experience it’s named as the Big Evil in activist circles more than anything else.
If this piece were about the oppressions I face, you’d see I have a lot to say against classism. However, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to focus on it here. All too often white activists derail conversations about racism by bringing up classism. The problem with white activists’ saying that racism reduces to classism is that it is an attempt to keep people of color from directly confronting their oppression so that they will instead confront an oppression that directly affects white people.
To support the claim that racism reduces to classism some white activists point out that in the US at least racist institutions were established as a part of divide-and-conquer scheme to keep the working class from rising up against the upper class. Setting aside the fact that this gives an account of only some racist institutions (the expansion that drove Native Americans west, for example, was already well underway), the argument presupposes that if working class white people had not bought into the view that they were superior to their black counterparts, they may have succeeded in revolting against the upper class. In other words white people’s racism prevented the demise of classism. I do not mean to say that we should make a reversal and say that generally speaking classism is reducible to racism. However, I do mean to say that racism is a problem in its own right.
5. “There are no people of color in our activist group; let’s go to a meeting of people of color and invite them to join our group.”
Many white activists have the impression that they have arrived. They think they no longer have any racist bullshit they need to work on. Therefore if people of a particular racial or ethnic group don’t want to work with them, it must be because they have yet to be informed the awesomeness that is their group of white activists.
There’s a reason I’m putting this remark last. I hope that after even a small sampling of racist comments white activists make — there are many others that aren’t included here — it’s apparent just how ridiculous it is to think that the only matter keeping people of various ethnic and racial minorities out of a given activist group is a lack of information. If an organization has disproportionately few people of color as members, it’s often because people of color don’t see how it benefits them, and that is often because the organization has racist tendencies that it has yet to address.
Perhaps the bigger problem with this remark is that it’s blatantly tokenizing. The people who make it aren’t primarily interested in forming a diverse coalition to confront the problems that people of color face; if they were, they’d visit the meeting of the people of color regularly and ask them how they could help without expecting glory for themselves or their organization. Instead they want to use people of color to make their activist group more diverse. They are making one more thing — segregation itself! — the responsibility of people of color.
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- More on the “10 Conversations On Racism I’m Sick Of Having With White People”
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Number 5, was right on the money. First off it is tokenism as stated, but it also presupposes that white organizations are the only groups that are qualified to take on leadership roles for people of color. Lord forbid (wow… an atheist saying “Lord”…LOL), people of color LEAD their organizations, and whites be under their leadership. Good article.
“…the argument presupposes that if working class white people had not bought into the view that they were superior to their black counterparts, they may have succeeded in revolting against the upper class. In other words white people’s racism prevented the demise of classism. I do not mean to say that we should make a reversal and say that generally speaking classism is reducible to racism. However, I do mean to say that racism is a problem in its own right.”
I admit I have been one to agree with the perspective criticized above. If the author disagrees with it, asserting correctly that “racism is a problem in its own right,” I wonder what he/she considers as the origin of racism? (Or probably we should say the belief in white supremacy, since racism is of course not limited to whites).
If racism was not conceived as a tool of the ruling classes, does the author suggest that (white) people have always been racist, as if it were biological?
If so, I would like to know what history books the author is reading.
hey freelark, thanks for this! it’s inspired me to think of what i wanna say to other white folks that i organize with. my only suggestion would be that white folks need to learn not just tolerance but *respect* for folks’ religious affiliations. Like seriously, RESPECT and find out what amazing, complicated and brilliant survival strategies come out of them. To quote wendy brown “repugnance lies at the heart of tolerance”. In canada, we’re all about “tolerance” for “diversity” and mostly, it’s actually just an assimilation strategy. I can’t imagine telling someone I actually respected that i “tolerated” their religion or culture. Let’s demand more of ourselves–let’s demand respect! yay, love!
Number 5 is my favourite too. White people always seem to assume that people of colour are dying to join their all white party.
It is true that within white anarchist thought national liberation and ethnic nationalism is completely dismissed most of the time, but i do wanna make the point of the raise of anarchist POC movements and third world anarchists who endorce national liberation and third world liberation ideologies. Cuz if it’s about teasng it because it was born in europe, in that case marxism ad communism too. And marx has some really fucked up racist theories.
like don’t get me wrong, not trying to defend anarchism i in fact have lotsa beef with anarchism and it’s white eurocentric component. But there are a lot of POC anarchist sistas, brothas and non gender specific comrades and i think is a new movement that is being born, we are applying things from anarchism into our experience and identity as POC.
5 points of commentary to your own five points, then my point
1. if Karl Marx was real about saying religion is the opiate of the masses, well then, I say, “give me religion please, since I’ve seen too much of how that shit hold of opiates harms humanity”.
2. perhaps a lack of identification with nation statehood is a bad way that heroin users have a habit of negating their own culpability for ever needing to engage with the fact of living under the habit of the funding (eg roads and police and dole checks) of the nation state
3. like fuck was the oppression I faced as a white chick, anywhere near as bad as the oppression I face as a white wife of a black man, and known inside his community and inside my own community of origin now, to have my own indigenous ancestry . . . like fuck do any white people know the suffering of black people, but why do we need to, and what is the suffering which God/Allah communicated to me I need become of
4. the stronger the inclination to negate any unnecessary suffering, the more likely it was that a lot of money was being made behind the backs of those whom have suffered, and that such money was being blamed on their heads without their knowledge . . .
5. fuckers who do meetings ought to have a turn at sitting inside of the drug dealers houses where whites and blacks mix company to find out how to suffer one another’s company
6. “Australian” Aborigines, (whom are mainly yet to accept the fact of every having lost this country to our invaders, so whom reject the identification as “Australian”, but whom tend to identify as something like “people-Koomera-land-of”, depending on individual inclination and location), have been tolerating excessive incarceration and impositions of drug addiction at a frightening rate, and our secret police were not wanting to go the way of how Islam was let into the USA in a more consolidated way, after the FBI forced heroin on the black panthers, and then it spread out into the white community, and Muslims were let to clean that up . . .
. . . and well, a lot of us believe that we dreamed Obama up, since that came out as the result of a lot of our work against racism in our own country . . .
. . . and, well, so what! win some lose some, but we want out dream now please to be winning, and down on the street, the peace pipe was not the way, but when the young say “bong on”, we might as well all play; and it is the shame of our nation that the country is managed by folk who can’t believe in the nation even having a role to play in the future . . .
. . . . (and why was it again that those Thai Buddhists make addicts vomit for five days? maybe then to feed addicts their own vomit back again? Good on them.)
that in brackets should read: whom are mainly not yet accepting the fact of ever having lost this country to our invaders . . .
meaning, we reject the governance of the invasion of 1788 and will continue to do so
7. white people who take black and white photos of folk with darker skin and colour photos of folk with paler skin, suck shit
SOLID! thanks for posting!! i’m off to repost this now!!!
How come you don’t want white people to think that racism and a false sense of superiority helped prevent the poor working class and even middle classes of black and white people from overthrowing the bourgeoisie? It seems rather true. One weakness perhaps is that college educated liberal whites like to blame poor whites or “the south” for the problem of racism, that is a story for another time. I think it is true that racism is a unique kind of oppression and stigma. That said it is still at least comparable to other kinds of oppression. There are some black youth that grew up in wealth and comfort and some white people who lived in abject poverty. I have seen these kinds of confusing debates crop up in relation to feminism as well. I have a friend who attends an a very prestigious college called Mills, she is not rich but like me grew up middle class, part Mexican but very white in appearance. Anyhow she wrote something in a blog about how its time to call men out on their privilege, especially white men. I questioned her on what this really meant, first of all what is calling someone out and what good does it do, second of all you are at a prestigious college, you grew up in relative comfort your classmates mostly grew up in mansions, that guy whos family lost their farm and now works at Jiffy Lube to feed his wife kids and uncle aunt and elderly dad in a single wide trailer is not exactly privileged. Is his being a man give him certain privileges in certain settings, yes, but there are probably a lot more settings where your class and your education, designed to make you one of the managers of the bourgeois system, makes you the privileged one. Identity politics is fraught with intellectually lazy dangers. Its lazy because the bar is low a Latino club is being a latino club because there are latino kids in it. Theres a Black Student Union its got black kids, they put on a hiphop show which is exactly what white people would expect them to do, this is what passes for activism at my school, the white kids are too busy smokin weed to have their own club although I am part Irish and can report on the phenomena of fellow part Irishmen sittin around goin yeah were part Irish blah blah blah without knowing a damn real thing about Ireland or Irish culture Having an Irish is good enough to brag about or bond with someone on. Just as you laugh at the white activist who comes up with some odd reason why he is “just like black people” just like the women who woke up one day in the middle of womens lit class to learn they are oppressed and its all about them there are plenty of black people who think the movement is all about them that oppression is all about them. There are also plenty of black people who might think it funny to tell a white “ally
” what to do and taking advantage of his desire to fit in/fear of black people. I think a lot of liberal white people will withhold a criticism to a black person they would otherwise give. This is a form of racism too. People are born what they are born. White people do need to put down racist stereotypes and ideas, but at the same time white people don’t have to feel guilty about the past or ashamed to be in their own skin so to speak.
For the reals, I have a few responses to number 2. and number 5.
As for number 5, http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/pdf/051092RDCBReport05-4_050420.pdf, that indicates that racial diversity has previously been determined to promote democracy within groups and increase learning.
As for number 2, it is clear you have never read Dillon:
The politics of borders rely on the instrumental management of populations to establish national identity. This requires outsiders, who are tortured and exterminated. This violence collapses politics and makes life meaningless.
Dillon 99 (Michael J.[ Professor of Politics, University of Lancaster]) “The Scandal of the Refugee,”. Moral Spaces: Rethinking Ethics and World Politics Pg 109-110.
Hrmm… looks like the quote itself didn’t get published, so here ya go…
The scale of the politically instrumental— deliberate, legal, and policy- initiated—manufacture of estrangement in world politics necessarily calls into question, therefore, the very moral and political foundations and accomplishments of the modern age, particularly those of the state and the international system of states. In such circumstances—and given the vaunted political and moral claims made on behalf of states and of the international state system, as well as of so-called international society—we seem increasingly left not knowing to what symbolic space, to what understanding of the human way of being, we can entrust what we variously call freedom and humanity. Modern politics, the politics of modernity, continuously undermines, however, its own most violent, most intense, most totalizing attempts to securely free humanity. And this is not because of some technical deficiency on its part—the global politics of modernity is the expression of politics as techne. It is because it is not realizable. In the process the modern expression of identity politics, while thus disclosing something also about the modern world’s response to strangeness as such, provides a powerful intimation that the reception that the modern we accords the strangeness of the human way of being is what the very (dis)order of political modernity itself calls into question. Specifically, modern political subjectification creates its own peculiar form of political abjection. Originally applied to French Huguenots who fled to England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685— and therefore a direct function of early modern absolutist understandings of the entailments of stable, legitimate, and authoritative political order, and their consequences—the refugee is precisely the figure that identities the political abjection of the modern age. Abject means cast out; abjection means also the act of expelling. It marks the failure of the political subject to be a pure political subject even in the act of trying to realize that ideal. Marking the porosity of limits of that which seeks to be the self-same, it is the waste that continuously disturbs identity, system, and order because as the outside produced by the inside, it continuously irrupts in a way that erodes the cry parameters by which the inside seeks to be defined. That which the effort to subjectify creates, its production marks the impossibility, the abject failure, of what modern political subjectification idealizes and aims to realize. For the political practices of burning, chasing, raping, expelling, degrading, murdering, humiliating, terrorizing, excoriating, removing burying, hiding, suppressing, and devastating invent and re invent the very waste they name and exorcise in the process of continuously reinagurating as politics, a certain imperative of political unity and malleable uniformity. Waste, as Ricoeur noted, is not waste with out its wasting processes: its protocols of purgative production. Neither is it undifferentiated since its processes of production are themselves Plural. Abjection—the system’s own self-produced and self-producing perturbation — is neither inside nor outside but the in-between, the boundary or limit that enacts the differentiation. Abjection is (inter)national politics, and as (inter)national politics, it insists on a preoccupation with the inter anterior to the national.
Point 5 is an interesting one, because its basically right, but its not necessarily coming from an insincere place.
Being a white person who’s trying to unpack my own racism to be the best ally I can be for my POC friends, I’ve found my self in groups before and wondered “Ok, yeah we do all seem to be white hetrosexual CIS males here. I think we are doing this all wrong folks”. This became abundantly clear when I found myself as part of a housing collective, the only one in town, in an area with high indigenous homelessness and thinking we really could be of service if we tried to work out what is keeping indigenous folks away.
But what I’ve found was entrenched examples of borderline white supremacist attitudes that became very frusturating to work with. Its not enough to go “Hey lets ask some black dudes to join”, you have to go the next step and say “What are we doing here thats discouraging indigenous participation even when there is no local alternative”.
I think the key here is that anti-racism has to start in the home, so to speak. Looking at your own privellege and learning that even with the best intents, being white comes with advantages that aren’t always exactly fair on POC folks. Its all very easy to be a crusty PC right-on white dude living down in the trenches, knowing that if it all gets too hard you can have a haircut, put on a nice suit, and go and make a whole bunch of cash with the nodding aproval of the man. But for many POC folks, race isn’t a hobby or weekend activity, its a defining part of subjectivity , its inherently political, and you cant just put on a suit and tap the side of the machine for instant gold payout. And people internalize that.
So many white folks believe that their race doesn’t affect them, because its all so easy. Its why I have a problem with the whole idea of Colorblindness. I think it should be called colour deafness. “What do you mean black folks feel uncomfortable in our space? We are all colourblind!” Well heres the gig, colourblindness is a white-privelege. We can walk away from identity and pretend its not there, but when your copping the fallout from a racist society you cant be blind to it. Color-blindness serves to silence people of colour, because if you cant see colour, you cant hear the stories of racism and how it affects people of colour. And ultimately its just liberalism clueless acomplice to white supremacy.
I can give an extreme example here. The conservatives are now all deploying the rhetoric of colour-blindness to justify actual white supremacist bullshit. “Oh the tea party aint racist, see we even have a black guy in the group!”. Shit, Glenn beck even had the gall to use the Martin Luther King day to do one of his little white supremacist marches, invoking the good Doctors name to support his shitty cause. Now we all know the tea party are a bunch of blatant racists, but by invoking colour-blindness, they’ve been able turn the hate-beams on Latino and Muslim peoples whilst claiming not to be racist as all.
Well heres the gig. We do it too. We tokenize POC experience as just another part of the struggle, rather than as a major component of our mutual liberations, we treat black people as mere victims, rather than as active and leading agents of their own liberations, we minimize the harm our white supremacist society has done by assuming that our imaginary forcefield has created a magical TAZ where nobody needs to worry about that messy identity stuff anymore. In effect we act like a pack of white supremacists with the same cover story Glen Beck uses, that is “We are colour blind in this here gang”.
The answer however is simple. [i]Shut the fuck up and listen[/i]. Don’t get cranky when a POC comrade tears you one over your stupid thoughtless statements, but instead take it on board and [i]learn from it[/i]. Believe me, when a comrade takes you to task, its coming from a place of love that frankly you probably don’t deserve. Its a gift that you can learn from and become a better person with. By all means ask questions, its not your fault if your clueless, but it IS your fault if you dont LISTEN or accept the fucking answer.
I don’t know all the answers. You can’t simply revoke that white privelege, but you can do a few things with it. You can educate yourself, and educate your friends. You can be a friend and ally to POC struggles. Turn up to those rallies, but hey, you don’t need to jump on the megaphone and go ordering folks around mate. Sit back, learn a few things, ask questions and make some friends! Our POC comrades have been tolerating our bullshit for too long, its time to show some fucking respect and have a good listen ourselves.
I’ll nutshell this in point form
1) Racism is principally a system of white privelege. Its not JUST “Joe said the N word” or “Bill wont hire black guys”. Its a whole system that dehumanizes and devalues people of colour to maintain economic and social dominion for white people and empire.
2) Thus we white folks willing or not get benefits from this, and our POC friends are excluded , silenced and marginalized to obtain this.
3) This means that on some level all us white people are racist, even if our intentions and words reject this. Recognize this and own it.
4) Once you’ve done that you need to analyse your groups and recognise that this structural racism works in your groups too. Recognize it, and go figure out [i]how[/i] that works.
5) You cant do this alone! If your entire view of race comes from white folks, all your going to learn about is white folks, and even then not much. You need to get some learning in you, and you need to [i]listen[/i] to those critiques that come your way , recognise those critiques as gifts that you can learn from. Its all about love baby.
6) Just basically shut the fuck up, show some respect and listen.
7) Then do something about it!
Theres plenty of good resources to start these processes. Lots of good books and websites with information to start with, but ultimately, the answer lies in your community. Show some respect, and listen. Its not that hard! You can’t just magic away the white privellege, but you can learn to be the best ally your capable of.
Watch your comrades back, don’t show him yours!
Eep. Forum tags dont work in this here blog. Sorry folks. Imagine the [i] amd [/i] stuff as italics markers.
all nationalisms are bad. i am brown btw. to say that brown people and colored people cannot have this viewpoint is frankly patronizing. you represent all of us
I urge all white people to stop reaching out to minorities. Their low self esteem stops them from recieving any acts of kindness set forward by us.
Are you guys in Toronto? Nobody owes you anything more than civility on the street this country. Urban egalitarianism aside white people arose from oppressed barbarianism. Its down right chilling to read about European cities, being reduced by Ottoman cannon. The removal and hard use of your own fellow Christians! girl idiot action ob sucker Read up on white slavery! Very few Christians believed or practiced slavery. As peasants and conscripted western men, mostly ‘whites’ died in the millions when is enough, enough? and yet the mass media and silly left wing organizations are busy working overtime to destroy our male western identity. Kind of silly that Dire Straights can be censored off the radio and Yet rappers like fifty-____ can be marketed to every 14 yr old and girl action five in this country? by association. we weren’t always pathetic cowering little nerds either. Real social equality is earned. Does not matter what any p I don’t care who or what you feel you got ‘coming to ya’. My vote still decides ultimately who gets in and out of this country and being the silent majority Hey girlaction5! your an idiot
Hi guys,
I’m anarchist and serbian, i agree with most of the list and totally see the point, though i still wanna debate the “white people” point.
Stop saying that shit, what eastern people did to black people?
(I make the point for eastern world cause I know it, it probably apply to other population (corsican, basque, catalan are oppressed populations invaded long time ago).
A serbian don’t look like “default ethnic group”, suffers racism (people calls us “serguei” or “ivan”, mock our barbarian history, paint us as butcher…).
Most of eastern world, except maybe old empires as poland or hungary suffers oppression and imperialism. Ukrainian people were decimated during civil war by white russian, red russians and then nazi germans. And i ought to say racism against ukarinian or georgian is an oooooold russian tradition, hitler also considers easterners as under-bastard. Do i have to talk about armenia?
I don’t even like “POC” category, what does it say? It confirm the default ethnic group as the default one. I don’t give a fuckin’ fuck about Koweiti Slavers (of other “POC”,so to say), Saudian Sheikh or other “poc” oppressors.
That to say, racism is not white/black, even if black people oppression is somewhat unique cuz european imperialist did cut them their link to their history.
Whatever the impression you retire of this post, i support black people struggle (but not more, can’t do the job if it’s not mine, just help you in it). But serbians as a people (and most of the eastern WHITE world, don’t hold any share of guiltyness for what has been done.
this may sound almost racist to tell, since it is based in facts of biology, but the human genome project, has “discovered” what Aboriginal Australian mythos always taught, of human beings being descendants of seven original mothers. The seven sisters myths tell our human story, connected with the constellation Peladies. And how the geneticists put it, is that there are seven genetic markers of ancestry, which alongside family history stories, can prove where your genetics are originally indigenous to. Apparently only Australian Aborigines all had all seven genetic markers, but these days, once a person has native American and European, and African, you all sure got the seven also. Our indigenous culture teaches the patterns of management of having the consciousness so “on” (able to perceive inter-cultural patterns etc.), and something which is remarkably obvious here in Australia, but not so obvious in other nation states with a white majority, is that white folk with black ancestors, get what is difficult for black folk to have to tolerate about whiteness, in a way that other white folk simply can’t get themselves. What is the compassion we need in this respect? The Muslims teach of seven ways to be in the shade of Allah, and seven kinds of martyrs. I thank their martyrdom for their will to be that sure makes it easier to have all seven genetic ways of accounting for ourselves switched on. Begging questions such as what is the blackest way to be a whitey? And would it have been cruel to let a black man believe I would turn out to be a racist, when I knew it best to simply tell him I don’t ever blame any fact of anybody’s biology.
So from what I can tell reading the essay and the comments and discussion that follows, apparently the anarchist movement has learned a single thing about racism since I left it over 10 years ago. Too bad, really… Although I don’t expect much I would think at some point they would figure a few things out…
sorry, that should say ‘hasn’t learned a single thing’
@Mike – “Modern politics, the politics of modernity..” is stupidly written.
A commonality of purpose, nothing more, is fundamental to integrating the complexion grey-scale as a truth of human heritage. The documentary of banjoist Bela Fleck, tracing the roots of the banjo in Africa, speaks volumes to this reality in a language of the heart.
Agreed, listening and admitting where someone is right and where self is wrong, is about the only hope at learning to tolerate visible differences. People are like that to the disabled, to junkies, etc…and seemingly we fear catching incommunicable diseases as much as eating off the floor. Oppressed, asleep, exploited and detached. Can people see the infinite similarities rather than fixating on finite differences. Those differences grow if we feed them the energy of our creative intelligence.
2. “All nationalism is bad.”
How can you be supportive of “ethnic nationalism”? This is even worse than nationalism is in the first place, because you also got to have the “right” ethnic background to not be segregated. To some extend I understand that there’s a need for nationalism or even “ethnic nationalism” sometimes – like zionism in that it created a shelter – but I don’t see where the legitimation for this affirmative reference to the nation puerto rico comes from unless it is the last resort to fight even worse discriminatory mechanisms.
4. “If we focus on this other kind of oppression, racism will disappear.”
I’m pretty astonished that an anarchist would think classism or sexism were the cause of racism. (I can see where the argument “statism creates racism” comes from though) Anyway I thought anyone who claims to be an anti-fascist knows, that the political economical conditions create those discriminatory mechanisms. But this doesn’t even mean we should stop fighting racism. It means by fighting racism, we’re fighting those conditions too.
Interesting article, thanks. I’m not anarchist and don’t know what a lot of the theoretical stuff in the comments is, but here is some practical stuff I see anti-racist white folks do a lot. For example around police brutality white folks surge to the parents of the young, usually black man, murdered by the police. They say sympathetic words, something general like “tell us how we can help” and then go to events and pass out their own flyers to black people to try and get them to join their group.
This is wack. The parents aren’t activists and don’t know how to make a flyer, much less have the ability to duplicate it in large quantities, we need to make flyers for the parents HOW THEY WANT IT. None of this anti-church stuff. None of this revolutionary stuff. Not the name or contact number for our group. Not incendiary stuff. Not “making the connection with all oppressed people” stuff. No, say WHAT the parents say. Take leadership from the parents. Even black middle activist and “revolutionary” groups do this and it SO upsets the parents. At Sean Bell rallies the family had like 50 flyers and there was a copy shop right across the street! Just pick up a flyer, go to the copy store and get 100 copies and bring it back; don’t make them beg & ask–just do it.
Don’t go to rallies called by the parents and talk about stuff that is offensive to them. At Sean Bell rallies in NYC the Bell family would be shedding tears when RCP (yeah, Revolutionary Community Party) folks would be like “revolution” and “pro-choice” and “fight the state” and “fuck the police” and “communism” and stuff. If the Black family does NOT say or believe your stuff, is visibly uncomfortable, will not return your phone calls, and generally avoids you, LEAVE THEM ALONE!
When terribly murders happen and people get together and demonstrate it is a SAD and ENRAGING feeling. Too often anti-racist white people are so HAPPY to be part of a black demonstration they are inappropriately happy. When protesting police brutality, DO NOT BE HAPPY! Check out this video with crazy happy, hoppy People’s Justice members:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL8i1zMVIXc&feature=player_embedded
Check out how the family acts. The community affected. Act accordingly.
Go to black community events and LISTEN. Do NOT bring newspapers or flyers (until at least 15 visits when you might know what’s appropriate). Do not be on white time, coming late and leaving early. Yeah, it’s hard to handle things being so late sometimes, bring a snack, bottle of water and a book; chill out. When going to a funeral in a church do NOT wear jeans.
Do not wear tight pants, low-cut shirt, big hair not neatly pinned, shorter shirt. Dress how you would for your grandma if you have any doubt. Do not hug people or touch their hair unless they touch you or your hair first. Do not encourage the kids you sit next to to get all hyper/act different than community norms (how the other kids are acting).
Do NOT ask another black activist with locks if they know where you can buy weed.
Okay, I’m rambling now… peace!
@Aleksa – I think its important to understand that the “whiteness” talked of here is principally a sociological concept, rather than “is white”. Sakai talks about this well in “How the irish became white”, but you can cut to the chase and note that for much of history, Jews where not considered white, and in much of europe, neither where the Irish.
Most people agree race is not a very useful concept, in fact quite dangerous at times, when thought of as a biological thing. Its certainly not a concept scientists see as being part of their realm. Rather race is a discursive and social concept thats situated in history and circumstance.
So whilst “whiteness” as talked of here is a useful concept in west europe,the Anglo world and its former colonies, I agree a different analysis is needed around the balkans due to a remarkably different set of modern circumstances. Likewise I think chinese economic imperialism in northern africa is going to lead to some complex challenges for critical race theory as well. After all its a bit nonsensical to call the chinese “white”.
But in the specific historical circumstances and social formations that crit race theory talks of, it is a very useful concept to talk about “whiteness” and “color” and how these interact with colonial history, modern capital, governmentality and modern social practices, etc.
For the Balkans, I think people need to look at these ideas and examine the heuristics and develop them as specific to these people.
Critical race theory does not talk of universals, it talks of historically situated contingencies. Because we all live inside of history, we can change those contingencies and adapt those theories to our own contingencies. And as history progresses those contingencies will change. Franz Fannon’s works don’t entirely ring true anymore because the circumstances have changed. Likewise the writing of Mumia abu Jamal (for instance) would seem strange to people of 100 years ago. And sadly that doesn’t mean things have gotten better, it means the situation changes.
Of course there are , and will be, situations where white people are not recieving the benefits and priveleges of white privelege (A muslim friend once somewhat exasperatingly joked, that the easiest way to lose white privelege was to become a visibly practicing muslim.), but again, crit race theory gets away to some degree painting in broad stroke, because it knows its not talking about the universal, but the specific, and tries to be clear about it.
Quelia: I hear ya man. Its actually why I often have more respect for supposedly liberal groups like Searchlight than the more boots-first racicals, because something the older guys like searchlight actually have learned the hard way that just storming into a community and throwing up the barricades can sometimes really upset folks who are already trying to make sense of a horrible situation , let alone coming to terms with the wierd and whacky world of radical politics. Taking the broader picture and not viewing folks of colour as potential recruits but actually autonomous agents of their own liberation is going to achieve a hell of a lot more social change than turning up to peoples private moments of grief and bombarding them with political ideas that are completely strange to them. If your politics are going to be meaningful to them, you need to make their politics meaningful to you too. Thats not done by recruiting, but by listening.
@IHMC – Don’t confuse the violence of the slave with the violence of the slaver.
Likewise don’t confuse the nationalism of the king with the nationalism of the peasants.
Nationalism is problematic, but its a cluster of concepts , some good and some bad. Believe me within third world and POC communities the debates rage as hard as they do in the white community, perhaps harder because the stakes are so much higher.
But you need to understand that whilst “white” and statist nationalism tends to be about exclusionary ethno-spatial borders and plain bigotry, when black nationalists talk of the black nation, the underlying concept really is “lets stand together”. I know its a bit messy with some of the older “return to africa” stuff, but largely a lot of the black community has moved on from that idea largely due to critiques from African academics asking African-American folks to examine their modern position within the global economy and the impact an exodus to africa could have in exasperating economic disparity. Fortunately these critiques have been taken seriously, and examined in great detail, and modern talk of a black nation tends more about solidarity within the african american community, and with african american communitIES. Its a little more complex with chicanx/latinx communities due to the historical circumstances of colonialism around the southern parts, where the border stuff gets much hairier and offensive when dealing with white claims to supremacy over places like AZ, socal and so on. Likewise with indigenous nationalism, where there are also compelling claims to indig sovereignty. The nationalisms within all these peoples needs to be examined within the historical circumstances of folks, rather than as a broad philosophical framework outside of history.
Nationalism really isn’t the best word for the modern discussions within POC community, but language has impreciseness as a fault and we gotta deal with that. But importing white concepts of nationalism into the debate then attacking thirdworld/black/brown nationalism on that basis really does reduce the debate to silly straw men.
Thanks, I found this really helpful.
@IKONOKLAST – Howard Zinn was a key player, though not a leader, in the civil rights movement. All “men” are created equal, yet even some “white men” are more equal than others. The funny thing is that I don’t believe the statement that “all ‘men’ are created equal”, how idyllic, however in the material sense there are some great disparities in people’s capacity to live and function in the present incarnation. In the metaphysical dimensions, sure, all is stardust, all existence is fundamentally comprised of the same materialized energy. All of the 5 points are sensible and I’m sorry in advance to anyone uncomfortable with the intellectual-spiritual-natural elaboration of my supporting points. Key, to me, is sincere, patient compassion and willingness to listen without resenting the messenger for checking the value of a deplorable message with a person perceived as an adept evaluator.
I appreciate you list of things not to say. But in my experience, it’s not so much what people say but what they do that ends up being an issue.
I’m thinking about white political types who understand themselves as allies who are not clear about the nuances of oppression/privilege inside poc communities (class, shade, sexism, queerphobias, gender oppression, sexual oppression, religious oppression, academic elitism to name a few) who witness struggles between various people of colour and take sides, very often choosing to side with those who have unearned privilege inside poc communities because these are very often the most well situated, most popular, most seen and heard political poc.
I’d say that even though I mostly advocate for not sitting on the fence or remaining silent, in the case of this kind of scenario it probably makes more sense for white allies to be clear that they don’t know what the hell goes on inside poc circles and for them to therefore not bring their white privilege and power to bear in situations with nuances they most likely do not fully understand.
I’d also have to add that odd thing that white lefty political types who understand themselves as allies can also do where they develop a sanctimonious attitude re their place among political people of colour and end up believing that they are in a position of authority and good placement in our communities, leaders who can be belligerent towards certain people of colour, poo poo certain people of colour, give dirty attitude, exclude and just generally behave like honourary insiders who do not have to move in respectful and humble ways re the people of colour they encounter.
In fact they often end up trying to define for people of colour what is political, what an important people of colour agenda looks like.
Holy! :)
I’ve encountered some smarty pants people online and in real time who, from the really out of order and downright rude ways they behave and communicate with me and with others, indicates that they not only are willing to draw from the power their white skinned privilege affords, but also that they intrinsically believe that any/every person of colour they encounter will allow them that kind of accepting, accommodating leeway.
All this to say, I appreciate your list of what not to say quite a bit. But what I’d really appreciate would be a list of what not to do, how not to behave.
That would be su-weet. :)
“The problem with white activists’ saying that racism reduces to classism is that it is an attempt to keep people of color from directly confronting their oppression so that they will instead confront an oppression that directly affects white people.”
So being a white woman when I link sexism to class society I am attempting to keep women from confronting their oppression so that they will instead confront another form of oppression that directly affects me? That is nonsensical and poorly thought out.
RE: No. 5, worse is when white antiracists don’t think that people of colour need to organise against racism, because they don’t think they do it ‘right’ or that they are merely self-interested. i foudn this when i did activism and research on antiracism in Italy. You can read more about it in a paper I wrote available here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/55812598/After-Anti-Racism
I’ve read this rant against white “activists”.
You are tired of white supremacy, and especially tired of white people who don’t get, think they get it, do get it but don’t share your resentment, get it and share your resentment but are still white, and so on.
So what do you want? A bunch of “allies” who listen to any fool thing that comes out of your mouth and bob their heads like dummies?
Resentment has real causes, but it is the master’s tools in your hand. If the best you can come up with is telling white liberals, socialists and anarchists to shut up… you are demanding the generalization of oppression using reactionary methods.
Some folks seem to think the movement is about calling out people with privilege. They’ve been at it for some time. We have no national revolutionary organizations. In the midst of an unambiguously racist onslaught, the most popular post here is an attack on white anti-racists.
Seriously?
Reactionary ideas and methods aren’t the property of white people. What does reactionary bullshit look like as a method when applied by non-whites? Or the non-privileged?
In radical feminist circles, the politics of resentment has gotten to the point that the biggest controversy is slutWalks in the year mouth-breathing right-wingers have tried to shut Planned Parenthood down. That is profound. So a march of most whites in a city that’s mostly white about how women shouldn’t be raped for living in their sexuality is denounced as “white supremacist”. In other words: “shut up”.
That “shut up” politics is killing people. It is disarming us from any serious fight. If POC were to form a group, the same logic would then be applied to gender. If it were an all women’s POC group, it would be trans people. And so on. The logic is “calling out privilege” by demanding everyone shut up! Because “you don’t know how I feel”.
Is that liberating? Is this “anti-oppression”? Or is it literally training activists to not fight, to shut up when any fool walks into a room saying they are “silenced”? Well, what are you trying to say that you are being silenced for?
It’s right to rebel against reactionaries. But the 1980s style “shut up because you are privileged” oppression olympics has demonstrated what it is: bourgeois constituency logic where the only people who are forbidden to speak are revolutionaries, socialists and anyone who practices a politics of solidarity and struggle.
In 2009, there were two national radical conferences: the RWIOT gathering in Chicago and an anarchist Crimethinc confab in Pittsburg. They happened two months apart, and both were disrupted substantially by very small groups who came in with the agenda to do so. Not cops. Not fascist thugs. Not even substantial, debatable and resolvable political differences.
In both cases privilege baiting did something the state and racists couldn’t do: shut down radical, national organizing. In the case of the RWIOT gathering, which included several national socialist organizations, was thoroughly multi-racial and organized and led by women (in fact, without advertising the fact). Two women got up and said, “as black women were have been marginalized and silenced by this white leftist gathering.” By baiting the socialists in the room, they were able to literally hijack the main plenum floor with nothing but “privilege” talk — then proceed to lay out an obviously choreographed routine on their resentments and hostility to radical organizing. Seriously. Hours of it.
They weren’t “silenced”. They were professional graduate students and NGO grant-writers, trained in a technique of control using “privilege.” The lead organizer of this actually admitted in discussion the following day that there was no “silencing” but that they had launched this salvo into the room EXPECTING a “white socialist” to complain so they could be made an example of.
And it worked. They shut down the discussion on what effect the election of Obama had on the left, silenced black speakers as well as white, and carried on their “shut up” speech. Everybody grumbled, but people put up with it.
The women who did this weren’t part of the planning process, nor did they stick around after their show had run its course. That’s what they came to do, it’s what they were about and it worked like a charm.
Crimethinc is a largely white anarchist phenom, but their situation included mentally deranged individuals coming into the sleeping area and physically attacking people as “gentrifiers” and “white settlers” and, of course, “POC slaves to white approval”. That they were manifestly mentally ill, physically violent and abusive meant nothing. Because they were “oppressed” by the existence of (largely) white radicals meeting. It turned out the neighborhood chosen for that gathering was largely white ethnic (Italian) — and gentrification wasn’t a significant issue in Pittsburg in any case, and as if a crusty punk gathering was itself a catalyst of gentrification (despite serious issues with this in many other cities).
White supremacy is a real issue. Male domination of women very real. But reducing oppression to existential facts is accepting the terrain of the ruling class, and demanding we all fall into constituencies of grievance. Nationalism isn’t good or bad. Nazism claimed a master race, Zionism a unique victimhood. But they were both reactionary ideas no matter the coloration they used. Nazis said they were socialists and anti-capitalist. ZIonists that they were for self-determination, land and freedom. Both were tools of white supremacy, imperialism and genocide.
Mao Zedong was a nationalist. Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist. Che Guevara was a nationalist. And all were communists, who demanded a proletarian unity and struggle. They weren’t resentful whiners, but soldiers and fighters and lovers of the people. If we can’t do that, be who we are and fight for all people — then what is the damn point?
Instead of complaining about how somebody else should “shut up” — maybe you should step the fuck up. Teaching resentment as a stand-in for the difficulty of common struggle when we are coming from different places is a cop-out. It’s too easy. Women always complained about the men when they were back in the kitchen. That’s not liberation. Blacks in the south had no love for Charlie. Resentment is just fine to the ruling class. They feed on it. They feed it to you.
So I hear the author, their frustration, resentment and inability to see common struggle. But are you leading with this? This is your program? You have no demands or expectation, just frustrations — which is to say you are tired of being oppressed. Then rise up. Organize. Fight. And form alliances and groups based on shared ideas and expectations. Or don’t. As you will. Just don’t confuse hating on whoever will put up with it with actually transforming anything. This is just recycling resentment. And is about training activists to shut up. Why do the master’s work for him? Use your damned mind.
Haters always gonna hate. Revolutionaries are motivated by love. And it is that love that lets us fight our enemies frontally instead of complaining till the sun falls out of the sky.
Great post. I am so tired of hearing white activists (the ones I encounter with this viewpoint are mostly socialists/Marxists) say things like “if we just get rid of capitalism, racism will disappear.”
Here’s another good post about the problems with assuming that racism is just like (fill-in-the-oppression-here): http://yrwelcome.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/on-fat-trans-and-the-pitfalls-of-comparing-identities/
I don’t mean to make a fuss, and I acknowledge that I have a biased viewpoint as a white anarchist. But my experience has been that, between liberals, socialists and anarchists, anarchists tend to be more privilege- and race-conscious people. Of course, you may have better experience to draw upon, but most of the liberals and socialists I know are not at all concerned with racial justice or Black liberation, especially when said persons are white. Especially.
But I thought the piece was great, another one I hate to hear (especially in regards to recent Occupy stuff) is “those issues are just divisive” or “this movement is about [insert white middle-class concern here], and if you want to address those issues, maybe this movement isn’t for you.” Gahhhh!
Es una vergüenza para la humanidad y para la “libertad de prensa” y expresión.Lo que está sucediendo a Assange es, claramente, un movimiento del poderoso EUA y sus aliados “subditos” para callar, de cualquier manera, una voz que (con mucho valor) ha estado publicando hechos vergonzosos pero verídicos.Asimismo la actitud altamente cobarde de sus “sub-súbditos”; PayPal, Visa, etc.VIVA LA DEMOCRACIA!
@August Bondi –
I also agree with it, the thing is, though, that the understanding of special oppression being a product of class society serves as a kind of crutch for many fake-socialist groups, letting them cave to racism with an orthodox-sounding rationale.
No, racism wasn’t caused by one particular ruling class in order to enhance the division of one oppressed class. It was, however, something that happened naturally and was seized upon and exaggerated. Individual acts, or groups, or even movements may not have been seeded or funded or pushed by any particular ruling class, but they were/are able to grow, recruit, have some semblance of respectability because of the racism encouraged by the ruling class.
But this does not mean that racism (or other oppression, but this is not about them) can or should be ignored by anyone who calls themself socialist or communist or anarchist (though I don’t identify with or organise around the last group). On the contrary, precisely because it is the racism of whites (in another universe it may be blacks, if they turned out to be the dominant ‘race’, but on this planet they aren’t, and whites are, so we don’t have to complain about slurs against ‘naturally racist whites’ or whatever) that has held back the working class, it is important to fight for revolutionary integration while standing as a ‘Tribune of the Oppressed’ more generally. This requires that racism be tackled, that real solutions (not ‘what is possible now’ but ‘what is necessary’) be put forward, that minorities not be barred from leadership positions in the movement, but also that they not be put up in a tokenistic fashion or with the belief that ‘the most oppressed is the most revolutionary’.