[SNIP]
>If the Black Radical Congress is successful and creates some organic
>structure uniting the diversity of black radicals who will be attending,
>it will be a critical step in creating a united Left. Not because whites
>are not radical or sympathetic to the Left but because the BRC will be a
>step towards uniting the whole racial spectrum of the Left.
The U.S. Left has a decidedly less than sterling record when it comes to multi-racial organizations that fully recognize and accept leadership of African Americans and other oppressed national and racial groups by those of European descent. Some have done better than others, but as a movement, we have far to go. That the Black Radical Congress may be an initiative that moves the Left a giant step down the road toward greater unity of action, if not of theoretical agreement, is a monumental contribution. It will also require white Leftists to critically examine their own practice and their relationship to people of color, foremost to African Americans. It will test their willingness to accept leadership from those to whom they have been more accustomed to inviting into their own ranks under their leadership on their terms -- a role reversal that may provide a healthy does of humility and critical self-examination for a lot of folks who are unaccustomed to either.
On the other hand, I think that those who might be tempted to invest in the BRC responsibility for uniting the entire Left err in another direction. It is not the responsibility of African Americans of a Left persuasion to accomplish for the rest of the Left what it has been unable to achieve for itself. To raise expectations to this level would be patronizing or worse. It would set a standard for African Americans that the white Leftists have not themselves met and at the same time absolve them of their own responsibility to work for Left unity on the basis of multi-racial leadership and mutual respect that overcomes the decades of sectarian division and dogmatism that has been characteristic of the U.S. Left.
The BRC is an enormously important step forward, first and foremost for the African American community, and for the entire U.S. Left. It does not excuse the rest of us from dealing with the innumerable deficiencies in our own praxis, as individuals and organizations.
(BTW, I seem to recall an earlier post on this or another list that claimed that whites were not welcome at the BRC. I spoke today with my dad who lives in Chicago and learned that my aunt, decidedly white, attended sessions yesterday, which would seem to suggest that race was not a barrier to participation, at least as an observer.)
At 10:00 AM 6/21/98 -0500, Carrol Cox wrote:
>I hope everyone on this list knows the history of white workers and the
>white left (including too many marxists) in respect to Black workers.
>That history, *up to the very present*, has been only in scattered
>instances other than racist, usually aggressively racist. There is no
>empirical evidence, there are no historical principles, that give any
>reason whatever that this structure and attitude will change through
>education, persuasion, propaganda, appeals to unity, appeals to humanity
>or even simple personal decency. I have lived in close quarters for 68
>years with whites from all sectors and strata of the working class, and I
>have never known *one* to change on the basis of persuasion. Nor have I
>ever read or heard *any* serious proposal to change this institutional
>racism within the white working class. (Personal feelings of racism are
>irrelevant; the overwhelming majority of those white workers whose
>allegiance to the left will eventually be required live within a structure
>that perpetually reproduces racism in daily life. That structure must be
>changed before appeals to individuals can have any significant, or even
>insignificant, impact.
Carrol,
I think I need some clarification of what you mean here. It sounds as though you are saying that it is fruitless to struggle against racism within the white working class unless and until the structures that promote racism are changed. If that is a correct interpretation, (a) how would those structures come to be changed unless whites participate in changing them; (b) if there is no possibility of changing attitudes among white short of structural change, does that mean it is up to people of color to change the racist structures whites have created?; (c) if this is a correct interpretation of your view, aren't you essentially relieving white Leftists from dealing with both racism in society and their own racist attitudes and practices?
>Thus any organizing effort which *begins* with a multi-racial appeal will
>in the future be as it has been in the present and is now: essentially
>white. This is a fact.
[SNIP]
>It is nevertheless actually easy to see the impact on that
>institutionalzied racism (not only in the nation as a whole but in the
>working-class and the white left) which a movement which was *centrally*
>black led and black dominated. I cannot imagine a white leadership or a
>predominantly white organization issuing a call for a conference which
>would attract any significant number of Black people (or people of color
>in general). The *only* way to arrive at a movement not white-centered is
>by beginning with a movement that is black centered. Any other perspective
>is sheer utopianism -- white-centered utopianism.
[SNIP]
Can you imagine an organization that is founded on the principle of multi-racial leadership as a structural principle and that puts the struggle against racist influences within its own practices, as well as in society, as a central focus of its own work? Is it possible for whites and people of color to enter into struggles together around social conditions and through those struggles come to terms with the racial biases that have served to divide them? If not, how do you explain the successful union organizing campaigns and other struggles in which white workers, heavily influenced by racism, have nonetheless engaged with their Black and other non-white coworkers in a common effort to gain union recognition, in the process of which many of those whites had to reconsider their prior stereotypical notions? Or is that what you mean by struggling to change the structures?
Can the struggle against institutional racism be successful if whites have no part in that struggle? If whites can only be changed when the structures that promote and perpetuate racism are changed, and the only effective movement is one that is Black-led or Black-centered, how will whites who are prisoners of their own racism and the institutional structures that feed that racism ever be expected to accept Black leadership?
If you believe that you are been successful in some measure in resisting the influences of racism in your own life and ridding yourself of your own socially conditioned biases and prejudices, how did you manage that in the face of continuing dominance by racist structures and institutions?
Maybe I am missing something, in which case I'd like you to elaborate.
In solidarity, Michael E.