the casual use of "white"--was NATO Bomb Kills Two Peacekeepers

[alex lantsberg]

>no one is denying it.  however, the understanding of what race and racism
>are have changed and wer'e tyring to argue two things:
>
>1.  any ruling elite (whether racial or whatever) are not and do not act as
>a homogenous entity completely without contradictions, gaps, fissures.
>there is ample historical evidence that racism and racialization is a
>process and that it needs to be analyzed that way.
>
>2.  that "whiteness" has a history.  that you need to look at both the
>"racialized" targeted group and the "whites" in order to fully grasp how
>that history unfolded and how it manifests itself today. 

#3--many of the people who actively fight racism identify with those who are currently oppressed.  the reason is because they know their own history and know that they are two to four generations removed from being the sociological and socioceconmic equivalent of today's Black, Latino, Asian, or Native people.  

i have it pretty good now, but coming from the soviet union, i know that it didn't pay to be jewish back there.  the same was true here (especially when you add eastern-european immigrant)--though not to the same extreme--100 years ago.  the ruling elite is often quite fickle.  you never know when they can turn on you.