> Check out this article about the same topic, but from a progressive's
> viewpoint:
>
> http://www.arc.org/C_Lines/CLArchive/story3_1_02.html
>
> Face up to the facts: the radical left IS very white, and the ones
> who will fly to A16 will be even whiter than your typical activist.
> Why? Well, I'm not hardcore -- but even if I were, I can't go
> because I have to work. Granted, I make good money and can afford to
> go, and it's not like some kind of socially important job, but I have
> to work. I want the money. I want the money, because, like most
> people in the less-educated less-white strata, there are *other*
> people relying on me making this money.
John, Sure these criticisms you raise are based on experiences that don't make one optimistic about the prospects of their being overcome, but then again, from the article (below) that you quoted, there remains reason to not entirely reject trying... --Steve
"In retrospect, observed Van Jones of STORM (Standing Together to
Organize a Revolutionary Movement) in the Bay Area, "We should have
stayed. We didn't see that we had a lot to learn from them. And they
had a lot of materials for making banners, signs, puppets." "Later I
went back and talked to people," recalled Rashidi, "and they were
discussing tactics, very smart. Those folks were really ready for
action. It was limiting for people of color to let that one experience
affect their whole picture of white activists." Jinee Kim, a Korean
American with the Third Eye Movement in the Bay Area, also thought it
was a mistake. "We realized we didn't know how to do a blockade. We
had no gas masks. They made sure everybody had food and water, they
took care of people. We could have learned from them."
Reflecting the more positive evaluation of white protesters in
general, Richard Moore, coordinator of the Southwest Network for
Environmental and Economic Justice, told me "the white activists were
very disciplined." "We sat down with whites, we didn't take the
attitude that `we can't work with white folks,'" concluded Rashidi.
"It was a liberating experience."
Jia Ching Chen recalled that once during the week of protest, in a
jail holding cell, he was one of only two people of color among many
Anglos.
He tried to discuss with some of them the need to involve more
activists of color and the importance of white support in this. "Some
would say, `We want to diversify,' but didn't understand the dynamics
of this." In other words, they didn't understand the kinds of problems
described by Coumba Toure. "Other personal conversations were more
productive," he said, "and some white people started to recognize why
people of color could view the process of developing working relations
with whites as oppressive."