I'm working on an article for the Nation on student anti-corporate activism, and have been interviewing students extensively on these very questions. I just talked to a student at North Carolina Central, a historically black and working-class college, who has organizing some WTO/IMF education at his school; he said Seattle looked to a lot of black students like a big confrontation with the cops, and that may have tarred the movement for some. Black students have a lot more to fear from cops; he said, "If we had been there, they would have used real bullets, not rubber bullets." Middle-class white students might feel a certain pride in getting tear-gassed or even roughed up by cops; black kids might for obvious reasons experience it quite differently. Not only more violently, but as a personal failure; the NCC guy said "I'm going to law school, I'm not getting arrested." I'd add that mainstream media obsession with "violence" and left media's fixation on police excesses in Seattle might have contributed to the perception that that's what the anti-WTO movement is all about. Other students -- black, white and Asian -- agreed that a lot of middle-class American "students of color" do want a piece of the capitalist pie and aren't particularly radical. a friend of mine was disappointed to join her school's Black Student Movement only to find that the members were obsessed with electing a black Homecoming Queen. Many may (accurately) think their middle-class status is a lot more precarious than that of many white students, and that it's riskier for them to opt out of the system for a little while, and harder to opt back in. Others pointed out that students of color are facing so much backlash -- dismantling of affirmative action, generally hostile climate on a lot of campuses,etc. -- that those who are activists tend to have their energies taken up by those v. important issues. And yes, a lot of Third World solidarity in this country is fueled by white guilt; more white people feel bad that they're living comfortably off the sweat and blood of the people of the South because, um, more white people *are* living comfortably off the sweat and blood of the people of the South. (there's also a teeny bit of romanticization and exoticization underlying some 3rd world solidarity which also strikes me as a white thing) There's also, among some African-AMerican students, a suspicion that white progressives find it easier to worry about people of the South than to deal with inequality at home. there's also also a resentment among black activist students -- at least re: the mostly anti-sweatshop kids -- that the white kids movements are treated with much more respect -- by administration, media -- and get more attention that anti-racist actions by students of color do. And also, while I doubt that white anti-WTO activists conspicuously "working on their racism" is going to change *anything*, a number of white student activists did point out that the only way to build coalitions with people is to show up when they need you and white students don't tend to show up when the issue is racism, so why would students of color show up when a white-led group has a WTO event. Finally, it's difficult in racist America for black people and white people to work together on anything and always has been; students of all races seemed far from defeatist, but daunted by the challenge.
oh and, in re: black students non-radicalism, I should also say that of course most white students aren't at *all* radical either, and that there are not nearly as many black students on American campuses, radical or otherwise, as there should be. the fact that there aren't that many black anti-WTO activists on campus, is of course partly a function of black kids dismal lack of access to higher ed. One might also say there should be more black English majors, and fewer young black men in jail.
>I've been wondering about this. Much of the Northern anti-WTO
>movement is based on solidarity with the people of the South - who
>are, after all, "people of color." Why is there so little affinity
>for this movement among "people of color" in the U.S.? Doesn't it
>call into question the whole category, the assumption of common
>interests among non-Caucasians?
>
>Since a lot of the U.S. anti-WTO movement is campus based, why is
>there so little interest among black and Latino students in it? I
>wonder if a lot of "minority" students are more interested in getting
>a piece of the capitalist action than they are in challenging it
>systemically? I'm pretty out of touch with campus life, which is why
>I'm phrasing these as questions.
>
>Doug