>Messsage du 22/11/2000 19:48
>De : <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>A : <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Copie à :
>Objet : renouncing whiteness
>
> How does the white race go about abolishing itself? I heard a story
> once about Ted Allen getting into a cab and having the driver address
> him in a conspiratorial, racist fashion as a fellow white person.
> Allen denied he is white. But whiteness isn't a matter of
> self-identification alone, is it? It's how you're treated throughout
> your life. What is to be done?
>
> Doug
Obviously, whiteness isn't about self-identification alone and i know that ted allen does not belive that either (though i do have problems with what seems to be his belief that whiteism is strictly a ruling class strategy; whiteness is reproduced everday by regular working class folk...). i think allen's denying that he is white in the taxicab is better understood as testing the social waters for a very outrageous political idea. and anyway, there is...check that, there MIGHT be a certain pre-political value to increasing numbers of white folks indicating their distaste for the white race in various social circumstances, confused though their protestations may be. in my time as an anti-white agitator, i've seen white folks substitute or confuse condemnation of thier membership in the white race in various social situations for condemnation of the white race as a political act (mind you, most of these people are otherwise political white folk). when i try to point out the difference--some listen, most pretend like they don't hear what i'm saying, and a few become a little hostile.
what is to be done? for starters, i would be very, very happy if, say, many white anti-globalization kids in the u.s. would start publically attacking the white race as the most profoundly destructive historical and social force over the last 400-plus years and as the the most effective 'binding agent' for the capitalist system during that time. i would also be very happy if those young white kids acknowledged that they themselves reproduce the white race daily and made an explicit and strategically detailed committment to liberate themselves--as an essential part of their anti-authoritarian struggles--from the prison of the white race so that they might work in deeper solidarity with other people as members of the human race.
it would be VERY interesting to see what would happen if a critical number of these youngsters came out politically as anti-white. what would the headlines look like? how would the interviews sound? how would the left respond? how would the police respond? back folk? europeans? third world agitators? academics? the militias? others?
(note: i think the term globalization is problematic in that those who use it seem to think that of it is a new phenomenah when, in fact it is a very old one intensified by new technologies and they new financial/political opportunies they facilitate; thinking of globalization as a recent phenomenah makes it difficult to grasp that the first globalizing system was the atlantic slave trade. it also makes it difficult to understand the centrality of race to this new phase of globalization, thereby reinforcing white-folk's blind racial blind spot)
when i spoke to many of the young white folks who came to washington in april, i got a number of distict impressions about them in so far as race is concerned: first, that most are utterly clueles about race; two that most treat race as epiphenomenal to the anti-globalization struggle--sort of like how many left economist still treat finance as epiphenomenal to the 'real eonomy'; three, that despite the previous, most are desperate to do the right thing on the race tip, expressed as a sort of nouveau white guilt; four,that many seem to conflate black people with relatively new (and i think the analytically confusing)'people of color' category; five, that many of them have a sentimentalized, a-historical understanding of the so-called civil rights movement (and of 'non-violent'struggle in general)and of the black power movement; six, that 'classical' assumptions about race in the u.s. made for a certain confusion about how to deal with black cops (as one white kid told me, "the! re is something not right about calling a black cop a 'pig'."; another one told me, "they were so nice."); seventh, those same classical assumtions about race made it impossible to interest black folk in d.c. in participating in the demo--that is, almost no black folk showed up for a demo in chocalate city!!--despite the fact that a great deal of energy was put into doing just that.
despite all of this, i got the feeling that there is definetly room for a more anti-white approach. i don't feel hopeless about that at all. of course, there are several forces that would mitigate against such a development, notably the presence of language sensitive grant-driven or partially grant-driven organizations (nobody will ever get a grant for being anti-white) and spineless AFL-CIO unions.
does any of this help, doug?
chris niles the new abolitionist