>>> cramer at unix01.voicenet.com 11/28/00 02:00PM >>>
On Tue, 28 Nov 2000, Charles Brown wrote:
> You can't hide your racism with the right combination of words. Racism
> is not words, it is a system of ideas and actions in the real world, it
> is a social fact. Making fun of it, or thinking you are excepted from it
> because you are not from the U.S. is a pass you can't give yourself. We
> , Black people, will be the final arbiters as to whether you are a
> racist or not.
Bear with me, please. How exactly will we (whites) be judged? I am not making jokes - I seriously want you (and Chris) to tell me what you would like me to do. I don't consider myself racist because I've thrown away all the conditioning that teaches people to categorise people and relationships as black, white, hispanic, etc. I've also disposed of conditioning that hides the racism inherent in certain institutions, like the Drug Jihad and the US foriegn policy.
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CB: My feeling upon reading this is that you are genuinely seeking to be anti-racist. I am struck by your seriousness in contrast with Wojtek's trying to turn it into a joke, and trying to dismiss these issues as if he has no left political obligation to fight racism, including first , of course, acknowledging it as a real and important social problem for radicals.
When I say Blacks will judge, I don't mean anything heavy duty except in the common sense that of course, Black people are judging whether white people are racist all the time , constantly, but Black people have inferior power to do anything about their judgements in this regard except in the periodic anti-racist upsurges in U.S. history.
As to what you should do, sounds like to me you have a good start in what you say above. You have to be willing to go through some struggle. You might gain some inspiration in this area from Herbert Aptheker's book _The History of Anti-Racism_ , which is the history of white people's anti-racism in the U.S. And importantly, you should not conceive of it as an individual project , but one you seek to pursue with others, collectively.
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Learning and later working in the digital age allows one to deal with personalities and positions blind to race, and to some degree, sex. This racism discussion on the list has now led to people categorising themselves and others along racial boundaries. Wojtek isn't white, he's eastern euro. No, now he's white, and CB gets to decide because he is black. Chris explains his views more explicitly to other blacks, but not to whites because...? I can't help feeling that it is all getting, well, kind of racist.
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CB: It is not all getting racist. Mainly Wojtek's comments are racist. The discomfort you might feel at my comments or Chris's are not due to us being racist, but due to us poking around in areas of discomfort for whites regarding white racism.
It is not that Blacks can't be prejudice, it is that racism is prejudice + membership in the power dominant race in society as a whole. "Racism" is precisely limited to categorizing white prejudice. The whole matter is not symetrical , so to speak.
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I thought I was fighting racism when I fought racist institutions. Now I'm told that's not enough, that I have to fight "whiteness". I have no idea how to do that, or even what it means, and I've read all of Chris's posts. Being anti-white has a dubious sound to it, just like anti-hispanic or anti-black or anti-asian.
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CB: Chris and I have somewhat different approaches on this. Perhaps he will discuss anti-whiteness more.
Part of my take on what he is saying is that it does not mean any kind of physical "attack" on white people, but it is a way of pushing white people to reverse the normal mentality and overwhelmingly dominant consciousness in the U.S. which is anti-Black and pro-white. Regardless of how much any individual divests of this dominant consciousness, it is almost impossible to avoid the socially dominant racism, for we are social beings. It is impossible for even someone who makes genuine efforts not to be racist to get out of the larger racist social web. Ending racism is a social, not individual project.
A little more simply, there is probably some value to the anti-racist social project for some white people to learn and feel that Black is beautiful, and despite all, it is desirable to be Black, this as an antidote to the powerful prevailing ideology that constantly overtly and subtley teaches everybody ( Black and white) that Black is ugly. In other words, if suddenly all white people became Black in many senses, society would go forward and thrive. I guess I am emphasizing whites learning to be profoundly comfortable with Black culture and life as a complement of divesting of reliance on being white.
This is some speculation on my part as to the theory Chris expresses.