renouncing whiteness

Christopher B. Hajib-Niles cniles at wanadoo.fr
Tue Nov 28 14:14:47 PST 2000



>Messsage du 28/11/2000 21:00
>De : <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>A : <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Copie à :
>Objet : Re: renouncing whiteness
>


>
> Bear with me, please. How exactly will we (whites) be judged?

i rather prefer the verb "evaluated" to "judged." first of all, there is no litmus test or check list. that said, i evaluate my political relationships with (presumably radical) white-skinned folk based on, one their knowlege of the destructive force of racialism in general and the "white race" in particular; two, their willingness to talk, as political agitators, in anti-white terms both with fellow agitators and publically, and three, their willingness to act on their anti-white politics as part of a serious freedom struggle. since there are few who meet this criteria, i spend a good deal of time keeping my eyes open for "white" folk, who seem to be open to new ways of thiking about race and and who are serious about the business of human liberation.

I am not
> making jokes - I seriously want you (and Chris) to tell me what you would
> like me to do.

an excellent start is to ask questions, like you've just done. lots of white folks presume much to much, including one or two on this list-serve. that kind of arrogance only serves to reinforce the status quo.

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.

well, i don't consider you a racist 'cuz i don't buy into that kind of talk. i am much more interested in how white you are. that said, it sounds like you are very much on the right political track in regards to moving away from your whiteness.

I've also disposed
> of conditioning that hides the racism inherent in certain
> institutions, like the Drug Jihad and the US foriegn policy.
>
i don't mean to be picky but i'm not sure that one can "dispose of conditioning" as much as work to free yourself from conditioning by constant striving against the social conditions that allowed for the conditioning in the first place...


> 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.
>
this is a perfect example of how the term has lost whatever power it once had. it used to be that racism was understood as having to do with white folks exercising power over black folks. now everybody can be a racist, no matter how little power they have.


> I thought I was fighting racism when I fought racist institutions.

you were fighting white folks and whiteism (along with other things, i hope) but it just has not been understood or discussed that way.

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,

it is not wholly disimilar to fighting "racism," only the terms of the struggle are changed, critically for the better, i think. i think we can be sure that the day significant number of white radicals go from being "anti-racist" to "anti-white" is the day white radicals will find the allies that they always wish they had and vice-versa.

and I've read all of Chris's
> posts.

thank you...

Being anti-white has a dubious sound to it, just like
> anti-hispanic or anti-black or anti-asian.
>
> they are absolutely not the same thing. all of these monikers are problematic; and i'll be the first one to tell you that key to any revolutionary tendency is for so-called blacks, hispanics and asians in this country to begin the process of liberating themselves from themselves. but anti-black and anti-white are not the same thing anymore than white power and black power are the same thing. if we end up living in a world where black folk are variously valorizing themselves as a great race and have power to back up such idiocy, then an anti-black position will be legitimate. for the moment however, seriouis revolutionaries need to be about the business of helping black folk who are desperate for some sense of self to avoid the pitfalls of racial thinking and categorizing.

chris niles


> Matt
>
> --
> Matt Cramer <cramer at voicenet.com>
> http://www.voicenet.com/~cramer/
> Man is his own star; and that soul that can
> Be honest is the only perfect man.
> -John Fletcher
>
>



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