Color of Anarchism Re: Protest ISO...

Chuck0 chuck at mutualaid.org
Sun Dec 29 21:12:27 PST 2002


Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> At 11:05 AM -0500 12/29/02, Chuck0 wrote:
>
>> I got surveys today from anarchists in Korea and Malaysia. I also got
>> an email from an anarchist in the Philippines, who I've been working
>> with to create webpages for him and his comrades.
>
>
> Anarchism used to be a prominent political tendency in economically and
> politically poorer regions among European nations: Italy, Russia, and
> Spain. Today, anarchism appears to be a phenomenon primarily found
> among white youths in the richest nations in the world.
>
> Racial imbalances plague all left-wing tendencies, all of which seem
> much whiter than the US military, corporations, and the Bretton Woods
> institutions, but I do think that anarchism is the whitest political
> tendency in the USA. Anarchists may be, on balance, whiter than
> Republicans (who have learned to use affirmative action when it suits
> them -- Clarence Thomas, Linda Chavez, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice,
> etc.).

I understand that lots of leftists want to believe this about anarchists, but from my travels and contacts, I know that the demographic of anarchism in N.A. has changed alot in the past 4-5 years. Anarchism does have a lot of young white people in it, because of the ties that punk music has with anarchism, but there are many more people of color who are becoming anarchists these days. It's just a case of what people do when they understand all of the options. For many years, socialism, communism, and liberalism where the main options on the Left. These days anarchism has a bigger presence and influence, which means that more people of color are choosing to become anarchists.

Of course, many of them do not choose to dress up like stereotypical anarchists. ;-)

Chuck0

------------------------------------------------------------ Personal homepage -> http://chuck.mahost.org/ Infoshop.org -> http://www.infoshop.org/ MutualAid.org -> http://www.mutualaid.org/ Alternative Press Review -> http://www.altpr.org/ Practical Anarchy Online -> http://www.practicalanarchy.org/ Anarchy: AJODA -> http://www.anarchymag.org/

"The state can't give you free speech, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free..." ---Utah Phillips



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