Color of Anarchism Re: Protest ISO...

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 12:12 AM -0500 12/30/02, Chuck0 wrote:
>>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

The numbers of young anarchists and socialists have grown, but I 
don't see much improvement in proportional representation in race. 
I'd like to see some sociological studies on the subject, if any 
exist.  Perhaps, you can do an "anarchist census" one of these days, 
figuring out how to do it without causing security problems.

More often than not, people of color who don't mind joining white 
radial lefties are foreign-born (like yours truly, the gorgeous 
Indian Marxists whom I mentioned in a previous post, etc.).  If we 
count only the native-born people of color, racial representation in 
the anarchist and socialist circles gets measurably worse, I believe. 
I think the problem is both objective and subjective: objectively, 
white radial lefties tend to live and socialize among whites; 
subjectively, native-born people color don't want to join 
predominantly white radical groups, even when they approve of the 
ideas advocated by them.  Our social lives (where we live, with whom 
we hang out beyond work and school, etc.) are still pretty segregated.

Once you joked here that I sound as if I were aspiring to implement a 
Total Information Awareness program for lefties:

At 9:45 PM -0500 11/21/02, Chuck0 wrote:
>I think that Yoshie is proposing an Office of Socialist Information Awareness.

I wouldn't go so far, but it strikes me that organizers and activists 
don't know (or bother to know) enough about leftists: how many 
leftists exist, who they are in terms of race, gender, income, 
education, etc., where they live, what resources they can offer, how 
to get in touch with them, etc.  It's possible that the intelligence 
communities might have a better grasp of information about leftists 
than we do.

I think that we should make attempts at bringing research and 
activism into synergy.
-- 
Yoshie

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