> 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.
Well, perhaps it will take some rethinking of the situation. For example, see my comments on this in Starhawk's new book.
Anarchist census? That's kind of what I'm doing right now with the Infoshop Survey. Around 250 responses so far and I hope to get over 1000 by the end of January. Some of the results so far have been predictable, but there have been surprises like the Ohio results. I'm hoping that people will answer the question on race, but not everybody is answering it. The poll will tend to skew young as most anarchist users are young. In any case, I think the survey so far is the most extensive of anything attempted on anarchists.
> 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.
Looking at the results so far, it appears that there are more anarchists who are Native Americans or Latino than ones that are Asian or African-American.
> 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.
I agree. This is a bigger hurdle to overcome than people think. I'm a white guy living in a city with many people of color, yet most of my social circles are dominated by other white people. I think this often has to do with what our interests are and who we start with as friends. If your interest is punk music, you'll be hanging around lots of young white people who got interested in punk music as susburban youth. And if your social circles are dependent on activist social circles, it tends to become a self-reinforcing demographic.
I think it would help if white activists would get more involved in community activism, which isn't as dominated by political parties that re-inforce the activist ghetto. I had a falling out with comrade anti-capitalists here last summer. Combine that with unemployment that kept me in my neighborhood and I ended up doing more work with neighborhood activists who tend to be Latino.
Yes, I'm working on my espanol.
> 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.
I agree. We do need to be considerate about researching activists. I also hope that people won't use this research against each other, which is what some activists do with racial demographics.
Chuck0
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"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