Oh man, if I have to go to one more leftie meeting where there is navel-gazing over why there is a lack of blacks at the meeting or at a recent rally/protest or whatever...
Someone used the word tokenism to describe what this is...it's more like tokenism squared...I'm sure a black with a good sense of humor would find some of the lame-o conversations regarding the existing or desired existence of some token blacks in leftie groups amusing. "Yes our group has three blacks...unlike the 9th international trotskyites who are all white...two of our blacks went to the recent protest with us...we also have a Korean who came to our recent meeting and may be interested in joining"...barf!
I don't flip out if I go to a meeting and everyone there is white. Most of the people in my neighborhood are white, most of the people where I work are white, I go to a meeting and most of the people are white - why should the meeting be any different than my normal life? With the de facto segregation that exists in the US, it takes extraordinary effort to have an integrated meeting/group - is it always worth the effort? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
This concept that a mostly white groups existence shows that it has some failure is silly. The US is in it's natural, or "normal", or existing state, is more or less segregated even in liberal areas. An integrated group is *unnatural*, meaning that it is not a formation that seems to naturally arise. It has to be worked on, effort has to be made to integrate it. Since effort is required, it becomes almost as much a goal of a group as whatever they're doing (protesting Iraq, whatever). I think desiring every group advocating everything to have some token blacks is a waste of time and silly.
I really find this nitpicking between groups over who has more tokens ridiculous. Especially Yoshie's charge that anarchism looks racist or like a white rights movement. So what should we do in response, go to primarily black anti-police brutality meetings and hand out flyers for ARA or whatever so we can get some more tokens in our group and feel better about ourselves in some liberal way and not feel like Yoshie or whoever will criticize us as much because we have some tokens now?
There are two reasons why blacks may not come to an anarchist or whatever meeting. The first one is that they really love our message, but they're the only black or Asian or whatever there and feel uncomfortable being the only non-white person. I'd say that's the case to be concerned with, and things can be done to ameliorate that including bringing in more "people of color". The second reason is that black people just aren't interested in the message. Maybe they are a little but not enough to want to join the group, maybe they feel police brutality, reparations or whatever are a higher priority, maybe they're apathetic, burned out, maybe they're too busy trying to keep a roof over their head, maybe they're just not interested in what we have to say whatever. Well in this second case, I'm not as concerned that they aren't in the group - if we're not speaking to their needs, why should they join, I don't see any reason to go out and "convert" them. I'm more interested in
seeing what groups they form (like the Black Panthers with their newspapers and social centers and whatnot) and then forming coalitions with them.
Anti-racist action goes out and sometimes actually gets into physical fights with the Klan. I don't know what more commitment black people would want from a group. I don't mind people trying to form integrated groups, it's somewhat necessary actually, but this showing off of your groups token blacks and sniping about who has and doesn't have some token blacks is really silly, and I'm sure nothing would send blacks running more than some of the lame conversations about tokens that I've heard at these meetings.
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