Lance Murdoch wrote:
>
> 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...
Oi, I get tired of those meetings too. And meetings where people from other groups come in and bring up the question, "Why aren't there any people of color in this group," in the presence of people of color in the room and just seconds after a report on how members of the group had helped with child care during a block party event in a predominantly African-American neighborhood.
> 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!
Right. It always pisses me off whenever some non-anarchist Leftists start criticizing the demographics of the anarchists, when they haven't even bothered to critically self-examine their own tokenism. Ever notice how people of color always speak for the group at public events, but the leadership of the groups is still really white?
> 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.
Cool. It would be great if we could have more integrated groups. It's been a real interesting experience for me to participate in a neighborhood group whose meetings are conducted in Spanish. And a bigger trip when they ask me to represent them to a county commission because I can speak English and the county doesn't do Spanish very well.
> 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?
Amen. Yoshie was actually pretty civil in her criticism. I've seen much worse. I think these issues are important, but I really hate when people make broad generalizations about ideologies and social movements.
> 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.
One thing that hasn't been discussed much in activist circles is the idea of alliances between groups, where the emphasis isn't on recruiting the members of one group into another. For example, a white-dominated anti-globalization coalition could develop a working alliance with neighborhood economic justice groups that have more people of color in them. I think we need to talk more about respect and develop some humility about the fact that our group isn't the only one in town working on an issue.
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