I doubt that the Democrats and the Republicans are interested in "warm fuzzies." They are interested in developing political powers of their organizations. Not even the Republicans can hold onto political power by totally neglecting non-whites and Latinos.
You and Lance keep saying "tokens," suggesting that blacks who are in the Republican Party, for instance, are mainly for the benefit of white Republicans, not for themselves. That underestimates the degree of class polarization among blacks and other people of color, basically ignoring the development after the partial victory of the Civil Rights movement. The same goes for the Democratic Party: there is a stratum of blacks whose interests are actually represented by the Dems.
One would think that anarchists would be interested in winning over the rest of blacks and other people of color whose interests are unrepresented by either the Dems or the Repubs.
At 4:10 PM -0800 12/31/02, Thomas Seay wrote:
>They are more interested in people organizing around their own needs
>and desires positively....not winning everyone over to a group
>mediated by a fucking central committee and ramming a dogma down
>their throat and saying this is what's good for you...now eat it.
There's a great deal of difference between winning people over to anarchism and ramming an anarchist dogma down their throat. Why can't anarchists do the former without doing the latter?
At 4:10 PM -0800 12/31/02, Thomas Seay wrote:
>Now, as Chuck said, that is not to say that anarchists wouldn't
>welcome more minorities.
Provided the minorities who do show up don't ask embarrassing questions about racial representation in the anarchist movement? The way you guys are responding, I'd have to conclude that I must have raised an unspeakable question.
At 4:10 PM -0800 12/31/02, Thomas Seay wrote:
>No matter what the composition, groups like WWP would have tried to
>"ORGANIZE" these people and get a police permit.
You and Chuck0 sometimes sound like being fixated with a question of whether or not rally organizers have a permit. I don't know why you should be. That said, I don't think any organization has succeeded in organizing "these people." Isn't that a problem?
At 4:10 PM -0800 12/31/02, Thomas Seay wrote:
> > > Did the uprising have a lasting impact on LA,
>> making it a better
>> > place, economically and politically?
>
>No, it didn't Yoshie. Fordism is over and, for the most part, the
>State doesnt use "goodies" as much as it used to stifle resistance.
All the more reasons for trying to go beyond revolts.
At 6:59 PM -0500 12/31/02, Lance Murdoch wrote:
>It hasn't been my experience that there are more people of color
>associated with the Republicans than with the anarchist movement.
I've already mentioned a recent Anti-Racist Action demo where I was the only person of color. Happens often.
At 6:59 PM -0500 12/31/02, Lance Murdoch wrote:
>No black person says "I want to be a token", thus, the question is
>what were the people who recruited that person into the group
>thinking? Their intentions are what determines tokenism.
Tokenism is exactly the right word for the phenomenon, if an organization employs people of color exclusively in structurally powerless positions and say, "See, we do have blacks, Asians, Latinos, or whatever!" In contrast, appointing people of color for actual positions of power -- Supreme Court Justices, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, etc. -- means a reflection of very gradual changes in racial composition of social classes. Blacks and other people of color are still underrepresented among the power elite, over-represented in the working class, and clustered in particular sectors in the segmented labor market. That a Clarence Thomas, a Colin Powell, etc. do not represent the interest of the majority of blacks should go without saying here on a lefty discussion list. By not representing interests of black proletarians, however, they are not simply serving whites as tokens; more importantly, they are representing a particular stratum of blacks. Calling them simply tokens implies that there has been no change since Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign. Such analysis lacks attention to complexity in historical transformation.
At 6:59 PM -0500 12/31/02, Lance Murdoch wrote:
> > Aren't there reasons _other_ than making you feel better about yourself
>> and defending the legitimacy of your politics in others'
>> eyes when you make efforts to make any institutions -- especially
>> left-wing political institutions -- racially representative of the
>> nation we live in?
>
>Yes there are - the latter are good reasons to, the former are bad reasons to.
In that case, we can't be using the existence of bad reasons for an excuse for not acting on good reasons, can we? Besides, most people of color don't condemn whites for doing good things out of self interest (which you may think of as "bad reasons"): e.g., recruiting more people of color to appeal to people of color better. There is a better chance of achieving what is just when what is just coincides with what is expedient.
At 6:59 PM -0500 12/31/02, Lance Murdoch wrote:
>Or to restate, I think it's more important for progressives
>concerned about racial harmony to socialize with people of color, or
>work on minor common interests (traffic lights, whatever), than to
>join revolutionary organizations together.
Why not join the Democratic Party, though, if it's more important to work on minor common interests? Isn't the problem that anarchists and socialists have not the absence of working together on minor common interests but the inability to develop such temporary cooperation into working constantly toward long-term objectives, winning more to such work in the process? -- Yoshie
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