Was at a meeting once where this type of complaint was discussed - i.e. "Why aren't more people of color in our movement?" A gentleman of Native American ancestry replied, "There have been non-white resistance movements against Anglo/Euoprean forms of oppression since the 15th century. Maybe instead of white people asking why they aren't attracting non-whites, whites could go see what non-whites are already doing and offer to help out." It's something I agree with in spirit - but not if the only non-white groups around are themselves anti-libertarian in character.
Yoshie wrote:
> > I've found the following essay by Lorenzo Komboa Ervin on the
> > subject, which argues that it's a problem that the anarchist movement
> > is "overwhelmingly white" and looks like a "white rights" movement:
I'm sure a lot of us have read similar criticism of the anti-globalization movement in general. There's a decent body of essays on anarchism and how it intersects with - or fails to address - racial struggles, here: http://www.illegalvoices.org/apoc/knowledge/index.html
Brian
On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, 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...
>
> 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?
--
"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid." - Friedrich Nietzsche