> Based upon my observations and Lorenzo Komboa Erwin's and others'
> criticisms (Cf. Elizabeth "Betita" Martinez, "Where Was the Color in
> Seattle?: Looking for Reasons Why the Great Battle Was So White,"
> <http://www.arc.org/C_Lines/CLArchive/story3_1_02.html>), I'd be
> pleasantly surprised if I find 7 blacks among 100 anarchists.
Perhaps the same holds for socialists and other leftists.
Let's keep in mind that the ratio of African-Americans in the general American population is around 12%. If our movements could get near that rate, on a national average, that would be pretty good.
Again, as I pointed out earlier, Lorenzo's article was written several years ago, before alot of work had been done by anarchists on this problem. Lorenzo would still say that this is a problem and I would agree with him. But these changes can't be made overnight, espcially when you are dealing with a movement with poor resources.
I respect what Elizabeth Martinez writes, but I think she asked the wrong question about Seattle. I think the question should have been, What took you white activists so long to start working on this issue?
> At 2:31 PM -0500 1/1/03, Chuck0 wrote:
>
>> leftists with their tokenism and opportunism
> You complain of criticisms of anarchism by non-anarchists, but the way
> you and Thomas write about other leftists, it appears that you have
> nothing but contempt for them. Not an auspicious approach to building
> respectful alliances, coalitions, etc.
I have little respect for leftists groups, for understandable reasons. This has nothing to do with building respectful alliances and coalitions with non-leftist groups. I have zero desire to have a working relationship with the ISO, but I'm open to working with TRIBE here in Washington.
See, one thing that people need to understand is that while anarchism has had a long relationship with the left, it is not of the left and its future does not lie with the left. There are some leftists that I don't mind working with on issues and there are leftists that I greatly respect, but I look at leftists in the same way I view Libertarians. You pick your friends and allies very carefully.
>
Besides, people of color in
> other left organizations would bristle at your representation of them as
> dupes and victims of "tokenism and opportunism" of white leftists.
> Maybe you think people of color are not as intelligent as whites,
> therefore easily exploited as "tokens." Where is respect for us that you
> say you hope to emphasize?
I never said anything about dupes or victims. We are all humans and we make wrong choices. When cult-like groups come around with sneaky tactics, they can often exploit somebody who is newly radicalized or wrestling with their beliefs.
I've often compared the ISO to campus evangelical groups. Instead of "come up to our dorm room to talk about religion over cookies," it's "come to our forum on socialism and George Bush."
> The LA riot resulted in 52 deaths, more than 200 injuries, more than 800
> deportation of Latinos, 12,545 arrests (45% of the arrested were
> Latinos, 38%, blacks, and 14%, whites), and 2,300 Korean-American
> businesses that were looted, burned or destroyed (Cf.
> <http://www.cityresearch.com/pubs/la_riot.pdf>,
> <http://www.hhh.umn.edu/pubpol/pubpol-d/199505/0064.html>,
> <http://web.nmsu.edu/~dboje/speech93.html>, and
> <http://www.interrupt.org/L.A._Anniversary_Chron.html>), without being
> able to force any significant concessions from capital and the state in
> response to the riot:
You are missing the positive things about the L.A. Rebellion.
> The riot basically functioned as a safety valve for anger of the
> exploited, oppressed, and marginalized and recuperated their dissent;
> and the temporary eruption of anger mainly victimized none other than
> the very ranks of the exploited, oppressed, and marginalized (especially
> Latinos and blacks), hardly causing any damage to capital and the state
> (the rich business owners were well insured -- the only business owners
> who lost everything were small shopkeepers in the depressed
> neighborhoods -- mainly relatively recent immigrants -- who couldn't
> afford expensive insurances). One might say that it is the very riot
> and its aftermath that tamed the exploited, oppressed, and marginalized.
Wow! A saftey valve, huh? I guess it was just a more violent safety valve than unions and socialist parties and the Greens. If we're going to talk about safety valves and the recuperation of dissent, we must talk about the standing institutions which perform this function everyday.
> It would have been much better if the anger of the exploited, oppressed,
> and marginalized had been directed at the right targets in a way that
> would allow them to work toward radical social change. That's impossible
> without the work of organizing (meetings and all that), though.
Bullshit. We all know what would have happened if that energy had been directed into the right channels. That energy would have been dissipated in an orgy of permitted rallies, Green Party meetings, socialist forums, and monthly dues-paying to unions that are in bed with the bosses.
> It would be politically dumb to call a community meeting to stage a
> protest or demand a reform, when the community in question is about to
> get on with revolution -- _that_ should be properly called the "taming"
> or "recuperation" of dissent, if any organization even attempted such a
> thing.
Yoshie, you don't know a damn thing about the recuperation of dissent.
> It would be even dumber, though, to mistake a riot for a revolution and
> glorify it without considering its actual human toll and political
> effect. Riots like the LA riot are futile and self-destructive
> expressions of political powerlessness of the unorganized, not
> unstoppable revolutionary ferment of the self-organized.
Yeah, they sucked, because none of the socialist groups could get their damn banners in front of it.
Perhaps the next rebellion might be more constructive if we spent more time agitating and organizing working people and less time trying to get them to join some vanguardist party.
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