Color of Anarchism Re: Protest ISO...

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>I understand both CO's and TS's comments.  It appears, however, that 
>you have defined the terms and the conditions in such a way that 
>anything the "left" does would be a manifestation of tokenism.
>
>If a left group puts forth its members of color to demonstrate that 
>it wants to build that connection, you call it tokenism.  If a 
>group, for example, selects an African-American to confront a 
>reactionary black capitalist group (in order clearly to finesse the 
>race card), that's tokenism.
>
>But if a group doesn't do any of this, then it's not guilty of 
>tokenism, it's going to be just lily white.
>
>D.

African Americans and other people of color are still grossly 
underrepresented in the power elites (especially among the ruling 
class), but they've come to occupy significant and sometimes 
prominent positions within governments at all levels (except the US 
Senate), the military, the police, corporations, schools, etc., etc.

Chants such as "One, two, three, four, we don't want your racist 
war!" "Hey, hey, ho, ho, racist cops have got to go!" sound rather 
hollow when protesters are less racially integrated than the cops who 
police them and the military that they criticize.
-- 
Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: 
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
* Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>