Part I: Why "Anti-War" has to be "Anti-Racist" too
As a speaker at a San Francisco anti-war rally last fall, I tried to emphasize the importance of seeing the threatened war on Iraq in terms of this country's racism here and around the world. In that spirit, I ended my comments with a chant by some activists of color marching to the rally: "One, two, three, four/We don't want your racist war!"
Few people in that mostly white crowd of some 15,000 chanted with me or clapped. I was troubled, but later that day a Bay Area anti-war movement leader told me, "You got off easy. In the 1970s, Black Panther leaders like Bobby Seale and Dave Hilliard were booed when they mentioned racism at early anti-Vietnam war rallies."
Seeing racism as a separate, secondary issue is an old problem in the U.S. peace movement, which does not always realize that it must be anti-racist as well as anti-war. Today, with the "Permanent War" becoming all too permanent, that realization is all the more crucial. Do people really think the expanding U.S. empire will be stopped by white folks alone?
The education, mobilization, organization, participation, and leadership of people of color in the anti-war movement have been recognized as important far more today than previously. More people of color can be seen at demonstrations than during the Vietnam war. We sometimes find people of color in the leadership of anti-war organizations. For example, they compose half of the Steering Committee of the national coalition United for Peace and Justice, which also voted to make people of color half of UPJ's co- chairs and half of its Administrative Committee. Anti-war teach-ins in Spanish and bilingual publications are being produced.
Such changes are good but questions persist. Why, for example, is there not more color in today's anti-war movement when the troops who fight and die are disproportionately black, brown, and red? Why isn't there more color when those who pay such a heavy price for cutbacks in vital social services due to military spending are often people of color?
The first answer is the way that racism conditions the attitudes and conduct of many anti-war activists, often without their realizing it. There are also obstacles within communities of color, frequently rooted in experiences of racism, that impede their own anti-war organizing. We can begin with some thoughts about the first problem—how racist ideas and practice among white activists hold back building the strongest possible anti-war movement.
"Diversity Is Not Our Job"
Throughout history, U.S. peace groups have been primarily composed of and led by whites, mostly middle-class men. On one level, this happens because anti-war whites usually reach out first to friends or acquaintances and this means other whites. That still holds true today for the anti-war movement and its frequent partner, the anti-corporate globalization or global justice movement. It has often held true for the white-led solidarity movements of recent years, like the main organizations supporting popular struggles in Central America, for example.
It also holds true today even in racially diverse cities like San Francisco. The problem became obvious to this writer when four coalitions put on the big February 16, 2003 demonstration (Feb. 15 elsewhere). At meetings I attended of their coordinating committee, out of 25 representatives you might find a half dozen of color and an even smaller proportion under 40 years of age (few of whom played a leading role in the discussion).
the rest (very long) here: <http://auto_sol.tao.ca/node/view/1374>