CNN op-ed: "How we became white people"

[Revy]

link (http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/29/lander.who.am.i/index.html)

I thought this was a good article...but I thought the title could have been re-worded differently. The title presumes that the readers of the piece are going to be white. and I found the last sentence went too far and sounded kind of racist but maybe he didn't mean that to be offensive? I just wasn't comfortable reading "America will get less white, unless we start throwing handing those blankets out again". it sounded like something a white racist would say. but I think he was being sarcastic.

[khad]

This is a good article. He is emphatically stating that white people are privileged and should recognize the advantages that has been conferred upon them throughout history.

In fact he is citing Noel Ignatiev, a scholar working in critical whiteness studies, a field that addresses the incorporation of southern and eastern Europeans into the umbrella of white identity as an exercise in white racism. David Roediger talks about this privilege as a psychological and social "wage" of whiteness that is put forth by the ruling class as a way to advance socially without overturning the class relations of capitalism. It's an extension of the herrenvolk democracy theory that a lot of Southern historians cite.


And with this new-found white status also came the status of "ethnically American." Of course, a lot of people will say that there is no such thing as an ethnic American and that everyone who becomes a citizen is an American. And this is true to the letter of the law, but if we consider the popular perception of immigration and the American dream, to say that white skin has nothing to do with it would be complete folly.

But all of that was in the past right? Well, ask yourself this: Who is more likely to get pulled over and forced to show his papers in Arizona today? A first generation Canadian immigrant, or a 10th generation Mexican-American?

What I hope this census will force the country to deal with is the fact that white immigrants like me will never again make up the majority of people that come to this country. America is not getting whiter, it will never get whiter. Well, unless we start handing those blankets out again.

Btw, professor Ignatiev ran this journal on radical race theory: http://racetraitor.org/

[Crusade]

Good article.

[Revy]

I agree. But is it appropriate to say "unless we start handing out the blankets again"? do you think I was being over sensitive? I thought he made good points too. I am familiar with Noel Ignatiev. particularly his views on the Irish because I am of Irish descent and I have traced my ancestry to at least one indentured servant (he was "sold" ). There was some Irish revolutionary leader I think, who didn't like to hear about how racist Irish people in America were. because the Irish Americans could have united with African Americans against the Anglo-Saxon elite, but they chose instead to assimilate as white.

[which doctor]

What's really disturbing (and profoundly conservative I might as well) is that we still insist on lumping people into such arbitrary categories as 'race,' when genetics has proven these bunk time and time again. Nonetheless, so called leftists continue to enjoy scoring points talking about how bad black people have it and how good white people have it. Besides, the whole concept of 'white privilege' is a crock of shit, and every time someone brings it up, what they are really doing is obscuring the actual, structural differences that give people privilege in capitalist society. Furthermore, lumping everyone who's not white into the category of 'people of color' is pretty whack too. None of the 'people of color' I know consider themselves at all to be 'people of color.' This folks, is what is called identity politics.

[cska]

What's really disturbing (and profoundly conservative I might as well) is that we still insist on lumping people into such arbitrary categories as 'race,' when genetics has proven these bunk time and time again. Nonetheless, so called leftists continue to enjoy scoring points talking about how bad black people have it and how good white people have it. Besides, the whole concept of 'white privilege' is a crock of shit, and every time someone brings it up, what they are really doing is obscuring the actual, structural differences that give people privilege in capitalist society. Furthermore, lumping everyone who's not white into the category of 'people of color' is pretty whack too. None of the 'people of color' I know consider themselves at all to be 'people of color.' This folks, is what is called identity politics.

While race may be a social construct, it is a social construct that has major effects in society.

DON'T YOU EVER CLAIM THAT WHITE PEOPLE ARE NOT PRIVILEGED HERE. YOU DON'T HAVE TO FACE THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF RACE BASED DISCRIMINATION, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO DISMISS WHAT THE REST OF US HAVE TO ENDURE.

[khad]

Which doctor is part of a Zionist anti-anti-imperialist organization. Pay no attention to what he says because it is invariably distorted through the lens of white privilege. Keep that in mind as we dismiss his ravings and discuss more serious stuff.


I despise Platypus because I joined their reading/discussion group, being a young Marxist college student interested in intellectual conversation with like-minded individuals. Or, at least, what I thought were like minded individuals.

What I instead discovered instead nauseated me. At their Chicago citywide meeting, the fare consisted of spending 20 minutes sneering, laughing, and making insulting remarks about the protesters who were occupying NYU at the time. It wasn't even a helpful criticism of their tactics, it was just derogatory attacks on student activism in general as well as anarchists, even though they knew their was an anarchist in the room. Chris Cutrone, one of the editors of the review, then went on to describe a local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which I am active in, as local Hamas cell. When I challenged him, he backed off a little, saying their were not Hamas, but "soft Islamists"(a term he uses in his obsessive articles about Iran). After the meeting broke up, I spent another 20-30 minutes arguing with a rabid Zionist who was defending the Israeli massacre in Gaza, because all Arabs were Nazis. No one contradicted him or intervened on my behalf, but smiled and laughed while he stood there justifying ethnic cleansing. The conversation turned to Latin America, and one member compared Hugo Chavez to Josef Stalin. That was too much for me, I stormed off.

[which doctor]

Keep the ad hominems coming!

[bcbm]

glad to see the level of discussion reaching new highs here.

[black magick hustla]

I don't think it makes sense to say they are privileged. Maybe less fucked. Is a mestizo man privileged over an indigenous man in mexico? It makes no sense. The House Slave was still a slave, regardless of how much it loved it master. This tendency of putting a hierarchy to levels of shit is not very useful.

[black magick hustla]

Also if this thread degenerates into a bunch of snipes I am going to split it. This is an interesting discussion.

[turquino]

I think a lot of discussions about 'white privilege' tend to miss that it’s ultimately about class, and not race. In the US class lines happened to divide along race and nation. The middle class life was guaranteed to Anglo men by their exclusive access to skilled trades and education. They made up a privileged labour aristocracy. The most exploited in the working class, the proletariat, were Black, Chinese, Indigenous, or recent European immigrants. The last of those were eventually pulled up into the white labour aristocracy due to the need for a patriotic front during wartime.

[gorillafuck]

What's really disturbing (and profoundly conservative I might as well) is that we still insist on lumping people into such arbitrary categories as 'race,' when genetics has proven these bunk time and time again.
That is true from a biological standpoint but people with different color skin will have different experiences in contemporary society.

I think that the phrase "white privilege" is a bit of a confusing word. Minorities face things like racism which white people don't face, but I don't think that "privilege" is an accurate term to describe that. If someone is harassed by cops for having brown skin, it's not a white persons "privilege" to not be harassed. Obstacles in life for minorities doesn't equate to privilege on part of people who don't face it.

[which doctor]

Which doctor is part of a Zionist anti-anti-imperialist organization. Pay no attention to what he says because it is invariably distorted through the lens of white privilege. Keep that in mind as we dismiss his ravings and discuss more serious stuff.
The only person even approaching racism in this thread is that who insists on discarding someone else's argument on the basis of their 'race.'


While race may be a social construct, it is a social construct that has major effects in society.
I never said otherwise. Of course racism is a big problem in the United States, and elsewhere, but what's been really problematic have been the attempts to try (and ultimately fail) to deal with it, especially amongst the left. Particularly I'm thinking of the attempt to divide white people and 'people of color' as if they were two entirely different species that deserved different treatment. Furthermore, what's also problematic is the idea that one is defined, and thus dictated by, their identity which in this case refers to the color of your skin, but also can refer to sexuality, gender, what's even more crazy - your disability! Things like these, when not integrated in a Marxian analysis of capitalism (which they never are) are huge barriers to different kinds of people actually working together towards something, instead of stuck working out the differences between themselves. There are actually leftist organizations that will make you publicly confront your 'white privilege' in front of the group. We'll never be able to overcome the issue of race on the left if this is how we continue to treat it. The problem is the way race gets treated (as well as other 'identity' issues).


DON'T YOU EVER CLAIM THAT WHITE PEOPLE ARE NOT PRIVILEGED HERE. YOU DON'T HAVE TO FACE THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF RACE BASED DISCRIMINATION, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO DISMISS WHAT THE REST OF US HAVE TO ENDURE.
No need for caps lock pal. I don't deny that people are treated differently based on how others perceive them, but there are all sorts of different characteristics that can cause this, race just being one of them. If I could use a somewhat ridiculous comparison, people with a whole bunch of acne on their face get treated way differently than a people without any, but there's hardly a reason to make people confront the non-acne privilege they have. It doesn't do a single thing to remedy the situation. Of course race is slightly different, but when people insist on categories like black identity and white privilege, they are not actually addressing the real problems in capitalism.


That is true from a biological standpoint but people with different color skin will have different experiences in contemporary society.
I never claimed otherwise, and I hope my aforementioned comments address this issue. Of course people have different experiences in contemporary society, and skin color is only one of the factors that goes in to determining this. And I'm well aware of the lingering effects of institutional racism, approaching this as a racial identity issue is very problematic.

[cska]

link (http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/29/lander.who.am.i/index.html)

I thought this was a good article...but I thought the title could have been re-worded differently. The title presumes that the readers of the piece are going to be white. and I found the last sentence went too far and sounded kind of racist but maybe he didn't mean that to be offensive? I just wasn't comfortable reading "America will get less white, unless we start throwing handing those blankets out again". it sounded like something a white racist would say. but I think he was being sarcastic.

I will ignore which doctor's stupidity and comment on the article.

I thought it was an excellent article, especially considering the target audience. For the title, considering that his blog is "What White People Like", he is just writing the article about how some immigrants gained the coveted status of white.

As for his talking about the smallpox blankets, it can be considered bad taste, but it was good in that it brought attention to the ridiculous atrocity that was committed as an integral part of the creation of this civilization, and the fact that it is rarely ever mentioned or contemplated. It would be as if the Germans never gave any thought about the holocaust.

I especially liked this quote: "But all of that was in the past right? Well, ask yourself this: Who is more likely to get pulled over and forced to show his papers in Arizona today? A first generation Canadian immigrant, or a 10th generation Mexican-American?"

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I agree with the points about Arizona. However, I don't agree with the idea of liberal guilt. I think guilt is an emotion that should be used in a specific way to create change. Most people feel guilty about injustices, but they still don't do anything about them.

[which doctor]

I will ignore which doctor's stupidity and comment on the article.

Your complete unwillingness to engage me on the level of argument is telling.


I agree with the points about Arizona. However, I don't agree with the idea of liberal guilt. I think guilt is an emotion that should be used in a specific way to create change. Most people feel guilty about injustices, but they still don't do anything about them.
You think people should be guilted into creating change? That's hardly a suitable strategy.

[Proletarian Ultra]

What's really disturbing (and profoundly conservative I might as well) is that we still insist on lumping people into such arbitrary categories as 'race,' when genetics has proven these bunk time and time again. Nonetheless, so called leftists continue to enjoy scoring points talking about how bad black people have it and how good white people have it. Besides, the whole concept of 'white privilege' is a crock of shit, and every time someone brings it up, what they are really doing is obscuring the actual, structural differences that give people privilege in capitalist society. Furthermore, lumping everyone who's not white into the category of 'people of color' is pretty whack too. None of the 'people of color' I know consider themselves at all to be 'people of color.' This folks, is what is called identity politics.

Which doctor doesn't see race. People tell him he's white and he believes them, because he shops at Eddie Bauer.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.walletpop.com/media/2008/06/eddie-bauer.jpg

Platypus: Makin' revolution...and lookin' AWESOME

[which doctor]

I'll reiterate my previous point.


Your complete unwillingness to engage me on the level of argument is telling.

btw, I shop at urban outfitters, I only ever wear eddie bauer when my grandma sends me something from them for christmas

[black magick hustla]

all the clothes you get in urban outfitters can be found in cheap thriftstores

[bcbm]

all the clothes you get in urban outfitters can be found in cheap thriftstores

i've never had much luck finding skinny jeans at thrift stores. you can occasionally find good t-shirts and hoodies, but more often than not there is nothing that fits. urban and stores like it usually have better cuts.

[which doctor]

Which doctor doesn't see race. People tell him he's white and he believes them, because he shops at Eddie Bauer.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.walletpop.com/media/2008/06/eddie-bauer.jpg

Platypus: Makin' revolution...and lookin' AWESOME
By the way, this joke is a little late. I think bash back were the first ones to make fun of platypus for being well-dressed

[Os Cangaceiros]

skinny jeans

:thumbdown:

[bcbm]

:thumbdown:

you know i look good

[Proletarian Ultra]

By the way, this joke is a little late. I think bash back were the first ones to make fun of platypus for being well-dressed

No, the joke wasn't about how you dress well (which I rather doubt) but about how you're oblivious douches. You act like everybody here - everybody on the entire "dead left" in fact - is MIM or some shit, talking all kind of nonsense about "white skin priviledge".


Nonetheless, so called leftists continue to enjoy scoring points talking about how bad black people have it and how good white people have it.

Not a single damn person in this thread - not even the linked op-ed - made any claim that being white is totally rad. Point is that 'white' is a bullshit and reactionary category. Your response implied that anyone who points out oppression against blacks necessarily asserts that all whites have it easy.

Nobody made that leap except you.

You know, when Khad started calling you a white supremacist I thought it was overkill. But the assumptions you're showing in this thread are making me suspect otherwise.

[Red Commissar]

I think this op-ed made some good points, though generally when the American public at large hears these things, they tend to discount it as "bleeding-heart liberal" mindset and ignore it.

[AK]

What I don't like about this article is that - as sarcastic as it may be - it still sounds like it has apocalyptic undertones when referring to the lack of whites...

[manic expression]

The more I've worked in working-class communities (I didn't grow up in one), the more I see that Blacks and Latinos face so much sh*t that most whites don't really deal with. Fanon had it right when he looked at the psychological effects of a colonialist society, national division is easier to ignore when you're on the better side of it.

THAT BEING SAID, it's important that we remember that working-class whites are supremely oppressed as well. "White privilege" almost insinuates that workers have it made if their skin is white enough, which frankly is complete bullsh*t. The strength of racism lies in keeping white and non-white workers divided and at each others' throats, and many of the "white privilege" ideologues on the left (not all) are guilty of perpetuating this dichotomy. Using race as a starting point gets you nowhere, simple as that. The new SDS proves this point quite well. Plus, "white privilege" is a tool often used by Black capitalists to label themselves more oppressed than working-class whites when they're running multi-million dollar corporations. I remember sitting through a speech by the CEO of Red Lobster, comparing himself to WEB Du Bois...stomach-turning stuff.

Another thing is that it's not just about whiteness, and I think it's simplistic to say as much. Most Indians and Chinese kids around my way were just as suburban-middle-class-ized as whites, and while there was ethnic segregation in school and in life generally, it's certainly not the prejudice and oppression that working-class Blacks and Latinos are shouldered with, not even close. So why is it "white privilege"? Being inaccurate is simply not an option here.

With everything happening in the world today, especially the US, revolutionary socialists must remember that unity of all nations is at the center of our goal. Alienating the workers of any ethnicity, whether or not it's intended, is unacceptable and a Christmas-wrapped gift to the right-wing. Analysis on "white privilege" has its place, sure, but if there's any term in the whole of leftist terminology that is dangerous when misapplied, this is it. If you're going to employ the term, USE IT WISELY.

PS, the historical basis of the CNN article is just stupid, the author has no clue. Yeah, whites had all the power after the fall of Rome...except for the Magyars, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Crimean Tatars and just about everyone else before the 18th Century. Yeah, it's impossible to feel oppression if you're white...just ask homeless white children in every major US city. Honestly, there are so many idiots who don't know the first thing about history and just use "white privilege" to substitute for logic and analysis that it's impossible for me to take "white privilege" seriously sometimes. A shame, because like I said, the term does have its place.

If I have the time I'll come back and post what I think a progressive, constructive attitude from "whites" can be. I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a white American revolutionary at this moment in history, and I hope I can give some thoughts on that. Here's a hint: impotent petty-bourgeois shame isn't part of it.

[cska]

PS, the historical basis of the CNN article is just stupid, the author has no clue. Yeah, whites had all the power after the fall of Rome...except for the Magyars, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Crimean Tatars and just about everyone else before the 18th Century.

Yes, that part bothered me somewhat. He needs to re-examine the historical standing of European society. At the same time, though, he is partly right in that Western Europeans have generally not been ruled over by non-whites for quite a long time.

[khad]

Yes, that part bothered me somewhat. He needs to re-examine the historical standing of European society. At the same time, though, he is partly right in that Western Europeans have generally not been ruled over by non-whites for quite a long time.
It's more race-denying bullshit.

Those pre-modern instances of "non-white" "imperialism" never had the epistemology of race attached to them. To give you an example, most Crimean Tatars were "Europeans" adopted into the Mongol tribes.

Col. Amet-Khan Sultan, an example of a Crimean Tatar:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gdroq_aO8Zw/Rrl9KyMEBxI/AAAAAAAAAJg/a4XM438CCfc/s1600-h/krimtatar-amet.jpghttp://www.testpilot.ru/memo/70/img/120/sultan.jpg

Race is an entirely modern phenomenon rooted in the processes of European empire.

[cska]

It's more race-denying bullshit.

Those pre-modern instances of "non-white" "imperialism" never had the epistemology of race attached to them. To give you an example, most Crimean Tatars were "Europeans" adopted into the Mongol tribes.

Good point.

[counterblast]

What's really disturbing (and profoundly conservative I might as well) is that we still insist on lumping people into such arbitrary categories as 'race,' when genetics has proven these bunk time and time again.

Nonetheless, so called leftists continue to enjoy scoring points talking about how bad black people have it and how good white people have it. Besides, the whole concept of 'white privilege' is a crock of shit, and every time someone brings it up, what they are really doing is obscuring the actual, structural differences that give people privilege in capitalist society.


What is really a crock of shit, is that you attempt to use scientific fact to somehow dismiss the lived realities of many people of color.

Did it ever occur that scientific fact has almost no social relevance in America, a country where only half the population believe in something as elementary as evolution?

Do you think if it was scientifically proven that humans worked best communally rather than competitively, communism would suddenly become universally accepted and capitalists would give their factories to the workers?

And "scoring points"? With who? Did it even occur to you that not everyone on RevLeft is white?

And whiteness isn't some obscure or vague concept. It is structural.


Furthermore, lumping everyone who's not white into the category of 'people of color' is pretty whack too. None of the 'people of color' I know consider themselves at all to be 'people of color.' This folks, is what is called identity politics.All politics are identity politics. Whether you're talking about a "worker" in a factory or a "Black man" in a ghetto.

[La Comédie Noire]

I was just talking about this. The denial of the importance of identity politics is one of the white working class's biggest hurdles to class consciousness. the rejection of fake equality is at once a demand for real equality.


And whiteness isn't some obscure or vague concept. It is structural.

Yes.

[Raúl Duke]

Do some of you think white privileged is a universal or semi-universal construct/thing (i.e. outside of European/white nations)?

I mean in PR, the concept of white privileged doesn't exist, the left here has probably never heard of the term, etc...
In fact, if anything, if you appear to be "white", more so as "American", you could possibly be treated detrimentally here.

When I came to the U.S., I kind of found the concept to be...confused. It seems to take the quality of "being white-skinned" as something that extends a negative influence. Personally, I find that the idea of "white privilege" should only be understood as something, a condition or circumstances, that arises due to racism (an outside force) and not something that is innate with being white.

Yet, sometimes I find this idea being presented in fashion that boderline suggests that privilege is innate with being white and mostly an idea used to elicit white/liberal guilt which really I don't see how this particular emotion/etc helps at all.

People should stop being all hung up about it and just face the cause of this, racism, directly.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think the concept of "white privilege" is an inversion of racial oppression in the US. It looks at the struggle for liberation as a passive thing, and is an academic concept that is essentially useless for fighting racism.

"Privilege" is not the problem in US society - racism and oppression are. Is it a "privilege" to have your rights respected? Our goal should not be to get rid of so-called white/straight/male/native "privilege" but to fight for everyone to have their rights respected as much as is possible in capitalist society while building for a movement to replace capitalism with permanent liberation.

If whites are "privilaged" for not being racially profiled, then are black males privileged over arabs since arabs are subjected to racial profiling in planes - are Arabs privileged over blacks because they are not targeted by cops as much?

Finally, listen to what academic promoters of "whiteness theory" and "white privilege" say is the answer to ending racism: usually its something along the lines of "white people have to recognize that they are privileged in US society". A much clearer way and much more revolutionary way to put this is, people from oppressed groups AND non-oppressed groups need to unite and smash all forms of oppression!

White privilege is at best an academic approach and at worst a white liberal way to understand racism in the US imo. I'm surprised this view holds so much currency among radicals - as working class revolutionaries I think we should know the vast majority of society IS NOT privileged under capitalism.

[BBKing]

It's more race-denying bullshit.

Those pre-modern instances of "non-white" "imperialism" never had the epistemology of race attached to them. To give you an example, most Crimean Tatars were "Europeans" adopted into the Mongol tribes.

Col. Amet-Khan Sultan, an example of a Crimean Tatar:

Race is an entirely modern phenomenon rooted in the processes of European empire.
Well that's not factual at all.

Arab aristocrats were developing race 'consciousness' as the slave networks in and out of Africa ballooned. We see authors like Al-Jahiz having to defend very early on black intelligence against a growing tide of prejudice. Scholars like Bernard Lewis indicate that during the later stages we see a similar development to what occurred in early America. Arabs were barred from being treated the same as those of pale or black complexion and conversion to Islam eventually didn't mean a slave would be released.

It's no coincidence that Arab states were developing mercantile tendencies while these racist sentiments emerged, either.

[khad]

Well that's not factual at all.

Arab aristocrats were developing race 'consciousness' as the slave networks in and out of Africa ballooned. We see authors like Al-Jahiz having to defend very early on black intelligence against a growing tide of prejudice. Scholars like Bernard Lewis indicate that during the later stages we see a similar development to what occurred in early America. Arabs were barred from being treated the same as those of pale or black complexion and conversion to Islam eventually didn't mean a slave would be released.

It's no coincidence that Arab states were developing mercantile tendencies while these racist sentiments emerged, either.
Again, mere prejudice does not equal scientific, systematized race. There's actually a lot written on how the enlightenment contributed to a cosmology of racial ordering that placed non-europeans in virtually manichean opposition to European civilization.

The difference between slavery in the Muslim world and slavery in Euro-imperialism was 1) many groups and not just sub-saharan Africans were taken as slaves and 2) many slaves were able to rise to considerable rank and influence. While differences in treatment were present, it was not the absolutely specific form of racialized chattel slavery that the Western Europeans practiced.

[BBKing]

Again, mere prejudice does not equal scientific, systematized race. There's actually a lot written on how the enlightenment contributed to a cosmology of racial ordering that placed non-europeans in virtually manichean opposition to European civilization.

The difference between slavery in the Muslim world and slavery in Euro-imperialism was 1) many groups and not just sub-saharan Africans were taken as slaves and 2) many slaves were able to rise to considerable rank and influence. While differences in treatment were present, it was not the absolutely specific form of racialized chattel slavery that the Western Europeans practiced.

What started out as mere prejudice developed into a coherent form of racism where the elite Arab aristocrats and merchants viewed Africans and East Europeans as inferior, especially the former. Arabs made peace within their own communities circa 14th century. Black slaves were always priced lower than their Turkish counterparts. The issue is still sensitive for the Muslim world as it clearly violates the principles espoused in the Quran, but writers from that time period were not shying away from it.

“Is there anything more vile than black slaves, of less good and more evil than they?”
or
"The only people who accept slavery are the Negroes, owing to their low degree of humanity and their proximity to the animal stage...”

I'd post a citation but the forum doesn't allow it. White-on-black slavery advanced at a much faster pace due to the strategy employed by the Dutch which were later replicated, whereas Arab practices usually created an artificial scarcity, but it was clearly racist. Pursuit of wealth has a tendency to do that.

Edit- Why was it necessary to leave me with a negative reputation? I was just picking a name out of the hat with whom people are familiar with. I could use Arabic scholars if people prefer.

[Raúl Duke]

Hmm...I'm interested in hearing more about this alleged Arab racism that developed allegedly independently from the influence of whites...

[BBKing]

yale. edu/glc/events/race/Hunwick.pdf
Does that link work?

Page 20 talks about blackness being equated to slavery, but the entire article is a good read.

[Il Medico]

"All you straight people are privileged and if you deny that you are privileged then you are homophobic straight supremacist bastards"

But are straight people actually privileged? Sure, they don't have to put up with homophobia and the other shit I do as a queer, but are straight workers my oppressors? I don't think so. Are they somehow bad and "privileged" not to have to put up with the extra oppression? Not at all. Privilege implies that they have that is something that is not entitled to them, not being subjected to social construct based oppression IS something that EVERYONE is entitled to. Just because one group within the working class is oppressed on an issue such as race or sexuality does not make other non similarly oppressed members of the working class "oppressors" with "white" or "straight" privilege.

Taking the path of pointing how "privileged" white workers are isn't going to solve the problem of racism. It rather, will just create resentment between white and black, and thus further divide the working class against itself. No matter how much you try, you can not say that a Gay Black Female capitalist is more oppressed than a straight white male worker. The idea of White privilege vs black oppression allows for race (or any other dividing force) to be the main divider instead of class. Racially (or otherwise) oppressed people will see bourgeois members of their race as more like them than other workers of the non-racially oppressed race, which only hurts working class unity.

And promoting ideas that so clearly draws the line as race, rather than class, is not something any leftist should be doing. Non-racially oppressed workers need not be told how privileged they are and how they need to feel guilty for no being extra oppressed and if they admit their privilege for not having extra oppression that the problem will go away. No, what non extra oppressed workers need to be told is that it is not because of them that other workers are oppressed along racial, gender, or sexual lines, but that the system of class, that capitalism, and the divisive structural oppression that goes with it are responsible for these affronts to humanity.

[Raúl Duke]

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine in New Jersey who studied a year in the same university as I'm in at Florida.

He remembered that he was warned by a member of an activist group (I'm of the opinion that the people who tend to hold these "privilege" views and a strong focus on identity politics tend to be liberals, not actual conscious radicals, from my experience.) about his "white privilege" (I was never told this, but I guess its because I'm Puerto Rican, although I pass for white) back in Florida.

In the red lobster in NJ his (my friend's) employer put him up with these special positions or side tasks which did not entail any extra pay but just more extra work/shenanigans. He (my friend) perceived that they put him in these things because he was white and spoke English naturally compared to his co-workers. In the car at the turnpike we joked on how "white privilege" fucked him over in his job by making him do these worthless tasks (like attend some dumb meetings) for nothing extra.


And promoting ideas that so clearly draws the line as race, rather than class, is not something any leftist should be doing. Non-racially oppressed workers need not be told how privileged they are and how they need to feel guilty for no being extra oppressed and if they admit their privilege for not having extra oppression that the problem will go away. No, what non extra oppressed workers need to be told is that it is not because of them that other workers are oppressed along racial, gender, or sexual lines, but that the system of class, that capitalism, and the divisive structural oppression that goes with it are responsible for these affronts to humanity. I think many leftists hold this view, that's why as I mentioned earlier the people who talk about privilege tend to be, from what I seen, liberals of sorts (particularly liberal activists). Incidentally, they tend to focus more on identity politics than on class war and sometimes, in my experience in SFA (among the activists, the members of the CIW seem to care less about identity politics and view the issue more as a class issue), seem to use these identity politics in an implicit manner to move an issue away from class war (Immokalee workers are exploited because of capitalism, the system, because of class) to towards identity (Immokalee workers are exploited because of ethnicity and/or race.)

[which doctor]

What is really a crock of shit, is that you attempt to use scientific fact to somehow dismiss the lived realities of many people of color.
I don't dismiss the lived realities of 'people of color,' but I do recognize that there's a lot more to racism than simply color, and identity politics is entirely inadequate when it comes to dealing with the problems of racism.


Did it ever occur that scientific fact has almost no social relevance in America, a country where only half the population believe in something as elementary as evolution?Then its a question of how we can make it socially relevant. But this wouldn't solve the problem either. You could get rid of racism, and we could live in a color blind society, but black people would still be disproportionately poor compared to whites (at least in the US). Then it would no longer be a problem of racism, these people wouldn't be poor and discriminated against because they were black, but just because they were poor, and poverty perpetuates poverty.


Do you think if it was scientifically proven that humans worked best communally rather than competitively, communism would suddenly become universally accepted and capitalists would give their factories to the workers?
For one, you pose a false dichotomy between communalism and competition. Under capitalism, we already work communally, this is a fundamental characteristic of industrial commodity production, the problem is that the means of production are privately owned. Furthermore, a color-blind society is completely within the limits of capitalism; a communist society is not.

And "scoring points"? With who? Did it even occur to you that not everyone on RevLeft is white?
Scoring points with guilty liberals?


And whiteness isn't some obscure or vague concept. It is structural.It may have been more structural when we had things like legalized apartheid in South Africa or the one-drop rule in the US, but whiteness, and race in general, have always been both biologically, and perceptually, vague.


All politics are identity politics. Whether you're talking about a "worker" in a factory or a "Black man" in a ghetto.I hope you aren't serious.

[which doctor]

I was just talking about this. The denial of the importance of identity politics is one of the white working class's biggest hurdles to class consciousness. the rejection of fake equality is at once a demand for real equality.
:rolleyes: The funny, or maybe sad now that I think about it, thing about your statement is that the reality is just the opposite. The embracing of identity politics by the left that happened in the 60's -70's is what led to the disintegration of proletarian politics. Each identity was given their own liberation struggle, such as women's lib, black lib, students movements, etc., but in the wake of all of these supposedly groundbreaking movements, we're left wondering what good any of them did. The election of Barack Obama drew this line quite sharply. On the one hand the problems caused by racism don't seem to have improved drastically since 60's, but we've acheived something that would have been considered impossible a few decades ago, the election of a black president in the US, and this event is celebrated as an historic achievement for black politics. And Left politics seems all the more impotent in its wake. With the election of a right-wing, black president, you both have the triumph of identity politics, and their complete failure to be an effective anti-racist critique of capitalism.

[gorillafuck]

But are straight people actually privileged? Sure, they don't have to put up with homophobia and the other shit I do as a queer, but are straight workers my oppressors? I don't think so. Are they somehow bad and "privileged" not to have to put up with the extra oppression? Not at all. Privilege implies that they have that is something that is not entitled to them, not being subjected to social construct based oppression IS something that EVERYONE is entitled to.
Hit the nail on the head.

[hammer&sickle]

White priviledge and the super exploitation of black workers was and is the SINGLE biggest issue that has kept both races in poverty. Anyone who has studied at least a little of U.S history cannot possible deny this and keep a straight face. Every single progressive moment from the American Revolution, Civil War and Reconstruction through the labor struggles of the 30's and 40's have been defeated because white and blacks would not and could not unite.

There was an economic basis for this disunity, the mostly white middle class and white working class objectively benefitted from the subjugation and special oppression of black and brown people here in the U.S and abroad..they owed their standard of living to that special oppression and super exploitation. The ruling class could afford to treat white workers a tad bit better and the relatively high standard of living white and "middle class" people had made for a loyal and willing participant in the US colonializaton of the rest of the world.

The opening salvo in the ruling class's attack on the safety net was made into a black thing..welfare queen driving a Caddy. Once the safety net is totally destroyed and both white and black workers stand shoulder to shoulder on the unemployment line there might be a real basis for unity.if this happens no force on earth can stop us.