Would racism exist under anarchism?

[thriller]

So me and my buddy, whose an anarchist, were chatting about racism. I (being a communist) said that racism wouldn't exist under socialism because a. classism would vanish, and b. there would be a state to fight racist agendas. He said under anarchism racism wouldn't exist because, there wouldn't be classism, and there would be no state to oppress one group of people (whites vs blacks or whatever). Although my thought is that since there would be total freedom under anarchism, people would have the freedom to be racist. Am I completely off the mark here?

[Quail]

Ideally, as well as acheiving a stateless society, we want to challenge and change people's attitudes towards things like sexism, racism, etc. I don't think it's possible to acheive anarchism if there are a lot of racist attitudes around. Racism divides the working class.

[Triple A]

I think in anarchy people would be educated to know racism is stupid. There would not even exist the word racism because there would not exist the concept of race.

That is what I think

[Reznov]

So me and my buddy, whose an anarchist, were chatting about racism. I (being a communist) said that racism wouldn't exist under socialism because a. classism would vanish, and b. there would be a state to fight racist agendas. He said under anarchism racism wouldn't exist because, there wouldn't be classism, and there would be no state to oppress one group of people (whites vs blacks or whatever). Although my thought is that since there would be total freedom under anarchism, people would have the freedom to be racist. Am I completely off the mark here?

What exactly do you mean by a state to fight racist agendas? Is Black Pride a racist agenda? White Pride an agenda?

I know you like to say "Well under socialism it wont exist" but I doubt it will.

If these kind of issues come up how do you "fight" these racist agendas?

[Revolution starts with U]

No socialist can be a racist. But, also, no socialist can claim they can end racism alone. Only the racists themselves can end racism, by stopping their racist tendencies.
If socialism becomes the dominant cultural norm, racism will only exist in small pockets.

[thriller]

What exactly do you mean by a state to fight racist agendas? Is Black Pride a racist agenda? White Pride an agenda?

I know you like to say "Well under socialism it wont exist" but I doubt it will.

If these kind of issues come up how do you "fight" these racist agendas?

By a state to fight racist agendas I mean this: Say a group of white supremacists comes to town and wants to set up a school system that is racial divided. In socialism, there would be a state, run by the workers, that would, most likely, say: "Sorry, an overwhelming majority of people do not want this."
Under anarchism, with complete autonomy, there would be no state to say the white supremacists can't set up white-only schools, even though a majority of the people may disagree with the racists.

I guess I agree with what the others, and my friend, said; that under anarchy, class would be gone, therefore racism would be as well. And people would be educated on the subject matter.
Just wondering how the politics of the society would "officially" deal with it.

[ZeroNowhere]

I don't think that labour becoming directly social will magically cause racism to evaporate. However, I do think that racism could be eliminated, or at least minimized, through a gradual process involving education, etc.

[PoliticalNightmare]

Although my thought is that since there would be total freedom under anarchism, people would have the freedom to be racist. Am I completely off the mark here?

Well, you can't control what people think.

I think that once the class system has gone and bourgeois propaganda has gone off the telly and people realise its not immigrants, etc. affecting their livelihood but rich people, that we will become more open to other races and cultures and sexualities.

Freedom to pursue education totally free, in our own learning styles and for as long as we want will also increase tolerance and understanding in my opinion. Also there is the co-operative nature of businesses, etc. meaning we will have to co-operate with a wide diversity of ethnic peoples.

This thread raises another interesting question: how, in specific detail does capitalism and statism create social problems such as racism, homophobia, drug/alcohol abuse, domestic violence, etc.

Cheers.

[Magón]

Well obviously in a strictly speaking Anarchist Society, racism would cease to exist. People, like many things they'd have to change about themselves, would also be how they identify people. Saying, "Oh hey, I'm a White guy, so I'm obviously better then the Blacks, Asians, Hispanics," whatever would cease to exist.

You could still have race, and the concept of race. But like those who are true anti-racists, race doesn't change the fact that we're all still human, we all still bleed, and we all have the same emotions for one thing or another. In an Anarchist Society, I'd still be a Hispanic and be classified as such, and my girlfriend would be too. My White friends would still be Caucasians, etc. It's just the mindset of saying, "Hey since you have darker melanin in your skin, you're a sub-race compared to me." Would cease to exist and people would see Blacks, Hispanics, Whites, Asians, etc. as all equal in the sphere of the Human Race.

[Widerstand]

First off, a society with a state is not communist, at least not under Marxist terms.

on topic: I think the triple oppression thesis holds quite some merit. Racism and sexism won't magically vanish with a changed mode of production. It takes active struggle against them, and in fact classicism cannot be successfully combated without equal efforts against sexism (including genderism and heterosexism) and racism (and it's brother, nationalism).

[Apoi_Viitor]

By a state to fight racist agendas I mean this: Say a group of white supremacists comes to town and wants to set up a school system that is racial divided. In socialism, there would be a state, run by the workers, that would, most likely, say: "Sorry, an overwhelming majority of people do not want this."

What you described above is Anarchism.... There is a difference between structures of governance and a state. Anarchists wish to abolish hierarchical forms of government (which is a state) and replace them with democratic forms of government (anarchism).


Under anarchism, with complete autonomy, there would be no state to say the white supremacists can't set up white-only schools, even though a majority of the people may disagree with the racists.

No Anarchist calls for "complete autonomy", that's just a meaningless abstraction... We're materialists too...

[Reznov]

By a state to fight racist agendas I mean this: Say a group of white supremacists comes to town and wants to set up a school system that is racial divided. In socialism, there would be a state, run by the workers, that would, most likely, say: "Sorry, an overwhelming majority of people do not want this."
Under anarchism, with complete autonomy, there would be no state to say the white supremacists can't set up white-only schools, even though a majority of the people may disagree with the racists.

I guess I agree with what the others, and my friend, said; that under anarchy, class would be gone, therefore racism would be as well. And people would be educated on the subject matter.
Just wondering how the politics of the society would "officially" deal with it.

What if Black Supremacists said they wanted to start their own school, but wanted it to be black-only because they wanted a school where African thought could flourish in a majority white country? Also, this is to help protect their culture.

What if the majority said no to this? And then the Black Nationalists began calling our Socialist State racist and began demanding equal rights and a right to preserve their culture.

What happens then?


And, what if White Nationalists come in with the same message? Not as supremacists but to preserve their European Culture in an increasingly Hispanic population?


Or will there be a bi-standard for anyone that is not white to have these special institutions, while whites will get none?

This may sound like a silly thing to be asking to some of you extreme anti-racists to the point where your actually kind of biased against "white".

But I think if you could show that in Socialism, only the workers will matter, we can bring more moderates right wingers over to the Left.

[Nolan]

Yes, racism will still exist, and all kinds of reactionary mindsets will be left over from the pre-socialist world. This is one reason we need a workers state.

[berlitz23]

The institution of any new model does not necessarily eradicate the residual elements of antecedent system. Rather, in context of your question we would have to transform the lingustical structures as well, basically radically reconfiguring the basis of our thought, attempting to understand how the concept of racism itself enconsces itself in various systems (ideological, political, race, gender). An anarchist society will not be the panacea, rather the springboard I believe, but first we must attend to how we become seduced into different schemes of thinking that are detrimental to the cause of eliminating racism itself. It is difficult to concieve of recognizing the irreducible singularies that constitute every subject of any discourse or institution, you invariably have to create a form of 'law' that will in a sense discriminate, exclude, and marginalize a sector of the population, which could potentially have racist undertones. I'm not saying it is futile by any means, but we need to be scrupulous in how we attend and address these questions, and understand their presuppositions.

[Ocean Seal]

So me and my buddy, whose an anarchist, were chatting about racism. I (being a communist) said that racism wouldn't exist under socialism because a. classism would vanish, and b. there would be a state to fight racist agendas. He said under anarchism racism wouldn't exist because, there wouldn't be classism, and there would be no state to oppress one group of people (whites vs blacks or whatever). Although my thought is that since there would be total freedom under anarchism, people would have the freedom to be racist. Am I completely off the mark here?
Racism will exist in any workers state regardless of tendency; however, as time moves forward racism can be eliminated. Remember as people begin to get more, there is no longer the sentiment that I am losing my job to race x (because everyone has a job) and race y own everything (as corporatism becomes part of the past). I feel that racism is bottomline caused by material conditions and it could be destroyed with equality in all socialist societies.

[Magón]

What if Black Supremacists said they wanted to start their own school, but wanted it to be black-only because they wanted a school where African thought could flourish in a majority white country? Also, this is to help protect their culture.

What if the majority said no to this? And then the Black Nationalists began calling our Socialist State racist and began demanding equal rights and a right to preserve their culture.

Well they wouldn't be called Nationalists if they're talking about their Black Culture as a whole. They'd be called Racialists which obviously comes as apart of the terminology Racialism. Which, if they want to preserve their culture, that's fine as long as it doesn't impose any sort of hierarchal or anything that would go against saying that this man or woman is a lower person than we are, etc.

[Revy]

What if Black Supremacists said they wanted to start their own school, but wanted it to be black-only because they wanted a school where African thought could flourish in a majority white country? Also, this is to help protect their culture.

What if the majority said no to this? And then the Black Nationalists began calling our Socialist State racist and began demanding equal rights and a right to preserve their culture.

What happens then?

And, what if White Nationalists come in with the same message? Not as supremacists but to preserve their European Culture in an increasingly Hispanic population?

Or will there be a bi-standard for anyone that is not white to have these special institutions, while whites will get none?

This may sound like a silly thing to be asking to some of you extreme anti-racists to the point where your actually kind of biased against "white".

But I think if you could show that in Socialism, only the workers will matter, we can bring more moderates right wingers over to the Left.


Why the hell do children need to be educated only with others of their own ethnicity? African culture and history can be learned by all, in addition to all other regions of the world. It is racist to say that a person of African descent cannot learn from the experiences, history, and arts of Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Native Americans, and Polynesians and only needs to be taught about Africa all the time. Humans need to be taught about humans. There is no point in religious schools either. Things like Catholic/Christian schools or Islamic schools are ridiculous. I don't see how religious babble is helpful to the development of a person's knowledge and intelligence. People should be taught about all major religions, their history and their beliefs, encouraged to explore different religions and decide for themselves what they do or do not believe (if they are led to atheism).

The left never has supported so-called "reverse racism" in fact the opposite is more true if you look at the leaders of many popular socialist parties in America all of them are white heterosexual males, except for mine which has a male and female Co-Chair. Some parties also champion a class reductionist approach which alienates the liberation struggles of oppressed groups.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think answering this question depends on how we understand where racism and similar oppressions and divisions ultimately come from in class societies. IMO these kids of divisions are connected to class society in general: in order for a minority to rule over the majority, that majority has to be broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks. This is why different laws were set up in Colonial-era North America for white and black servants and then later, different laws for white and black freemen (jim-crow).

Second, ruling classes have to justify their rule over others and so they create racist or sexist justifications for the inequality they force on us: slavery is ok, because blacks can't take care of themselves, according to the US slaveocracy. Today, they still blame black people (and other groups) for their own oppression and use their "inferior moral values or cultures" to justify systemic police harassment and profiling and imprisonment. What did Obama have to say about education inequality for working class blacks: that fathers watch sports-center rather than teach their kids and that black students make fun of smart classmates by saying they "Act white". Translation: education is not underfunded, black culture just breeds academic laziness.:rolleyes:

Third, capitalism makes workers compete with each-other for the crumbs of society, and this exacerbates or allows these kinds of divisions to really take root among workers in society. My example is the austerity that the ruling class wants to push on us... because workers are fighting over crumbs, some workers are susceptible to arguments about "greedy" pensioners or state-workers or teachers. And of course the racist scapegoating of immigrants is another really dark example of this.

So a society run collectively and cooperatively where everyone is essentially the ruling class (communism/anarchy) would not have this kind of class interest in maintaining oppression and divisions and workers would have more of an interest in cooperating, rather than competing - you know like that Marx line I can never remember correctly: the advancement of one is tied to the advancement of all. Or something like that:blushing:.

But this is the wide-view. There would obviously be a lot of shit held-over from the past and a lot of bigotry or elitist ideas - particularly in the short-term after a revolution. But this is why IMO for a revolution to be possible in the first place, workers and revolutionaries would have to have addressed many of the divisions in the working class. They probably won't be able to "solve" these problems, but by making a movement that takes fighting oppression and divisions seriously, they can build the solidarity necessary to create a strong working class movement with the possibility of overthrowing capitalism. IMO this solidarity will have to be then backed up right after the revolution with workers making concrete attempts to overcome racism/sexism/homophobia like how the old sexist and anti-gay laws were thrown out after the Russian Revolution. This is not because workers need to be told, but just because solidarity and good wishes alone can make up for hundreds of years of systematic capitalist racial/gender/sexual inequality.

[Ovi]

Yes, racism will still exist, and all kinds of reactionary mindsets will be left over from the pre-socialist world. This is one reason we need a workers state.
Because a state will wave a magic wand and racism will disappear just like that. On the other hand, anarchists are forbidden from using the magic wand. It's in the interest of the upper class to keep people divided by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religion; once the state is gone, together with capitalism, the last organ that has an interest in keeping people divided will disappear.

By a state to fight racist agendas I mean this: Say a group of white supremacists comes to town and wants to set up a school system that is racial divided. In socialism, there would be a state, run by the workers, that would, most likely, say: "Sorry, an overwhelming majority of people do not want this."
Under anarchism, with complete autonomy, there would be no state to say the white supremacists can't set up white-only schools, even though a majority of the people may disagree with the racists.

It's pretty clear that if the vast majority of people don't want to build socialism, there won't be socialism, whether there's a state or not to impose it. Racism is not simply a belief. In the case of a white only school, racists will have to use force to impose their views and anarchists have all the rights to fight back.

[Reznov]

Well they wouldn't be called Nationalists if they're talking about their Black Culture as a whole. They'd be called Racialists which obviously comes as apart of the terminology Racialism. Which, if they want to preserve their culture, that's fine as long as it doesn't impose any sort of hierarchal or anything that would go against saying that this man or woman is a lower person than we are, etc.

Just a quick question, you approved the Black "Racialist" one.

So you would approve the White 'Racialist" request to?

Or would that be be frowned upon, while the black racialists would get the o.k. in the hopes of Racial equality?

[Axle]

Racism would go away, but not immediately and not without effort. It'd take a few generations of education and propaganda to relieve centuries of institutionalized bigotry.

[syndicat]

well, capitalism won't be replaced by workers running things if the working class is not sufficiently united as a force. and as long as injuries done to specific subgroups are ignored, it won't be united. so this means that a very powerful working class movement, of a sort that would have the capacity to do away with capitalism, would already have to be working against racism.

it makes no sense to ask the question if you think of people as they are now being the same because people have to change or there won't be any socialism.

racism exists both as mindset or even unconscious attitudes and also as a pattern of inequality in access to resources. presumably a revolutionary movement that is working for class unity has some sort of program and struggles that address the racial inequality.

i don't understand the question as posed because it's not clear why this "socialist state" is supposed to be the guaranteed solution. in the USSR Russian chauvinism persisted despite years of rule by a "Socialist State".

also, maybe the OP is thinking of anarchism as meaning there is no collective social self-government by the masses. but that's not the case. under libertarian socialism or anarchist socialism there is a structure of social governance. it's just structured differently than as proposed by Marxist-Leninists. so an "anarchist society" doesn't mean "anything goes."

and if you have an undemocratic top-down apparatus ruling over the people under the guise of "socialism" why do the oppressed have any guarantees at all about it supporting their concerns?

does the struggle against racial inequality end because the working class has seized the means of production and set up some sort of highly democratic rule by the masses? No. prejudiced attitudes are still going to exist among various parts of the population. as the society works overtly for ensuring equal access to resources and overcoming the racist patterns, the old racist attitudes become de-legitimized...even as they have already been to some extent as a result of the struggles of the '50s-'70s era. but it's good to think of the struggle against racism not just in terms of "attitudes" but in terms of how resources are available, such as free quality education at all age levels, provision of health care, housing and so on.