Black Nationalism?

[Drowzy_Shooter]

Thoughts.... opinions.... ?

[Althusser]

White nationalism, black nationalism. Nationalism is detrimental altogether. I'm not saying anyone should give up their culture, but people like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddRNy4MISkg) are bad news.

[Crux]

Black nationalism in the U.S or sub-saharan Africa?
As I said in theat other thread I think black nationalism is essentially a petit-bourgeoisie ideology borne out of a reaction to white racism and colonialism.
But I think you have to be a bit more specific with your questions unless you want me to just go off and write an eassay on this subject.
Malcolm X for example progressed from his original Black nationalism to socialism, and the BPP took on where he left off.

[antiracist]

There is no "Black people" in Africa. They have nations and nation states there. So you have many "nationalism" among these peoples.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

antiracist (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=62579) http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/statusicon/user_online.gif
Banned

HAHAHAHA thank fuck

But yeah...nationalism of any kind is something I disagree with in principle...I appreciate where it comes from and that can be part of a backlash to imperialism and instituional racism..but ultimately feel it's gains are minimal (in the sense that international capital can't be truly defeated without a united, global effort that's not hung up on this flag or that ethnic grouping or whatever)

[Jimmie Higgins]

Black nationalism in the U.S or sub-saharan Africa?
As I said in theat other thread I think black nationalism is essentially a petit-bourgeoisie ideology borne out of a reaction to white racism and colonialism.
But I think you have to be a bit more specific with your questions unless you want me to just go off and write an eassay on this subject.
Malcolm X for example progressed from his original Black nationalism to socialism, and the BPP took on where he left off.

Yes I generally agree although I think Malcolm progressed from a more confused nationalism to a more progressive nationalism. He never looked to the white working class even when he began talking about Socialism nor did he ever consciously see a difference in the way black workers and the black middle class experience racism. To the end he talked about cross-class racial unity even though he was so sharp on identifying with the concerns of working class blacks and criticizing the middle-class politics of the Civil Rights movement.

Anyway, I think it's an important distinction for two reasons:

1) I just don't think it was accurate to say he was a Socialist even though in his last year he identified with African Socialism and met with Che and the SWP etc. He was looking for allies for the black struggle and was seeing it in an international context of National Liberation struggles of that time. So he was a nationalist who was being drawn in a more progressive direction towards international struggles of the oppressed, but not a socialist IMO. Claiming that he was one, or was about to explicitly state he was a socialist kinda opens us up to claims of legacy co-option by contemporary black nationalists and since the anarchist and Marxist movements in the US are still under-represented in black communities, it can be a damaging charge that's difficult to shake. So IMO, it's better to emphasize his trajectory and where some of his criticisms of the system overlap with the conclusions drawn by workers movements in the past and Socialist Revolutionaries.

2) Nationalism can have progressive tendencies and express working class concerns in a mixed sort of way. Malcolm's last year was pretty amazing in terms of the development of his critique. He moved away from the NOI's pretty horrible sexist attitudes and of course saw that blacks could find allies in non-black communities of oppressed people or conscious revolutionaries. The problem with Nationalism isn't that it can't have progressive aspects - in fact socialists movements can develop out of splits within a nationalist movement such as the nationalism of Black Power led to the BPP. This is the confused nature of the nationalism of the oppressed - because the entire oppressed group is impacted, it's actually easy to join in opposition to repression in a cross-class way. But the problem is moving forward from there because while all oppressed are impacted, they are impacted differently according to class. So really it's a dead-end as far as liberation goes. Malcolm turned away from the NOI's explicitly capitalists separatist nationalism to African Socialism and Arab Nationalism - hell he even thought that 3rd world countries would aid US blacks through the UN - but where did these revolutions lead - not to liberation ultimately.

Anyway, I think there's a tendency to pain all nationalism as inherently reactionary, but I think that a more nuanced view of it is important in order to win people to liberatory politics that can ultimately deliver.

[wsg1991]

if you mean an african nationalism movement yes , it's necessary to remove loyalty to tribes and prompt loyalty to a nation . it works and can remove those tribal \ peasantry tensions . and BTW i don't see Nationalism as a problem in a non imperialist country and Africa has 2 major ethnic groups who ( Berbers white \ negroid ) . a nationalism attached to land won't be a trouble as no ethnic superiority \ racism will develop .

i do support African nationalism , not Black nationalism

[Crux]

if you mean an african nationalism movement yes , it's necessary to remove loyalty to tribes and prompt loyalty to a nation . it works and can remove those tribal \ peasantry tensions . and BTW i don't see Nationalism as a problem in a non imperialist country and Africa has 2 major ethnic groups who ( Berbers white \ negroid ) . a nationalism attached to land won't be a trouble as no ethnic superiority \ racism will develop .
While I see where you're coming from, vis a vis superceding tribal lines etc, I think the cross-class alliances implied fundamentally represent a dead end. Take a look at the South Africa of ANC (or the tri-party alliance if you will) for example.

[wsg1991]

While I see where you're coming from, vis a vis superceding tribal lines etc, I think the cross-class alliances implied fundamentally represent a dead end. Take a look at the South Africa of ANC (or the tri-party alliance if you will) for example.

i don't have an idea about South africa ANC , my argument were about the fact that an African Nationalism will not based on ethnicity never a serious racism \ ethnic superiority will arise , it would be attached to a piece of land .
also even if it's a dead end ,

*preventing Western Imperialism from reaching one of his easiest cash cows , Africa . in worst case , even if a ultra right wing party that serves african capital interest is ruling , it would take decades to turn imperialist
*suppressing tribal loyalties which are wrecking havoc there , you should see how did shift things in History

[Comrade Jandar]

Black nationalism does have the potential to be a very progressive force and be stepping stone to the acceptance of socialist ideas. The recognition of class being the basis for conflict in society is the only logical outcome once one sees the flaws of nationalism.

[Goblin]

Nationalism is nationalism

[Comrade Jandar]

Nationalism is nationalism

So you're going to equate black nationalism to, let's say, white nationalism? I don't think so.

[Goblin]

So you're going to equate black nationalism to, let's say, white nationalism? I don't think so.
Whats the difference?

[Tim Cornelis]

There is absolutely nothing progressive about "black nationalism". The idea that African people can only liberate themselves by liberating themselves from the yoke of "whites" is beyond ridiculous.

Black nationalism is the idea that African people can liberate themselves by asserting hegemony of Europeans--it's racist.

ddRNy4MISkg

Such a bastion of progress.

[wsg1991]

Black nationalism is the idea that African people


Such a bastion of progress.

typical , African people =\= Black nationalism , africa is composed of 2 major ethnics , Negroid and Berbers . Egyptian are africans , and they were never black , so is north africa ( about 100 millions population ) they are not BLACK . So know the difference before talking

[Tim Cornelis]

typical , African people =\= Black nationalism ,

I never said that "African people equals black nationalism".


africa is composed of 2 major ethnics , Negroid and Berbers .

Far more than that. There is more genetic variation between "black" African people as there is between "yellow" Asians and "white" Europeans.


Egyptian are africans , and they were never black , so is north africa ( about 100 millions population ) they are not BLACK .

No one is black, not one person in Sub-Sahara Africa is "black". I therefore try not to use terms such as "blacks", "whites", "yellows", and "browns". Just like we commonly use "Asians" instead of "yellows", I use "Africans" instead of "blacks", "Europeans" instead of "whites", "Arabs" instead of "browns", and so forth.

By the way, African can refer to "black" people as well:


af·ri·can/ˈafrikən/Noun: A person from Africa, esp. a black person.
Adjective: Of or relating to Africa or people of African descent


1: a native or inhabitant of Africa
2: a person and especially a black person of African ancestry

So please don't be so quick to judge.

[Comrade Jandar]

As white people, which I assume all of you are, (including me) you are in no position to condemn black nationalism. I know some of you are from outside the states, but a healthy skepticism of the white working class, especially in the south, is definitely warranted considering the very reactionary nature of much of the american proletariat.

[Comrade Jandar]

Whats the difference?

Are you serious?

[Goblin]

Are you serious?
Are you serious?! Its fucking nationalism! It doesnt matter if your black or white, its still racist!

[Comrade Jandar]

Considering that we still very much live in a white supremacist society, I am serious.

[Tim Cornelis]

As white people, which I assume all of you are, (including me) you are in no position to condemn black nationalism. I know some of you are from outside the states, but a healthy skepticism of the white working class, especially in the south, is definitely warranted considering the very reactionary nature of much of the american proletariat.

This is such blatant nonsense. I am Dutch, therefore I cannot denunciate German fascism? I cannot denounce Zionism? We are internationalists meaning we transcend nationalities and races, while you reinforce that notion.

I am in a position to denounce black nationalism.


Considering that we still very much live in a white supremacist society, I am serious.

So the answer to white racism is black racism?

[wsg1991]

I never said that "African people equals black nationalism".



So please don't be so quick to judge.

English is my third language , and as someone who live in north africa and white i came across this many times
seems it was a misunderstanding
but i do support African nationalism , not black nationalism , as that guy you got from YouTube is doing

[Goblin]

Considering that we still very much live in a white supremacist society, I am serious.
Thats true, but would a black supremacist society be any better?

[Jimmie Higgins]

This is such blatant nonsense. I am Dutch, therefore I cannot denunciate German fascism? I cannot denounce Zionism? We are internationalists meaning we transcend nationalities and races, while you reinforce that notion.You can dennounce anyone you want, but if you are serious about the liberation of the working class then in order to be serious about this you must also be serious about ending oppression in capitalism which in turn would suggest not equating the formations of the oppressed with those of the oppressor.

In the US, black nationalism comes from a desire of an oppressed population to get away from that oppression or to build a defense against that oppression. White Nationalism however is based on white supremacy - there is no serious desire for separation from blacks or the expulsion of blacks from the entire country, but the restricting of the rights of blacks to "keep them in their place". Or to paraphrase Malcolm X, if someone comes at you with a knife and wants to rape you, but you grab the knife and stab them - are you the murderer? Is your hatred the same as the attacker's hatred?

Without Black Nationalism, there is still White Nationalism, but without White Nationalism there is no Black Nationalism in the US. There is no logical equivalency of the two.


So the answer to white racism is black racism?What is racism? Is it one individual stereotyping and belittling another, thinking they are better than that other? If that's true then Nerds must suffer racism. But people with pocket protectors aren't systematically denied good loans or restricted in where they can live; people who like Star Trek aren't systematically denied better work positions.

So what is racism, really? A useful definition of racism must include the systematic nature of certain kinds of racially-coded policies and ideological arguments. In the US racism and racist arguments help bolster the power of the ruling class: it divides workers, it provides a cover for the underfunding of education and the increased power of state repressive agencies at the same time; by maintaining racial inequality, poverty and crime are blamed on the victimized group rather than on the system that creates these situations.

By contrast, on a class basis, what does black nationalism do? On the positive side it organizes people against the logic of the ruling class; it challenges the legitimacy of racist ideological arguments and it mobilizes people against oppression. On the negative side, it leads to cross-class organization which generally means that petty-bourgeois interests dominate black nationalist movements; in addition ultimately it can not actually bring about liberation. In most cases actual geographical nationalist movements have been able to overthrow the colonizers and imperialists, but then eventually have to turn to some other major power who takes on that same role. In the US, there is just no way for the black working class to fully liberate itself alone because industry and (although things have largely re-segregated in many ways) communities are too racially inter-connected for one section of the working class to just split from general society. Capitalism creates artificial cultural and racial barriers in part because the system also naturally mixes all workers together - there can be no working class liberation in the US without black liberation and there can be no black liberation without also a class-wide liberation.

So nationalism can't bring freedom (except to the local elites) but it doesn't mean that all nationalisms are the same and have the same effects on class struggle.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Thats true, but would a black supremacist society be any better?What kind of insanity is this? Where in the US is a predominantly black ruling class oppressing white people on the basis of their whiteness? When has this ever seriously been proposed by any black nationalist in the US?

No major black nationalist group in the US has even ever serious advocated ghettoizing whites and restricting their rights. The Garveyites generally advocated black business ownership and famously had a "back to Africa" scheme. The Nation of Islam (the group made famous through Malcolm X, though he moved far to the left of them) idly talked about getting the US to agree to giving a few low-population states to blacks to live in; but the real goal was always organizing the black ghetto and opening Black Muslim-owned and operated businesses and apartments.

So again, what is the goal of black nationalism: to get away from white racism. What is the goal of white nationalism: to keep a particular racial order in society, and order which is beneficial for our ruling class and common oppressor. There is no parity.

[Psy]

Well lets look at the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense 10 point program:

1) We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
2) We want full employment for our people.
3) We want an end to robbery by the CAPITALIST of our Black Community.
4) We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
5) We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.
(6) We want all black men to be exempt from military service.
7) We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of black people.
8) We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
(9) We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in a court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as described by the Constitution of the United States.
(10) We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining will of black people as to their national destiny.

In short they wanted a black workers state and Huey Newton said from there they would talk about working with other communists.

[Tim Cornelis]

You can dennounce anyone you want, but if you are serious about the liberation of the working class then in order to be serious about this you must also be serious about ending oppression in capitalism which in turn would suggest not equating the formations of the oppressed with those of the oppressor.

By supporting African racists?


In the US, black nationalism comes from a desire of an oppressed population to get away from that oppression or to build a defense against that oppression.

By positioning themselves above Europeans.


White Nationalism however is based on white supremacy - there is no serious desire for separation from blacks or the expulsion of blacks from the entire country, but the restricting of the rights of blacks to "keep them in their place".

Nonsense. Most white nationalists are white seperatists these days.


Or to paraphrase Malcolm X, if someone comes at you with a knife and wants to rape you, but you grab the knife and stab them - are you the murderer? Is your hatred the same as the attacker's hatred?

If you want to avenge the oppression by European people by raping people of European descent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_On_Ice), then yes your hatred is the same.


Without Black Nationalism, there is still White Nationalism, but without White Nationalism there is no Black Nationalism in the US. There is no logical equivalency of the two.

Because somehow African people are incapable of holding prejudice against Europeans of their own?

It is like saying that without Zionism there wouldn't be any antisemitism! It is ridiculous.


What is racism? Is it one individual stereotyping and belittling another, thinking they are better than that other? If that's true then Nerds must suffer racism. But people with pocket protectors aren't systematically denied good loans or restricted in where they can live; people who like Star Trek aren't systematically denied better work positions.

So what is racism, really? A useful definition of racism must include the systematic nature of certain kinds of racially-coded policies and ideological arguments. In the US racism and racist arguments help bolster the power of the ruling class: it divides workers, it provides a cover for the underfunding of education and the increased power of state repressive agencies at the same time; by maintaining racial inequality, poverty and crime are blamed on the victimized group rather than on the system that creates these situations.

An African calling for the extermination of all European people is racist (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEqa90XpPw0). An African calling for freedom by killing European babies. An African opposing interracial relationships. All this is racist.

But you tolerate this blatant racism because "it is coming from the mouth of an oppressed".


By contrast, on a class basis, what does black nationalism do? On the positive side it organizes people against the logic of the ruling class; it challenges the legitimacy of racist ideological arguments and it mobilizes people against oppression.

It mobilises people against oppression by proposing another form of oppression!


On the negative side, it leads to cross-class organization which generally means that petty-bourgeois interests dominate black nationalist movements; in addition ultimately it can not actually bring about liberation. In most cases actual geographical nationalist movements have been able to overthrow the colonizers and imperialists, but then eventually have to turn to some other major power who takes on that same role. In the US, there is just no way for the black working class to fully liberate itself alone because industry and (although things have largely re-segregated in many ways) communities are too racially inter-connected for one section of the working class to just split from general society. Capitalism creates artificial cultural and racial barriers in part because the system also naturally mixes all workers together - there can be no working class liberation in the US without black liberation and there can be no black liberation without also a class-wide liberation.

But don't worry, black nationalists have a mighty good solution to inter-racial connection and mixing in the US: banishing and exterminating people of European descent.


So nationalism can't bring freedom (except to the local elites) but it doesn't mean that all nationalisms are the same and have the same effects on class struggle.

All nationalisms have the aim of national supremacy. The only reason black nationalism is tolerated is because it is not dominant.


No major black nationalist group in the US has even ever serious advocated ghettoizing whites and restricting their rights. The Garveyites generally advocated black business ownership and famously had a "back to Africa" scheme. The Nation of Islam (the group made famous through Malcolm X, though he moved far to the left of them) idly talked about getting the US to agree to giving a few low-population states to blacks to live in; but the real goal was always organizing the black ghetto and opening Black Muslim-owned and operated businesses and apartments.

To my knowledge, contemporary white nationalists support white and black separatism. And yes, I've frequently heard black nationalists call for the oppression and genocide of European people.

For example, the results from a poll on black nationalism on the number one white supremacist forum show that (if the results are representative) 1 in 4 white nationalists principally supports black nationalism and almost 2 in 4 white nationalists support black nationalism opportunistically. While only 1 in 5 white nationalists opposes black nationalism and almost 1 in 10 white nationalists have a different opinion.

The results:

I support it, black nationalists have the same goals we do, and wish them the best. 24.60%
I support it, only because it serves white interests for separation, don't care about their fate. 46.03%
I oppose it, because it promotes violence against white people and unites an aggresive crowd. 20.63%
Other. 8.73%


So again, what is the goal of black nationalism: to get away from white racism. What is the goal of white nationalism: to keep a particular racial order in society, and order which is beneficial for our ruling class and common oppressor. There is no parity.

White nationalists, these days, do not want to have Africans in their society. They usually support white separatism. So they don't want a "particular racial order" as they want a "racially pure" society. Similarly, black nationalists aim for the exact same thing.


Well lets look at the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense 10 point program:

1) We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
2) We want full employment for our people.
3) We want an end to robbery by the CAPITALIST of our Black Community.
4) We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
5) We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.
(6) We want all black men to be exempt from military service.
7) We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of black people.
8) We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
(9) We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in a court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as described by the Constitution of the United States.
(10) We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining will of black people as to their national destiny.

In short they wanted a black workers state and Huey Newton said from there they would talk about working with other communists.

This is such nonsense. The Black Panther Party was only black nationalist in its first two years or so. From 1968 (two years after it was founded) the Party moved towards proletarian internationalism. Also note that they revised their ten-point programme by replacing "capitalist" for "white" once they abandoned black nationalism.

From wikipedia:


Curtis Austin states that by late 1968, Black Panther Party ideology had evolved to the point where they began to reject black nationalism and became more a "revolutionary internationalist movement":

(The Party) dropped its wholesale attacks against whites and began to emphasize more of a class analysis of society. Its emphasis on Marxist-Leninist doctrine and its repeated espousal of Maoist statements signaled the group's transition from a revolutionary nationalist to a revolutionary internationalist movement. Every Party member had to study Mao Tse-tung's "Little Red Book" to advance his or her knowledge of peoples' struggle and the revolutionary process

Ironically, the Black Panther Party agrees with me that black nationalism is racist, from wikipedia (that uses Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party by Bobby Seale as its source):


Ultimately, the Panthers condemned black nationalism as "black racism" and became more focused on socialism without racial exclusivity

From the book used as source:

Seale on black nationalism and white supremacy:
"these blacks have a tendency to flock toward a black racism which is parallel to the racism of the Ku Klux Klan". (p. 71)

Seale on black nationalism in the black community:
"black racism is a fault of a few within the black community. Black racism is a very selfish thing." (p. 207)

Bobby Seale on the BBP abandoning black nationalism:
"The problem was a bit of black racism which was hanging on and which was very bad." (p. 205)
"This little faction of cats was hanging on more to black racism than to a progressive revolutionary program." (p. 379)

[Psy]

This is such nonsense. The Black Panther Party was only black nationalist in its first two years or so. From 1968 (two years after it was founded) the Party moved towards proletarian internationalism. Also note that they revised their ten-point programme by replacing "capitalist" for "white" once they abandoned black nationalism.

From wikipedia:



Ironically, the Black Panther Party agrees with me that black nationalism is racist, from wikipedia (that uses Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party by Bobby Seale as its source):[/FONT][/SIZE]



From the book used as source:

Seale on black nationalism and white supremacy:
"these blacks have a tendency to flock toward a black racism which is parallel to the racism of the Ku Klux Klan". (p. 71)

Seale on black nationalism in the black community:
"black racism is a fault of a few within the black community. Black racism is a very selfish thing." (p. 207)

Bobby Seale on the BBP abandoning black nationalism:
"The problem was a bit of black racism which was hanging on and which was very bad." (p. 205)
"This little faction of cats was hanging on more to black racism than to a progressive revolutionary program." (p. 379)
Point 10 a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining will of black people as to their national destiny.

The BPP were focused on the national question for blacks and policy was that in event of a workers state there should be a black nation with some level autonomy which is how Lenin treated nations within the Russian empire after the revolution where nations had their own worker militias within the USSR that answered to their national community.

Nationalism does not equal racism as there is a wide variety of national theory, you can say the BPP leaned more towards civic-nationalism as it progressed but the BPP still held a self-determination stance on the black nationality in the US.

[Manic Impressive]

identity politics of any kind are divisive our goal is to unite.

[Psy]

identity politics of any kind are divisive our goal is to unite.
Not really, see it from the point of view of minority nationalities, you are telling them they have to give up their nationality to join us. This is why Lenin went the other route and told nationalities in the Russian empire the Bolshivks had no interest in destroying their national identity and actually gave nationalities that had some geographic boundaries some autonomy with their own work militias. This is why the USSR did not consist of provinces but republics and within those republics you had providences (Oblasts) with different levels of autonomy.

[Tim Cornelis]

Not really, see it from the point of view of minority nationalities, you are telling them they have to give up their nationality

The problem being?

[Psy]

The problem being?
You are telling them to abandon their culture and history, which also means they abandon their grievances related to nationality. To acknowledge such discrimination you have to acknowledge nationality, as class does not completely explain it, yes class plays a major role but there is also discrimination based on nationality outside that which is why racists in power discriminate against Barack Obama even though he is part of the ruling class.

[Jimmie Higgins]

By positioning themselves above Europeans?I already countered these arguments in the last post. In the US all these arguments you make are by right-wingers who seek to discredit the more radical edge of the black power struggle in order to bury a period of radical struggle in the US.


Nonsense. Most white nationalists are white seperatists these days.Bullshit. White power gangs fight along ethnic lines but it's gang warfare, they may talk about some ideological concepts, but really the actual racist gangs try and "keep X group out of our neighborhood".


If you want to avenge the oppression by European people by raping people of European descent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_On_Ice), then yes your hatred is the same.WTF? BE more specific - there was no "rape platform" in the BBP program or the NOI or any other black nationalist group of note.


Because somehow African people are incapable of holding prejudice against Europeans of their own?Anyone can think anything about anyone. The question is what materially and structurally can happen within capitalism. White Supremacy was the rallying call of the Democrats to restrict votes and "put blacks in their place". White racism is a function and tool of US capitalism however, even when Black Nationalism is pro-capitalist they are not bolstering the US system and ruling class, nationalists are putting up a confused and ineffective defense against the US system.


It is like saying that without Zionism there wouldn't be any antisemitism! It is ridiculous.Yes historically. A few people might think these ideas, but it would be immaterial - without wide-spread antisemitism then there would be no base of support for these ideas. In fact even when there are better alternatives to fighting antisemitism than Zionism, most people choose to be communists or seek other more confrontational ways to try and stop antisemitism.


An African calling for the extermination of all European people is racist (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEqa90XpPw0). An African calling for freedom by killing European babies. An African opposing interracial relationships. All this is racist.Some of these things could arguably be "bigotry" but since there is no way for black people to systematically do this it's immaterial.


But don't worry, black nationalists have a mighty good solution to inter-racial connection and mixing in the US: banishing and exterminating people of European descent.And cow assholes might learn to talk.:rolleyes:. You are trolling.


For example, the results from a poll on black nationalism on the number one white supremacist forum show that (if the results are representative) 1 in 4 white nationalists principally supports black nationalism and almost 2 in 4 white nationalists support black nationalism opportunistically. While only 1 in 5 white nationalists opposes black nationalism and almost 1 in 10 white nationalists have a different opinion.

The results:

I support it, black nationalists have the same goals we do, and wish them the best. 24.60%
I support it, only because it serves white interests for separation, don't care about their fate. 46.03%
I oppose it, because it promotes violence against white people and unites an aggresive crowd. 20.63%
Other. 8.73%
So do you get most of your information from white supremacist forums?


White nationalists, these days, do not want to have Africans in their society. They usually support white separatism. So they don't want a "particular racial order" as they want a "racially pure" society. Similarly, black nationalists aim for the exact same thing.Sticks and stones. And Tea-Party people think that we live in a meritocracy - does this make it so? You are confusing rhetoric for social function.

We live in an unequal society, in the US anti-black racism bolsters the US capitalist system - anti-black racism targets blacks but hurts all workers. White Nationalism is all it's forms ultimately serves to bolster this repressive arrangement: to put people "in their place".


This is such nonsense. The Black Panther Party was only black nationalist in its first two years or so. From 1968 (two years after it was founded) the Party moved towards proletarian internationalism. Also note that they revised their ten-point programme by replacing "capitalist" for "white" once they abandoned black nationalism.Malcolm X was a Nationalist through his life but shifted to the left within the nationalist movement.

If you aren't trolling, then your arguments are severely reductionist and crude, at best.


Ironically, the Black Panther Party agrees with me that black nationalism is racist, from wikipedia (that uses Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party by Bobby Seale as its source)Seale often overstates or things - he now claims that the BPP never actually read Mao's book and were just "adopting the rhetoric of the time" which is BS if you've ever read anything Huey wrote - he says that now because he supports Democrats. Anyway, they were having debates about the direction of the black power movement and they were arguing against these other dead-end ideas such as cultural power or black supremacy or other things.

Again, anyone can have bigoted ideas about anyone, but hating Emos or Goths or Nerds does not become oppression because there is no systemic component to it. It's just random prejudice and more about people securing their sense of masculinity or normalcy or whatnot. Black Pride is normally the sense that drives black nationalism's appeal, black supremacy has always been a fringe notion. Even the Nation of Islam who believed blacks were inherently superior to whites, weren't trying to "put whites in their place" they believed that white society was a curse on non-whites and was destined to be destroyed Deux-Ex-Machina style and so blacks should become self-reliant so that when white society was destroyed, they could survive and take over. So all they ever did was buy store-fronts in black communities.

[Tim Cornelis]

You are telling them to abandon their culture and history, which also means they abandon their grievances related to nationality.

Nationality has absolutely nothing to do with culture, that is conservative hogwash. Nationality is the membership of a nation-state. Those who advocate the retaining of the "national identity", as you do, must necessarily support the perpetuation of the nation-state, and thus abandoning communism.


To acknowledge such discrimination you have to acknowledge nationality

How is it discriminatory? That makes no sense whatsoever. It's like saying that wanting to abolish all racial distinctions and race itself is racist.


as class does not completely explain it, yes class plays a major role but there is also discrimination based on nationality outside that which is why racists in power discriminate against Barack Obama even though he is part of the ruling class.

This is an absolute non-sequitur, it makes no sense in relation to what you previously said. I want to abolish nationalities, so therefore you bring up the fact that people are discriminated against based on nationality... Let that sink in. Then you go on about Barrack Obama, which is a racial issue, and--again--has nothing to do with nationality.

The amount of crypto-nationalists on this site (as also evidenced in the "self-determination" thread) is worrying.

[Jimmie Higgins]

identity politics of any kind are divisive our goal is to unite.It can be divissive, but I think the more important point is that it offers no liberation and is an accommodation to oppression. It's premise is that racial inequality in society is inherent and so this is a way to deal with this permanent feature of society.

This is also the premise behind the more separatist-oriented black nationalist traditions.

[Psy]

Nationality has absolutely nothing to do with culture, that is conservative hogwash. Nationality is the membership of a nation-state. Those who advocate the retaining of the "national identity", as you do, must necessarily support the perpetuation of the nation-state, and thus abandoning communism.

Nationality is a group of people that share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, or history which is why you had Lenin dealing with the national question. Also the US is not a nation state as that would assume everyone in the US has the same language, culture, ethnicity, descent or history, the US is a bourgeois state in it is a state ruled by a capitalist class where nationality is mostly irreverent.



How is it discriminatory? That makes no sense whatsoever. It's like saying that wanting to abolish all racial distinctions and race itself is racist.

Race is not racist, there are different nationalities and the point of world communism is not to get rid of nationality it is to unite workers across nationalities.



This is an absolute non-sequitur, it makes no sense in relation to what you previously said. I want to abolish nationalities, so therefore you bring up the fact that people are discriminated against based on nationality... Let that sink in. Then you go on about Barrack Obama, which is a racial issue, and--again--has nothing to do with nationality.

Race is a nationality, blacks in the US are a nationality.



The amount of crypto-nationalists on this site (as also evidenced in the "self-determination" thread) is worrying.
Marxists have been writing about the national question for a very long time.

[Tim Cornelis]

I already countered these arguments in the last post. In the US all these arguments you make are by right-wingers who seek to discredit the more radical edge of the black power struggle in order to bury a period of radical struggle in the US.

Yeah right, how could calling for the extermination of European people be considered racist? Incidentally, it's also a guilty by association fallacy.


Bullshit. White power gangs fight along ethnic lines but it's gang warfare, they may talk about some ideological concepts, but really the actual racist gangs try and "keep X group out of our neighborhood".

This tells us nothing about the aims of white nationalists. Moreover, it quite reinforces the notion that separatism is more prominent amongst white nationalists given that they want to 'separate' neighbourhoods.


WTF? BE more specific - there was no "rape platform" in the BBP program or the NOI or any other black nationalist group of note.

I linked to Elridge Cleaver's book, not the BBP in its entirety now did I? Elridge Cleaver called the rape of European women an insurrectionary act. This was motivated by his black nationalism.


In the most controversial part of the book, Cleaver acknowledges committing acts of rape, stating that he initially raped black women in the ghetto "for practice," and then embarked on the serial rape of white women. He described these crimes as politically inspired, motivated by a genuine conviction that the rape of white women was "an insurrectionary act."[1] When he began writing Soul on Ice, he unequivocally renounced rape and all his previous reasoning about it.[2][3]


Anyone can think anything about anyone. The question is what materially and structurally can happen within capitalism. White Supremacy was the rallying call of the Democrats to restrict votes and "put blacks in their place". White racism is a function and tool of US capitalism however, even when Black Nationalism is pro-capitalist they are not bolstering the US system and ruling class, nationalists are putting up a confused and ineffective defense against the US system.

Generally, the aim of black nationalists is to liberate African people from the yoke of European hegemony by calling for an exclusively African nation/continent. They identify European people as the problem almost exclusively. Not only is this wrong, it's r-a-c-i-s-t. It's racist to identify one race as the source of your problems irrespective of how much you want to sugarcoat it with empty sophism of how they are oppressed. Their oppression is not a justification for them to call for oppression in a new coat.


Some of these things could arguably be "bigotry" but since there is no way for black people to systematically do this it's immaterial.

Your apologetics for racism and GENOCIDE ADVOCACY is pathetic, disgusting, and in fact unworthy of my time. Opposing interracial marriage, "arguably" is bigotry, calling for the extermination of an entire race of people (counting 1 billion at least), "arguably" is bigotry. You are delusional.

So we judge bigotry by whether or not it is attainable? Then surely a fringe National Socialist in the Netherlands who wants to kill all non-whites is not bigoted because it's "immaterial".


And cow assholes might learn to talk.:rolleyes:. You are trolling.

You have just seen the video of an African man proclaiming for the world to see he wishes to exterminate all European people, and I merely repeat his words, but somehow, somehow, I am the one who is trolling. Are you denying that these wicked black nationalists in the video did not actually say what they said in the video?


So do you get most of your information from white supremacist forums?

What a cheap remark. Rather than responding to the issue at hand you choose to infantilly reply in such a manner.

It shows that white nationalists generally approve of black nationalism. What this means is that white nationalists do not--as you claim--want to assert social hegemony over African but rather want an exclusively European "homeland", i.e. it disproves what you said.


Due to some commonly held separatist ideologies, some black supremacist organizations have found limited common cause with white supremacist or extremist organizations.
In 1961 and 1962 George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the American Nazi Party, was invited to speak by Elijah Muhammad at a Nation of Islam rally.[34] In 1965, after breaking with the Nation of Islam and denouncing its separatist doctrine, Malcolm X told his followers that the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad had made agreements with the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan that "were not in the interests of Negros."[35] In 1985 Louis Farrakhan invited white supremacist Tom Metzger, leader of the White Aryan Resistance (a neo-Nazi white power group), to attend a NOI gathering. The Washington Times reports Metzger's words of praise: "They speak out against the Jews and the oppressors in Washington. ... They are the black counterpart to us." [36]


Sticks and stones. And Tea-Party people think that we live in a meritocracy - does this make it so? You are confusing rhetoric for social function.

What a non-sequitur. It's about what white nationalists advocate, not about what they claim contemporary society is like.


We live in an unequal society, in the US anti-black racism bolsters the US capitalist system - anti-black racism targets blacks but hurts all workers. White Nationalism is all it's forms ultimately serves to bolster this repressive arrangement: to put people "in their place".

So we are going to support a movement of which many adherents advocate ethnic cleansing of European people? How is that going to improve the lives of the working class generally, and African people specifically? It will make them appear as a "legitimate target", it will put them in the line of fire of hatred and bigotry. It's like saying we need to support Hamas because of Zionism.


Malcolm X was a Nationalist through his life but shifted to the left within the nationalist movement.

May I remind you that he was killed by a black nationalist for renouncing black nationalism?


If you aren't trolling, then your arguments are severely reductionist and crude, at best.

It's pathetic that you're trying to undermine my credibility by asking redundantly false questions of whether or not I'm trolling to which you already know the answer. I consider your reasoning idiotic, at best, yet I have no doubt in my mind that you are sincere in your reasoning. Then for me to accuse you of trolling would be pathetic, wouldn't it?

Furthermore, care to explain this? It is, for crying out loud, a fact that the Black Panther Party was initially a black nationalist movement but rejected this later on in favour of internationalism. You can read it throughout.


The organization's leaders espoused socialist and communist (largely Maoist) doctrines; however, the Party's early black nationalist reputation attracted a diverse membership.


Ultimately, the Panthers condemned black nationalism as "black racism" and became more focused on socialism without racial exclusivity


Ideology Black nationalism (early), Marxism–Leninism, Maoism, proletarian internationalism, socialism


Referring to the 1967–68 period, black historian Curtis Austin states: "During this period of development, black nationalism became part of the party's philosophy."


Curtis Austin states that by late 1968, Black Panther Party ideology had evolved to the point where they began to reject black nationalism and became more a "revolutionary internationalist movement":

(The Party) dropped its wholesale attacks against whites and began to emphasize more of a class analysis of society. Its emphasis on Marxist-Leninist doctrine and its repeated espousal of Maoist statements signaled the group's transition from a revolutionary nationalist to a revolutionary internationalist movement. Every Party member had to study Mao Tse-tung's "Little Red Book" to advance his or her knowledge of peoples' struggle and the revolutionary process.


Seale often overstates or things - he now claims that the BPP never actually read Mao's book and were just "adopting the rhetoric of the time" which is BS if you've ever read anything Huey wrote - he says that now because he supports Democrats. Anyway, they were having debates about the direction of the black power movement and they were arguing against these other dead-end ideas such as cultural power or black supremacy or other things.

As I've demonstrated the BBP was not a black nationalist movement. Your arguments do not retort this. It is rather like saying "Newton believed in alchemy, so you might want to reconsider the existence of gravity".


Again, anyone can have bigoted ideas about anyone, but hating Emos or Goths or Nerds does not become oppression because there is no systemic component to it. It's just random prejudice and more about people securing their sense of masculinity or normalcy or whatnot. Black Pride is normally the sense that drives black nationalism's appeal, black supremacy has always been a fringe notion. Even the Nation of Islam who believed blacks were inherently superior to whites, weren't trying to "put whites in their place" they believed that white society was a curse on non-whites and was destined to be destroyed Deux-Ex-Machina style and so blacks should become self-reliant so that when white society was destroyed, they could survive and take over. So all they ever did was buy store-fronts in black communities.

What exactly is your point? It sounds mighty like excusing "black racism". That killing emos in Iraq is not oppression (http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-03-12/news/31156220_1_southern-baghdad-neighborhood-cement-blocks-iraq-specialist)? That banning emos in Russia is not oppression (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/jul/22/russian.emo)?

[Psy]

Look go back to the Polish national question way back shortly after the Russian revolution where you had Rosa Luxemburg supporting autonomy for Polish region within the Russian union (the USSR didn't exist yet).

[Tim Cornelis]

Nationality is a group of people that share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, or history which is why you had Lenin dealing with the national question. Also the US is not a nation state as that would assume everyone in the US has the same language, culture, ethnicity, descent or history, the US is a bourgeois state in it is a state ruled by a capitalist class where nationality is mostly irreverent.

Race is not racist, there are different nationalities and the point of world communism is not to get rid of nationality it is to unite workers across nationalities.

Race is a nationality, blacks in the US are a nationality.

Marxists have been writing about the national question for a very long time.



Look go back to the Polish national question way back shortly after the Russian revolution where you had Rosa Luxemburg supporting autonomy for Polish region within the Russian union (the USSR didn't exist yet).

We are talking about two different definitions. I don't quite understand why you bring up Marxism, Marxists, and Lenin though. I am not bound by their thinking.

[Psy]

We are talking about two different definitions. I don't quite understand why you bring up Marxism, Marxists, and Lenin though. I am not bound by their thinking.
I bring it up because they have been talking about the national question since 1848 when Marx and Engels talk about the revolutions then. Also these same questions of nationality still apply today, the question of Polish independence from the Russian Empire is similar to blacks in American wanting to be independent from the USA.

[Tim Cornelis]

I bring it up because they have been talking about the national question since 1848 when Marx and Engels talk about the revolutions then. Also these same questions of nationality still apply today, the question of Polish independence from the Russian Empire is similar to blacks in American wanting to be independent from the USA.

But what is the significance of this? Why should I care about it, unless you can specifically cite something you agree with. I mean I can say "liberals have been talking about national sovereignty since the Enlightenment" but that's just random.

[Psy]

But what is the significance of this? Why should I care about it, unless you can specifically cite something you agree with. I mean I can say "liberals have been talking about national sovereignty since the Enlightenment" but that's just random.
The significance is you can't ignore the national question. You can't tell oppressed minorities in the ghetto of New York where the NYPD pigs treat them like garbage that they should abandon desires to liberate their nationality from the oppression of the US state. You can tell the oppressed minorities in New York that to crush the NYPD pigs they need to unite with workers across all nationalities.

In short it is not reactionary for a worker to both identify themselves as a nationality AND as part of the proletariat if the worker recognizes that solidarity among class is primary.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Forgive me for believing you were trolling, but please understand that the arguments you are making are the ones made by right-wingers in the US to excuse racism and create the myth of "post-racial" America. So basically it was easier for me to believe that someone who's a revolutionary would be trolling with these ideas than to actually have these ideas.

Yeah right, how could calling for the extermination of European people be considered racist? Incidentally, it's also a guilty by association fallacy.It can be bigotry and misguided but without a structural and material means to do this, it's mearly rhetoric. A white supremacist can say they love everyone while also supporting Jim-Crow laws and it doesn't mean he's not racist. A racist can litterally have a "black friend" and still be racist. Obama can be 1/2 black and still support racist policies against blacks. Racism is structural, name-calling or rhetoric are just dressing.

Oh God wouldn't it be nice if "White Supremacy" was the same as the empty rehtoric of some of the most mixed-up unserious black nationalists out there. But no, no one in the US ever got terrorized, their church blown up, or hanged, or murdered by a raid by police with guns blazing, because of black nationalist rhetoric. Police forces never supported any black nationalist organizations like they have historically supported white nationalist politicians and terrorist organizations like the KKK.

Personally I have worked side by side with black nationalists where, as someone who looks and identifies as white, I have had my life threatened by white nationalists. There's no fucking parity between the two on any level other than some surface things that right wingers always like to point to.


This tells us nothing about the aims of white nationalists. Moreover, it quite reinforces the notion that separatism is more prominent amongst white nationalists given that they want to 'separate' neighbourhoods.It's very easy to live in spererate neighborhoods. Most of these complains come from people who already live in segregated areas - they want to "keep people in their place". They want to prevent blacks from having the ABILITY to work where-ever or live where-ever. They want a return to what they see as a "natural" order in this society. Black nationalism, however, has to take on this society if it wishes for it's imagined deliverance from racist society. White nationalism complains that the government does too much for minorities or doesn't do "enough" to keep the immigrants out, the blacks in line, and the gays in the closet. Black nationalists say the cops do TOO MUCH! That the government doesn't do enough to protect blacks and in fact can not do anything because it's not a government by or for blacks.

Because of these different dynamics, it's possible for revolutionaries to win nationalists from oppressed groups over to the side of the working class. Malcolm and the BPP both shifted to the left as they saw that oppressed people could fight back and be aided by allies from other oppressed groups.

Can this happen with white nationalists? We want to end the racist system and so do black nationalists, but we have the ideas that can actually achieve this whereas nationalism leads to a liberation dead-end or a sort of "separate peace" with racism. White Nationalism wants a more ethnically regimented more repressed version of the staus quo.


I linked to Elridge Cleaver's book, not the BBP in its entirety now did I? Elridge Cleaver called the rape of European women an insurrectionary act. This was motivated by his black nationalism.Did he organize gangs of blacks to do this? Did he systematically propose how this could be the basis of a new order of society? Or are you taking a piece of rhetoric to grossly oversimplify and demonize a complex and diverse set of ideas.

I'll do you one better - when Garvey moved to the right during a period of reaction in the US (the 1920s - before he identified with the Bolsheviks but after the red-scares he moved to the right). Anyway in the 20s he once said that he was the original fascist and Mussolini stole the idea from him.

But again you must separate the surface from the more fundamental features. Right-wingers always claim that Stalin and Hitler were the same because they both committed atrocities. While I do not support socialism in one country or defend the USSR as socialist, there is no parity between Hitler and Stalin - both would be pretty crappy to live under and some of the things they did were similar, but that's missing the Forrest for the trees.


Generally, the aim of black nationalists is to liberate African people from the yoke of European hegemony by calling for an exclusively African nation/continent. They identify European people as the problem almost exclusively. Not only is this wrong, it's r-a-c-i-s-t. It's racist to identify one race as the source of your problems irrespective of how much you want to sugarcoat it with empty sophism of how they are oppressed. Their oppression is not a justification for them to call for oppression in a new coat. In the US there has often been a desire but no serious organization around a seperate geograpical black nation. The Communist Party in the US had a concept of "self-determination for the Black Belt" which were the historically majority-black populated areas in the south. But this demand was during a time when blacks were being brought into the working class by the millions and moving to northern industrial cities. The CP found no traction with the "black belt" idea but did have traction by exposing the class differences within the black community and how the (mostly) white workers movement was more of an ally to black workers than the black elite who would either sell-out black workers or just re-create capitalist exploitation anyway.

Garvey had a "back to Africa" scheme that was popular, but a pipe dream and it eventually devolved into just a money-making scheme.



Your apologetics for racism and GENOCIDE ADVOCACY is pathetic, disgusting, and in fact unworthy of my time. Opposing interracial marriage, "arguably" is bigotry, calling for the extermination of an entire race of people (counting 1 billion at least), "arguably" is bigotry. You are delusional.Absolute bullshit - outside of a tiny fringe, genocide has never been part of any black nationalist platform.


So we judge bigotry by whether or not it is attainable? Then surely a fringe National Socialist in the Netherlands who wants to kill all non-whites is not bigoted because it's "immaterial".No it's material - they act on it because they can terrorize immigrants into submission - into fearing to strike, into fearing to demand equal rights because they have to not only fear a hostile government and society, but vigilante thugs. It's not possible for Itiallian or Greek fascists or the US minutemen to get rid of all immigrants, but they still call for it - why? They want to terrorize this group into submission in society.

The most cartoonish black nationalists out there right now are the New Black Panthers who say outrageous things for impact and publicity. They don't march through white neigborhoods shouting black power slogans - they go outside of courtrooms where racist sentacing has happened, they say outrageous things about Zimmerman. Once again they are reacting to a racist system, not trying to bolster an EXISTING racial caste system.


You have just seen the video of an African man proclaiming for the world to see he wishes to exterminate all European people, and I merely repeat his words, but somehow, somehow, I am the one who is trolling. Are you denying that these wicked black nationalists in the video did not actually say what they said in the video?I guess right-wingers are right - all communism is about loving the leader of North Korea and wanting gulags and waiting in bread lines.

Seriously, this is your defense - some random guy representing nothing shouting on the street about something. If you believe this represents a material threat than I guess you must also be expecting Jesus to come back any-day now because there's a whole hell of a lot more people on the streets saying Jesus is coming than there are advocating the elimination of white people. For fuck's sake, you are in a country with what .2% black population and you're worried about the genocide of whites!? Are you also worried that Sharia Law will take over in Kansas or Kentucky like US right-wingers are?


It shows that white nationalists generally approve of black nationalism. What this means is that white nationalists do not--as you claim--want to assert social hegemony over African but rather want an exclusively European "homeland", i.e. it disproves what you said.No white supremacy has never REALLY been about white separatism - this is the rhetoric. Materially, in effect it has always been about bolstering a notion of a specific racial caste system in the US. It is only after the civil rights movement where a apartheid system of segreation was delegitimized that white supremacists began speaking of separatism. Guess what, in the US, it's not hard to live away from black people as a white person. Most suburbs are essentially segregated, schools are as segregated now as they were under Jim Crow. So seperatism or tribalism are just rhetoric, again their desire is for some idealist notion of a return to a "natural" racial caste order where whites are unequivocally on top.


What a non-sequitur. It's about what white nationalists advocate, not about what they claim contemporary society is like.They also claim that they are not even racists - that they are about "white pride" - so do you believe that too? It's not about what people say or claim, it's their relationship to power and the system and class forces that should inform our analysis. Yours is based on surface impressions whereas mine is based on how racism interacts with class rule in capitalist society.


So we are going to support a movement of which many adherents advocate ethnic cleansing of European people? How is that going to improve the lives of the working class generally, and African people specifically? It will make them appear as a "legitimate target", it will put them in the line of fire of hatred and bigotry. It's like saying we need to support Hamas because of Zionism.1. This is a straw-man, hardly anyone and no serious US groups advocate genocide! You are repeating a myth - at best a fringe - and presenting it as the basis for an whole range of ideas and politics and history. This argument is the same as people who think all Muslims believe the same things and use fringe elements of Islam to excuse Islamophobia.

2. It isn't about "support" I'm a communist and I support class struggle. The arguement is over our orientation towards the nationalism of oppressed groups. If your argument is correct than in the 1960s, revolutionaries (who would have been mostly white) should have protested outiside of Malcolm X's speaking arrangements. If that had happened, do you think that when Malcolm broke with the NOI and moved to the left he would state publicly that the only white people who are really anti-racist and genuine about it are usually socialists? Or would he have concluded that white socialists care more about the feelings of white racists than about ending black oppression?


May I remind you that he was killed by a black nationalist for renouncing black nationalism?He was a black nationalist when he died! - he renounced the NOI for not engaging in the civil rights movements and for being hypocrites.


Furthermore, care to explain this? It is, for crying out loud, a fact that the Black Panther Party was initially a black nationalist movement but rejected this later on in favour of internationalism. You can read it throughout.Then you are using a very narrow and incorrect defination of black nationalism. Your version is that black-nationalism means hating whites. Black nationalism usually takes a middle class character - build up separate back businesses and institutions so that black students have a quality education they are denied in segregated America, black businesses (ideally, but not in reality) would end up hiring black workers and so that would decrease job inequality, black landloards would be less likely to allow other blacks to live in substandard housing (ideally). Other forms of black nationalism include electoral political control in black areas - this would be a more moderate and accomodationist approach. There is also cultural nationalism which would be like creating a distinct black identity and separate culture -presumably to prevent black from internalizing the ruling class propaganda about what black people are like.

The black panthers were also black nationalists, they sought black community control in an anti-capitalist way - they recognized that black capitalists still had to play the game that resulted in black oppression and so they moved left and looked to a "socialist" model and international struggles against imperialist oppression - many of which were socialist in name and nationalist in character.


As I've demonstrated the BBP was not a black nationalist movement. Your arguments do not retort this. It is rather like saying "Newton believed in alchemy, so you might want to reconsider the existence of gravity".They weren't monolithic and their ideas varied over time and even between different thinkers. They are significant, I'm not trying to diminish their historical place, but they were a sort of combination of Nationalist, Maoist, and 3rd Worldist ideas.

Unlike most past black nationalists, they didn't look to the black middle class for liberation, but they didn't look to the black working class either. Although they had a lot of support from workers, they did not talk about sizing the means of production, but of the most downtrodden lumpen blacks being the force that could organize poor black communities on a community basis. So again their goal was self determination for black ghettos like the NOI, but an egalitarian "socialist" organization of the black community rather than an island of black capitalism in larger white capitalism.


What exactly is your point? It sounds mighty like excusing "black racism"Where does black racism exist? Where in the US is a black ruling class oppressing whites simply for being white and to bolster their own rule?

[Tim Cornelis]

Forgive me for believing you were trolling, but please understand that the arguments you are making are the ones made by right-wingers in the US to excuse racism and create the myth of "post-racial" America. So basically it was easier for me to believe that someone who's a revolutionary would be trolling with these ideas than to actually have these ideas.
It can be bigotry and misguided but without a structural and material means to do this, it's mearly rhetoric. A white supremacist can say they love everyone while also supporting Jim-Crow laws and it doesn't mean he's not racist. A racist can litterally have a "black friend" and still be racist. Obama can be 1/2 black and still support racist policies against blacks. Racism is structural, name-calling or rhetoric are just dressing.

Oh God wouldn't it be nice if "White Supremacy" was the same as the empty rehtoric of some of the most mixed-up unserious black nationalists out there. But no, no one in the US ever got terrorized, their church blown up, or hanged, or murdered by a raid by police with guns blazing, because of black nationalist rhetoric. Police forces never supported any black nationalist organizations like they have historically supported white nationalist politicians and terrorist organizations like the KKK.

Personally I have worked side by side with black nationalists where, as someone who looks and identifies as white, I have had my life threatened by white nationalists. There's no fucking parity between the two on any level other than some surface things that right wingers always like to point to.

It's very easy to live in spererate neighborhoods. Most of these complains come from people who already live in segregated areas - they want to "keep people in their place". They want to prevent blacks from having the ABILITY to work where-ever or live where-ever. They want a return to what they see as a "natural" order in this society. Black nationalism, however, has to take on this society if it wishes for it's imagined deliverance from racist society. White nationalism complains that the government does too much for minorities or doesn't do "enough" to keep the immigrants out, the blacks in line, and the gays in the closet. Black nationalists say the cops do TOO MUCH! That the government doesn't do enough to protect blacks and in fact can not do anything because it's not a government by or for blacks.

Because of these different dynamics, it's possible for revolutionaries to win nationalists from oppressed groups over to the side of the working class. Malcolm and the BPP both shifted to the left as they saw that oppressed people could fight back and be aided by allies from other oppressed groups.

Can this happen with white nationalists? We want to end the racist system and so do black nationalists, but we have the ideas that can actually achieve this whereas nationalism leads to a liberation dead-end or a sort of "separate peace" with racism. White Nationalism wants a more ethnically regimented more repressed version of the staus quo.

Did he organize gangs of blacks to do this? Did he systematically propose how this could be the basis of a new order of society? Or are you taking a piece of rhetoric to grossly oversimplify and demonize a complex and diverse set of ideas.

I'll do you one better - when Garvey moved to the right during a period of reaction in the US (the 1920s - before he identified with the Bolsheviks but after the red-scares he moved to the right). Anyway in the 20s he once said that he was the original fascist and Mussolini stole the idea from him.

But again you must separate the surface from the more fundamental features. Right-wingers always claim that Stalin and Hitler were the same because they both committed atrocities. While I do not support socialism in one country or defend the USSR as socialist, there is no parity between Hitler and Stalin - both would be pretty crappy to live under and some of the things they did were similar, but that's missing the Forrest for the trees.

In the US there has often been a desire but no serious organization around a seperate geograpical black nation. The Communist Party in the US had a concept of "self-determination for the Black Belt" which were the historically majority-black populated areas in the south. But this demand was during a time when blacks were being brought into the working class by the millions and moving to northern industrial cities. The CP found no traction with the "black belt" idea but did have traction by exposing the class differences within the black community and how the (mostly) white workers movement was more of an ally to black workers than the black elite who would either sell-out black workers or just re-create capitalist exploitation anyway.

Garvey had a "back to Africa" scheme that was popular, but a pipe dream and it eventually devolved into just a money-making scheme.

Absolute bullshit - outside of a tiny fringe, genocide has never been part of any black nationalist platform.

No it's material - they act on it because they can terrorize immigrants into submission - into fearing to strike, into fearing to demand equal rights because they have to not only fear a hostile government and society, but vigilante thugs. It's not possible for Itiallian or Greek fascists or the US minutemen to get rid of all immigrants, but they still call for it - why? They want to terrorize this group into submission in society.

The most cartoonish black nationalists out there right now are the New Black Panthers who say outrageous things for impact and publicity. They don't march through white neigborhoods shouting black power slogans - they go outside of courtrooms where racist sentacing has happened, they say outrageous things about Zimmerman. Once again they are reacting to a racist system, not trying to bolster an EXISTING racial caste system.

I guess right-wingers are right - all communism is about loving the leader of North Korea and wanting gulags and waiting in bread lines.

Seriously, this is your defense - some random guy representing nothing shouting on the street about something. If you believe this represents a material threat than I guess you must also be expecting Jesus to come back any-day now because there's a whole hell of a lot more people on the streets saying Jesus is coming than there are advocating the elimination of white people. For fuck's sake, you are in a country with what .2% black population and you're worried about the genocide of whites!? Are you also worried that Sharia Law will take over in Kansas or Kentucky like US right-wingers are?

No white supremacy has never REALLY been about white separatism - this is the rhetoric. Materially, in effect it has always been about bolstering a notion of a specific racial caste system in the US. It is only after the civil rights movement where a apartheid system of segreation was delegitimized that white supremacists began speaking of separatism. Guess what, in the US, it's not hard to live away from black people as a white person. Most suburbs are essentially segregated, schools are as segregated now as they were under Jim Crow. So seperatism or tribalism are just rhetoric, again their desire is for some idealist notion of a return to a "natural" racial caste order where whites are unequivocally on top.

They also claim that they are not even racists - that they are about "white pride" - so do you believe that too? It's not about what people say or claim, it's their relationship to power and the system and class forces that should inform our analysis. Yours is based on surface impressions whereas mine is based on how racism interacts with class rule in capitalist society.

1. This is a straw-man, hardly anyone and no serious US groups advocate genocide! You are repeating a myth - at best a fringe - and presenting it as the basis for an whole range of ideas and politics and history. This argument is the same as people who think all Muslims believe the same things and use fringe elements of Islam to excuse Islamophobia.

2. It isn't about "support" I'm a communist and I support class struggle. The arguement is over our orientation towards the nationalism of oppressed groups. If your argument is correct than in the 1960s, revolutionaries (who would have been mostly white) should have protested outiside of Malcolm X's speaking arrangements. If that had happened, do you think that when Malcolm broke with the NOI and moved to the left he would state publicly that the only white people who are really anti-racist and genuine about it are usually socialists? Or would he have concluded that white socialists care more about the feelings of white racists than about ending black oppression?

He was a black nationalist when he died! - he renounced the NOI for not engaging in the civil rights movements and for being hypocrites.

Then you are using a very narrow and incorrect defination of black nationalism. Your version is that black-nationalism means hating whites. Black nationalism usually takes a middle class character - build up separate back businesses and institutions so that black students have a quality education they are denied in segregated America, black businesses (ideally, but not in reality) would end up hiring black workers and so that would decrease job inequality, black landloards would be less likely to allow other blacks to live in substandard housing (ideally). Other forms of black nationalism include electoral political control in black areas - this would be a more moderate and accomodationist approach. There is also cultural nationalism which would be like creating a distinct black identity and separate culture -presumably to prevent black from internalizing the ruling class propaganda about what black people are like.

The black panthers were also black nationalists, they sought black community control in an anti-capitalist way - they recognized that black capitalists still had to play the game that resulted in black oppression and so they moved left and looked to a "socialist" model and international struggles against imperialist oppression - many of which were socialist in name and nationalist in character.

They weren't monolithic and their ideas varied over time and even between different thinkers. They are significant, I'm not trying to diminish their historical place, but they were a sort of combination of Nationalist, Maoist, and 3rd Worldist ideas.

Unlike most past black nationalists, they didn't look to the black middle class for liberation, but they didn't look to the black working class either. Although they had a lot of support from workers, they did not talk about sizing the means of production, but of the most downtrodden lumpen blacks being the force that could organize poor black communities on a community basis. So again their goal was self determination for black ghettos like the NOI, but an egalitarian "socialist" organization of the black community rather than an island of black capitalism in larger white capitalism.

Where does black racism exist? Where in the US is a black ruling class oppressing whites simply for being white and to bolster their own rule?

I showed you a video of man calling for the extermination of all "white" people, you said it may or may not be "bigotry", and now you just deny it altogether. This is futile.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I showed you a video of man calling for the extermination of all "white" people, you said it may or may not be "bigotry", and now you just deny it altogether. This is futile.Deny what? I deny that some random video represents everything a whole tradition stands for. I bet I can find a video on Youtube of a self-described anarchists saying that anarchy means chaos; Fox news finds video of some Palestinian talking about "killing Jews" and then argues that this is the attitude of all Palistinians - this is no way to judge or understand a political traddition.

Is someone calling for genocide a bigot - yes a genocidal biogot. Is it racism? That depends on the social context and it's connection to conditions of the MATERIAL world. Is anti-white bigotry found in black nationalism in the US, sometimes but again, that kind of extreme view is rare and has never been a serious organized attitude or part of any major US black nationalist group's platform.

[Tim Cornelis]

Deny what? I deny that some random video represents everything a whole tradition stands for. I bet I can find a video on Youtube of a self-described anarchists saying that anarchy means chaos; Fox news finds video of some Palestinian talking about "killing Jews" and then argues that this is the attitude of all Palistinians - this is no way to judge or understand a political traddition.

Is someone calling for genocide a bigot - yes a genocidal biogot. Is it racism? That depends on the social context and it's connection to conditions of the MATERIAL world. Is anti-white bigotry found in black nationalism in the US, sometimes but again, that kind of extreme view is rare and has never been a serious organized attitude or part of any major US black nationalist group's platform.

If supporting black nationalism and its organisations is acceptable then from now on I'm going to support the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner_Weerstandsbeweging), because--by extension of your logic--there is nothing wrong with supporting Afrikaner nationalism and thus the AWB.

Ethnic nationalism = racism. Period.

[Jimmie Higgins]

If supporting black nationalism and its organisations is acceptable then from now on I'm going to support the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner_Weerstandsbeweging), because--by extension of your logic--there is nothing wrong with supporting Afrikaner nationalism and thus the AWB.

Ethnic nationalism = racism. Period.No, by my logic Black Nationalism in the US is NOT RACISM because there is no material way in which ruling class blacks could systematically oppress white people for being white and all the major black nationalist groups in US history had no real goal of "black supremacy over whites".

The majority of black nationalism with any kind of following in the US had nothing to do with "black supremacy" - generally it's a cross-class aliance of blacks in order to try and defend against systemic anti-black racism. It's flawed from a revolutionary socialist/communist position because it lumps people of opposing classes together and generally means that working class interests take a back seat to middle-class and black capitalist interests, BUT IT'S NOT THE IDEA THAT BLACKS SHOULD OPPRESS WHITES.

If your view was correct, then white socialists and communists should have tried to disrupt Malcolm X speeches and protest him as we do with the KKK or racist skinheads. Follow that logic through - we'd be on the same side as the white racists and the cops!

You argument is idealist - racism in any meaningful sense is not "bad" ideas, it's a system of oppression.

[Tim Cornelis]

No, by my logic Black Nationalism in the US is NOT RACISM because there is no material way in which ruling class blacks could systematically oppress white people for being white and all the major black nationalist groups in US history had no real goal of "black supremacy over whites".

Racism is an idea, not necessarily an institution. Moreover, if you had looked at the goals of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging you would have seen that they have no intention of ruling over Africans, i.e. "they have no real goal of white supremacy".

So I'm going to support the AWB (see how fast I get banned).


The majority of black nationalism with any kind of following in the US had nothing to do with "black supremacy" - generally it's a cross-class aliance of blacks in order to try and defend against systemic anti-black racism. It's flawed from a revolutionary socialist/communist position because it lumps people of opposing classes together and generally means that working class interests take a back seat to middle-class and black capitalist interests

And the AWB exists to defend Boers against what they claim is "systematic racist attacks against Boers".


BUT IT'S NOT THE IDEA THAT BLACKS SHOULD OPPRESS WHITES.

And the AWB does not want to oppress Africans, it wants an independent Afrikaner nation-state. So again by your logic I can support the AWB.


If your view was correct, then white socialists and communists should have tried to disrupt Malcolm X speeches and protest him as we do with the KKK or racist skinheads. Follow that logic through - we'd be on the same side as the white racists and the cops!

Guilty by association fallacy.


You argument is idealist - racism in any meaningful sense is not "bad" ideas, it's a system of oppression.

I don't think you quite know what idealism means.

Idealism is the idea that ideas alone shape the world irrespective of material conditions. The fact that racism is an idea says nothing about idealism v. materialism.

Also, if racism is a system of oppression then white separatism is not racist! Which, incidentally means, I can support the AWB without being restricted or banned (that is, by your logic).

[Jimmie Higgins]

Lol, I'm not arguing that class revolutionaries should join the NOI, I'm saying that MATERIALLY there is no equivalency between white and black nationalism in the US. This has ramifications for how revolutionaries should view and relate to them. I think we have a duty to forcibly stop white nationalists if necessary, so if you think we need to do that with the KKK and you think the NOI or Malcolm X is the same, then logically we should respond to them in the same manner.


Idealism is the idea that ideas alone shape the world irrespective of material conditions. The fact that racism is an idea says nothing about idealism v. materialism.Yeah like thinking that any bigotry is the same irregardless of the material circumstances in which these ideas exist.

[Tim Cornelis]

Lol, I'm not arguing that class revolutionaries should join the NOI, I'm saying that MATERIALLY there is no equivalency between white and black nationalism in the US. This has ramifications for how revolutionaries should view and relate to them. I think we have a duty to forcibly stop white nationalists if necessary, so if you think we need to do that with the KKK and you think the NOI or Malcolm X is the same, then logically we should respond to them in the same manner.

If the KKK goes around lynching Africans we "have a duty to forcibly stop white nationalists" but apparently if the NBPP goes around lynching Europeans we have no such duty?

Also I'm talking about the AWS which is located in a majority African country, unlike the US which is majority European.

Should we support the AWS, if not, why not?


Yeah like thinking that any bigotry is the same irregardless of the material circumstances in which these ideas exist.

What is stopping anyone from denouncing all ethnic nationalisms regardless of whether or not they have a chance of being realised? Why coward behind rhetoric of "materially unrealisable" to defend reactionary ideas?

[derg]

If the KKK goes around lynching Africans we "have a duty to forcibly stop white nationalists" but apparently if the NBPP goes around lynching Europeans we have no such duty?

when exactly has that ever happened?

[Jimmie Higgins]

What is stopping anyone from denouncing all ethnic nationalisms regardless of whether or not they have a chance of being realised? Why coward behind rhetoric of "materially unrealisable" to defend reactionary ideas?I did not argue it was "materially unrealisable" to criticize any nationalism. I argued that nationalism coming out of a desire to be free from an oppressive system is MATERIALLY different from the nationalism around a desire to preserve or increase the power of an oppressive system. Because of this material difference in the real-world origins and position in society and motivation, there are ramifications for how revolutionaries in the worker's movement should view and relate to them.

The fundamental goals of the vast majority of popular black nationalist movements in the US OVERLAP with the desires and goals of the radical worker's movement. We want to see an end to racism and see ending capitalism, the source of this division, as inter-connected with this. You can't have one without the other. In this view Black Nationalism is a poor and unworkable vehicle for achieving liberation, are our relationship then should be to support people trying to fight against racism but also argue that nationalism is incapable to achieve this. We would want the rank and file of the Garvyites to become members and new leaders in the Communist Movement, we want the people who were attracted to the politics of Malcolm X to be convinced of revolutionary working class ideas about ending racism.

The goals of white nationalism, however are OPPOSED to the goals of the worker's movement. We wouldn't want them to be better at fighting for their goals, we need to strive to prevent them from gaining any kind of credibility and we should not allow them to speak unopposed.

[Crux]

Racism is an idea, not necessarily an institution.
See this is your problem right there. Also while one might have diferring views on how to relate to nationalism of oppressed groups, I might well have some differences with Jimmie Higgins on some issues in regards to this. But to say it is the same as the nationalism of the oppressors is idealist nonsense and objectively wrong. I think it is no coincidence the origin of this discussion came from the "anti-white racism" thread. See there might be instances, and indeed are, where nationalists of oppressed groups are objectively on the other side of the barricades, on class issues, on feminism, on lgbt issues. I know this might be a bit abstract and it is not an attempt to give you a way out out or anything, because racism is not an idea. It is a structure.

[wsg1991]

actually Racism and superiority has stronger connection to imperialism than nationalism itself . the white supremacy thing happened because of white occupying ''inferior civilization '' and people , ""enslaving inferior savages"" . since you can't occupy a country because you are a tough son of ***** (Chomsky) , you must find reasons , as bringing civilization \ democracy , bringing culture to savages as . So unless this black nationalist will start occupying other people they can't be seriously racist . i am in daily contact with Arab nationalists , i never heard any reference arabs are superior to jews or any other ethnic . while if you see arabic literature in 8 century you will find it infested with Racism again ( Ajams : non arab ) because back there , Arabs were occupying power , attacking "inferior kingdoms'' and "bringing Islam to the rest of the world "(= spreading democracy this days )