Thoughts on J. Sakai

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I've just finished "Settlers, the Myth of A White Proletariat" by J. Sakai. I have mixed emotions. On one level its very powerful and I learned a lot reading it-such things as how the New Deal of FDR deliberately broke up African-American communities, the racism of the white labor movement, implicit racism in the SP and CPUSA.

It is obviously true that the US evolved as a racist "settler state" and this explains a lot of things going on today.

I feel Sakai is on to some major truths here but...

He conflates class and race. Also he's a nationalist-that is he sees communities of POC as essentially different nations. He takes the labor aristocracy theory somewhat too far.

I have not read these guys yet but as I understand Noel Ignatiev and David Rodiger cover the same territory but in a better way.

I think J. Sakai is misdirected BUT the book did make a big impression on me.


Anyway wondering what people's thoughts are on this...

[blake 3:17]

About to get kicked off the computer... It covers some interesting history. Don't agree with the theory, but... Roediger is well worth reading.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I'm a big fan. I feel like reading "When Race Burns Class: Settlers Revisited" helps clarify some of Sakai's understandings of race as a "color coding" of class. I've also seen him speak a few times, once on "security culture" and once on community organizing, and thought it was pretty fantastic. He's certainly toned down the Maoist phrase-mongering as he's aged, though I don't think it's by any means a softening.

Anyway, have you read Butch Lee at all? Her work covers a lot of similar ground, politically, and "Jailbreak Out of History: The Re-biography of Harriet Tubman" is another great historical double-take.

[Red HalfGuard]

http://tsunderrorism.tumblr.com/post/56871504090/night-vision-illuminating-war-and-class-on-the Here's Night Vision, by Lee and Red Rover, expanding on the arguments of Settlers.

It's no exaggeration to say that Sakai's penetrating analysis changed my politics and resonated deeply with my own experience of race, class and nationality, having lived most of my life in Washington DC, a ghettoized, gentrifying and heavily segregated city.

[blake 3:17]

I've just finished "Settlers, the Myth of A White Proletariat" by J. Sakai. I have mixed emotions. On one level its very powerful and I learned a lot reading it-such things as how the New Deal of FDR deliberately broke up African-American communities, the racism of the white labor movement, implicit racism in the SP and CPUSA.

It is obviously true that the US evolved as a racist "settler state" and this explains a lot of things going on today.

I feel Sakai is on to some major truths here but...

He conflates class and race. Also he's a nationalist-that is he sees communities of POC as essentially different nations. He takes the labor aristocracy theory somewhat too far.

I can't find my copy of Settlers. It was given to me by an older anarchist comrade very active in prisoner justice and supportive of anti-racist and anti-imperialist causes.

He and I shared a common cross Atlantic national identity coming from families that were Scottish settlers in Ontario and Quebec. You can't understand shit about Ontario without having some handle on the Presbyterian church -- not that I'm an expert -- but it's weird hangover. And in different parts of the US, you'd have different strange religious hangovers from England, Holland, Germany...Thought I knew where I was going with this, but apparently not. I'll check out some of his other stuff.

I used to look at the journal Race Traitor -- which was sometimes excellent and sometimes really really weird -- I dunno -- I've sometimes been thinking about the things I thought were really really stupid and been thinking "Oh -- that was kinda interesting"-- Those articles were mostly about white people *suddenly* not being white, which sounds kind of stupid.

But around where I live, I sometimes get treated by police -- up to a point -- and bus drivers like a black 20 year old because of how I dress-- hoody, ball cap, not in a car or on a bike. I mostly get stopped by cops for walking because nobody walks around here. You drive or stay home.

It was really depressing the other night when a bus didn't stop for me and I realized the problem was I had a hat on. In order to get where I was going I made sure my face was visible and the driver could see I was white. That was a AHA! & WTF? & FTW! moment.

That's fucking atrocious.

[Red HalfGuard]

Here you go: http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2005/10/28/sakaisettlersocr.pdf

[SonofRage]

I read it years ago and was left with similar mixed feelings. As a former member of the now defunct organization Bring the Ruckus, my analysis of race and class in the United States has been closer to what you'd see in Ignatiev's work or in The Abolition of White Democracy (http://books.google.com/books?id=o-jZmquu7kYC&lpg=PP1&dq=the%20abolition%20of%20white%20democracy&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false) by my recently-deceased comrade Joel Olson. I must admit that recently I've had an itch to re-read Settlers and have wondered if perhaps there's something to the labor aristocracy argument. At the very least, I think imperial privilege is something I've ignored too much in the past and that it's worth further thought and study.

[Radical Rambler]

I've reread Settlers many times. I've even it read it outloud to people, and even thought of making an abridged version of the text to pass out.

Sakai is overly critical and reaches when it comes to the Communist Party in the 1920s and 30s. Some of the sources he uses when discussing the CP then are from extremely rabid ex-communists, who would do anything to smear their former comrades.

Sakai maintains a lot of stupid Ortho-"Maoist" positions, and much of his analysis outside of Amerika leaves a lot to be desired.

Sakai also once believed in the AIDS conspiracy crap, which says quite a bit about trusting him too much.

Truthfully, Settlers could be re-written in an even more forceful manner. If anything, Sakai sugar-coats the reality of the White Nation. Settlers should be read in conjunction with books about the history of the Euro-Settler "Left," as sort of a theoretical basis for understanding the nature of even so-called "revolutionary" groups.

[Killer Enigma]

I've never actually read Settlers, opting instead to read Zak Cope's more recent (and more empiric) defense of the same general concept. Sakai impressed me most, though, with his essay on fascism, The Shock of Recognition (http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/books/fascism/shock.html), which is quite literally the most frightening essay on the subject I've ever read. There are some inaccuracies and some political side points I disagree with, but the ideas are compelling.