"The White Man"

[rocker935]

What does everyone here think about the phrase, "The White Man"? Is it racist? Is it only referring to a certain group of white people? I am white and I think that the words "The White Man" puts a negative connotation on white people. I will admit that white people have done TERRIBLE things in the past but its wrong to say we are all bad.

[davidbrooke]

Whenver i hear the term white man, it's usually describing a capitalist systematically oppressing in his day to day life.

As it is "white men" who run the world.

[Neutrino]

Yeah, it seems to be a collective noun. I don't see any reason it would refer to only a certain subset of white people.

[TC]

when people don't have a clear marxian understanding of the power dynamics in society and how oppression functions, they identify their oppressors by terms not essential to the relations of oppression. They know who is keeping them down they just generalize based on the wrong features.

The vast majority of the people on the top of the power structure are white men, its not because they're white men, but looking at them without analyzing it properly, its not inaccurate to characterize them that way.

[Dros]

"The White Man" is different from white men. "The White Man" is used to represent the people who run the world, the main Bourgoisie.

I am white and I can still agree that we should "fuck the White Man." Whenever I hear that phrase, I think of Reagen.

[Red October]

The image of "The White Man" is of the white guy in a suit who runs the world and keeps minorities down, which like TC said, is an understandable gerneralization for lots of people to make. The colonialists who conquered Africa, Latin America, and other places were white, so it only makes sense that these generalizations would come up. On the other hand, sometimes they can be very bad. I knew a "activist" who was white but thought it would be a good idea to incite racial hatred of "The White Man" in poor minority neighborhoods in order to use race war to overthrow capitalism. Of course that's a horrrible idea and not very common, but it does exist.

[Comrade Rage]

Originally posted by rocker935+November 18, 2007 02:16 pm--> (rocker935 @ November 18, 2007 02:16 pm) What does everyone here think about the phrase, "The White Man"? Is it racist? Is it only referring to a certain group of white people? [/b]
I don't think it's racist, but when I hear it, 9 times out of 10 it is followed by a tirade of misplaced anger. (Anger at white guys insted of cappies)

My friends say I live in a pretty racially charged area of the city though.


rocker935
I am white and I think that the words "The White Man" puts a negative connotation on white people. I will admit that white people have done TERRIBLE things in the past but its wrong to say we are all bad.
You're right. It DOES put a negative connotation on white guys, but it's not inherently racist.

It's usually used by racists, but they're REALLY describing capitalists.

Since these people don't have any kind of class viewpoint (racists usually don't) this kind of class criticism flies right past their head, even when it's her/himself saying it.

Funny if it weren't so sad.

[kasama-rl]

this is a capitalist society -- which means that it is rooted in the exploitation of working people by the capitalists.

but those are not the only dynamics of oppression.

women are oppressed by men, because society as a whole is organized in a male supremacist way, which corresponds to the needs and structures of capitalism.

And there are within the U.S., different nationalities. There is an oppressor nation: the euro-american nationality that is generally called "white people."

And there are quite a number of oppressed nationalities: there are the African American people who are an oppressed nation that was formed in slavery and the reversal of Reconstruction. There are the Native peoples, who are formed by many distinct groupings across the U.S. There are Chicano and Mexicano people -- with a long history of oppression both in a concentrated way in the Southwest, but also across the country in both industry and agriculture. There are Chinese and other Asian peoples -- who have a long history of oppression going back into the early 1800s. And there are many different immigrant peoples who have arrived on U.S. shores and largely became part of the working class (though some arrived and went more directly into the middle classes).

In other words the question of "White Man" is not just a matter of "how it sounds" -- but an expression of long standing and fundamental oppression of WHOLE PEOPLES WITHIN THE U.S. -- and of the emergence and forging of an oppressor nation of "white people" in the course of this country's bloody history.

And this "euro-american oppressor nation" is not the same as the capitalists (who are a class, not a nationality).

Not all white people are oppressors (many are part of the working class, and in fact the majority of the working class is white). But as a people, the white people are an oppressor people -- relative to the oppressed nations and nationalities within the U.S.

This requires dialectics to understand and to "handle."

For example: Britain is an imperialist country and an oppressor nation -- which historically had a vast global empire. That did not mean that there were not exploited classes within Britain -- but it did mean that their exploitation, consciousness and politics were all affected by the status of Britain within the world, and by its relationship with a billion oppressed people around that empire.

[Comrade Rage]

Originally posted by kasama-[email protected] 19, 2007 03:14 pm
In other words the question of "White Man" is not just a matter of "how it sounds" -- but an expression of long standing and fundamental oppression of WHOLE PEOPLES WITHIN THE U.S. -- and of the emergence and forging of an oppressor nation of "white people" in the course of this country's bloody history.
Enough of this yackityyack about history and oppression, let's DO something about it. I don't mean any disrespect, but nothing changes if nothing changes.

Like any rev on this board would say, it's time to start to unify the proletariat.

[Ultra-Violence]

Like many have stated here before people who use "White Man" are refering to the Capitalist fucks who we all hate here but once in a while some one Ignorant will refer to it as white people. As being a person of color i can see why BUT it doesnt make it right they just need a little bit of education IMO.




Enough of this yackityyack about history and oppression, let's DO something about it. I don't mean any disrespect, but nothing changes if nothing changes.

Like any rev on this board would say, it's time to start to unify the proletariat.


^^^^^^^
Lets do it! :D

[kasama-rl]

Originally posted by COMRADE [email protected] 19, 2007 08:21 pm
Enough of this yackityyack about history and oppression, let's DO something about it. I don't mean any disrespect, but nothing changes if nothing changes.

Like any rev on this board would say, it's time to start to unify the proletariat.
Why would you think we aren't energetically "doing something about it"?

Many of us spend our days and lives fighting to prepare minds and organize forces for revolution.

Care to join us?

But communist theory and analysis is not "yakety-yak." If you don't understand the world, you can't change the world. Or (as Lenin said) there is no revolutionary movement without revolutionary theory.

[crimsonzephyr]

I think it depends on who the person is and how they are saying it

If it is any kind of "minority" chances are they are saying it negatively

To me, "the white man" brings a picture of the KKK to mind.

[RbG]

[QUOTE]Whenever I hear that phrase, I think of Reagen.

Hey drosera99, just curious but why do you think of reagen when you hear that term. :D Reagen is someone i think of too, when i hear that term. I just want to know what your reason is. Cus i have mine.

[LOTFW]

I am white and I can still agree that we should "fuck the White Man." Whenever I hear that phrase, I think of Reagen.

I think that if you said that statement in public, you would be laughed at before you could explain yourself.

[Jazzratt]

I think of it as the identity politics bogeyman indicative of a liberal analysis of society rather than a class analysis. That said I also recognise that I'm thinking of the vast majority of the western bourgeois, it's just that I recognise that they should be vilified for being bourgeois not white, (presumably) heterosexual and male.

[Led Zeppelin]

You thought I was only joking
When I screamed "Kill Whitey!"
At the top of my lungs
At the cops in their cars
And the men in their suits

:wub:

[w0lf]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 07:16 pm
I will admit that white people have done TERRIBLE things in the past but its wrong to say we are all bad.
They have done more then horrible things..way worse. But I think it's more of saying the rich white nationalists that control the world.

[JWG]

I take no offense to it, unless someone uses it directly to me.

It would be offensive directly to me for the reason that I support the proletariat and am not like the imperialists who started with the Native Americans on the current "U.S Soil" and now have expanded to the world.

We can not make generalizations like that. Many oppressed nations hate Americans, but many of us are anti-imperialism and are against what our government and country is doing.

But, I believe when people are oppressed by a group of people, no matter the minority of them, when they are all white they will associate it to all whites. This I can understand, but do not agree with for the reasons states above.

[19Rocketman82]

when i hear the words white man (in caps) i feel a sense of revulsion...whether the person using it is a white man or is against the white man it simply underscores the continued prevalence of racism in our human world...there is no white man...there is no black man...we are all merely humans...we are all alike (exactly alike)

the usage of terms like white man simply perpetuates the notion that such social constructs exist...the only division that is real is that between those who control capital and those who do not

anyone who still clings to the notion that they belong to a group other than humanity as a whole, proletariat, or capitalist has not properly excoriated the vile remnants of the past

there are no white men...no black men...no asian men...actually no men in the strictest sense of the word at all...you are not a christian...not a muslim...not a jew...not a buddhist...you are not in fact a you at at all...we are a we

anyone who has not repudiated and purged preferential feeling for any of these groups is not properly prepared for the revolution