38 Comments

1. Timothy R. Anderson:

   Yes. I agree. I would hope that it is a SUCCESS. I also think it should be the first of many chapters.
   That would be a fine, fine, fiiiine thing.
   Timothy R. Anderson

   30 April 2006, 3:21 pm

2. Renfro:

   Well, I have to disagree.

   I am not in favor of the cause behind the protest or the protest.

   No, I don’t hate brown people or immigrants and do believe in immigration..legal that is…along with exceptions for special conditions.

   However I think the “illegals” “cause” has been minipulated and straw-maned and associated with every thing, from black’s civil rights’s and humanitarianism and racism..to ‘we are all immigrants” and everything except the question of illegal and what we need to do about our laws…and what it means short term and long term to the US. and whether or not they are even the most in need of entry to the US.

   And every time I hear about “the rights” they are entitled to and the “poor and huddle masses” quoted…I think about the Hatians we round up every year from the sugar cane fields in Florida and ship back to their dictator in Hati.

   My heart no longer bleeds for the Mexicans…and their heavily financed PR campaign by the interest behind them….and every bleeding heart who has jumped on this bandwagon is being led down the garden path by the very same capitalist forces they claim to hate and be working against.

   There is too much that is hypocritical at work in this “cause”for me….

   No one has asked in all the discussion of rights and humans and illegals…who should American take in first to be true to it’s original promise? People who just want jobs or people who really need refuge?

   1 May 2006, 3:40 am

3. Stan:

   Renfro,

   This reminds me of a kid who is just learning to play a new game and who wants to jump in enthusiastically to test his handful of new skills.. except this is not a game. I’m not trying to bust you out to break you down, Renfro. You are using an alias anyway, so if you are really committed in your own mind to doing what’s right, and part of that is admitting error and reflecting on ways to rectify it, then this reply (and others) should give you some pause.

   Your comment is an exhibition of exactly how “ideology” works. I say this over and over because some people learn through repetition. Ideology is a set of unexamined assumptions that are smuggled into everything else we think, and they do two things simultaneously. They conceal real relations of domination and subordination, and they reproduce those same relations. When you think about it, this is pretty Svengali-esque. So we have to be abrupt sometimes to break this spell.

   You begin by disclaiming any personal hatred for brown people… likely in anticipation that the only REAL argument for amnesty is some liberal, “Let’s all cherish diversity” emotion-over-reason (read feminine) concern that doesn’t appreciate the hard realities (masculine posture), like that the rhetorical “we” can’t just let everyone into the US, because they will dilute the good thing that WE have built for ourselves here… all by ourselves… from our ingenuity and hard work (this construction never includes land, slavery, imported products, indentured servitude, genocide, oil war, and so on… because these are womehow “outside” the core values that ostensibly created the US — Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz calls this The Origin Myth.)

   Nonetheless, you imply that there is some special interest that is “Mexican,” as if that is the same place as Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and all the other places that contirubute people to the immigratn communities that are growing within the Hispano-Latina US. This generalization is an outgrowth of ideology — defined above — and it relies on ignorance of many details. Ignorance of details is a propensity you displayed throughout this post. It is also an American cultural propensity, because our belief in the entitlement to argue is pegged to our belief in an entitlement to an opinion — kind of an unofficial right — “everyone is entitled to his/her opinion.” The actual content of that opinion is never evaluated in this claim; and that is the reason that there is such a remarkably diverse and often downright bizarre display of critical fallacy combined with complete a complete poverty of facts that marks our cultural discourse on matters of politics. Watch those C-Span call-in shows in the morning if you really ever want to get a feel for the crushing oceanic depth of America’s carefully cultivated and blinding stupidity.

   But the support for amnesty and of this nascent rebellion is not — for many of us — merely an expression of our “woman-like” compassion (”Thy blind tears are womanish.” -from Romeo and Juliet), though compassion certainly underwrites any politics of liberation and resistance. This is part of a struggle against imperialism; and that is anything but liberal. So when you make your arguments here, I suggest you start by figuring out where we are coming from. For starters, we don’t cop to the Origin Myth.

   Your attempt to dismiss the connection between this struggle and the Civil Rights struggle and replace it with strict “legality” doesn’t wash. I suspect that’s why you try to parry this way. The Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s was about “citizenship.” Black folk were cheap labor that were taxed, used as cannon fodder in wars, and subject to US law, but they were not granted full citizenship. This is EXACTLY the issue for many immigrants who will be turing out today. The Sensenbrenner (sp?) bill that ignited this protest was the modern-day equivalent of the Fugitive Slave Law (which was the LAW, brother… you could go to jail for assisting escaped slaves… that is why we reject legality as a justification or point of reference.

   Who exactly are you saying is “manipulating” the people who are involved in these resistance actions? That’s a oary old device to deny the real claims of any oppressed population — outside agitators are manipulating them, as if their grievances aren’t real.

   Your citation of Haitians in sugar cane fields in Florida is so filled with factual errors that I feel you should get recognition, like those kids who break records with how many people they can stuff into a pay telephone booth. The vast majority of Haitians in the US do not labor insugar cane fields (you are thinking perhaps of the Dominican Republic), and your characterization is an anachroinism. Who exactly is the dictator to whom you refer? Do you know anything at all about Haiti? If not, don’t try to slip it in as a wedge. It’s a crummy tactic when people do it well. Here, it just puts your ignorance of actual facts into a well-lighted display.

   The question about whether people come here for jobs is a question of survival. Have you ever been to any Latin American slum where unemployment rates soar over 80%? US foreign policies put them there. These folks are economic refugees not of their own countries’ failures, but of a malignant and exploitative US foreign policy that has stripped them of their land and livelihoods. Do you know anything about that?

   Those of us (US citizens) who are simultaneously supporting this specific struggle and the more general struggle to break American international power (imperialism) are not liberals. We have placed our membership in humanity ahead of our citizenship in the US.

   1 May 2006, 9:04 am

4. Non Serviam:

   I’m agreed with Stan on the importance of not pitting X against Y. That line of criticism misplaces the originators and prolongers of such contradictions. Does the Chicano nation run the Coast Guard who interdict Haitians, or the BCIS who lock them up?

   Such contradictions are the reason reds should be active in the struggle; not because we seek to deny the existence of contradiction, but because we recognize that there are and work to move things forward. If not, we are ceding ground to reactionary forces by the square acre.

   1 May 2006, 11:01 am

5. victoria:

   I am in agreement with you, Stan, of course. There was a good piece at Counterpunch this week-end - http://counterpunch.com/linebaugh04292006.html - that brings in some mention of the division between Native Americans/black slaves/European immigrants that I think the US has always tried to keep alive by giving fodder to the division so that folks fight among themselves for the crumbs of capitalism. I think the US started its’ own labor day in September to put distance from International Workers’ Day, as solidarity among the workers is not in the best interests of capitalism.

   As far as Haitians are concerned, if Haitians COULD be classified as refugees, then we would see MANY more of them in our country. Of course there are connections and direct lines between the Latin Americans’ immigrant struggles, civil rights and every other immigrant in the US. I have many Haitian friends who are anxiously awaiting the impending legislation, so then they will know if they must go underground or finally be able to apply for legal status. If only EVERY immigrant, legal or otherwise, really did not work today, the country would just STOP.

   1 May 2006, 5:27 pm

6. Elaina:

   I volunteered at the big “area event” yesterday, and it was the most awesome thing. I have a really intense farmer tan now. And I got to speak spanish with tons and tons of people. The whole thing took place in Knoxville’s World’s Fair Park, it was a beautiful day, there was a kid’s corner where all kinds of different colors of children were playing together, it was like a great big lawn-party, with music and speakers later in the day, and people milling about and talking. There were TONS of people there. I’ve never seen anything like it in Knoxville. It really was idyllic.
   There were “counter-protesters,” a handful of them, who tried to “infiltrate” the event and when they came in with their very hateful signs and their shouts, the crowd kinda pushed in and moved outward in a big circle, holding hands together, and just kinda pushed them off the edge of the field. It was beautiful. And the way that the “peace-keepers,” the security on-site, dealt with them was amazing.

   In the south, any flimsy cover for outright racism will work in a pinch, and will be utilized with gusto. The slogans, “learn the damn language,” “illegal means unamerican”, etc. that I saw on their signs, not to mention the junk that these very aggressive white people were screaming at everyone they saw, these are not points of debate or anything that refined. This is white supremacy, reconfigured into a language that these white folks think is technically legal. When any of us engages in this line of thinking, we are engaging in white supremacy. It’s very hard for some people to swallow that. And the behavior of the “counter-protesters” yesterday made me feel very, very deep shame at identifying as a white person.

   When we say that “we,” talking in terms of some sort of “national affiliation”, should get to “decide” who comes here and who doesn’t, who has the greater need in coming here, whose movement is really legitimate and whose is not, it sounds like the Monroe Doctrine and manifest destiny to me. We are not the world’s big brother, or it’s big sister. We can’t deny people access to resources simply because we happen to be lucky enough and privileged enough to have been born where the resources are. We have to start seeing, if we were born in the U.S.A., and have “full” citizenship (as opposed to First Nations peoples who live on reservations here, neglected and forgotten by many of us), we have to start seeing that and recognizing it as privilege and not just some accident. It is a relative privilege that some folks don’t have to flee the countries they were born in in order to avoid starvation and death. And while people starve and die here, as well, even people (mostly women and children, BTW, a group that is not at the top of the food chain) who are indeed born here, and homelessness is rampant, it doesn’t happen at the same rate or in the same quantity as it does in the countries where these folks come from (countries that are NOT just Mexico.)
   As a white person, I have relative privilege. Even though this might be low in relation to a lot of other white people, given that I come from the working class and that my parents came from a kind of poverty, and that I now work for poverty wages, and I’m a woman, which is another level of non-privilege- being white makes it easier to deal, in a material sense. I won’t get deported, even if I have way-far-left politics and maybe life’s hard most of the time. I don’t have the whole “I’m gonna get sent away because of who I am” or “somebody’s for sure gonna say something really nasty to me because of what I look like” stuff hanging over my head every day.

   When we talk about moving people against their will, regardless of the “legality” of their being in the place that they’re moved from, for no REAL reason, except to reinvigorate our sense that “this country and it’s resources are OURS”, we are getting eerily close to very, very dangerous, white-supremacist theory. Think Andrew Jackson. Think Adolf Hitler. Think about what happened to the American Japanese during WWII. I don’t want ANOTHER Trail of Tears or another Halocaust, another officially-recognized forced movement of the non-white. And that’s how fucked up the Sensenbrenner legislation is.
   And I always ask why nobody talks about the “next steps” that will come about if this ugly, oppressive, and insane legislation comes to be, or any other talked-about form of aggressive immigration “reform.” The “next-steps” would very likely be more ugly than any “American” would like to think about who is not openly white-supremacy affiliated. Where would these people go, how would they get there, where will the government coral them while they await deportation? We have to acknowledge the terrifying possibilities, because the folks that argue for this kinda reform don’t even want to think about THAT. They’re too busy talking about improving the lives of “Americans” and how they (fallaciously) think that fucking with the already fucked-up immigration system, one that allows and denies citizenship seemingly arbitrarily, one that seems to be more inclined to let in “foreigners” if they’re from white countries, will lead to that end.

   There really is, at least IMO, no logical justification to the push against this movement. Every argument I’ve heard is not at all hard to break down in a way that illustrates how wrong and how racist it is. Those who are most vocally anti-immigrant are pretty much blatant white supremacists.
   I refuse to belong to this “we” that they talk about. I just won’t do it. I realize that I’m never not gonna be a white person, and I’m liable to do all kinds of stupid shit on account of it, but I refuse to say that “we” are anything apart from “them.” The people targeted by the Sensenbrenner bill and anti-immigrant legislation aren’t simply “immigrants.” They ARE our sisters and our brothers, and if we try to push them out of our realities we are actively engaging in white supremacist thought.

   We are rapidly approaching a point in history where we’ll no longer be able to hunker-down in a state of relative privilege, while the rest of the world boils and bubbles around us. Being born in the United States of America means being born where there is an overage of resources; we have no RIGHT, abstract or not, IMO, to deny other people these resources, regardless of where they are born, and especially when they are born in places where there is even less to live on.

   Sorry for rambling on, but I really feel very strongly about this.

   2 May 2006, 1:07 pm

7. Elaina:

   Ok, I’m gonna say a little more, then I’ll hush up a minute.

   I realize that my putting “Halocaust” and “Adolf Hitler” in my comment, there, might not really work to convey what I mean, and that there have been many, many genocides that go unrecognized as such.
   Gah. Stupid White Person Syndrome. Muddles everything sometimes. Sorry ’bout that.

   But anyways, it’s hard for me not to feel fear when I think about this whole thing- anti-immigrant speak is getting more and more aggressive, and it just reminds me of the “nightmares” that I read about in history class, in school. Of course, back then, the USA was presented (as it is now) as the “liberating force” and the answer to these problems. Now I know better, to say the least.

   I note an avoidance on the part of folks who try to say that their anti-immigration views and opinions are legitimate and fair in some sense to address the outcome of radical re-fashioning of the immigration system here, in a way that would remove people who’ve laid down roots here, and would keep other folks from doing the same. I only keep hearing “something’s gotta be done about the immigration “problem.”" I don’t see why anybody with any sense, especially anybody who claims not to trust the government here in other areas, would expect the United States Government to be able to do what they’re talking about in addressing the so-called “problem” of immigration without making a terrible, genocidal mess of it. When people say these things, when even good people start talking about “immigrants” like they’re deer migrations, well, I just see it as a way to dehumanize humans and not fully examine all the implications of what they are saying. It’s a promotion of forced removal of a target group of people (undocumented immigrants, in this case) to someplace where members of the general public won’t have to see their humanity. We all should know where this kind of talk leads.

   Anyways, I’m really done for now.

   2 May 2006, 1:50 pm

8. R.S. Morris:

   Right on, Elaina! Your words are music.

   2 May 2006, 1:57 pm

9. Josh Narins:

   Hello Stanislaus,

   The Feb 15, 2003 protest, at least worldwide, was far bigger. I think it was bigger in just the US, also. Didn’t get humanity anywhere.

   By the Constitution, we have the right to peacably assemble. Yet, there is nowhere in the Constitution that says the resolve of the peacably assembled must be heeded.

   Sounds mundane, but local politics is working for me. I’m 34, was a Marine, am a Planning Board and Airport Advisory Council member, and live in New Hampshire, the State which doesn’t pay its Representatives, but has 1 per 3,000 Citizens. I see my four any time I want.

   It is painstaking. None of these people can control US policy towards (say) Iran. But I hope it is a start. I hope (also) to have a long life ahead of me.

   2 May 2006, 7:58 pm

10. tuckett:

    Dear Stan,

    My question to you is as follows: ‘If’ there is probable cause for Americans to believe that Israel had to do with the 9-11 attacks, what would you do?

    Also, I saw something you wrote referring to the ‘illuminati’ as non-existant - - but then what are your thoughts on Zionism?

    sincerely
    tuckett

    3 May 2006, 1:37 am

11. Stan:

    I don’t for one second believe that Israel atacked the US, at least not since the attack on the USS Liberty. I also consider the Illuminati to be so much paranoid raving. I’ll get tons fo comments and mail about that, because the Illuminati-hunters nurse their paranoia over thousands and thousands of keyboards, scouring the internet for new conjectures to support their dark prognostications and seeking out non-believers to convert them.

    The world is not divided into Good vs. Evil, and conspiracies, while used to secure and consoidate power, are not determinative. The social system is.

    As for my thoughts on Zionism, the two following links cover them pretty well. It is not equatable to Judaism, nor reducible to Jews, nor is it a world-domination conspiracy. These constructions are — paradoxically — used by both anti-Semites and pro-Zionists (Zionism=Judaism). It is a political movement, racist and (locally) expansionist in nature, and secular in its origins.

    http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/071404_jurassic_park4.shtml

    http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/092304_jurassic_park5.shtml

    3 May 2006, 9:08 am

12. Jason:

    “Hello Stanislaus,

    The Feb 15, 2003 protest, at least worldwide, was far bigger. I think it was bigger in just the US, also. Didn’t get humanity anywhere.

    By the Constitution, we have the right to peacably assemble. Yet, there is nowhere in the Constitution that says the resolve of the peacably assembled must be heeded.

    Sounds mundane, but local politics is working for me. I’m 34, was a Marine, am a Planning Board and Airport Advisory Council member, and live in New Hampshire, the State which doesn’t pay its Representatives, but has 1 per 3,000 Citizens. I see my four any time I want.

    It is painstaking. None of these people can control US policy towards (say) Iran. But I hope it is a start. I hope (also) to have a long life ahead of me.

    Josh Narins
    ”

    I live in NH too. As I’ve written here before, we’re a hard lot to convince. We are predominantly white, very well off, and live in small communities with old ties.

    But..

    Your way only works if you are affluent, or committed to a life of exploitive affluence. I run a business. Guess who works in my back of house? Brown people. Guess who makes the profit? Not them.

    That’s what makes the Great State of NH tick. Go to Sweetheart plastics, any restaurant, to Velcro, or the Airport on whose advisory board you sit - who’s doing the scutwork? Brown people. Who’s in the media office? Who’s the rep to the Chamber of Commerce? Not them.

    We had our Irish and Germans, the our French, then our Greeks and Poles, then our Bosnians, and now we have Iraqis and Hispanics - the permanent NH underclass is what makes NH work.

    Don’t get me wrong. I love it here. I love the green, the growing opposition to sprawl, the Yankww loyalties, the good schools for my kids. You and I get all that because NH’s tech and finance class lives off the grossly underpaid labor of a nearly captive service labor pool.

    But I know that my (relative) wealth works for me because Maria and Catalina and Jose and Hamid and Sami and Geraldo and Georges and the rest of them work for $7 an hour, don’t take breaks, don’t complain and work like dogs. Sure, I work like a dog too. But I don’t get dirty doing it. I tell people what to do, and I can fire them if they don’t do it. (That I don’t is an open secret that gets me in more trouble with the suits than I’d care to explain.)

    Who gets the oil-byproducts, the good insurance, the good schools, the policeman’s nod? Not them.

    We do.

    We’ll pay that price, and then the cost, some day…

    3 May 2006, 2:25 pm

13. celticfire:

    Happy May Day from Portland!

    3 May 2006, 7:35 pm

14. c.:

    All I have to say is that, despite the fact that I could not attend the lovely May Day event with Elaina, and actually was required to do my [unpaid] work at the risk of losing my chance to acquire a paid job, I did give my one Latina sister/student a break by not letting her absence [at the local public high school where I teach] count against her “time for time” make-up hours.

    Once I heard she stepped out on May 1, I was certain she would pass my class.

    Adelante!

    3 May 2006, 11:15 pm

15. tuckett:

    Good of you to respond. thanks stan.

    4 May 2006, 1:53 am

16. tuckett:

    Stan, on second thought i would like to respond. I do believe that it is dangerous to assume that there isn’t a great force in the world that seeks to have greater power than the rest which happens to be the majority. Is it world domination ?- i guess it depends on who you ask. Wasn’t the aim of Hitler world domination? So why are we immune from thinking that Zionism (Israel) hasn’t the same vision of control that it exhibited in Palestine after WWII?

    It’s not a conspiracy when you read the words of David Ben Gurion. I’m sorry, I don’t believe Israel should be the ‘capital of the world’.

    Why is it Stan, that when given matrimonial vows here off the coast of California, two Jews, who are both Americans by the way, swear their allegiance to ‘Israel’. I should apologize again for listening over the fence.

    I am not one for conspiricies either, in fact, it requires much mental dexterity to get past the crazy conspiracies that are our before us- and one of them is 9-11. But Stan, I have nothing to gain and nothing to lose from seeing the truth. What truth? ->I never saw a plane in Shanksville, and I know you didn’t either. Not a piece of tail, not a wing, not a cockpit, not an arm or a leg or a doll Stan. I saw smoke, and men talking about. I saw nothing that suggested that a plane crashed there- it was only suggested to me and everyone else.

    And why would the government keep the cameras back when this government loves to exploit tragedy for gain- but for the very essense of that ‘tragedy’??

    Why was there a flag over the hole in the Pentagon Stan? For Patriotism? Or because it went along with the moment of silence that never happened.

    I apologize again, I don’t believe in conspiracy theories my friend, I have Much More to do then to contemplate 19 shadows and fake heroes.

    What are the Real issues? Here is the apex of the pyramid - knowledge - and here is my science that tells me simply that the conspiracy is greater than your recognition of it.

    define conspiracy:

    con·spir·a·cy

    1. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
    2. A group of conspirators.
    3. Law. An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
    4. A joining or acting together, as if by sinister design: a conspiracy of wind and tide that devastated coastal areas.

    truly
    tuckett

    4 May 2006, 2:40 am

17. Stan:

    Illuminati

    Wiki provides a pretty good account of the difference between a valid investigation of an actual conspiracy, and the restless penchant for “conspiracy theory” (tho I’d argue with some of it, you get the idea):

    Allegations exhibiting several of the following features are candidates for classification as conspiracy theories. Confidence in such classification improves the more such features are exhibited:

    1 Initiated on the basis of limited, partial or circumstantial evidence; Conceived in reaction to media reports and images, as opposed to, for example, thorough knowledge of the relevant forensic evidence.

    2 Addresses an event or process that has broad historical or emotional impact; Seeks to interpret a phenomenon which has near-universal interest and emotional significance, a story that may thus be of some compelling interest to a wide audience.

    3 Reduces morally complex social phenomena to simple, immoral actions; Impersonal, institutional processes, especially errors and oversights, interpreted as malign, consciously intended and designed by immoral individuals.

    4 Personifies complex social phenomena as powerful individual conspirators; Related to (3) but distinct from it, deduces the existence of powerful individual conspirators from the ‘impossibility’ that a chain of events lacked direction by a person.

    5 Allots superhuman talents or resources to conspirators; May require conspirators to possess unique discipline, unrepentant resolve, advanced or unknown technology, uncommon psychological insight, historical foresight, unlimited resources, etc.

    6 Key steps in argument rely on inductive, not deductive reasoning; Inductive steps are mistaken to bear as much confidence as deductive ones.

    7 Appeals to ‘common sense’; Common sense steps substitute for the more robust, academically respectable methodologies available for investigating sociological and scientific phenomena.

    8 Exhibits well-established logical and methodological fallacies; Formal and informal logical fallacies are readily identifiable among the key steps of the argument.

    9 Is produced and circulated by ‘outsiders’, often anonymous, and generally lacking peer review; Story originates with a person who lacks any insider contact or knowledge, and enjoys popularity among persons who lack critical (especially technical) knowledge.

    10 Is upheld by persons with demonstrably false conceptions of relevant science; At least some of the story’s believers believe it on the basis of a mistaken grasp of elementary scientific facts.

    11 Enjoys zero credibility in expert communities; Academics and professionals tend to ignore the story, treating it as too frivolous to invest their time and risk their personal authority in disproving.

    12 Rebuttals provided by experts are ignored or accommodated through elaborate new twists in the narrative;
    hen experts do respond to the story with critical new evidence, the conspiracy is elaborated (sometimes to a spectacular degree) to discount the new evidence, often incorporating the rebuttal as a part of the conspiracy.

    13 The conspiracy is claimed to involve just about anybody; Conspiracy tales grow in the telling, and can swell to world-spanning proportions. As the adherents struggle to explain counter-arguments, the conspiracy grows even more (see preceding item). Conspiracy theories that have been around for a few decades typically encompass the whole world and huge portions of history.

    14 The conspiracy centers on the “usual suspects”; Classical conspiracy theories feature people, groups or organsations that are discriminated against in the culture where the story is told. Jews and foreigners are a common target. Likewise, organisations with a bad or colorful reputation feature prominently, such as the templars, the nazis and just about any secret service.

    Here is a piece by a 9-11 theorist who thinks the government did it, but refutes the “no plane hit the Pentagon” story.

    And here is a deconstruction of the Pentagon no-plane theory done by someone who had even more time on his hands than the no-plane theorists.

    Back to my point. These are outgrowths of the system, which can be seen or concealed by examination of actual actions taken by the political representatives of the bourgeoisie… depending on your episteme.

    Actually, no, Hitler was not bent on world domination. His goal was the conquest of Europe and enough colonies and leibensraum (expansion space) to support his new reich. But the deeper question is not what Hitler (one man) wanted, but how did he get where he was? What were the SOCIAL forces that led to fascism?

    And where in the world did anyone get “Israel wants to be capital of the world”? If we are drifting into the World Jewish Conspriacy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, your stay here could be quite short. Be very careful. These notions are plain anti-Semitism. My oldest daughter is Jewish, and aside from my general objections to hateful anti-Jewish lunacy, I would take that very personally.

    Read the rules — Not tolerated: racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism… got it?

    4 May 2006, 7:58 am

18. Mark Hall:

    For the sake of a more informed contextual reasoning — and my personal erudition — please define the term “immigrant” as is used in the text preceeding the postings. Exempli gratia: “Call you[r] Congressperson and tell them you want amnesty for immigrants.”

    Thank you.

    4 May 2006, 12:33 pm

19. Mark Hall:

    Wow. I ask a question, not to mention I contributed money to your site-fund not long ago, and you delete a post of mine (made around noonish) containing a very simple, albeit sincere, question directly related to the topic?

    Disturbing trend indeed.

    4 May 2006, 1:35 pm

20. Stan:

    Don’t shoot, Mark.

    No comment goes directly up. I didn’t delete anything. The blog is moderated. When I just moderated in the latest comments, there were three real ones (two yours), and 23 comment-spams, which I have to keep out.

    I don’t sit here 24-7, so there are often lag times between posting and seeing.

    4 May 2006, 3:48 pm

21. tuckett:

    I think you’ve done a good job at evading the point Stan. , just like you did my original question about Israel. Do you plan a run for office in the future?

    And about your comment ‘objections to hateful anti-Jewish lunacy, I would take that very personally.’ Are you supposing that I am not Jewish? If so, then am I a riddled in guilt? The rules apply for all, and I object to the notion that you would paint me anti-semetic;

    Unlike you Stan, I am not afraid to see the truth and act upon it.

    Good luck feral minded scholar.

    tuckett

    4 May 2006, 6:42 pm

22. Stan:

    I didn’t say Israel wanted to be the capitol of the world. And I simply warned you — because this kind of nonsense is typically followed by WJC stuff — that if we go there, we won’t go together.

    This kind of verbiage, especially in combination with “What are the Real issues? Here is the apex of the pyramid - knowledge - and here is my science that tells me simply that the conspiracy is greater than your recognition of it.” (a reference to the Illuminati, I assume) generally DOES go there.

    In any case, the real Illuminati lasted only a short while, and they are all now quite dead. And a plane crashed into the Pentagon.

    4 May 2006, 7:02 pm

23. tuckett:

    Here is what i should have posted previously in tandem with ‘..israel as capital of the world…’

    -

    of the year 1987, mr. d. ben gurion is quoted as saying: ‘…all armies will be abolished, and there will be no more wars. In Jerusalem, the United Nations (a truly united nations) will build a Shrine of the Prophets to serve the federated union of all continents: this will be the seat of the Supreme Court of Mankind, to settle all controversies among the federated continents, as prophesised by Isiah….’

    And it wasnt AA Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon.

    http://www.apfn.org/apfn/flight77.htm

    4 May 2006, 9:52 pm

24. Elaina:

    Uh… would it be assholish of me to ask if we could get back to the May Day stuff? I mean, maybe what y’all are talking about has something to do with it, but I have no fucking idea at this point…

    4 May 2006, 11:46 pm

25. R.S. Morris:

    By all means, let’s talk about May 1st!

    I did end up going to Denver for the big Strike, and it was HUGE. Upwords of 75,000 people is what I was hearing post-facto (I had heard expectations of @50,000 the day prior) and I wouldn’t even think to dispute that number.

    That morning I traveled to Viking Park a few miles north-west of downtown to check out the form-up for the march. The mood was festive, if just a tiny bit uncertain–rumors had apparently been spread that La Migra was going to be on-scene. Until I made it obvious that I was there to support their cause, I was probably on their “cop” radar. I stayed there long enough to talk to several groups and see about two-thousand people pack into the park, then I bugged-out for the Capitol.

    I met a friend at the library and we proceeded to wend our way through a growing crowd of maybe 5-7 thousand prior to the march entering the square. The first thing that impressed both of us was the relative invisibility of the police presence; the only places they seemed to be congregating was at the street barricades, and at no point did they seem stressed-out or looking for trouble. Kudos to the Denver PD and Capitol Police.

    About twenty minutes later the march began streaming into the square, and that’s when we began to truly understand the impact this movement could end up having. The population went from virtually insignificant to pretty-much uncountable in about 45 minutes. The people–women, men, little kids, babies–just kept marching in for that entire time. The street entering onto the square would seemingly start to thin a bit, then a new wave of bodies carrying signs and chanting “Si, se Puede!” would reinvigorate the growing masses.

    I have NEVER been to anything this big. 75,000 sounds right. There was no violence that I saw; the (maybe) seven counter-protestors (complete with rebel flags) were a joke, and they realized it pretty quick.

    What a great event, and a fantastic experience for me.

    Randy

    8 May 2006, 2:32 pm

26. Jim Withey:

    At the risk of getting ejected (censored), I would like to bring a little balance to the debate here on this site.
    If Stan wants to use his “authority” to send me packing, fine. As I’ve written before, I am persistent if stubborn, but probably not stupid. Live and learn
    A fundamental premise of this website and its host is the belief in and criticism of the “White Nation”. This label, along with statements made by sTAN like “…rich white fucks…” et cetera seem to me to violate Stan’s own rules against racist comments. Or is it OK to make racist comments against whites because they rule the world, and are bad? Then specify, please, by saying no racism except against the evil white people. What would be the response by Stan if someone wrote something about “rich Jewish fucks” of which there seems to be many. Is that “Anti-Semitism”? Let’s find out.
    Let’s try to get closer to the heart of the matter here.
    To assume that there is some cohesive “white privileged” group out there is very misleading and exagerrated. It also depends on your use of the word privilege, which according to my dictionary includes “right”, “benefit”, and “immunity+ by people if a group.
    Two points to make immediately from that label put on white people.
    First of all, I would estimate that about 40 per cent of “whites”, at least in this country, are reasonably decent, progressive people. The rest of them are much more to be defined as the “dirty white boys” (and girls) you’ve heard about. This is a rough approximation with variables and gray areas. It’s a recognition that there are big differences in attitude and approach within the white culture; “Nation”, if you want to label it. The impotance of the estimate is that it states that the positive or progressive element of white society has been influential, but not dominant, because of their minority status. That minority status has resulted in the inability to create overall progressive approaches. For example, were all whites enthusiastic about subduing the indigenous populations of America? I think not. The progressive element that would have traded fairly with the natives in return for use of the land was always a minority and did not dictate policy. Scholarship on this topic, as on any topic, has to be appraised with respect to the biases and motives of the scholar.
    The second point relative to “privilege” is that the “benefit” of being white, to the extent it exists, is based on proximity and achievement, more than some abstract concept of being white. The historical benefit to being white was that since the development of advanced scientific inquiry, for good or bad, probably beginning with the Renaissance, geographical proximity to the areas where white scientific achievement were outpacing the rest of the world meant an overall higher standard of living for those within that proximity. That concept of proximity I hear little about, in relation to the racial “privilege” ideas that are often mentioned. Being “white” was not such a great thing during the Middle Ages when the Islamic Empire was more advanced and probably progressive than European culture.
    So what are we to make of the situation now?
    I consider myself to be a part of that maybe 40 percent of whites who are reasonably progressive and not so privileged, either.
    What is not being mentioned in our discussions is how much discrimination and prejudice exists WITHIN the white society. There is a complete hierarchical structure within white society which promotes certain types of people, with certain characteristics (mostly bad) to the higher and better positions in the society. Although I’ve probably worked harder, or at least put in a better effort than many and probably most others in the “white” society, I have received very little in return. The jobs I’ve had were always at the low end of the spectrum, the types that most whites don’t want and usually succeed in not doing. I’ve applied for several jobs that would be considered mediocre at best but have always been turned down, even though there was no reason to believe I wasn’t qualified. Relative to those “whites” who did very little in school and most surely beyond school I compare poorly in vocational success. A lot of that has to do with the concept of “it’s who you know”, along with your political beliefs and activities. Openly progressive people I am reasonably certain, are consistently discriminated from the highest paying and most influential positions in society. Keep this in mind if you decide to focus on your career path.
    I’ve also spent a couple of years or so being homeless, another phenomenon that seems to be disproportionately common among us “privileged whites” (males too). I’m not going to say that all homeless are the same, but the statistics point to “whites” having a demographic that is not “privileged” with respect to homelessness. Take my word for it, being homeless in northern areas of the country is no picnic. Only in a delerious state of mind did I ever do anything wrong, and that of an extremely petty nature. Never did I join a gang, never did I rob someone. Never did I commit violence against anyone. Mostly I was harassed by police and arrested unjustly by them for trying to survive without doing wrong.
    My basic appeal to the 40 percent of the whites that are fair and reasonable is this: Don’t get manipulated by propaganda and specious rhetoric into not defending your interests. Don’t feel guilty for having a decent life that you probably deserve anyway. Don’t feel responsible for all of the world’s problems; you’re not the cause. You didn’t steal the land of others, you adjusted to the hardball shittiness that has existed and continues to exist. You weren’t the dominant voice in determining how the world is run. And don’t fall for some crap that states that there are some “minority groups” that are better and more moral than you. My Latino neighbors are as consumerrist as anybody else in this country. Their children have more toys than I EVER had growing up. So just realize that’s what they’re all coming here for, the good life, and don’t expect them to give a damn about your concerns and problems. So think carefully about how to maintain your equilibrium in this world. The shitty people of the world are the majority, and until that changes you have to adapt to their power structure, and fight it where you can.

    25 May 2006, 1:39 pm

27. Elaina:

    I’m a fan of the term “relative privilege.” Why? ‘Cause it conveys in a more realistic manner the actual lived realities of folks who don’t belong to the ruling class, white or not.

    Jim. I have been through a similar phase. I live in TN in a fucked-up, run-down trailer with 8 other people. It’s a junkheap. My mom’s father came from a family of sharecroppers, and he paid the bills by fixing cars, relying on a veteran’s check, and selling liquor, sometimes. He wasn’t too awful privileged, economically, but he still joined the KKK when he got back from WWII. Mom’s mama was a domestic worker, she cleaned houses for more well-to-do white women, until later in life when she waited tables. She still used the “N” word until she died, every time she saw a Black person. On my dad’s side, there’s enough Cherokee ancestry that his family didn’t LOOK white- but they said they were white, and so they were. His mother grew up on English Mountain, here in Sevier Co. We ain’t the ruling class. We STILL have white privilege.

    How?

    Different areas, I guess, fall under this umbrella. I wrote a post a while back that Stan put up, detailing an encounter with the cops.

    White people, particularly from the working class, are sold an “American Dream” that pushes them to work, work, work towards becoming part of the “Ruling Class.” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard from my family, “You’re a smart, hardworking, white girl. You’ll do just fine.” I can sniff the crumbs from the master’s table, see the carrot dangling over my head. I pushed myself through college, graduated 2 years ago, and am just now finding new employment that will (I hope) enable me to pay my student loan debts and pay rent. The job I’m about to quit pays 7.87 cents an hour.

    That still doesn’t change my position as primarily a consumer within the global economy. It doesn’t change the fact that many women will suffer in Ecuador or El Salvador or Guatemala just so that I can buy a fucking shirt at the Wal-Mart, the only place a woman like me might be able to afford to buy, say, interview clothes, or apparel that’s deemed “appropriate” for my new job. That puts me in a place of relative privilege that, since it happens in Gringolandia, where the power is white and the power is Male, is distinctly white. I’m working for the man when I do that, whether I want to or not, or whether I mean to or not. The Man is white(just google a while for some fed. gov. demographics, if you don’t believe me) and the Man’s a man. You could very well sell out and use what skills you have to become part of that class (as many working-class whites attempt to do), but if you’ve chosen another path, then you’ve still chosen it.

    And those “immigrant” kids, the ones who may have more toys than you did as a kid, well, how many WHITE kids nowadays have to live in the same kinda conditions? I’d rather know how the existence compares contemporarily. You’re not a White Kid anymore. You’re a white adult. Why’s it ok to begrudge kids what they can get in this fucked up world? That has nothing at all to do with YOUR CURRENT white privilege.

    The thing about working-class whiteness, and the context that you have to think in, is a global one. You can’t just think “I don’t have XYZ stuff” or whatever and then determine that you have no relative privilege. That’s just bullshit, ESPECIALLY if you’re a man. And I live right down there in the trenches with the working-class, white, male sector in the U.S. south. I see the existence and experience every day, and I don’t for ONE SECOND buy the “angry white male” bullshit, the idea that poor white men are being scapegoated in one way or another. Poor white men have gobbled up a lot of crumbs and carrots off the master’s table, which to me is made more evident in their manifestations of MALE privilege. Look up some of Roxanne Dunbar’s stuff, if I’m remembering her name correctly. Pretty good analysis of poor white experience, as far as Okies are concerned.
    White male experience is by no means homogeneously privileged. I KNOW that. There’s different levels and degrees of privilege. Nobody here’s saying that there ain’t. But when poor whites decided, consciously, that it was more beneficial to go ahead and take that fucking carrot off the stick than to fight side-by-side with their non-white sisters and brothers, against white, ruling-class supremacy, they made their own beds.

    You don’t have to worry, going into, let’s say a white-run auto mechanic’s shop, that you’ll get royally screwed or denied service based on the color of your skin. You don’t have to worry about random folks on the street calling you “nigger” or “wetback”. You are a member of the institutionally privileged, whether you think you have a good life or not.

    I know a lot of white men with little relative privilege- who are privileged in the HOME. Who might be poor or broke or jobless, but whose mama’s still take care of them, whether or not they can afford to. I’m much more familiar with the white-male-vocational drama of “I got one job and I can’t pay my bills!!” and then, in response to the suggestion, “so why don’t you get another job?” the answer is “well, if I do that I won’t have time to pursue OTHER interests” or it’s equivalent.

    I never had to march in a Martin Luther King Day parade. I was told that I’d be disowned if I ever “brought home a Black man.” Not that it would have made much difference- my family don’t own much from which to “dis” me. But it’s an attitude that I’ve had to actively struggle against. And my family ain’t what you’d call stupid rednecks. Well, a few of them might be. But then again, they’d NEVER say ANY of this shit in public.

    Now, I’ll concede that the economy’s moving to a place where “middle-class” life- the life yearned for by many poor whites, that is portrayed on TV as something that’s pretty white in itself, and cushy, and relatively free from worry- is having to be drastically redifined, for one, and where less and less people are actually able to get there from where they start out. Not to mention that the “middle class dream” in Gringolandia is an advertising fiction; the targets of ads and TV and media don’t really exist, we have to remember. But yeah. It’s gonna be harder and harder for poor whites to make ends meet as a result. I’d just like to look around the room and say to my poor white sisters and brothers: welcome to the real world. Now get on the right side of things. Look real good and hard at your existence, because if you do you’ll SEE where you are privileged over non-white people. It ain’t that hard. If you’re privileged enough to have some sort of internet access, you should google Peggy McIntosh’s “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” You’ll see a lot of stuff there that applies to you. The only way you can fight the good fight is to self-examine, and closely, so that you can help stop this shit on the ground. It’s the only way.

    I think that the white folk here would be lying if they said that they weren’t, in one place or another, within ready access of some form of white privilege. If they’re unawares, it’s not because they’re “innocent,” in an idealistic sense- it’s because they’ve never been bothered to dig hard enough. Or they’ve never seen enough of a problem with “racism” (a term that’s severely vague and is best substituted with the words “white supremacy”) to make the effort. Or they’re just too stuck in their own existences to realize that it’s happening.

    Jim, I’m sorry if you’ve had a hard life. That doesn’t negate White supremacy as an institution. And it doesn’t mean you’ve never experienced “white” privilege. It also doesn’t excuse you from your own responsibility in fighting it. Things are rough all over, Ponyboy; and while those Latin@ kids next door might have more toys than you did growing up, it doesn’t take away the stigma that will follow them for not being white. And, if they’re not documented, it doesn’t soothe the threat that hangs over them of some sort of forced removal via the White Supremacist, Fascist, Gringo government.

    I’ve had a tough life, too, bro. It ain’t gonna blind me to the fact that there are folks out there who’ve got it tougher, and it’s due in a miniscule part to my OWN damn lack of consciousness, and in larger terms to the lack of those who belong to my culture who just don’t give a shit about anybody but their damn selves. So get yer head outta yer ass and call off the pity party. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that I’ve heard it a million and nine times, okay?

    That said, there were a few comments in particular that bugged me. So here’s the breakdown, then I’ll put down the rant-gun.

    A fundamental premise of this website and its host is the belief in and criticism of the “White Nation”. This label, along with statements made by sTAN like “…rich white fucks…” et cetera seem to me to violate Stan’s own rules against racist comments

    For the love of god. Read the rest of this blog, and do some research on the fucking institutional power that is White Supremacy. I get so sick of the “reverse-racism” fiction being pushed as a valid argument. Utter, steamy, ridiculous bullshit. You sound like Jim Goad in his “Redneck Manifesto.” Maybe you should join his fan-club.

    I’m not going to say that all homeless are the same, but the statistics point to “whites” having a demographic that is not “privileged” with respect to homelessness

    Well. Do I have to point out here that “non-whites” also have an “even less privileged” demographic with respect to homelessness? Are you trying to say here that only white people in this country are homeless? I don’t understand the point. And I’m not trying to berate your own experience with homelessness. Sorry you had to deal with that. But still. Not all homeless folks are white, and from what I see on the streets, it’s not a majority of them.

    For example, were all whites enthusiastic about
    subduing the indigenous populations of America? I think not. The progressive element that would have traded fairly with the natives in return for use of the land was always a minority and did not dictate policy. Scholarship on this topic, as on any topic, has to be appraised with respect to the biases and motives of the scholar.

    Nope, they weren’t ALL enthusiastic about it. But they were even LESS enthusiastic about staying in their home lands, to keep from stealing land from said “indigenous populations,” and even, even less enthusiastic about joining forces with them to push the Landlords and landthieves out. Apathy’s not something that’s excusable, to me, whether I’m talking about my ancestors that were apathetic to the situation or my ancestors who were forcefully removed from their lands in the mountains of TN to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears.

    If the “motives of the scholar” have anything to do with the destruction of White Supremacist Patriarchy, then I’ve got the scholar’s back. Punto.

    I don’t deserve a decent life any more than my sisters who work in sweatshops in Guatemala, or my sisters who were displaced during last year’s hurricane season, or who are threatened now by a white supremacist movement that’s being spearheaded by our government in poorly-masked language of “immigration reform.” The difference, the BIG difference, is that I might actually get that life I deserve. Many of my sisters out there are much more far removed from that hope than I am. So MY plea to that “40 percent” is to keep a keen eye out, realize that there are those of us out there who empathize and will help where we can if you’re also dedicated to ending white supremacy and patriarchy within the shores of Gringolandia. DO pay attention to your own motives, and if that carrot’s shaken in your face at the expense of somebody who doesn’t happen to have that one privilege, the one that’s a shade lighter and worn on the skin for all to see, don’t take that fucking carrot, not if it’s not necessary to your very survival. Please.

    From a poor white sister who’s doing what she can.

    26 May 2006, 6:13 pm

28. Audrey:

    The perception that homelessness disproportionately affects white people is a good example of looking at things through the distorted lens of unacknowledged privilege. Whites make up 80% of the US population. So 80% of homeless people should be white, if all else were equal. From the National Homeless Coalition: “In its 2004 survey of 27 cities … the homeless population was 49% African-American, 35% Caucasian, 13% Hispanic, 2% Native American, and 1% Asian.”
    http://www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/facts/Whois.pdf.

    Here’s the thing about white privilege. You know that feeling you get when you stop at a red light - and the driver in the next lane looks at you, reaches down and locks his doors? You know how that’s kind of bad, but it’s ten times worse when your kid sees it happen, and asks you why he did that, and you have to struggle to find the right words to explain?

    You know how when a job search isn’t going well, one of the things you consider is finding someone who will let you list their phone number instead of your own on your resume, because if an employer sees a 313 area code, they aren’t going to call you, for obvious reasons?

    You know how you end up feeling like a big pile of stupid after you’ve been sitting alone in your car for ten minutes at the side of the road because a cop randomly stopped you for a DWB offense, asked to search your car, and when you agreed, he walked slowly back to his car, sat in it for a while, then drove off – and you can’t figure out if you’ve been dismissed or if he’s returning to conduct the search?

    In art we use the term Negative Space to refer to the areas of a canvas where things don’t happen – the shapes that are formed only by the absence of other shapes. This negative space is often considered as important in a composition as the subject itself. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that phrase, and ways in which that term applies outside the art world. Places like Chernobyl or some of the areas where Katrina hit could be considered negative space, those areas where people don’t or shouldn’t live because it’s not inhabitable for one reason or another. These are areas we write off; they’re done, polluted or otherwise destroyed through incompetence or apathy or by deliberate design. The world, as most white privileged US citizens know it, exists in the gaps between those negative spaces.

    When my friend talks about feeling uneasy sleeping on a traditional bed instead of a mattress on the floor, what she’s really saying is that the area waist high and up in her house is negative space, the space she doesn’t exist in. She doesn’t needlessly put her body in those spaces, because windows suck at blocking stray bullets. When I ask her why she doesn’t just sleep in the upstairs bedroom, wouldn’t the geometry and angles protect her, she has to stop and think about that. “You know,” she says, “I’m not sure why I didn’t move into that bedroom. I guess that would have made sense.” And then she thinks some more. “If someone broke into my house, and I was sleeping up there, how would I escape? There’s only one staircase.” So in her two story house, everything from 3 feet on up is her negative space, the areas so not a part of her life that she hasn’t even questioned why she doesn’t use them. They just aren’t.

    I’ve lived at various times with just a mattress or sleeping bag on the floor because I preferred it or couldn’t afford better, or because I sometimes can’t be bothered to get the things I’m supposed to have as a grownup, but it was never because the thought of sleeping in that level of my house felt unsafe. The absence of that thought process is part of my privilege. Most of us don’t view the absence of these thoughts as a luxury in any way – it’s just the natural state for us.

    In a very abstract sense, white privilege itself could be described as a sort of negative space; it’s an existence based in part on the absence of events. Nobody’s going to walk up and give you an engraved award when you receive white privileges. You won’t know when you’ve gotten them, because as often as not they’re the things that don’t happen; they’re the people that don’t lock their car doors when they realize they’ve entered your neighborhood.

    27 May 2006, 1:52 am

29. Jim Withey:

    A few points in response to Elaina’s comments, regarding my submission.
    If deceit and surreptitious double dealing weren’t in my opinion so prevalent, then “making sense” of things would be easier and the world would be a much better place (probably) than it is. Remember the Mossad’s motto: “By way of deception…”.
    There are simple and basic ideas that are important, and there are complex and deeper meanings to things that can be very important as well. My comments are directed primarily at those people who are truly decent, reasonably progressive people, who while quite possibly and hopefully intelligent, may not have discovered some of the ‘deeper meanings” that might hasten and improve their ability to contribute to a better world for themselves and others.
    The good part about this is that truly “good” people know who they are, for the most part. There are to my belief many instances of trickery and deceit by people towards other people, but it’s pretty hard to fool yourself or trick yourself. If you’re really a person with good intentions, you probably know it, and vice-versa. I’m talking to the basically good people or those that would like to be. The common credo in this world is “nice guys finish last”. I’m trying to reverse that reality, to the extent that it exists.
    Just a note on “deeper meanings”. If you look carefully at the phrase Men Are Really Shitheads, and see a clue, good. Remember, they’re not all the same. If you’re wondering why I don’t explain exactly what I mean, well, I think it’s best to leave it at that for now and hopefully some will catch on. After all, this is a struggle we’re in, and one must be responsible.
    The problem I see with Elains’s comments is that she sidesteps around the important points. I reiterate that the majority part of the white race, the “dirty” ones, have messed things up really good. That does’nt mean that the 40 percent or so of reasonably progressive whites are responsible. Depending on who you’re going to believe, I say that this group either did attempt to deal fairly with natives or were primarily interested in minding their own business. This minority within the white race did not and does not now have political control.
    Of course we have “progressives” like Howard Zinn who will probably conveniently diminish or leave out the positive attempts at justice by this minority group, as well as the context of the situation. I recall that patriarchical “progressive” Gore Vidal once write something to the effect that at the center of the earth you will find a joke book. It seems that Howard Zinn spent part of his “high youth” bombing the shit out of Germany. Perhaps another cruel joke played on the unfortunate. The joke book is at the center of the earth, where I hope that 40 percent of whites and any others will dig to learn its secrets to prevent it happening to them and their associates.
    The context of this situation is very much about survival. First of all, the progressive white element was and is caught between a rock and a hard place in my opinion. The most obvious example of this is the Irish famine emigrees. Were they to simply let themselves perish? Could they have had any hope fighting the British? No, and No, in my opinion. Which gets us to the second part of the problem.
    I’m all for true progressivism, as opposed to the phony, specious, bullshit “progressives” that dominate our society. Which means historical consistency. If the “white societies” of Europe and America are supposed to have open borders, and stop having “racist” immigration policies, then that has to also apply to the other countries, past and present. What would these “progressives” have said during the last half of the last millenium? Would they be crying for “open borders” and “world unity”? No, the whites, including the progressive element within them would have been criticized for “stealing land”, while the “minorities” of the world, most notably Jews, would be described as “seeking a better life” when they migrated. Of course the dirty white majority ruined the situation, becauese they had superior firepower and used it to subdue the majority of the world. That does not hold culpable the minority within the white race who were trying to survive, or were “seeking a better life” and had no political control to arrange affairs justly. This applies to now, where less privileged and influential whites like myself can put forth a number of fair and reasonable propositions relating to politics, without much hope of success. The creeps have the power, and all that I or others like myself can do is to make the best impact we can, while trying to survive, and hopefully not get wuckered into feeling guilty for the sins of the “white race”.
    Without getting into the difficulties of “deeper meanings”, or perhaps “deeper understandings” that I mentioned above, my advice to those people who know in their minds that they wish to have the happiest and most benign course for people and life in general, in this case particularly that 40 percent of whites who fall somewhere in this category, try to find the best understanding you can of the world in order to make your way in it for yourself and those people who you may never know who are in various ways trying to do good. It’s a struggle, and money is the main focal point for that struggle. Money is more than something to have “to get by on” with, it determines to a large extent how much a person can influence society. Don’t feel guilty as a general rule about acquiring it until wuch time as political conditions suggest that you should. Unless you’re doing it for tactical reasons to not give away your “identity” to all of the “intelligence gatherers” out there, I advise you to minimize your charitable spending, as well as frivolous spending. “Charity is not justice” is a good thing to remember when understanding politics. I think a large portion of the charitable institutions are rackets thet if nothing else are trying to bleed the conscientious people of the world and reduce further their power.
    In conclusion to this submission, I repeat my belief and observation as before. The problems of the “minorities” of the world are not caused by you, the 40 percenters, because you don’t set the political agenda for the world, even though you may contribute to it in some way. Many of these exploited minorities are exploited by their own racial kin, just like you may be by yours. If they are truly sincere in their motives, they need to pressure the exploiters in their own cultures as well as the “dirty” white oppressors. It also shouldn’t be to hard to see what many of them are after anyway. There is a great “having it all” mentality that is sweeping the world, and it’s certainly evident in the “minority” community. Look at all the celebrities, including the minority ones, boisterous, flamboyant greedhounds, who clamor about oppression as they ruthlessly maneuver to become capitalist exploiters themselves. The hyperbole is stunning in its audacity. One black professional basketball player who makes over 10 million dollars a year says he is “exploited”. Of course, even if you’re going to argue that the owners of the team are “exploiting” him, it’s rather likely he’ll use his millions to make more millions and exploit others himself. So to state it clearly. He is not a slave, his ancestors were, a big difference. He may have come from a poor backround. Is he going to promote social justice, or use his disadvantaged backround to blame people who didn’t have political power over his situation. The bottom line for the 40 percenters is, the wolld is run in a hardball fashion, and injustice is a political problem. Take care of yourself, learn the deeper truths of the world, and contribute what you think you can to its betterment, present and future. Good Luck.

    27 May 2006, 6:39 am

30. Stan:

    “Racism” is generally thought of as an individual problem. Certain individuals dislike others bsed on a phenotype. This notion has actually been medicalized. It is made to appear as a pathology… again, an individual pathology. Audrey points at something esle afoot, however. The stuff that is invisible. Privilege that is rooted in a SYSTEM (not a pathology) renders powerlessness within that same system invisible.

    I bring up ideology a lot here. What does that word mean? There are multiple interpretations, but the one I use is a constructed world view that simultaneously conceals and reproduces power.

    The word power is the operative term.

    I raised three Black kids. I am white. I told my Black kids not to give cops or white people they don’t know the benefit of the doubt. This is not racism, but a recognition of power. Don’t take it personal.

    Jim estimate of 40%^ white folks who are not “racist,” a term I am sure has a very strict behavioral definition confined to examination of descrete incidents. I use the term white supremacy… both a system and a ideology. Regardless of the exceptions among sports and entertainment stars, the empirical informaiton shows without even a whiff of a doubt that there is such a system, and it operates every day with a vengeance… literally, if you look at prison populations, homicide rates, poverty figures, the quality of schools, the locations of toxic waste dumps, etc.

    Even those stars fit in to this system, albeit in ways that serve to further invisibilize it, until one of them fucks up, then we get a public lesson on Black deviance (as De says, Taint).

    When I tell my kids what I tell them, I am being a good parent who is telling them what they need to survive in the world. Big white boys are not walking around with a bulls eye painted on them for the first nervous cop that comes along. White boys don’t have rent-a-cops coming to my door at 2 AM asking to see if my boys are in their beds (this happened — we were the only family with Black folks on the block then).

    And I’ve been aorund white folks all my life. The number of those who have deeply internalized white supremacy as an ideology are imho closer to 95%. Liberal racism is ubiquitous and in some ways more insidious than conservaive racism.

    27 May 2006, 8:52 am

31. Jim Withey:

    One thing that I am glad that happened in my “unlucky” life is that I took an early interest in reading.
    I wouldn’t have much chance to do the things that I think have been positive without an interest in reading, and thinking.
    Having taken the time to have read much of the material on this website, I am in a position to comment on it and critique it, that is, if Stan allows it.
    One phrase that is common and pertinent in Stan’s blog writing is “concealment of power”.
    This should not be a difficult phrase to define. Conceal means to hide from wiew.
    Critical thinkers have to ask the necessary and penetrating questions, namely, in this case, who is concealing what power? Are people who write about “concealment of power” possibly concealing power themselves?
    Three points to make regarding this matter.
    First, my point on the 40 percent estimate of reasonably “good” whites stands. It may be less than 40 percent, but whatever it is, these people, myself included, do not make policy, we adjust to the power arrangements that exist in the world. Maybe where you live most people act and talk in a racist manner. I’m also willing to bet that some of these people do it in order to “fit in”, that is maintain their equillibrium in the “master’s house”. If I were to move to the deep South, and have any prospects of “getting along”, I woulld probably have to submerge many of my political and social beliefs until such time as things changed for the better. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, is one way of looking at it. I don’t think anyone is likely to have any accurate statistics on this group of people. As far as the rest of the country is concerned, including where I live, the dirty whites call the shots, and we 40 percenters, if we’re cognizant of reality, will support policies and pursue actions relative to maintaining our viability within that system until such time as “we” can have the decisive political influence, if and when that happens. People who are truly interested in living in a better world and understand the situation in more than a superficial way, are going to make the most of their opportunities, even sometimes if that means they will be accused of being privileged, or racist. People who fall for every whiny, phony, “pitch” that society’s “experts” dish out are going to lose their own ability to effect positive change.
    I wil refer to my experience, particularly of being homeless, for my second point.
    If you want to make the point that racism exists, and is systemic, fine. I’ll agree in general, up to a point.
    But, again, racism is not a system created and supported by ALL white people, nor should it serve as an excuse to behave in any manner you want to wihtout consequence.
    If I were to decribe all of the ways that I, a white person, not reflective of “privileged” white experience in general, were discriminated against and “shitted on”, I would probably be diagnosed as mentally ill, so I will limit my descriptions.
    If you want to make the case that discrimination and poverty influence bad behavior, I agree, with the understanding that it can’t be used as an “excuse” for doing bad things.
    It’s much more accurate to say that dicrimination, in all its forms, influences, but does not cause bad behavior.
    At this point, my experience should be seen as relevant.
    As I mentioned before in a submission, I was homeless for about 2 years total. There were many levels of mistreatment and difficulty that I endured, without resorting to criminal and violent behavior. I probably had more reason to get pissed off and do wrong than many of the people who end up in trouble. But I didn’t. That phenomenon is more of an individual thing than one based on discrimination.
    Once I sat on a dirty floor of a bus depot for several hours waiting in line to board a bus. When it came time to board, almost everyone, including many minorities, pushed ahead of me and relegated me like Rosa Parks, to the back of the bus. So maybe these people were “downtrodden” in their own way, but I was even in worse shape, and yet they just pushed right on by. Should they be excused for this? If so, then does my experiences of discrimination and injustice, which I just described, allow me to act improperly and misbehave?
    The bottom line is in this case, I as well as everyone else has to “play the hand you are dealt”. More on this later; I’m being forced to relinquish use of the computer.

    28 May 2006, 9:23 am

32. elaina:

    Ok.

    I like to think it’s a majority of us that COULD be capable of getting together to work on this shit. That it’s not just 40% or less.

    But white people have accountability and they have responsibility NOW, Jim. You can’t strike a balance after sooooo long living crookedly by just promising to do the right thing, without offering up some proof.

    This is a system. White Supremacy is a system, not a behavior or a bad habit. It won’t change because one or two or three people choose to fight it at any given time. Apathy is a key element here; libertarianism tells us that apathy’s OK! By committing an omissive sin, by not giving a damn, neglecting to see where it works as an advantage in our own lives, we convince ourselves that we just did these things “cause we had to,” “we have a right”, “we can’t save the world alone,” yadda yadda.

    Jim. When the hell did anybody ever say that your experience wasn’t relevant? I don’t think I did, and if I did say it I’m sorry. I wouldn’t say something like that intentionally to anyone.

    But, my friend, YOU have to be open to having your experience put into a context, it’s relevance comes from it’s context, not merely the ways that it’s shaped YOU individually.

    I get deeply, deeply concerned when I see white people telling each other not to worry so much about it, when we say it’s “not our fault.”

    The place we’re born is ‘not our fault.” The social class we’re born in is “not our fault.” The color of our skin is “not our fault,” and we didn’t pick it out.

    Being a “good” person in a general sense doesn’t exempt anybody from social accountability. We’re not in a historical place where we can reasonably expect that our “good deeds” will be rewarded. Refusing, to the extent that one is able, white privilege, and being actively anti-white-supremacist isn’t something that we should get cookies for.

    I talk about this attitude of entitlement when I talk about gender issues. Men don’t deserve rewards for doing the shit they should be doing out of human decency in the first place.

    White people are not yet in a place where we can start patting ourselves on the back. Maybe that’s a little hard-line. But somebody’s gotta say it.

    Relative privilege, like I said. For some of us, the white skin is the ONLY damn one we got. That doesn’t make it OK for us to insist on keeping it. Or to fight tooth and nail to hold on to it.

    Yeah, you gotta play the hand you’re dealt. But you can’t expect to STILL be the group sitting on top of all the good shit at the end of the day. You have got to take the mirror to your own life here. However you can do it.

    28 May 2006, 11:36 am

33. Jim Withey:

    I’ll try to finish my points that I was trying to make in my last submission, before I was, yet again, “pushed aside”.
    More than “concealing power”, the so called left or progressive power structure protects the various nefarious power structures that are in place.
    As I think I have demonstrated, there is discrimination WITHIN the white society, and I also believe, there is discrimination WITHIN the various minority societies as well.
    The “systemic” explanation of racial power obscures the injustice and discrimination WITHIN racial groups and the larger society, and attempts to minimize the individual’s responsibility to act justly.
    I think my experience compares favorably with many in the minority community who are ostracized and struggle with oppression. An important point to consider is which people the societal “leaders” are favoring with their rhetoric and policies.
    I’m reasonably certain that many minorities that are just trying to be fair and do the best they can are not being served and even harmed by the society’s leaders and institutions. Take the political rhetoric that exists for example. The “institutional racism” rhetoric, used by so many leaders and “progressive” people of influence, in my opinion, does little to help the fair-minded, generally progressive minority INDIVIDUALS living the best they can in difficult conditions, often surrrounded by violence and its effects. To my way of thinking, the “racist society” rhetoric, while accurate to a certain extent, provides protective cover and encouragement for those minorities who are not interested in justice or the common good. Their decision to behave badly and not think and act to better themselves and society is given more encouragement and protection by this rhetoric and policy, while doing little or nothing to help those minorities who ARE trying to be just and decent people, trapped in a difficult environment. If you’re a minority living in this environment, you KNOW there is racism, but the rhetoric in its simplistic form does not help you much, while encouraging others around you to engage in behavior which hurts most of them, and you too. The “leaders” in our society are quite good at promoting this lumpen mentality. This seems to be a completely hierarchical arrangement, with all the usual perks and benefits to those who are accepted into the institutional system.
    The black community has many gifted orators, but like the power structure in general, is not stating the obvious in this regard. No part of the societal leadership, conservative, liberal, left, white, or minority, can put forth an agenda of full employment. Nor do they talk honestly about the steadily declining economic situation, which is affecting most everyone in this country, albeit not equally, and the world too. So the truly decent people of all ethnicities, including white, are being “weeded out” by the authorities and “leaders” in our society. Just be aware of this condition and recognize it for what it is, a multi-racial, multi-dimensional hierarchy with deception prominently featured.
    We can expect all sorts of nefarious plots to be hatched, so be on your guard. Maybe the Charles Manson example is instructive here. He was going to kill whites, in order to start a “race war”, so that who else but Manson himself could intervene and take power. So beware of the “agitators”. I have another comment on this topic that I would like to make, but I think I will wait until later.

    28 May 2006, 12:09 pm

34. elaina:

    Pushed aside? I don’t understand that perception. You posted a comment, and I replied. Deal with it.

    I don’t think I’m dissing the very major role that individual behaviors have in keeping the white supremacist power structure intact- and I think I mention the importance of holding the mirror to ourselves quite often, in fact.

    There’s a mistake in classifying a group of people as “generally good.” That in itself denies the intricacies of individuality, and personality. And it gives you a lot less to work with, actually, in the long run.

    There’s a big, long post on the Biting Beaver site about “nice guys” and their role in keeping the patriarchy solid. The point of it, but please scroll down the links and go look it up, it’s a really telling read, is that even nice guys do fucked up shit like raping women. It’s not a fucking biological illness, some sort of wierd quirk that only a small handful of dudes out there is “afflicted” with. Rape, abuse, domestic violence, they’re all over the place. For every rape that happens every few minutes there’s a guy out there doing the raping.

    There are very good, very nice, hardworking, decent white people out there who do white supremacist shit everyday without even thinking about it. I have a good friend, one of my best friends, who I call out on a pretty regular basis- not because she’s being mean to me, or to anybody in particular, but when we argue on the “immigration” issue, she’s all for closing borders, and I think that’s completely white supremacist. She gets very upset when I put it into plain terms like that, then proceed to break it down to her.

    That’s just one example. I know so many white people who will say shit like “I’m absolutely not racist/prejudiced BUT…”

    There are places in our lives where we cash in on our privilege chips. You don’t have to have formulated a formal ideology of racism, you don’t have to use racial slurs, you don’t have to shave your head and get to goose-steppin’ to be participating in this system. Most white supremacy goes unnoted by those who are its active participants. Of course, we don’t want to hurt anybody, not on purpose. But if you haven’t noted, it’s gotten easier and easier for us to hurt people “unknowingly” or “unintentionally” via xenophobia. What about the faceless women in South and Central America who do shit like manufacture our clothing in horrid sweatshops for slave wages? Why the hell are they faceless to us? We create the demand for the things that they make. We provide, with what little hard cash most of us have, the gas for the vehicle that runs them over. And over. And over. And while we might be stuck, a lot of us, our sin turns into one of COMISSION when we realize what’s happening, and don’t actively work to change it. When we say that our own lives are way too hard, when we say that we’re powerless to change things, that’s when a person’s individually accountable. We damn sure have the power, a lot of us do, to go to the walmart or to the dollar general or wherever and buy those clothes. I mean, do you honestly go out and make all of the stuff that you need? Do you grow your own food, all the time, and harvest it yourself? Do you think that people live completely free of help in gringolandia? You might, I dunno. I can tell you that if you do you ain’t a majority.

    Most of us, including myself, opt to go out and purchase the things that we need instead of manufacturing these things for ourselves. Does that make me a “bad” person? I sure hope not. I’ve never learned how to weave. I’d like to, but I don’t have the luxury of time to learn. Etc. I have to work. For crying out loud, I live with my mom and my sister and my niece and my nephew and his girlfriend and my brother. I have to work. I have to make it better for myself. I hope that I’m not a ‘bad’ person for doing what I have to do. In fact, I know I’m not a bad person.

    That doesn’t exempt me from knowing my place in the global economy, and doing what I’m able to do to help out those people who might be suffering in a sweatshop because I “need” panties. And that’s just one little example of how people are situated according to economy, along color lines. There’s a million intricacies that I don’t have time to go into right now because I have to go and work at my shit job for the next 8 hours.

    We can’t just say that we are “doing fine.” We can’t just say, “I’m OK, because I don’t make fun of people who don’t look like me.” I appreciate it when people, other people, tell me that I’m doing a good job. I feel kinda proud and relieved when I see white people out there doing good, political work that fuck’s with the white supremacist, patriarchal system. Every damn thing you do interfaces with this system. When I see people out there living self-critical lives, trying to break down the oppressive values they’ve inherited, absorbed from the culture, I am INDEED glad. But I don’t bake them baskets of cookies, either. It’s what they shoulda been doing all along. It speaks to privilege when a white person with decent intelligence makes the conscious decision to break down her/his own relative privilege. A white person, in many places in this country, can bumble along and not think about it damn near their whole lives, can pretend that “prejudice” and “racism” are things of the past, and still be considered a “good person.” That is fucking privilege, and it ain’t right. And I’m not saying that you’re one of those people Jim, I’m just kinda concerned at how really inquisitive, intelligent people will go to bat for those folks, especially in political conversations.

    And bringing it back to the immigration question- when you boil it all down, it’s hard to sit there and stamp your foot and say that I have a right to X while other people have none. No matter what your place in the gringo-white world. And you can’t take your own personal story and aggrandize it to try and say that anti-white-supremacist thought is somehow related to the cause of your woes. It ain’t. If you want to attack bourgeios white folks who run the left, feel free, and I’ll join you. Don’t attack our attempts to dismantle white supremacy, please, though. It’s the wrong target for your ire.

    28 May 2006, 2:51 pm

35. Yolanda Carrington:

    Jim,

    I would much prefer to let Elaina and Stan deal with the Herculean task of challenging your terrible assumptions on white privilege, but there is one statement in your last post that I can’t ignore.

    “I think my experience compares favorably with many in the minority community who are ostracized and struggle with oppression.”

    As a queer poor Black woman, all I can say is:
    BULLSHIT.

    Thanks, Jim.

    Yolanda

    28 May 2006, 3:49 pm

36. Elaina:

    I think I accidentally posted just this quote- I apologize, pls. delete that.

    ANYWAYS. I just gotta say something to this.

    “To my way of thinking, the “racist society” rhetoric, while accurate to a certain extent, provides protective cover and encouragement for those minorities who are not interested in justice or the common good. Their decision to behave badly and not think and act to better themselves and society is given more encouragement and protection by this rhetoric and policy, while doing little or nothing to help those minorities who ARE trying to be just and decent people, trapped in a difficult environment.”

    Look. I don’t wanna be rude here. But to me this paragraph translates as a very convoluted way to say “Non-whites commit crime somehow inherently. Attacking the white supremacist superstructure only encourages this bad behavior, and ruins everything for the GOOD non-whites out there.” I dunno. I really don’t mean to project, that’s just the vibe I get from this, bro, and I hope that you understand that’s why I’m harping on you.

    For the record, I don’t automatically assume that a person who commits a crime, simply because the crime’s labelled a crime, is a “bad” person. And I don’t think you’re so “down” with what’s going on, sufficient to say that you have as a poor white man comparable lived experience to somebody from a roughly equivalent financial status who is non white, and especially non-male. You don’t. It sounds like you have very little perspective here. Like people just randomly decide one day after breakfast, “hey! Wouldn’t it be a great idea to go and steal a car stereo. Or maybe, maybe I’ll assault somebody!”

    Individual “decisions” are very highly informed and influenced by systems and conditions. I don’t consider somebody whose grown up in a fucked-up, impoverished neighboorhood and been addicted to X narco-substance from childhood to be in a place where they can always consciously decide to “do the right thing.” I don’t see how you can, if you got so much on-the-ground perspective. Unless, of course, you’re the type of guy who likes to compare every coping strategy, every reaction, every visible show of “fortitude” to YOUR OWN situation, and deem that all those who can’t do “X” are bullshit, because hell, YOU did it.

    It’s fucked up as hell to blame national liberation movements for crime. It’s dumb as all get-out to think avoiding the issue of a system of white supremacy would actually help “prevent crime”.

    So what, now anti-white-supremacist-thought is the reason that more crimes get committed? That’s like saying that rape happens because of feminism. Totally fucking lame, dude.

    29 May 2006, 1:19 pm

37. Jim Withey:

    I didn’t oppress the indigenous peoples, I didn’t enslave the slaves, etc.
    There are many forms of oppression experienced by many different people. Whether you like it or not, people are going to be held responsible for their actions. I say straight up, I’ve had and still have many “excuses” to do bad things, but I don’t, for the most part.
    Some people look like they’re fighting the man, while other people actually are. The walls may be closing in, may have to leave. Best from the Evergreen State.

    30 May 2006, 6:39 am

38. Elaina:

    So you DO hold everything up against yourself, for perspective and comparison. Why am I not surprised in the least? And I was waiting for that whole “hey, I didn’t enslave anybody” commentary to come out sometime.

    Like it’s some sort of new revalation. Like you have to be a slave-owner to benefit from white privilege, GAH! *rolls eyes*

    Try looking at the world through a lens of somebody else’s eyes for once. OF COURSE there are lots of places where, if you don’t examine what’s going on and if you ain’t outright looking for it, you won’t see yourself experiencing white privilege. That’s how it works.

    White Supremacy relies, to a great deal, upon White Blindness. And it gives white people the tools to remain blind, at the same time. Ever think about why YOU might have been able to slip out of the downward spiral? You don’t think that being a white man has ANYTHING to do with it? Nothing at all?

    White privilege helped me buy a car at a very cheap interest rate when I was absolutely desperate. I still had to resort to a 2-year committment to a loan, which ain’t the most ideal situation, but it got me into a car. White privilege has kept me from getting ticketed when I was pulled over. White privilege does a lot.

    I AM one of those white people who gets followed in department stores on the suspicion that I’ll steal something. Being white hasn’t kept me from being oppressed as a WOMAN, either. But I’m not about to say that I experience oppression in the same ways that women do who are not white. I KNOW that I don’t. I know because I don’t only hang out with white women, and I’ve learned to listen hard and well when they offer me critiques, or tell me that what I’m doing or saying is racist or offensive to them. That doesn’t happen as often anymore, because I DO listen, dammit.

    I am so sick and so tired of white men bitching and moaning about how bad they’ve got it, without attempting to fix the SYSTEM that the relatively small oppressions they experience comes from. Instead, they attack us and say that we “villify” them or whatever.

    I never once said that Jim Withey owned slaves. Never. I never said that his life was easy. All I said was that he needed to do further examination of his own white privilege, instead of denying it.

    And what kind of response do I get? The same old, tired shit that doesn’t even begin to relate to the material world we live in.

    Maybe you don’t own slaves. But if you buy ANYTHING imported from a fucking sweatshop, you are actively supporting oppression without yourself being oppressed based on your skin color. You might not have sent the Cherokee onto the Trail of Tears, but if you live in Gringolandia and you don’t live on a reservation, you are “privileged” to be an actual CITIZEN of this country. Native Americans who belong to their own Nations don’t have the same privilege. You pay taxes to the government that oppresses people of color, not just here but around the globe. You have responsibility, and you have accountability, in my eyes, if you decide to go on living in your own lala-land where white supremacist patriarchal privilege doesn’t register as real.

    If you can’t see the Man in yourself, you’re doomed in trying to fight him. It ain’t gonna work. That’s a problem that white people have- refusal to see where we DO have a little bit of a leg up, even if it’s a broke, crippled leg, where folks without white skin or white identity don’t.

    And we grow up in a Gringo society where everything is ME ME ME ME ME ME ME. Selfishness is the national passtime. Dammit, if it ain’t, then why the hell do you think so many folks who definitely exist ABOVE working-class means and want to be involved in “progressive” movements don’t want to share the real, material space and the shit that they have with other people? Sometimes it feels like Ayn Rand wrote our constitution, with her bullshit “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” megalomaniac libertarian sci-fi way of thinking that alienates everydamn body from everydamn body else.

    I see able-bodied, white, working class men EVERY DAY who will complain about the hand the system’s dealt them and not do a DAMN thing about it, when they have opportunities and support, especially support from the WOMEN in their lives. They sit around blaming the fucking liberation movements for their woes when the liberation movement has actually opened doors for them.

    And I also know Black Women who, in spite of systemic oppression and dealing with individualized racism every day, in spite of having all the odds against them and having to raise children or care for relatives, keep on moving forward, keep on fighting, keep on making things work out so that they survive.

    Working class white men might have a hard row to hoe, but a lot of the time when the ground DOES eventually get soft it’s because it’s been watered with white privilege.

    Why the hell SHOULDN’T folks with privilege give some of it up, if they’re dedicated to changing the world?

    Why do white people, especially white men, think that the creature comforts and material well-being that they have is ONLY owed to THEM? When there are others in the world who do much more work, and produce exactly the stuff that they work to be able to consume?
    It’s solipsistic and suicidal. Fuck. It’s social darwinism and white supremacy working together. Why the hell can’t folks see that?

    Some people ARE fighting the man, and it LOOKS like they’re fighting the man, and they’re willing to give up and break down what little bit of privilege they have, even if they feel they’ve worked hard for it, in order to see that the Man goes down, for good.

    I gotta go to work.

    31 May 2006, 2:01 pm

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