Obscuring Non-Whiteness/Normalizing Whiteness

Within the current systems of oppression — neocolonialism, cryptofascism, the protracted genocide of non-white people in every country on Earth — it is only that much more difficult for a Leftist to perceive anti-blackness and anti-indigineity as the impetus of their own oppression, for such is the nature of fascism: the obscurance of material discourse in favor of the spiritual and cultural. They seek liberation against the forces (manifest in capitalism, non-womanist feminism, and a somewhat white gender liberation) that are not unique to white people, but are constituent to what some white people do experience. However, they rarely fight for the rest of us non-whites, whose movements have a much broader scope than what could be imagined by the average white activist. The nuances within our fights for higher wages, better standards of living, and general equality are also obscured from white radicals, regardless of economic background, based on the aforementioned fact.

Many white radicals of today come from middle class backgrounds, not nuch different from the New Left of the 60s and 70s. They do not face racial oppression, nor do they face the hardships of America’s growing working class (working class defined by those able to make living wages). Their oppression is somewhat abstract, globalized, and passed down inter-generationally. They are simultaneously an ontologically ruling class, and also an intellegentsia that seeks an end to the tyranny that is capitalism— often times heavily inspired by the plight of non-white populations not only in the past, but also in the present.

Terms like “wage slave” are thrown around as jokes, while the fact is that the image of the “Slave” is predominantly Black in North America may as well still exist, and so are prime examples of non-White suffering and trauma being appropriated into a romanticized vision of self that White radicals have never experienced nor have had the bad luck of being descendent from. In other words, the metaphor of the genocided Native and that of the enslaved Black, are mobilized into identities for White movements regardless of how true to life they are.

The oppressions white radicals currently face are not racial and much less often due to class exploitation, and are therefore more abstract and removed enough from the face of poverty in America — sometimes enough to make it even seem removed from white lives. Nonetheless, white radicals have a growing importance in the global revolutionary movement. I stress importance, because their value can be very good, or very bad. A quickly growing amount of organizing boosted since Trump’s presidency has been cultivated by non-Black, non-Native radicals inspired to take a stand against neocolonialism both without and within America: in the Philippines, against Israel, in India, Venezuela, and within Black, Brown, and Native American communities in North and South America.

The Mortal, Eternal Return of Whiteness

The current colonial officers (policemen, the National Guard, and government officials themselves) offer no laws that non-White people are due to respect, for their lives are constantly under surveillance and the threat of pain and death that reach metaphysical heights. And you experience none of this as a collective peoples.

Apparent from these truths, white “radicals” of today are aping the bourgeoise revolutions of their pasts with an ontological bent. From invasive maneuvers into Black neighborhoods, to co-opting anti-racism and the anti-colonial ideals of our presrnt time, white radicals continue to hoard an unfair share of activism without due access to non-white radicals who are more often than whites unable to eat 2 meals a day. Without the consistent permission of our consent, or a well-supported autonomy (eg a persistent voice in a revolutionary movement that represents all our concerns), the movements white radicals lead will run a parallel course to that of a revolution which ends in yet another oppressive governance (or non-governance) — this time for non-white people. Because a white radical’s homogenous, post-revolutionary environment is oppressive for non-white people, it can then be said that the true proletariat in this new ecosystem will be made of non-white radicals who don’t play the part of the petite-bourgeoise after a bourgeoise revolution. In the oppressive post-“revolutionary” environment of a white radical, it must be assumed that the next revolution will be against white radicals themselves.

Even after a white Leftist movement succeeds in overthrowing the capitalist order, they will have its colonialist order to confront. Whether or not the capitalist front of a revolution is defeated, non-white radicals will never be able to retire until the colonialist front is also defeated — at least not in the same ways most white American radicals of the 60’s were able to .

Uprooting White Roots in Non-White Pain: A Turning Point

White radicals see the riots of Ferguson and other decolonial uprisings as heroic, often times getting mixed in the process. They look up to us as a source of inspiration for their organizing and their virtues. It can be said that without Black death, even groups such as the ISO would have no stake in building as quickly as they have, even if they rarely approach Black ghettos, prisons, and other “untouchables”.

In a material way, we are their heroes, in the same way many of them look up to Cuba, Vietnam, and Rojava — in the same way that the white Latinx’s Fidel Castro and Che Guevara was directly inspired by the Haitian Revolution.

Maurice Bishop, leader of the Grenadan Leftist revolution, made a speech at Hunter College:

[Source; Speech can be watched here.]

In an anarchist sense, we are the impetus of uncentralized ecological improvements and abolitions on material and ontological aspects of society ; there are many more non-white ecosystems than there are white communities, and thus our range in both suffering and experience is broad as a workers’ survivorship.

In a socialist sense, we non-whites happen to be the vanguard of misery, and thus, the invisible dictatorship of international revolution.

So the question remains:

How is it that a white middle classed anti-fascist can identify with one of us poorer, racially unentitled folk and yet uphold a system of white supremacy with capitalist and even slaveocracy-like motives?

They can not, and they never will be able to.

Yet here we are, most non-whites having already voiced our preference of what you may call communism and socialism over our current capitalist society, and yes still suffering, more than you, in a variety of seperate ways I ought not be obliged to detail. Still, I conclude that agreement upon the theory of these industrial-economic strategies is the only common string we need.

Again, white people can not, and they never will be able to identify as non-white while we all live under a doctrine of white supremacy. Yet they persist in showing up, albeit sometimes and somewhat ineffectively (Occupy), to do what they believe is best they can. The answer to the above question then is that while a white radical can only identify as anti-fascist, or anti-imperialist, they are not constituently anti-racist. In fact, most telling key word in this identification is “white”, and also the fact that white people haven’t addressed slavocracies (especially that of the Arab slave trade being a blueprint to chattel slavery) as a parent of capitalism. This most often stems from Marx’ viewpoint that slavocracies were not capitalist, though they could, have, and continue to exist in capitalist societies via machinations such as the pattern wages in proportion to race contemporary ghettos, mass incarceration, and the prison-industrial complex. It may also be an assumption based on the false idea that ancient slavery of Africans had nothing to do with their skin colors, although primary sources from the rarely-spoken “Arab Slave Trade” proves this wrong as well. This brings us to the conclusion that racism is not an necessary characteristic of capitalism, but has also existed without capitalism. It also exposes the need-a-cause, radical chic performative activism of whites who vocally espouse Black liberation; we must not be convinced that the ontologically privileged are willing to undo themselves and redistribute their power just because we asked them to.

Radical Chic, after all, is only radical in style; in its heart it is part of Society and its traditions. Politics, like Rock, Pop and Camp, has its uses; but to put one’s whole status on the line for nostalgie de la boue in any of its forms would be unprincipled. — Tom Wolfe, “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s”

If Black slavery hasn’t only implemented as a profit motive, what has been its purpose? According to afro-pessimist theorist Frank B. Wilderson III, it is also a means of achieving a sort of metaphysical superiority over Others; constant subjugation to the inter-generationally destructive forces of genocide, mass-rape, and other patronizing realities offer an unlimited and growing range of means of production— to which there will always be a winner (one who benefits), and a loser (one who dies both physically, and socially). In our reality, this is known as white supremacy.

Death becomes social, even cultural, and certainly not limited to an industrial complex. This means that slavery becomes the Black population’s existence, replacing the range of ethnicities once lost, and cultures constantly being lost, on a daily basis. The lived material realities of (what we have essentially been reduced to) Black bodies in effect become a mimeograph for cultural, social, and even capitalist (eg private prisons) means of production across the globe so that even without a capitalist state, white supremacy may still reign.

What, then, does the anti-capitalist, anti-statist, and anti-fascist white radical have to offer the Black descendants and current slaves of aforementioned “slavocracies”?

Nothing but support. It would be more accurate and comprehensive to say that racism, or white-supremacy, is a superstructure and that fascism, statism and capitalism are all tools used to fortify white supremacy.

Another heavily overlooked example of the abandonment of racialized issues on the Left is made apparent in the IWW’s efforts to dissociate from anti-imperialist frameworks of praxis and ideology, this toxic stance eventually taken up by many American Third Worldists today to preserve their whiteness.

“The owners of these factories are making millions out of the murderfest in Europe - their slaves should likewise improve the opportunity to get a little something for themselves… The point may be made here, that we should all be interested in stopping the production of war munitions. Yes, of course, but that’s only a dream ... so the only thing the workers in these factories can do is to try to improve their condition...” — the IWW’s publication called Solidarity (issue July 24, 1915)

The line was very clear. Far from fighting U.S. imperialism, the I.W.W. was spreading defeatism among the workers and urging them to concentrate only on getting a bigger bribe out of the imperialist super-profits. The I.W.W. is often praised by the settler “left” as very “American,” very “grass roots.” We can say that their cynical, individualistic slant that workers can “only get a little something for themselves” out of the slaughter of millions does represent the essence of Amerikan settler degeneracy. In Russia the Bolsheviks were telling the Russian workers to “Turn the Imperialist War into a Revolutionary War” and overthrow the Imperialists — which they did. The I.W.W.’s pathetic efforts to avoid antagonizing the Bourgeoisie did them little good. The U.S. Empire tired of these pests, viewing the militant organization of immigrant labor as dangerous. Finally cranking its police machinery up, the imperialist state proceeded to smash the defenseless I.W.W. clear into virtual non-existence. It wasn’t even very difficult, since throughout the West vigilante mobs of settlers declared an open reign of terror against the I.W.W. In Arizona some 1,300 miners suspected of I.W.W. involvement were driven from the state at gunpoint. In July 1918, 101 I.W.W. leaders past and present were convicted in Chicago Federal Court of sabotaging the Imperialist War effort in a rigged trial that dwarfed the “Chicago Conspiracy Trial” of the Vietnam War era. The political verdict was certain even though the prosecution was unable to prove that the I.W.W. had obstructed the war in any way! Only one defendant out of 101 had violated the draft registration laws. While the I.W.W. unions had led strikes that disrupted war production in Western copper and timber, the government was forced to admit that of the 521 disruptive strikes that had taken place since the U.S. Empire entered the war, only 3 were by the I.W.W. (while 519 were by the pro-government A.F.L. unions). (29) Federal raids on the I.W.W. took place from coast-to-coast. Immigration agents held mass round-ups which resulted in long jail stays while undergoing deportation hearings. In 1917 the Federal agents arrested 34 I.W.W. organizers in Kansas, who eventually got prison terms of up to nine years. In Omaha, Nebraska, the 64 I.W.W. delegates at the Agricultural Workers Organization Convention were arrested and held 18 months without trial. In 21 states “criminal syndicalism” laws were passed, directed at the I.W.W., under which thousands were arrested. In California alone between 1919–1924 some 500 I.W.W. members were indicted, 128 of whom ended up serving prison terms of up to 14 years. (30) The I.W.W. never recovered from these blows, and from 1917 on quickly declined. Such an unwillingness to fight U.S. imperialism could hardly come from those with anti-imperialist politics. The reason we have to underline this is that for obvious ends the settler “Left” has been emphasizing how the I.W.W. was a mass example of anti-racist labor unity. This poisoned bait has been naively picked up by a number of Third-World revolutionary organizations, and used as one more small justification to move towards revisionist-integrationist ideology. There is no doubt that much of the I.W.W. genuinely despised the open, white-supremacist persecution of the colonial peoples. Unlike the smug, privileged A.F.L. aristocracy of labor, the I.W.W. represented the voice of those white workers who had suffered deeply and thus could sympathize with the persecuted. But their inability to confront the settleristic ambitions within themselves reduced these sparks of real class consciousness to vague sentiments and limited economic deals. … The I.W.W. never attempted to educate the most exploited white workers to unite with the national liberation struggles. Instead, it argued that “racial” unity on the job to raise wages was all that mattered. This is the approach used by the AFL-CIO today; obviously, it’s a way of building a union in which white-supremacist workers tolerate colonial workers. This was the narrow, economic self-interest pitch underneath all the syndicalist talk. The I.W.W. warned white workers: “Leaving the Negro outside of your union makes him a potential, if not an actual, scab, dangerous to the organized workers…” (31) These words reveal that the I.W.W.’s goal was to control colonial labor for the benefit of white workers — and that Afrikans were viewed as “dangerous” if not controlled. So that even in 1919, after two years of severe “race riots” in the North (armed attacks by white workers on Afrikan exile communities), the I.W.W. kept insisting that there was: “…no race problem. There is only a class problem. The economic interests of all workers, be they white, black, brown or yellow, are identical, and all are included in the I.W.W. It has one program for the entire working class — “the abolition of the wage system.” (32) The I.W.W.’s firm position of not fighting the lynch mobs, of not opposing the colonial system, allowed them to unite with the racist element in the factories — and helped prepare the immigrant proletariat for becoming loyal citizens of the Empire. It must never be forgotten that the I.W.W. contained genuinely proletarian forces, some of whom could have been led forward towards revolution. We can see this supposed unity actually at work in the I.W.W.’s relationship to the Japanese workers on the West Coast. In the Western region of the Empire the settler masses were deeply infected with anti-Asian hatred. Much of this at that time was directed at the new trickle of Japanese immigrant laborers, who were working mainly in agriculture, timber and railroads. These Japanese laborers were subjected to the most vicious persecution and exploitation, with the bourgeois politicians and press stirring up mob terror against them constantly. Both the Socialist Party of Eugene Debs and the A.F.L. unions helped lead the anti-Asian campaign among the settler masses. In April 1903, one thousand Japanese and Mexicano sugar beet workers struck near Oxnard, California. They formed the Sugar Beet & Farm Laborers Union, and wrote the A.F.L. asking for a union charter of affiliation. A.F.L. President Samuel Gompers, in his usual treacherous style, tried in his reply to split the ranks of the oppressed: “Your union must guarantee that it will under no circumstances accept membership of any Chinese or Japanese.”

(source: http://www.readsettlers.org/ch6.html#1)

The list of historical racial abandonments on the Left saturate a long list that is not wholly unique to Black history, though all of these abandonments were originally practiced on Black people. Books like Settlers by J. Sakai present a wide range of history not often spoken about in the White and post-racial Left, since it benefits oppressors within the Left to remain silent on these topics. When they are spoken about, it is often in bad faith.

Personally, I find it odd that the supposed “proletariat” of economic society would silence the pains and sufferings of an entire population of (non-white) people apt to be proletarian anti-capitalists, anti-statists, and anti-fascists. But it can’t be strange — because we live within a globally-implemented white supremacist reality.

This is what reproduction of white supremacy looks like, pervasive enough to poison and divide the Left.