White people can be revolutionary too. This statement may raise the eyebrows of some anti-racist and POC activists who believe that the best thing white people can do is to be their “allies.” Rather than struggling for their own liberation (if they are even supposed to be oppressed), white people are called upon to “take leadership” from the oppressed peoples, partake in “Allyship” trainings, and reflect on their presumed privilege.

My intention in writing this blog entry is not to dispute the fact that white privilege exists. Canada and the U.S exist as they are today because both states have upheld and continue to uphold colonialism and white supremacy as their organizing principles, through the genocide of Indigenous nations and super-exploitation of migrant labour. However, this doesn’t mean that the white proletariat does not exist in North America, and that white people can never be oppressed and hence revolutionary. The Young Patriots and other white revolutionary organizations in the 60s and 70s already proved this thesis wrong.

Young Patriots Organization grew out of the Job Or Income Now project initiated by Students for Democratic Society (SDS). The group, based in the Uptown neighbourhood in Chicago, mainly organized poor white migrants from the Appalachian region in the Southern U.S. It came into contact with other organizations like the Black Panthers Party and the Young Lords, and formed the Rainbow Coalition (unrelated to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition), a multi-national coalition of revolutionary organizations in Chicago.

The Rainbow Coalition sought to reconcile seemingly antagonistic differences among its members and unite around the common causes of anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism. The coalition also included members of rival street gangs as its leaders believed that poor youths’ fighting each other in gang wars only served the ruling class’ interests. They subsequently brokered peace treaties among the gangs and sought to direct their energy to political goals.

Theoretically, the Young Patriots believed that poor and urbanized Appalachians experienced oppression similar to that of Blacks and American Indians. They described themselves as “hillbilly nationalists” and claimed the white southerners’ right to self-determination, in opposition to the “pig power structure” which reinforced the capitalist system and instituted slavery. They even waved the confederate flag, but for the cause entirely opposite of what the flag is being used today: anti-racism.

Of course, their claim to “White Power” (modeled on Black/Brown Power) and slogans such as “the South Will Rise Again” are rather obsolete and even reactionary in today’s context. Four decades later, the confederate flag has been entirely re-appropriated as the symbol of oppression by white supremacists and any white activists who show up to Black Lives Matter protests would be shunned and they probably should be.

Their use of the flag was even confusing to people in their time, particularly to the Black Panthers and the Young Lords who debated extensively about the meaning of the flag and if they should collaborate with the Young Patriots at all. Both organizations eventually decided to join forces with them based on their shared radical vision, strategic orientation, and organizing practice. It is these aspects of the Young Patriots that we should learn from, rather than their theoretical outlook and symbolism.

The Young Patriots’ organizing practice focused on combating racism within Uptown Chicago, a white working-class neighbourhood and also the primary recruiting ground for white supremacist groups like Ku Klax Klan. In other words, rather than tailing behind the POC/Indigenous-led movements and “taking leadership” from them, they went into their own community to fight racism. To do this effectively, they addressed the material needs of their community by organizing around the issues of poverty, housing, and police brutality. It was through their practical organizing efforts that they were able to build their shared vision with other oppressed peoples and a class-based multi-national alliance that is the Rainbow Coalition. Bobby Lee, a Black Panther who helped build the coalition, recounts his experience of working with the Young Patriots (quoted in Redneckrevolt).

Looking back, was there enough basis for unity? Hell, yeah! When I went to Uptown Chicago, I saw some of the worst slums imaginable. Horrible slums, and poor white people lived there. However, two organizations prepared the way for the Rainbow Coalition, without them there wouldn’t have been a chance of forming one…The uptown neighborhood was prime recruiting zone for white supremacists. Most of the cats who were in the Patriots also had at least one family member in the Klan. Cats like Mike James and Jewnbug, and Tappis worked hard to fight that mentality. Mike James and rua drove a wedge in that bullshit, that white supremacist bullshit, their groundwork was just amazing, out of this world. When did I first meet the Young Patriots? It was at the Church of the Three Crosses. There was a meeting, and it was the one recorded in the movie American Revolution II. After the crowd left, the Patriots were still there. We asked the Minister if he could let us have his office. We asked the Patriots if they could work with the Panthers and they said yes. I didn’t even tell Fred (Hampton) for the first three weeks of meeting with these cats. It wasn’t easy to build an alliance. I advised them on how to set up “serve the people” programs—free breakfasts, people’s health clinics, all that. I had to run with those cats, break bread with them, hang out at the pool hall. I had to lay down on their couch, in their neighborhood. Then I had to invite them into mine. That was how the Rainbow Coalition was built, real slow.

Challenging oppression within one’s own space is one of the key aspects of the “accomplices, not allies” literature that surfaced after the Ferguson uprising. While its analysis is generally correct in identifying the problems inherent in the so called “Ally Industrial Complex,” the alternatives it proposes often hinge on ultra-leftism i.e. valorization of direct actions over mass organizing. Yet the very notion that one cannot contribute to revolutionary social change by living vicariously through other peoples’ struggle is refreshing and worthy of attention.

Retrospectively, the North American Left’s retreat from class relegated anti-racist politics to the predominantly petit-bourgeois spaces such as universities, social services, and NGOs. The vacuums left open in the white working-class communities are often filled by white supremacists and other far-right groups who are able to mobilize the poor whites by scapegoating other oppressed groups like women, queer and trans people, Indigenous peoples, and immigrants.

How to implement this model today is an open question and dependent on one’s location. In the Canadian prairies, class divisions often correspond to race/national lines. For instance, Saskatoon and Winnipeg have the highest concentration of urban Indigenous residents in Canada, many of whom are poor and ghettorized in particular neigbourhoods. The poor whites are numerical minority. In comparison, Southwestern Ontario has a large number of white working-class populations, many of whom are dispossessed as a result of de-industrialization, factory closures, and the flight of capital to elsewhere. In such an environment, their organization becomes essential, though probably not along the national lines like the Young Patriots did in Chicago. Despite the obvious differences, it is not a coincidence that both of these regions are the hot spot for white supremacist activities in Canada.

As capitalism goes into crisis, the far-right has more sophisticated class analysis than the left does. They are able to identify their social base and advance their reactionary agenda based on this analysis. It is imperative for the left to do the same but for the revolutionary cause, and build a similar class-based alliance among oppressed communities that is by no means antithetical to the individual struggles and the various forms of oppression they experience. I believe the Young Patriots Organization and the Rainbow Coalition serve as a model upon which we could build our own.