So there was a bit of a heated discussion recently on the topic of “anti-white” or “reverse” racism and we (some of the mods) figured we would clarify some rules for this community:
- “White people” is a very vague term. Having low expectations of people in the imperial core is understandable for someone in the Global South, but it’s better to be specific. Saying “I’m racist against white people” when you mean “I don’t trust the average person in <insert imperialist country>” is going to cause misunderstandings
- People who were racist in the past are not necessarily racist in the present. Many of us were liberals before becoming Marxists, and there’s a significant overlap between liberals and racists
- No matter your ethnicity, don’t use terms like “subhuman” or “orc” to describe yourself and your group; it may make others uncomfortable
- Don’t call for violence (particularly against ethnic groups, but it’s best to avoid it in general so the instance doesn’t get in trouble)
- Stick to Lemmygrad’s rules of good-faith discussion
that’s all, folks
I can understand the practical realities of moderation in an anonymous online space in which such sentiments can quickly escalate to a personal level.
But we really need to kill racial ideology. I don’t think we should be that uppity about it.
We SHOULD be racist against “White people”!
Because it doesn’t exist in real life!
Why are we treating a colonial stratification of peoples into “races” and “ethnicities” at face value? Why are we offended like there is a global White genocide?
People in the global south don’t need white guilt. They don’t need self-flagellating whites on one hand and white supremacists on the other. They need “white people” to help tear down this globe-spanning economic and ideological system of stratification that has caused so much pain and suffering.
The hatred of white people is a hatred of this racist system of Capitalism that forcefully and continuously suffocates the entire world.
Mental colonization runs deep in postcolonial societies - and when the colonized lashes out, it is an expression of the humanity that has been denied. The least of my problems is when the oppressed uses the oppressor’s language to demonstrate the false justifications of the oppressor’s existence.
To phrase this another way to make it really on the nose: there are 1.5 billion Global Northerners, while there are 6.5 billion Global Southerners, and since might makes right, “white people” should really be the ones oppressed (lol).
I am not sure I understand your statement, while I agree that we should no longer have divisions based on race, and that race should not be a thing, I do not think the solution is calling a group of people, orcs or sub-humans, or calling for execution squads to commit mass genocide, as was commented on the thread and has prompted this post.
I do not think I have heard any comrade arguing that white people should be feeling personaly guilty or be self flagellating, as we need to work together arm in arm to help tare down capitalism, but putting any effort into racism, or any other discriminatory practice only seeks to further divide us, and take us farther from that goal.
I have and always will be a supporter of the colonized standing up to their oppressor, I would agree that when they stand up for their humanity it is a right and just cause, however I do not see how this has to do with discussion at hands.
Lastly, as communists we fight for the liberation of all people, for an end to opression, I do not understand your insentience that the “white people” should be oppressed, as this only contenues in the same mindset as the capitalist, that there is always a bigger fish, that oppression is alright so long as I am the one doing the oppression. We stand here and profess an ideology of equality, one where every person is treated as a person, and the idea that we should opress another group for any reason, is anthietical to this idea, to reuse a quote I used early, when Fidel Castro talked about the United States, after they had to fight a revolution to get out from under their control, and then got slapped with an economic blockade that can be defined as a genocide in and of itself, “In Cuba we have never cultivated hatred against the American people or blamed them for the aggression perpetrated by the governments of that country. That would have run contrary to our political doctrines and our internationalist conscience, both well-proven throughout many years, and increasingly rooted in our ideas.” or that Dr Ernesto “Che” Guevara once said “If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.” and I can only speak for myself here, but I find oppression, and blind hatred based on a characteristic a person cannot change, and was born with, and injustice, no mater who it is happening to, I would much rather judge a person on their actions, and on what they fight for, as I agree with Dr. Che Guevara, anyone who trembles with indignation at every injustice is my comrade, reguardless of who they are.
Not that I disagree with your broad points but race is such a contradictory concept, I’d like to raise some challenges. I’m not asking these questions as a ‘gotcha’, either (although I do make some claims that contradict your argument), and they’re not necessarily for you to answer alone, although you may have some thoughts, which I’d be glad to hear.
Does the answer change if the identification of whiteness requires accepting a racial hierarchy? Of which self styled white people are at the top?
A personal anecdote: I’ve always been uncomfortable with ticking the ‘white’ box on forms. It’s very existence is to put me into one category and exclude me from others, which might more accurately reflect my origins. I don’t fill in that box on any form any more. Or I put ‘other’ or ‘NA’. Not because I’m not white; to the people asking, I would be. I just reject the category itself. It shouldn’t exist. I see being white as a choice, to agree with the government’s view of who deserves rights and who doesn’t. If I was born twenty years earlier, they’d have another box for me. I’m not letting them include me now, just because they have decided to ‘include’ me by their graciousness.
If white is a political category (as is black, Asian, or any other race), and is not, in fact, based on skin colour, can one be racist against ‘white people’? Stuart Hall calls race a ‘floating signifier’, which is a useful concept.
If so, who does ‘white’ refer to? What is it’s content? Southern Europeans might be white in North Western Europe but not in the US, for example. On the basis of skin colour alone, someone from North Africa might be white, until their interlocutor placed them as African rather than ‘Mediterranean’/Southern European. Someone from Eastern Europe might not be white in North Western Europe but they might be white in North America, depending on their accent. And this turns upside down depending on wars within Europe.
Then, a broader question, can there be hate crime but not racism against white people?
The same wouldn’t naturally apply the other way around even if all racial categories are political. I’m being quite broad here because white people have at one time or another labelled anyone who isn’t ‘white’ as black and the powers that be are constantly changing who they count as white.
Is whiteness an inherent trait if it’s content changes all the time and depends on location? Fanon argued, ‘to be rich is to be white, to be white is to be rich’. Revolutionary organising means working, from the beginning, to abolish whiteness; it cannot survive a revolution because capitalism is racial capitalism. As soon as someone recognises the need for revolution they must at once recognise the need for and begin to undermine the category of whiteness.
From this perspective, I can see how one could commit (racially motivated) hate crimes against white people, but is it racist in the same way as it is to be racist against ‘other races’?
I have two questions about the Castro quote. First, does ‘American people’ not include several ‘races’? Second, is it a problem to equate ‘American people’ with white people? Then, for the Che quote, is it not an injustice to show support for the concept of a white race, given that it is inseparable from white supremacy?
(I’m not saying white people should be oppressed, I’m saying revolutionaries must seek to abolish whiteness. I’m unsure if it really means anything to say that white people ‘should be oppressed’ because as soon as that becomes a possibility, there would be no such thing as whiteness, which requires a hierarchy of which it is at the top.)
I think the distinction between “hate crime” and systemic racism might be useful, but it discounts the numerous “hate crimes” that forms a natural part of the oppressed peoples experience, like Indigenous people in the Americas or Chinese people in Southeast Asia.
That is what I am trying to say in my original comment but just with rhetorical flourishes.
So the “white” thing is interesting. White supremacists like to talk about “white culture” and “white identity,” but in practice being “white” means having no culture and having no identity; whatever culture you originally possessed has been assimilated to the general American anti-culture of mass consumerism and social climbing. You have become the atomized individual, without family or communal ties, which is required by the capitalist machine. This evident in the way European immigrant to the US have historically not been considered “white” until their original culture is entirely lost; even the Germans, who are about European as European can be, were for a long time somewhat stigmatized as “Dutchmen.”
In other words: people who are proud to be “white” are fighting for a cipher, something which, as you said doesn’t really exist. Maybe in remote parts of Appalachia, say, there is something approaching a “white culture;” but even that is more a regional Southern thing than it is a “white” thing. White persons in (say) Washington or Seattle have little in common with it, and it seems to them quite foreign and “exotic.”
As seen in a lot of settler colonialism, a manufactured “new” identity is created to promote a form of nationalism and shared ideology. This grew and evolved into a white identity that spread BACK to Europe creating the racial hierarchy that Western countries embrace so much.
e.g. “Europe is a garden” and the dirty jungle is trying to encroach. There’s similar sentiments in America, Canada, Australia etc towards their neighbors who aren’t considered “white”. It’s what Sakai refers to as a “Garrison Community” in Settlers (https://readsettlers.org/ch13.html#2). It’s the basis of the Great Replacement Theory that the far right love.
First they promote the racial categories of white and non-white, then they claim they (whites) are being genocided: no stats necessary - no evidence they’ve lost anything etc.
My conclusion is that communists should stop using specifically usian terminology.
Exactly. This can be probably not be stated enough.