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
If that is what you where refering to as self-flaggelation I feel like you are underselling what happened to a large extent. I agree whole heatedly with you that self hatred and focusing on race, will get us no where but farther divided, and will keep us in our capitalist system as we are unable to unify arm in arm. And that is why we felt it necessary to clarify the rule in reguards to racism and racist comments.
I agree it is only natural for the oppressed to dislike and hate their oppressors, it is the human condition and I can not wrong anyone for doing so or feeling that way. I feel like the statement touched on this point mentioning “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”. We cannot reasonably expect to form a international group, or dismantle the concept of race when we are going around saying things like “we SHOULD be racist aganst ‘white people’!” We cannot say in one breath to be “racist” against “white people” and in the next say that is because it cannot exist, these 2 statements are in direct contradiction with each other. If you where to ask me, I think the idea of race is silly, and should be done away with, but we do not get to that point by continuing a circle of hate, or by pretending that right now this genuinely made up and fluid concept, does not truly effect people in a real and tangible way.
When talking about reverse racism, we have no illusions that there is no systemic structure of racism against white people, as a whole specific group does not exist, however this does not stop individual prejudice against white people, as we saw in the incident that caused this clarification of the rules.
We are in no way dismissing or understating the damages done by the global north, onto the global south, and an individuals hatred of a group of people does not some how equate to the centuries of colonization, exploitation.
you cannot say “…‘white people’ should really be the ones oppressed (lol).” and then when it is brought up that that is not what we fight for, and any opression is an injustice, we fight for the working class, we fight for the liberation of the opressed, seem suprised anyone would take you at your word then back track with “What would oppression of white people even entail? It doesn’t make sense. It’s all rhetoric.” Your advocation was for opressing a group of people, not only does this play right into the fears of reaction.
I feel you misunderstand the reason for my inclusion of the quote. Cuba has been colonized by the United States, and when it broke free of the United States almost immedatly the United States put a genocidal blockade on the island nation. The United States sent over 600 assasination attempts to Castro. The United States being one of the most propogandized people in the world, does not know Cuba as anything more than an athoritarian dictatorship, and only been told stories from the Borgiouse class that flead Cuba and the US State Department, to the point where Havana Syndrome was able to be accepted without much pushback from the general public. Even in these situations Fidel said “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.” Even with Cuba they have not and will not cultivate or hold hatred to the American People, and yes it is because of their political ideals, that being Marxism-Leninism, and their International Conscience. I would like to believe that all of us here strive for the same goals, and we cannot acomplish them by hating a person based on their race. I agree that to complete their goal we must reject racism and capitalism, hence the clarification on the rule.
as with your last point I agree that race is not a real thing, and so cannot be biological, and because race not being a real thing, the definitions are not consistent, and fusing on this made up division, only devides us, and does not in any way unify us, again the reason for the clarification of the rules.
My thoughts on this aren’t that well put together yet but I still think I want to add some things to the discussion.
To me this is just the class struggle of decolonization and national liberation of the third world. Much like in the class struggle of proletariat vs the bourgeoisie in the imperial core where the goal absolutely is for the proletariat to oppress the bourgeoisie by way of the dictatorship of the proletariat (in the long term, of course the goal is achieving communism). That same concept applied to race and colonial relations is solved not by putting the colonized on the same level as the colonist but by putting the previously oppressed on top. As Frantz Fanon says in The Wretched of the Earth: ‘Decolonization, therefore, implies the urgent need to thoroughly challenge the colonial situation. Its definition can, if we want to describe it accurately, be summed up in the well-known words: “The last shall be first.”’
I think the situation is different before and after the revolution and when considering the particular circumstances. Look at what Che said in 1954:
‘Given this background, with American reality being what it is, it’s not difficult to suppose what will be the attitude of the working class of the North American country when the problem of the abrupt loss of markets and sources of cheap raw materials is definitively posed. (…) Let us prepare, then, to fight against the entire people of the United States…’
The ultimate goal is no division by race but that cannot be achieved simply and quickly as currently racialized people (by the very fact that they’re racialized) are still not fully accepted into the category of people into which white people are fully accepted (white men specifically).
Again to quote Fanon: ‘This compartmentalized world, this world divided in two, is inhabited by different species. The singularity of the colonial context lies in the fact that economic reality, inequality, and enormous disparities in lifestyles never manage to mask the human reality. Looking at the immediacies of the colonial context, it is clear that what divides this world is first and foremost what species, what race one belongs to. In the colonies the economic infrastructure is also a superstructure.’
And: ‘It is not the factories, the estates, or the bank account which primarily characterize the “ruling class.” The ruling species is first and foremost the outsider from elsewhere, different from the indigenous population, “the others.”’
I think that to truly be against racial divisions we must be anti-white, just as to build a communist world we must first have a revolution and oppress the bourgeoisie out of existence. The concept of “white” presupposes and necessitates the existence of the other “black, or colored in general”. The whole concept of “white”, we know, comes from the colonial exploitation of the world by the imperial countries of Europe and North America so I think we as Marxists should be “anti-white” and not talk dismissively about race as it currently exists.
I am not saying you’re chauvinistic but when talking like this about colonized and racialized people I think we can easily fall close to what Domenico Losurdo warns about in his book Class Struggle with regards to internationalism: ‘This is a general rule: when it ignores the national question, internationalism turns into its opposite. The repression of national particularities in the name of an abstract ‘internationalism’ facilitates things for a nation intent presenting itself as the embodiment of the universal; and this is precisely what chauvinism—in fact, the most fanatical chauvinism—consists in.’