Archive for July, 2007
Property is Racism
Posted by illvox collective in Ideas on July 24, 2007
By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr.; July 16, 2007 – Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/garcia07162007.html
Property is theft [La propriété c'est le vol]!
– Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)
The operation of capitalism over the last five hundred years has yielded the result that the greatest share of the world’s wealth, and the firmest grip on the control levers of the world’s economy and politics, are held by the white race. Any group photograph of the leaders of the G8 nations will give you a clear idea of the current ethnometrics of the bounty of the Garden of Eden.
The domestic scene in the United States reflects the global situation: whites own and control, non-whites scramble for work and life’s necessities. We are speaking here in generalities, not absolutes (social absolutes are rationally impossible).
To see the racial-tribal pith of capitalism we only have to list the many names it has taken over time: the exploration for trade routes in the 15th century led to the North and South American “conquests” during the 16th century (the destruction of Native American civilizations), the “mercantilism” of the 17th century (e.g., the Dutch East India Company, the African slave trade), the “colonialism” of the 18th century (e.g., the British Empire), and the “imperialism” of the 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g., the Opium War and Chinese concessions, the annexation of Hawaii, the Spanish-American and Philippine Wars).
When the “eminence grise” of the United States, Dick Cheney, speaks about a “clash of civilizations” he is using white tribal language for the war against Islam, which is today’s primary impediment to the ambition for global control by white tribal leaders. It is the mania for control, rather then merely religious bigotry or fanatical avarice, that fuels the drive for white supremacy. The Iraq War of 2003 to the present is just the latest incident in a millennium-long drive for white tribal control that probably started with the European Christian Crusades and the Spanish war against Islam from about the 11th century.
In national and world societies where wealth — property — is racially and ethnically concentrated, the defense of property is the defense of racial preference in favor of the dominant tribe; and the primacy of property (e.g., corporations, “capital”) over individuals, in the administration of government, laws and “justice”, is the protection of white supremacy.
Recent decisions by the US Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts have unambiguously reaffirmed the basic principles of the United States as a white supremacy state. The Roberts court ruled that universities cannot use race in making preferential decisions for admission, and in another case that child-care workers do not have the right to organize unions and thus seek benefits and claim “property rights” in their jobs; rights such as overtime pay (and presumably rights of due process and to grievance proceedings before neutral arbitrators), long recognized for many other types of laborers.
The court decisions are startlingly clear: any impediment to white ambition is illegal. This devolved from an argument about educational opportunities, but it seems improbable not to be taken in general. Such illegal impediments include any “redistributive” or guilt-induced “social leveling” legislation and administrative procedures devised in the 20th century as a result of the Civil Rights struggles. “Affirmative action”, racial preferences for non-white university students to compensate for historical (inter-tribal) injustices, is an impediment to the ambitions of the type of people who can now afford to get into and through college, and so must be dropped. Those who can’t afford to locate themselves in well-funded school districts for their primary and secondary education shouldn’t suddenly expect a “helping hand” when it comes time for college. “Stay in your place,” how much clearer can the message get? This brings to mind Anatole France (1894), “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread.” Remember that: “majestic equality.”
Families in all income classes need child-care. At the top, this may take the form of nannies, tutors and selective (expensive) group facilities. For lower income classes, child-care is provided by a mix of public and private group facilities (licensed or not, with more children per attendant adult as costs decrease), and a haphazard network of babysitting for fees, or labor exchange. Child care workers are primarily women, and in many cases they are also non-white (racially and/or ethnically).
In the United States, people of wealth can claim an impressive tax deduction for child-care expenses by means of a “dependent care account”. One pays (by payroll deduction) into a tax-sheltered account held by a third party (like an insurance company), and you subsequently make claims against this account for your expenses with licensed child-care providers. Naturally, there is a great deal of paperwork that accompanies the circuitous movement (dare I say laundering?) of your child-care dollars, but it is all worth it in the end because the income you report for tax purposes has been reduced to noticeable effect. This is by far the most lucrative child-care break available through the US Tax Code. Dependent care accounts are a benefit offered by some employers to their “permanent” employees.
People of modest means can also claim one or more of the direct child-care deductions and credit offered by the US Tax Code. However, the circumstances allowing this are that modest incomes (a “low” upper limit for eligibility is set by the tax code) have had to support relatively large child-care expenses. For people in such circumstances, it is usually a much better idea to preserve the family’s cash by relying on relatives to baby-sit, or to engage neighborhood (officially “black market” if not licensed) babysitting providers, and participate in labor exchanges (barter). This is the real child-care system of many inner city neighborhoods.
Imagine the expansion of the “dependent care” system to all income levels, a national child-care benefit, call it “single-payer child-care.” That is what the Roberts court is firmly set to prevent. If child-care workers are recognized as a “unit” or “type” in the labor market with unionization rights, then the likely explosion of child-care labor costs (to boost child-care worker pay to living-wage standards, pay for health and pension benefits, and also fund overtime and vacation pay, as well as paid sick leave — and maternity leave) would directly raise the price of child-care. Because of the broad need for child-care, a radical increase in costs would immediately result in popular political pressure for relief. Tax relief on such a scale — and over all income levels — would necessarily cut into the “lion’s share” (from Aesop’s fable) of government subsidy enjoyed by the military, the “corporate sector”, and the fat cats lapping up Bush’s “tax cut”. The Roberts court knows who it serves and it remains true to this principle: property is superior to people.
The unionization of child-care workers would be a vast expansion of unionization in the fastest growing sector of the labor market, the “service sector”, which can be thought of as the post Civil War replacement of slavery. It would simply not do for “property” to have to contend with increased labor costs for domestic services. The decrease of tax revenues for military projects, and the slackening of corporate dividend yields due to the funding of didy-changing for the children of the nation’s workforce by unionized nannies is just too much to seriously contemplate.
An ancillary problem with the unionization of child-care workers (and the subsequent nationalization of child-care expenses) is that it would boost the economics of a large segment of the non-white population: besides elevating the situation of child-care workers, the parents using these services would be freed of child-care worries and thus able to compete for higher-level jobs (more time away from home), and many “minority” child-care “businesses” would see greater profitability. The possibility of any such social leveling must be nipped in the bud, and it has been. Again, the message is clear, “stay in your place, the flattening of the class distribution is not acceptable.” In the US…the selection of an “affordable” nanny from Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Jamaica, Haiti, Nigeria, Somalia, Tibet and Black America must not be imperiled by the imposition of “unionism” and all its attendant costs and legalities (e.g., workman’s compensation, egads!). The supply of reliable, quiet, inexpensive and trustworthy servants must not be corrupted by thoughts of equal opportunity.
The Roberts court today is just as dedicated to the cause of “property” as was the Taney court during the Buchanan administration (just prior to Lincoln’s). In 1857, the Taney court determined that Dred Scott, a black slave who had made his way to a “free” (slavery illegal) state, was property, and that such a designation overrode any considerations of him as a man, a human being, even a person (which would theoretically imply he was endowed with “inalienable rights” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”). Then as now, the masters were not to be encumbered by the aspirations of the servants.
A century and a half ago…American servants were often slaves and thus property to be used at the discretion of their masters, the “owners”. Today…American servants are technically free and officially human beings, even persons, but they are tribally inferior, and an expense property-owners seek to minimize. So, our slavery is “outsourced” to a domestic “service sector”, which must be kept in check as the Roberts court well knows; and “off-shored” to globalization sweatshops.
The most pressing “servant problem” facing the white supremacy states today is the difficulty of disembodying foreign labor prior to its importation and consumption, this is called “immigration.” Here in the U.S., the problem is generally seen as: how do you bring in Mexican labor while excluding Mexican laborers? The object is to supply low-cost labor to profitable (and subsidized) corporate agriculture (and for other jobs of hard labor), without diluting the white population fraction and weakening its cultural control. We want to import the work of millions, and yet deport the human costs and needs on which the generation of that labor energy depends. We want slaves, and that wanting “we” is the racist core of our white supremacy economic states.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. — Jean Jacques Rousseau (1762)
But, I remember about the Bastille.
Manuel Garcia, Jr. is a recently retired physicist from a US Department of Energy laboratory. He is presently on holiday, and his technical interests involve fluids, electricity, heat flow and energy. His non-technical interests are varied, one being the social responsibility of scientists, another being the social dimensions of choices for the energy technologies that power a community. He can be reached at mango@idiom.com.
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The End of Idealism: Honest Conversations about Race, Class, Self-Determination and Anarchist People of Color
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 17, 2007
By Ernesto Aguilar
I first began writing for Our Culture, Our Resistance on anarchist people of color and the conversations I believe we need to get started. During that process, very kind individuals offered up much help in ideas and structure, but at some point, the work became academic. So, stepping back, I realized that, to be compelling and motivate change, starting any conversation has to be fluid and open, but also geared at accomplishing something. I took a step back and returned to the roots of my piece, of the conversations we need to get started if we are going to grow and politically advance ourselves as revolutionaries of color. And here we are.
When people visualized the emergence of a tendency of anti-authoritarian people of color, no one believed it would grow at the pace and direction it has. It is sprouting up and fostering awareness in ways few people envisioned, which has been fantastic. At the same time, we are at a critical point; where many see our organizing must evolve. We need to create a space for our unity, culture and identity, but also our politics.
We need to be clear that advocacy of rights and roles for people of color, while certainly needed, permits the state and white-led movement to institutionalize and mediate our struggles. Fighting racism and white supremacy, when included at all, are problems typically regarded as line-items for social change. Even among anarchists of color, the attraction is strong to build own our anarchist movement, made up of people of color, or to demand greater respect from the white-led movement. In the process, we’re failing to ask critical questions about the viability of the white-led movement or our own loyalties.
For people of color who identify as anti-authoritarians, bringing us into the clearest solidarity with oppressed people around the world should be our primary focus. We need to give respect to those who’ve come before us by building on their successes and learning from their mistakes, while bringing the anarchist people of color tendency to the next level.
Understanding oppression
Ask someone what they think of when they consider racism, oppression and white supremacy. You’ll likely get many answers. What does oppression mean to you as a person of color? I believe that, in order to find answers, it’s important to know what we’re dealing with when we talk about such broad concepts.
Francis Cress-Welsing argues that racism is white supremacy. That distinction alone is significant. Some whites and a few people of color are confused by the word racism; they’ll sometimes fall into traps of terms popularized by the far right, or take the word literally, thinking it to be a prejudice of any race by any race. Historically, however, racism has always meant white supremacy and collusion with institutional power. Race was, in many instances, a line of distinction separating Europeans from non-whites. Cress-Welsing states racism consists of “patterns of perception, logic, symbol formation, thought, speech, action and emotional response, as conducted simultaneously in all areas of people activity (economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex and war).” Cress-Welsing’s definition grasps the totality of racism/white supremacy, and how it shapes our own views, as well as that of white people, virtually from birth. Cress-Welsing’s clarity makes us think about how we got into the global mess we face. In truth, Europeans have waged military and cultural war against people of color for nearly a thousand years. Such exercises were never a means of dividing rich and poor, but to unite the white masses to fight for the moral, political, social and/or economic superiority of their way of life over other races.
Addressing the social and political realities of white supremacy requires a strategy. In my view, that approach must make self-determination for oppressed people a basis of unity for looking at the world, among those professed anti-authoritarian people of color and all others. Our first stand must be with people of color worldwide fighting for room to breathe. Our first prerogative must be freedom for all oppressed people, by any means. At its core, self-determination is an opportunity to finally be free, to determine one’s own political, social and economic destinies. For North American radicals of color, this kind of idea can be a leap; we live in a society of relative privilege, where corporate corruption, globalization and other movements compete for our hearts and minds. Occupation and oppression aren’t harsh and in our faces as, for instance, in Palestine. As such, we’re conditioned to think about our struggles related to what we’re against, rather than that for which we are fighting.
Tactics and unity
Clearly, it’s on us to start thinking about how we make efforts if we are to be self-determined. One of the beautiful things about anarchism, many people tell me, is that it is fluid and open; flexible enough to respond to social and political conditions, but strong enough in its anti-authoritarianism to stand up against dictatorship of any kind. However, all of us get frustrated in the roadblocks that come before any movement. I submit that we need think about our tactics and our unity.
It is crucial that we start looking at our politics with a nod to what we, as revolutionaries, hope to create of this world. We know what we’re against, but how are we getting to the world we want to create? And, as importantly, what actions do we need to make to get there? What is a fundamental call from which our movements emanate?
Although I have spoken out frequently on the need to locally organize, I respect that not everyone is an organizer. It can be intimidating for even experienced people. In reality, I am an advocate of the growth of our movements on many levels. Whether you are an organizer, somebody just looking for answers, someone fed up with how the system works, or an intellectual, what you are about and what we as a movement stand for needs to be out front, fearless, imperfect and courageous.
Some ideas that touch on tactics and unity, no matter who you are:
• Objectives: What do you want? What are the long-term, mid-range and short-term goals? What are the process goals (i.e. building cultural consciousness among members) in reaching the objective?
• Resources: What/where are the alliances, money and relationships?
• Audience: Who are the people you want to connect to? Who are you trying motivate to action?
• Message: What do people need to hear? What parts of the message apply to people’s sense of justice, and which to their self-interest?
• Spokespeople: If you are organizing something for your idea, who should deliver the message? Who is credible to the audience, and how do we equip spokespeople with information and comfort levels?
• Jump-Off: How do we kick off and move forward?
• Venue: How do we get the audience the message?
• Opportunities: What do we need to cultivate?
• Evaluation: How do we judge our progress?
As one example, I wrote a missive on tactical politics, focusing on lifestyle politics. Also called conscientious consumerism, lifestyle politics (and other forms of reactive activism), have come to the fore as leading trends in social action. Boycotts; buying green, fair trade, et al.; and voluntary simplicity are everywhere. The failure of these kinds of strategies is in vision. Writer Angus Maguire argues that, at its worst, lifestyle politics “overemphasize the importance of white and middle-class buying habits while marginalizing the work of communities of color around the world to gain power in struggles against the same injustices our buying habits are supposedly addressing.” And I concur. But the ensuing responses from whites as well as a few people of color failed to offer a vision about how such consumerism connects with our program for advancement. Many people are not ready for a discussion about a “program for advancement” or much of a program for anything, but we need to be. Time and conditions require we stop spinning our wheels. We need to see a strategic vision for our work as part of an explicit and comprehensive program for reaching political, social and economic self-determination. Lifestyle politics is perhaps an easy target, but this instance demonstrates our need to analyze tactics.
Unity is perhaps one of the most curious roads to navigate in this respect, because once you find out what you’re for, your allies become a little clearer. It’s vibrant, for sure, and presents opportunities for us.
I don’t want to open the conversation with the typical us-versus-other-ideologies rhetoric, but nudge you to consider priorities. Herb Boyd writes in a revised edition of Detroit: I Do Mind Dying that ideologues on various sides of the political spectrum had, “political positions so bitterly opposed in the 1970s that it disrupted the remnants of the Black liberation movement, thereby ending any possibility of operational unity.” Anarchists of color get caught up in that too; some of us see our internal contradictions as people of color as more important than the external contradictions of white supremacist-engineered society out to do us all in. We’ve been sold the line that joining the white-led movement serves “humanity,” when humanity can’t speak for itself in struggle in which it doesn’t lead. Some of us eschew other people of color as being anti-white, et al., but fail to see who is served by our divisions. By no means am I saying to ignore our differences. I don’t believe paper unity serves anyone. I encourage all my people to consider who you unite with, why and the interests it serves.
Allies and language
Whether we unite with white anarchists is a tough question. While I believe broad-based work presents unique opportunities, I am very passionate in feeling it’s not our job to hold white folks’ hands, make them feel empowered, good about their politics, not downplayed, etc. The white-led movement should provide that to them, since it’s theirs and whites should be demanding more of other white progressives. But the subject of allies is altogether different.
When the Anarchist People of Color listserv began, some of us came to the table with the idea that we’d have this open space for ourselves to create a more visible presence of people of color in the `anarchist movement,’ essentially the white-led movement. Undoubtedly, our at-first unpopular little crew has now gotten more support from whites who see this effort as important. However, while most anarchists of color still participate in white-led organizing, our collective analysis is slowly evolving to a place where we are standing on our own, and what such unity means for us in the long term.
There’s an equal amount of work around the question of anarchism, and how we can grow it to meet the needs of communities of color. Not a few people of color observe that the contemporary anarchist scene, if indeed it’s embodied by testosterone-pumped white boys and Anarchy magazine, relates to a minuscule fraction of the populace. How do we make the ideas of anarchy relate to those who are not pissed off Caucasians and grad students? Such a question doesn’t even get into the troubling failure in anarchism to adequately address white supremacy, e.g. Bakunin’s anti-Semitism, Emma Goldman’s advocacy of eugenics and modern anarchism’s denial of the centrality of race in the dialogue. Anarchism, looked at objectively, should be applied as a model of social organization. North American trends in anarchist thinking have advocated anarchism as an ideology, philosophy or lifestyle choice. Yet the fault of such application is that many assumptions made by anarchists deliver firmly Eurocentric values in their introduction.
Just to be clear, when I say Eurocentric values, I mean values that have become a little more complex than merely ‘white values,’ but concepts, through the system of white supremacy, capital and subjugation, that have become part of mass consciousness. The rise of modern Eurocentric values can be traced to the rise of capitalism, and embody ideas which, despite pretensions to the contrary by their most radical carriers, are intended to serve white supremacy and capital.
Calling individualism, liberalism, the rule of (natural, structural or other) law, democracy and free markets (e.g. free trade, fair trade, et al.) Eurocentric values denies the rightful link people of color have to them. In fact, Eurocentric values mean a sense of power, and of moral, political, social and/or economic superiority to other cultures, with the mission of assimilating them. For hundreds of years, European scholars have bemoaned the failures of “other” people as a means of talking up the superiority of their own belief systems, and assimilating them into Eurocentrism. All of us fall into the trap sometime; as people of color, we’ve been indoctrinated to tacitly accept the superiority of whites over us, while whites have been taught to assume their values are right. The “unite and fight” abstraction, at its core, is aimed at winning people to its philosophy and assimilating all struggles into “one.” In another example, you regularly hear proponents of anarchism rejecting community cohesion and religious faith, but failing to grasp that, to many people, such things are important and can, in some historical examples, be an organizing spot. Even notions of consensus — an organizing model developed by white, middle-class anti-nuclear activists where a tiny group of people, often with many of the same values, get together and mutually agree to something — are an illusion aimed at reinforcing the values of a small group to the contrasting values of outsiders. Proponents of North American anarchism too often look to bring allegedly superior lifestyles and belief systems to the fore, and oppressed people, directly or indirectly, can be the victims.
I do think a revolutionary movement will take root, and that it will be broad-based. However, the mindset of many is a rush to idealism — that social justice is “all one struggle” and that we all need to be united to defeat fascism. I put forward the conversation that the rush to idealism will be our demise as a movement. The white-led movement should answer for its internal racism, and people of color should understand what we want, how we plan to work, and be conscious and organized as a struggle enough to fight this battle alone, if necessary. That kind of conviction is important in this undertaking. We should not make concessions to our demand for self-determination to win anyone’s support.
Related: Class
Another issue on the unity tip is the anarchist romance with class. As we forge a new path of oppressed peoples’ politics, as well as anarchist theory and practice, we must take a critical look at class. Are we surrendering our self-determination in the name of unity?
Within white-led anarchism, there is a subtle, and occasionally overt, competitiveness between race and class. For example, in “Race and Class: Burning Questions, Unpopular Answers,” a member of the Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists brings arguments such as “racism is an excuse” and that racism is prevalent among people of color. These ideas are presented to show class is the primary issue we should unite under. “There’s an overwhelming amount of class-privileged `people of color’ spearheading this movement, creating a culture that is class reactionary to all working class people of all races in the United States,” the piece notes. “These people are also quick to react to what they see as `class trumping race,’ and find the common class struggle between people of different races to be not as important as what they share in common with the community in question.”
Similar points are made in a far cruder fashion. Most white radicals, and some radicals of color, have adopted old Marxist notions of class, class struggle and, most importantly, class solidarity. There are dozens of names people of color get called — from “nationalist” to “reverse racist” to “privilege pimp” — for pointing out the obvious importance of self-determination, racism and the historical fallacies of class unity. Although I do agree with familiarity with how capitalism functions is appropriate, my concern is many class-unity concepts are based on two fundamentally false ideas: 1.) that “the working class” (meaning the white working class and workers of color, in the United States and internationally) can unite to fight; and that workers of color and the white working class have common interests, from the workplace on down.
Even most anarchist intellectualism stakes positions to which the two misconceptions as their foundation. While there are indubitably surface commonalities (i.e. workplace, housing, etc.), history demonstrates that working-class solidarity between white workers and workers of color does not exist. History further demonstrates that white workers, in almost all cases, side with the oppressor and against workers of color. I’m sure there are isolated examples of unity. Does that mean I believe people of color should take such cavernous leaps of faith? Not without their eyes open and minds sharp.
J. Sakai, author of Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat, has been one of the hardest critics of the white working class. In an interview I conducted with him, Sakai explained he researched history and put his findings bluntly “I figured out that actually there wasn’t any time when the white working class wasn’t white supremacist and racist and essentially pro-empire.” Those who ad hominem dismiss Sakai ought to follow up on what he says. From colonization to ongoing wars and the dismantling of Affirmative Action, how many mass movements of white workers (or whites altogether) were there, compared to instances where white masses either stood with the elite, actively or passively? 100-to-1? 500-to-1? Herein lies the dirty secret of class politics. If we have a few hundred years of history to look upon, in which the white working class has consistently and in most instances actively sided with oppressors and sold out people of color, what is the basis for solidarity? If working-class solidarity were more than a slogan, wouldn’t the racial discrimination and even profound racism within the ranks of white workers have been obliterated years ago? If white workers have rejected significant demands supporting people of color, what makes them different now? They’re not. As Sakai points out, and deftly illustrates, the white working class and people of color have divergent interests. White workers just side with their own interests and the empire’s.
Another conspicuous issue is the history of cross-class alliances among people of color in fighting colonialism. Read the histories of Algeria, Mexico and other countries and you’ll discover the internal contradictions of class become far less important when faced by the external contradiction of an occupying army. It’s the kind of history that swims against North American radicalism’s beliefs that classes don’t or can’t unite. Moving forward as anarchist people of color means understanding our allies, as well as our enemies, and what that means for our freedom.
Privilege and Assertiveness
One of the beauties of self-determination is the fact that it draws lines of opposition, contradictions and prompts us to consider privilege. Not simply the (still important) roads typically hewn by activist-types — gender, sexual orientation and class — but looking at one another and acknowledging the privileges of people within this movement, and navigating that in hopes of being honest as possible. Being self-determined requires such.
For people of color who were raised in or politicized by white-dominant spaces, concept of self and one’s relationship with non-white-dominant spaces represent one point of privilege worth exploring. In no other instance is the difference between anarchists of color bigger than between white-acculturated persons of color, and those socialized by their respective cultures. Relational views; concepts of autonomy/people of color spaces, racial experience, overall objectives for empowerment and more are thus profoundly varied. In many cases, being raised in white-dominant spaces is not a choice, although voluntary involvement is. In both cases, participants must recognize that, historically, such spaces impart values that, while dressed in democratic language, are intended to further white supremacy; create confusion and division; and, as a means of self-perpetuation, can make white-acculturated people of color unwitting agents of white supremacist ideology. How internalized marginalization and oppression function are critical considerations.
Very honestly, there are internal struggles being waged by conscious people of color all around us. The sense of estrangement from communities is real, as is the indignation some people of color feel when whites assume that people of color have no other interests but race. We need to be actively supporting one another through these explorations, exhibiting care and knowledge. Internalized oppression for people of color, manifested as guilt or defensiveness, helps no one, and we need to see these issues of privilege as collective issues for all of us in the movement.
Similarly, it’s important white-skinned people of various cultures and ethnicities to understand the dynamics of race. This is a challenging segment of privilege to steer, but it’s necessary. Light skin versus dark skin is a demonstration of our internal struggles, as well as the debates within our own colonies. As one person put it well: “How has your light skin operate like white privilege among people of color? How have used your light skin to pass as white in the dominant culture? How has your light skin been used as a way to separate yourself from people of color? Do you use it to separate yourself from other people of color but not from people of your ethnic group? How does the collusion of your light skin give people of color the impression that you are not in their camp, but only come to their camp when excommunicated from the dominant culture not wanting to have these privileges is not the point here. The point is this: the fact that you do have light skin privilege in this racialized society, it is important to be racially responsible with it.”
Talking about collective freedom through self-determination also requires we have a discussion about individualism. Individual freedom is one of the reasons we fight, and it is one of the highest ideals, although the ultra-competitive society fostered by capitalism has turned the idea of individual conscience on its head. Our objective as anarchists is not to emulate what the media tries to make of us, as self-involved monsters bent on greed and serving ourselves. Autonomy doesn’t mean that our politics are defined by our moods or interests at the moment, but by study, struggle and discovery. Individualist politics are an exercise in privilege. Many Americans exercise that privilege every day by passively supporting the empire. Some anarchists of color get swept up in the moment, and start defining our politics by what’s exciting at the moment, rather than realizing we don’t have that many moments to lose.
Lastly, it is critical to recognize that the need for respecting each other and organizing ourselves collectively. I’m regularly surprised by the lackadaisical approach some people of color bring to anarchist people of color spaces. From small things like showing up late to gatherings to major things like exclusionary organizing, the message is one of power dynamics and privilege. Sometimes it’s unconscious. Sometimes people came up in a lazy political culture or one that didn’t have to consider what starting a meeting 45 minutes late, for instance, might do for a poor person’s bus ride or parent’s time with their kids. Yet these examples are matters of privilege that mirror what is already going on in white anarchist milieus. This needs to be examined clearly.
What do relevant politics look like?
Think about Adidas. Its purpose is to sell expensive shoes. But nobody in their right mind will buy $200 sneakers. So Adidas has to evolve from selling shoes to selling a lifestyle. The baller of the moment rocks a pair of signature shoes as a hot track bumps in the background. Adidas is flexible; it grows its campaigns as the tastes of potential buyers evolve. Now think about a movement. Making signs and sweating in the hot sun doesn’t sell well. Who in their right minds wants that, verdad? So we need to evolve as people’s media-savviness and minds evolve; the problem is not that people don’t believe what we believe, but that anarchists can seem completely uninspiring doing what we do. Why would anyone care for a lifestyle of protests, long meetings, drum circles and getting arrested? Maybe those pissed-off Caucasians or grad students I mentioned earlier, but that’s all.
We all want movements that are flexible and can respond to social conditions. We also need to work tirelessly to keep political goals like self-determination and tactics for getting there relevant to everyday folks. No, we don’t need a movement led by Adidas, but we need to look at, without bias, the world our people live in, and how our messages can speak to them. I’ve heard `we can’t go to such-and-such because it’s corporate’ as proclamations of people’s individualist politics twice as much as I’ve heard `where do people hang, and can we go talk with them about such-and-such campaign?’ If Adidas can have legions of cats wearing their $200 gear, they’ve tapped into what we need to get a dose of, and quick. A few points that came out of the “Building an APOC Movement” workshop at the 2003 APOC conference, in terms of organizing:
• How people go about doing things; for the benefit and greater good take where people are and build from that. We have more to learn from people than they do from us;
• Using skills and resources already in existence; empowering to teach each other-working from our strengths; and
• More vision; not just talk about, make it more participatory, more organizing.
And in terms of networking and resources:
• Find common ground and be in the community;
• Bring together by using each others’ resources together;
• Focusing on commonalities;
• Be honest when balancing your values and other groups as a basis for building trust; and
• Be simplistic; talk about how you can support.
We also resolved on a few ideas related to points of unity:
• Ask people first; value system respecting existing knowledge;
• Clarity of goals makes things clear;
• Be aware anarchism is not better than what exists; be open; and
• Ultimately support community decisions; mistakes are part of the process.
Four key points of anarchist organizing:
• Helping people experiment with decentralized, collective and cooperative forms of organization;
• Increasing the control that people have over actions that affect them;
• Building counterculture that uses all forms of communication to resist illegitimate authority, racism, sexism, and capitalism. Creating alternatives to the dominant culture; and
• Strengthening the `social fabric’ of neighborhood units that network of informal association, support services, and contacts that enable people to survive in spite of the negative influences of government and its bureaucracies.
Five criteria covered at the conference for measuring success:
• People learn skills needed to analyze issues and confront those who exert control over their lives;
• People learn to interact, make decisions and get things done collectively; rotating tasks, sharing skills, confronting racism, sexism and hierarchy;
• Community residents realize some direct benefit or some resolution of problems they personally face through the organizing work;
• Existing institutions change their priorities or way of doing things so that the authority of government, corporations, and large institutions is replaced by extensions of decentralized, grassroots authority; and
• Community residents feel stronger and better about themselves in the collective effort.
These aren’t gospel, but they’re a start in moving towards the conversations we need to have — whether you’re an organizer or not — about self-determination, tactics, allies, privilege and more. As with anything, we need to treat each other with compassion and empathy; don’t let hostility, resentment or a quest for `accountability’ color your efforts. Tearing each other down as people of color for perceived transgressions is never acceptable under any circumstance. We’re not the military, and nor should we strive for that. We have serious discussions to have, and hopefully more learning, caring, fighting and loving in the future.
19 September 2004
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Autonomously Gazing After the G8
Posted by illvox collective in Uncategorized on July 16, 2007
A text written in the hope of an empowering self-critical debate in autonomous and anarchist circles about what happened and what didn’t happen during the protests against the G8.
One Swallow Doesn´t Make a Summer
There it was again for a moment: the exalting feeling that we really can attack sometimes, that we are lots, at least here and now courageous and determined. A spirited beginning, a promising prelude. besides legitimate critique of friendly-fire-rocks thrown from row 57 (and the regret that we didn’t make it into the inner city): after Rostock many people I met were quite pleased with the resoluteness of the black bloc, a twinkle smiled at me from so many eyes. No-one would be able to misinterpret this symbolic challenge of capitalism into an appeal to those in power.
Not so much might have changed for comrades, who went home after that and followed the things to come mainly through the media. They could not compare the accounts with their experiences, they did not realise that a mean little paradox saw the light of day. While the battle of Rostock grew bigger and bigger in the mainstream media, while everyone was talking about the black block and even the most ugly smear-sheets started speculating about a renaissance of the autonomous, our own organising process quietly collapsed. No matter no-one outside realised that – those who were there know it.
The aim of this text is to take away the power from this paradox and to reclaim it for our own future actions. therefore I think it necessary to overcome the multicoloured silence, that I found characteristic of the autonomous movement as i experienced it during the days of Heiligendamm – to overcome it at least afterwards, in the evaluation of the protests. Critique is love. long, steep, and often stony is the way.
Long, Steep, and Often Stony is the Way
Maybe it is not only bad having destroyed the already a bit musty-smelling myth of the strength of the German autonomous. Aside from the refreshingly offensive actions in Rostock on the 2nd of June, we have to admit that almost all of our practical plans failed. Also on an organisational level we did not exactly cover ourselves in glory. The generally announced “autonomous decision-making” inside the mixed camps that we had been discussing over and over again just didn’t happen. Lots of internationals waited days and days for comrades of the German Dissent! spectrum to share more detailed information with them, to get them involved in orienting discussions.
The infosystem didn’t meet our expectations and was not able to make the knowledge of the small insider groups available for the bigger collective – lacking bigger assemblies our comrades now were depending on personal contacts even more. moreover, after the press started stirring things up against the black bloc only very few still dared to publicly advocate autonomous positions. This was not the least important reason why the Interventionist Left, being heavily under pressure, all of a sudden stood as the only voice of the radical left – a monopoly that we would usually never accept. Instead of coming to common evaluations and actions as autonomous, radical left and anarchists in Heilgendamm, we preventively disappeared in more than one dimension.
Apart from this, seen on a larger scale the protests have not been without successes. There were many situations the police did not have under control. Despite some unpleasant taste this is true as well for Block G8. Lacking their own plans, lots of autonomous and anarchists supported and participated in these actions. in the end some blockades were worked out spontaneously, withdrawing cops from the sitting blockades. actions like the police car being wrapped in tape and carefully deflated kept the spirits high. The sheer masses of people sitting on the streets and roaming through the forests turned the days into something more than the state could have wanted.
Nonetheless there is something perturbing about the “mood swing” in police strategy that – after the show of rudeness at the beginning of the week – occurred just in time for the arrival of the G8. The pictures of the masses of people marching through the fields carrying pace-flags are to me far too compatible with the self-righteous image-cultivation of Germany as an oh so democratic country. On the other hand the endeavours of the government not to appear as a police state to the world public opened up rooms to manoeuvre that we could have used much more effectively. Although foreseen by some, we did not manage to collectively talk about what we want to do in this case. The possibility to self-consciously anticipate this situation and to tow state power into a catch 22 situation with our actions was already way off the horizon at that time. as regards the autonomous part of the movement, protest meanwhile came to a halt more or less completely, one just went along with the others…or waited for the next plan that was going to fail.
Far from an Entirely Different Entirety
As you can see from this nit-picking, I guess that we have to confront serious questions in the days to come. Ok, the last thing I´m interested in is to brand personal shortcomings, the key point is to politicise our understanding of our acting and not-acting. to first of all grasp what happened: to think about how all the things that did not happen are related to developments maybe not fully understood so far, to strategies of domination and peace-keeping to which we obviously haven’t found answers yet.
Speaking less abstract this means for example: how do we counter a police strategy that is not devoted to prosecuting per se all offences, but tries to get some of us to cooperate, to win their support for co-management in the name of the rationality in power? The rationality of a technique of domination that does not depend on ideological consent as long as the flows are not seriously interrupted. a rationality that suggests that militant anti-capitalism can go together well with a life inside of capitalism undisturbed by the authorities of law and order, as long as, yes, as long as “it” keeps within bounds. I guess we all had talks like this the last days. Scissors in the mind [internalised contradictions] – absolutely nothing new, but still, seen against the backdrop of prevailing high-tech concepts of control and the frightening extent of social isolation obtained in society this remains a major problem.
How can we deal with a police strategy, that again and again wants to impose this fear in each and every one of us that eats up all collectivity – is it ME, ME, ME targeted by the camera? is there a microphone taping my voice? – a strategy that again and again wants to implant the timid question into our hearts, whether the moment of liberation that i am fighting for right now will end 10 or 20 minutes later in an arrest backed up by police videos. One answer to that for sure still is the “just do it!” of our clenched fists. and this is what we experienced in Rostock on Saturday: that there can always be situations where the cops run away from us, where they have to instrumentalize fire engines to break our lines in the first place, where we manage to collectively jump across their techniques of isolation and intimidation.
Fucking British Conditions
Alas, there were also lots of moments during the following days where our communication failed, moments where we anticipated possible repression and denied ourselves to conspire beyond our small circles as international black bloc. How much more collective fighting strength could have emerged if we had better used the time to exchange different ideas in discussions, to develop actions and turn them into the eminent concerns of all of us – instead of only ordering each other to meeting points here and there in the last minute. At this point we should really think about how to challenge our paranoia, which is paralysing us already on the level of discussion. All the caution so predominant in this country for good reasons must not lead into lonely anxiety and collective silence, or else the other side has won. In order to act collectively we have to recognise each other as militants somehow, to meet for real here and there and to exchange. and by the way: we were talking about street blockades. No-one planned to kill the American president. The risk was limited.
The problem continued into the camps in general, into alliances and the wider public: apart from the declaration of the international brigades and one sympathising newspaper interview there was only silence to be heard from the radical left after Saturday. the black bloc simply seemed to no longer exist. In the TV-show of Sabine Christiansen speculation was made as to whether it had been in the forests the whole time…as amusing as it is to read expertise articles about “what makes the hooded man tick?” In the yellow press, in the end we were also not visible for unorganised and potentially new comrades in the camps. The autonomous assembly that was established on the Reddelich camp on Tuesday came way too late and was not really attended by German groups. Except maybe in Wichmannsdorf dissent! did not manage to establish itself any forum, and apart from some individuals Dissent! no longer had any influence on the debates in the Interventionist Left or the larger alliance.
Given this situation, remarkably few dissociated themselves from us. Obviously the concept of the big alliance of the Interventionist Left bore some fruit. At least in Rostock the vast majority of the protesters kept together surprisingly well. Besides avoidance of repression another cause of the non-existence of autonomous structures could be described as a kind of organisational rigidity. In view of the 1000s of people to come it was for sure understandable, that – as potentially nervous hosts – we initially were seeking refuge in the security of plans. Too bad that after a while we forgot to think about some really important questions like transport and communication. In nearly all working groups a strong tunnel-view with a tendency to autism developed.
For sure it was due to the chronic shortage of manpower that, additionally to all the things that needed to be done, we spent lots of time permanently mobilising each other, to try and get each other volunteered for ever new task. maybe we should have met in-between some day for a mid-term review [in Heiligendamm?], to check our structures and modify them according to actual needs. also for this we would have urgently needed an autonomous assembly. In retrospect it can be said that some organisational things could have been handled more easily, as a lot of situations above all depended upon spontaneity anyway – unfortunately this was something we had quite often lost already.
Personally I was shocked about how close the situation here got already to the preventive invisibility, that we realised in Great Britain two years ago. contrary to all lessons we wanted to draw from Glen Eagles, we as well were not present in situations in a guiding way, but rather often exuded some undefined uncertainty in our relations to our comrades from other countries, up to open distrust. As pretty good children of the spectacle quite a few activists here wavered back and forth between some abstract euphoric enthusiasm for using harder means in street-fight situations than is usually common here – and the reflex to think of everyone as more or less insane and irresponsible who than in reality wanted to use these means close to them. This contradiction is not always easy to understand for our comrades, could only be insufficiently discussed in the situation and should be scrutinised more closely “amongst us” as well.
There Must be Some Kind of Way Out of Here
Asking myself where to go from here in the time to come, I start to helplessly mumble a bit. The only things coming to my mind are in direction of more common experiences and discussions, less facade and less bla bla. To better keep demands at some lower levels, before we only get dizzy and everything breaks down again.
No plans anymore for the moment, and if there will be some, than very minimal and immediate and above all meant to do it ourselves! Small things, maybe an initiative concerning demo-culture: for example to break out of the intimidating practice of assistance in police controls on the way to a manifestation. My heart is bleeding each time I see comrades walking separately with hands up to the police to get searched. We don´t have to put up with that! If the cops were the only ones lining up at the announced starting point of the demo, if they would have trouble again and again with unwilling protesters all around them, they might in the long run think to stop that shit.
Another point are arrests from out of the demonstration: the cops themselves say that this situation basically is difficult for them. Too bad we often make it easier for them doing nothing or taking pictures, which is not better – if people successfully resist, we don´t need videos of it that can later be confiscated. Instead of resigning and documenting arrests we should do our utmost to prevent them. The risk of getting arrested for “rescuing prisoners” diminishes if a lot of people do it and anyways, so what? How much safer could we act knowing our comrades will do their best in the situation to free us?
Besides our comparatively elaborate defensive techniques, we could think again about how to prepare something for a demonstration. To have some spray-paint with us just in case some opportunity arises, for example. We could think about how we could mix or open up our rows here and there to give people protection and support who want to do things or already did things. In Rostock the civil police did not dare to make arrests from within the crowd, and what was possible there will basically be possible in other places as well.
There are innumerable possibilities to get our demos out of the defensiveness of endless debates about the length of banners. We can demand the withdrawal of the cordon (maybe otherwise people could cause some trouble to them from outside), we can refuse to leave central crossroads until all those arrested are out again, we can think about ways to push back the cameras of the cops, or to quit cooperation completely if necessary. Meaning: not to announce demos anymore if the conditions grow too intimidating.
There are for sure a lot more proposals. the second one on this piece of paper is to create a group-crossover-forum to enable us to discuss about things like that, to bridge the actual split in multiple channels and organs. open meetings are one possibility, but they bear some disadvantages. what do you think of freely vagabondizing pamphlets, read, spread and answered all over town, criss-crossing all scenes and teams?
If the unrealised plan B on Friday in Berlin showed something, its that we as autonomous, radical left and anarchists need to basically sort ourselves out anew, if we want to see some collective action happening here and there. Crossover exchange could help us to get rid of the often frustrating halfheartedness in realising ideas that are not our own. It would be nice to see well-received proposals of some groups vigourously turned into action also by others, instead of taking the first chance to retreat.
Be it as it may – whether we like it or not, There seems to be no other way – so let’s go on fighting pig system
Plan B continua – Vive la commune des brigades internationales.
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Linking Arms Without Getting Stepped On: An Anarchists in Coalitions Primer
Posted by illvox collective in Organizing on July 15, 2007
by Niels
The recent wave of mass protests against globalization has found anarchists working in or with coalitions on a level not seen for several decades. While the N30 Seattle and A16 Washington, DC protests owe much of their success to our willingness to work in coalition with other radicals and progressives, the sweet taste of victory has been undercut with a tang of bitterness. This article is based on coverage of the N30 Seattle protests in both the mainstream and alternative media and my own experience working with several coalitions in Minneapolis in the early ’90s.
Why Work In Coalition?
Anarchists have a (not undeserved) reputation for preferring to go it alone when it comes to confronting capitalism and the state. This comes, not only from our serious theoretical and tactical differences with most groups on the left, but also from the almost universal experience of marginalization we’ve had when working in coalitions. However, there are many benefits to organizing within a coalition that may outweigh the inherent difficulties. First, coalitions provide numbers that anarchists organizing alone can rarely hope to duplicate. Although only a small percentage of them may be radical, there are millions of people with some connection to environmental, feminist, labor and peace groups. Second, working with organizations that are more established than (generally) young anarchist groups provides access to resources (propaganda, meeting spaces, mailing lists) that would be unavailable otherwise. Third, as we saw in Seattle, a mass of less radical individuals provides both legitimacy and protection for more radical elements. Specific situations may also provide other reasons for working with non-anarchist groups.
The Differences Between Coalitions
While some coalitions, such as the Direct Action Network and People for Fair Trade, which organized the resistance to the World Trade Organization, are massively broad, others are quite narrow. Anarchists who decide to work in coalition may find themselves in groups that include from 1 to 100 other organizations. In general, working in a narrower coalition with other small groups is easier than working in large coalitions that may include everyone from the Sierra Club to the local Catholic Archdiocese. The most notable difference between broad and narrow coalitions is the extent that anarchists will be allowed to influence the process and tone of meetings and actions. Broader coalitions, which are usually created by mainstream groups like Greenpeace or NOW, operate on the dull, authoritarian methods that the majority of their member groups employ. This means that meetings have preset agendas, little time devoted to discussion or debate, and a bias toward the opinions of the largest, most conservative member groups. Broad coalitions rarely operate by consensus or direct democracy, and frequently have elite steering committees, which are allowed to make most of the real decisions.
Conversely, it’s often very easy for anarchists to influence the direction of smaller coalitions, even without numerical superiority. The innate fairness of the principles of consensus and small-group democracy that many anarchists prefer will often be apparent to other members of a small coalition, even if they do not share those preferences. Also, even if the group is not majority-anarchist, having a significant proportion of anarchists in the group carries the implied threat that if our opinions are not respected, we will simply leave and hold our own damn demo.
Anarchists In Broader Coalitions
Almost without exception, anarchists in broad coalitions will find the experience full of frustrations. If it’s not the authoritarian meeting set-up, it’s the insistence on following the wishes of the least radical groups so they won’t get offended and leave. There are however, ways to minimize the amount and type of frustration. First, get in early. No matter if the coalition involves an ongoing campaign or is leading up to one large action, if you don’t get in on the ground floor, there’s very little chance to influence the process or the outcome. Second, insist on as much autonomy as possible for member groups. Any grouping of anarchists is basically just autonomous individuals anyway, who may or may not adhere to coalition guidelines for the action or actions. Third, make sure that the anarchists in the coalition, as well as any “fellow-travelers” who have mostly anarchist principles, maintain a united front in the face of the more conservative members of the coalition. Solidarity is always the key. The other groups will doubtless be meeting outside the main meetings to coordinate their plans and actions, and there’s no reason we can’t as well. Fourth, don’t take responsibility for the actions of all anarchists who may show up to the protest or participate in the campaign. Be very clear about exactly whom you represent and what that representation means.
Anarchists In Smaller Coalitions
Without a doubt, it is easier to organize in coalitions when they contain only a few groups. However, there are still dangers. Just as the power of anarchists is vastly increased in a small coalition, so is the power of each participating organization. In my experience, the greatest threat to effectively organizing in small coalitions is authoritarian communist groups. When anarchists, radical feminists and communists joined forces in 1993 to fight a national Operation Rescue gathering, it was the authoritarian communists of the Revolutionary Workers’ League who stymied every effort to build an effective, liberatory resistance. If you do find yourself in a coalition with communists, especially the type that produce a boring monthly paper and go by some cookie-cutter three-letter acronym — WATCH THEM CLOSELY. When the RWL came to Minneapolis in ‘93, they admitted that their usual modus operandi was to join a coalition, sow dissension and division and after the coalition had been destroyed and then recruit new members from the disaffected remnants. Clearly, this is an extreme, but even the most principled communists will try to influence the coalition to mimic their party line. As distasteful as it sounds, anarchists must adopt a few of the communists’ tactics to prevent being co-opted. Just as you would in a larger coalition, it helps to go in organized. Don’t expect to come to the first couple of meetings and hash out all the details of the coalition actions right there. Talk with the other anarchists who are involved and agree on shared goals and principles. Lively debate is great in anarchist-only groups, but unprincipled types can exploit any division of purpose in a coalition setting. As mentioned above, a smaller coalition affords an opportunity to get the meetings run on anarchist principles. Read up on small-group democracy and consensus-based decision making before the first meeting and propose that the coalition be run according to these principles. Resist any attempts to form executive committees or allow broad decision making powers to be grabbed by a small number of individuals.
The Promise of Coalition Organizing
Although the work is hard, organizing within a coalition can be incredibly rewarding. The recent May Day demonstration in Minneapolis was a beautiful example of solidarity in action. Everyone from artists and native-rights groups to anarchists, socialists and progressive ministers was there. When the radical demonstration joined an already-large picket line in front of the Hilton Hotel, the feeling of power and the possibility for change was palpable. Both the Seattle and Washington, DC protests were marred by infighting, yet the message they sent was clear. Labor unions, students, environmentalists, anarchists and progressives CAN work together and accomplish a great deal. Working in a coalition gives anarchists the best possible opportunity to gain sympathizers and converts, not by selling papers or begging donations like the communists and progressives, but by showing that our methods and our principles work in real life, and work better than capitalist structures. Even a small amount of solidarity and support goes a long way towards destroying the lies the corporate media tells about anarchism. Stay strong and united as anarchists and you can improve both the coalition you’re working in and the society you live in.
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