November 29 will mark the five-year anniversary of groundbreaking protests that shut down World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, Washington, USA. One of the most important writings to come out of the period was Elizabeth Martinez’s “Where Was the Color in Seattle?” In it, Martinez examines reasons why the 1999 WTO protests drew an overwhelmingly white crowd, and oppressed people’s perceptions of many issues.

This anniversary should prompt people of color and whites to revisit Martinez’s work to see how much has changed. Today, the World Trade Organization has a higher profile and the many worldwide protests since then are one of the top reasons. Still, Martinez’s point then rings true as far as the WTO’s lack of recognition among Black and Brown communities. Unclear ties between the WTO to community issues is at root. Groups like the Black Radical Congress have sought to educate people about the WTO, and the Spanish-language media (particularly La Jornada) has covered the WTO extensively, but virtually all American WTO opposition groups are white-led. Few gains have been made diversifying the base of the anti-globalization movement, it seems. The ghosts cited in Martinez’s piece live on.

Where the white-led movement has failed to open, however, the power system has managed to create an even bigger divide between American activists and the Third World. People of color globally have made gains on the institutional level, which has prompted buy-in and even willingness to fight hard on that level. It’s not that they’re fans of the WTO either; the last two years have seen dozens of scraps between Western and Third World powers over debts and exports. But many of the politicians are under pressure to create a semblance of international relations, trust and prosperity. The anti-globalization movement has failed to reach out in broad, even official, capacities and the WTO has, with its people and its money. Oppressed people have risen to power in challenging the institutional agenda (as we’ve seen in new export concessions by the United States, which were pressed by Latin America and the Caribbean), but failed to ascend to power in the grassroots agenda. Bridging those gaps will help to cement WTO resistance in the coming years.

As when Martinez wrote, whites still dominate the discussion and color the messages. This has profound impact on who controls the aforementioned agenda. Democracy and values are at the core of this anniversary. A chant that was popularized in 1999, “this is what democracy looks like,” is still prevalent today, proudly raised as a banner of freedom by some quarters. In her original article, Martinez quotes an attendee who said, “Is this really what democracy looks like? Nobody here looks like me.” It is a powerful statement that many Black and Brown people have also expressed, but the monoculture acknowledged in such a critique has never really ever been addressed by organizers. A deeper discussion on values could also be a part of this anniversary. When many people around the world hear “democracy,” it comes in a hollow-point bullet; the Bush Administration’s war around the globe will only make that perception worse. We need to be political and passionate about what messages like “democracy” mean to the world, and be sympathetic to the global plight.

The world right now is very conscious of the messages coming out of the United States, and is understandably skeptical of positive spin or sloganeering. There’s also a resentment that no one gave Americans the right to decide who should be in power and who should not. Since the 1999 protests, where Martinez documented the distrust of people of color to events “dominated by 50,000 white hippies,” distrust of America as a whole has taken root, and how American activists respond to what the WTO does and George W. Bush does will be judged on the merits: are we passing off messages of democracy and solidarity as the loyal opposition, or are we advocating resistance at every corner?

Much of what happened in Seattle, depending on who you ask, was motivated by ideas of autonomy, people’s power and solidarity. Five years later, it’s hard to say if we’ve had substantive conversations about what all those things mean to us, and their boundaries. In my opinion, the problem is not, as Martinez indicated, that more people of color need to be the speakers at white-organized events, but that people of color themselves need to lead their own movements and organizations, and stay the course in organizing autonomously. What also needs to be addressed is an internal white activist culture where people of color (and women as well) are pressed to validate to white activists’ projects and efforts. Giving respect when due is not the issue. The problem is that we, as people of color, often spend more time validating whites’ projects (via participation, praise, etc.) than we do building something (whether it’s projects, collectives, theory, et al.) with, by and for our own communities. The constant validation puts us in a position to never challenge others’ power with our own vision and breeds complacency, especially within ourselves.

The agenda will be most worth watching. The 1999 protests were indubitably powerful, and the broad range of interests ensured a diversity of issues. However, tying economic opportunity in communities of color to the demise of the WTO has been challenging for a movement whose underpinnings are anti-capitalist. The lifting up of Black- and Brown-owned businesses and pressing for full employment are likely to be key departure points in the next five years; they also exacerbate the view that whites control the movement (and don’t need economic opportunities in their own communities, so the plight of people of color is irrelevant). Real calls for fairness and advancement are replaced by whites with symbolic gestures in hopes of winning over people of color, such as demands for a free Palestine or an end to police brutality and immigrant roundups without a plan to get there. Race is at the base of a complete broadening of the agenda, and will hopefully be reshaped by the tenth anniversary in 2009, if not sooner.

On November 26, 2004, President George W. Bush announced the United States would comply with World Trade Organization mandates on some U.S. exports.

Yes, “George W. Bush” and “comply” are in the same sentence.

A moment like this, days from the fifth anniversary of an anti-globalization uprising, is historic. Countries in South America and the Caribbean, along with India and others, refused to budge on key trade issues. Presidents turned their backs on American protesters for years, but it was the stand of the Third World that forced the most haughty American leader in memory to concede. Though certainly those who fought the WTO deserve some of the credit, give respect to Third World solidarity as well.

“Where Was the Color in Seattle?” was a groundbreaking piece because it was one of the first to acknowledge a racial and cultural divide between white organizers and people of color. It helped people consider what subcultural activities might put potential supporters off, and maybe fostered understanding. But I argue that some fundamental differences must be explored in order to see true change.

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