Turns out the the “Smack A White Boy” action blockcaded the ANSWER march. This is the first time I can recall someone so publicly challenging an authoritarian group like ANSWER in the United States, does anyone know if it’s happened before?

In the days up to and after the action, it seems people on two prominent anarchist identified websites were up in arms about it. The worst offender were the comments on anarchistnews.org. If I were a little more naive I’d hope that most of the ignorant, racist comments on this forum came from right-wing and pro-imperialist elements who were taking advantage of the fully anonymous comments to sow conflict amongst groups on the left: sadly, I don’t think this could explain all of it.

There were slightly more cooler heads over on infoshop.org’s coverage, but still many people acted a fool, to put it bluntly.

I don’t think there’s any excusing people who asked if they could wear blackface to attend an APOC event. There’s also a disturbing trend to equate those of us who identify as APOC and seek to organize around our common experience and oppression with the Klan. Have so many white people in the US- in radical circles, to boot- really forgotten the nature of the KKK, one of the most feared terrorist groups in the 20th century? Or did they never really understand it?

I also cannot stand people who think that APOC tries to guilt white people with talk of privilege, etc. I’ve never known anyone who thought that white people feeling guilty could bring about lasting change. Don’t get me wrong, white guilt has the power to put whole foods, and toyota priuses on the ground, and maybe white guilt can prop up a bunch of NGOs, but that’s about it.

So my question is this: when there’s a bunch of crazy white people saying racist things (and many of them are probably young and worthless, given how easy it is to post on the internet) in a supposedly left or anarchist space, when do you think it makes sense to say something about it? How do we stand up for ourselves without arguing with irrelevant people? How do we make our positions clear without wasting time “feeding the trolls?”

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