Category Archives: Race and Ethnicity

California Secedes From Black America 1

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Race and Ethnicity

I don’t agree with this author’s crude stereotyping of blacks or his opposition to criminal justice reform, but he makes an interesting point. The “liberal-left” scored major victories involving referendums in the election, with everything from minimum wage increases to drug legalization to criminal justice reform passing in many states, even deep-red states. However, a  pro-affirmative action initiative failed in California. The pro-affirmative action vote came from blacks and liberal whites in the LA and Bay Area districts, while the anti vote represented a cross-section of whites, Latinos, and Asians. Years ago, a black libertarian named Elizabeth Wright predicted that as the non-white/non-black ethnic groups grew larger in size they would have zero interest in black issues because they would lack whites’ sense of racial guilt. I am skeptical of whether affirmative action actually helps genuinely disadvantaged blacks, as opposed to being a benefit given to the black middle class. In fact, Thomas Sowell and others have made compelling arguments that affirmative action is actually harmful to black self-advancement.  But it is interesting that affirmative action was voted down in a deep blue state with a majority-minority demographic.

By David Cole, Taki’s Mag

I have several close friends who moved from California to Arizona to live in “redder” territory. This has not been a good month for them. AZ’s turning bluer than the balls on an Elder Scrolls neckbeard. And even if you want to scream “voter fraud” regarding the Biden win, the fact is that Arizonans haven’t had two Democrat senators since the days when The Democrats Were the Real Racists™, and now that they do, the entire country has to pretend for the next six weeks that Georgia matters.

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How to Be a Better—and Less Fragile—Antiracist Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Race and Ethnicity

This a pretty good critique of “anti-racism” theorists like Robin D’Angelo and Ibram X. Kendi from what could be called a non-racist, conservative-libertarian, classical liberal perspective.

By Peter Minowitz, Independent Institute

When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something, to say something, and not be quiet.
—Congressman John Lewis

Professors typically lament the damage President Trump has caused by exaggerating, stereotyping, and demonizing. The ones who drift into activism, however, are not immune to these discursive disorders. I shall explore this problem by scrutinizing two bestsellers: How To Be an Antiracist (One World, 2019) by Ibram X. Kendi and White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism (Beacon Press, 2018) by Robin DiAngelo. The authors are already national icons, they extol each other’s work, and their books are being assigned widely within America’s campuses and businesses.

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Death by racism Reply

by • Economics/Class Relations, Health and Medicine, Race and Ethnicity

The SJWish terminology and rhetoric in this aside, this is actually a very good discussion of the class disparities associated with the impact of the pandemic. The impact of the responses to the pandemic has largely been to allow the upper-middle and upper classes to go on a sabbatical of working remotely while being served by the poor and working classes who are either exposed to increased on the job hazards or simply subjected to economic dislocation. The reasons why there would also be racial disparities in this situation are obvious enough.

By Sharrelle Barber, The Lancet

Racial violence and racial health inequities in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impact on Blacks. Sharrelle Barber reports.
The murder of George Floyd, suffocated by a police officer who, for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, lodged his knee into Floyd’s neck on May 25, is just the latest example of a longstanding history of racial terror and police brutality against Blacks in the USA, and has sparked global outrage. While this act of violence is horrific in its own right, its occurrence against the backdrop of a global pandemic that has wreaked havoc in Black communities—causing over 30 000 deaths within the span of 4 months—has forced a collective reckoning with the fact that racism, in all of its forms, is deadly and has a devastating impact on Black lives.
Due to a reckless and uncoordinated federal response, the USA remains the global epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic with over 3 million confirmed cases and 135 205 confirmed deaths. Black people and other marginalised racial groups are shouldering a disproportionate burden in the current pandemic. Blacks comprise 13% of the US population but roughly one quarter of COVID-19 deaths and are nearly four times more likely to die from COVID-19 compared to whites (94·2 vs 24·8 deaths per 100 000). Blacks across all age groups are nearly three times more likely than white people to contract COVID-19. These numbers, while striking, are not surprising and mirror well-documented patterns of morbidity and mortality across a wide range of health outcomes that have been observed in the USA for decades. Experts contend that “racism and not race” is the primary driver of these inequities with many citing “interlocking systems of racism” that have converged to increase exposure, transmission, and death among Blacks. These systems—from healthcare, to housing, to the carceral state—are all rooted in an ideology of white supremacy and the institution of slavery that dates back over 400 years and are maintained by racist policies and practices that construct and reinforce inequitable access to power and resources.
For example, racialised economic exploitation vis-à-vis racial capitalism has been cited as a major driver of increased risk of infection among Blacks. According to data from the US census, 43% of Black and Latino workers (compared with 25% of white workers) are employed in service or production jobs that have been deemed “essential” during the pandemic. Employees in these industries have been forced to work with inadequate personal protective equipment, crowded working conditions, and inadequate income protections such as paid sick leave and hazard pay, putting them at increased risk of exposure to the virus. Additionally, due to low wages and lack of affordable housing options, these same workers often reside in racially segregated neighbourhoods that have experienced decades of disinvestment. Structural factors in these communities such as over-crowded housing conditions further increase exposure and transmission. The impact of increased exposure is further compounded by limited access to quality healthcare which limits access to testing and follow-up treatment, discrimination within the healthcare system which makes it more likely for Blacks to be turned away when seeking medical care, and a wide-array of exposures such as toxic environmental hazards, chronic stress, and limited access to healthy foods all of which lead to underlying chronic conditions.

There Ain’t No Black in the Anarchist Flag! Race, Ethnicity and Anarchism Reply

by • Anarchism/Anti-State, History and Historiography, Race and Ethnicity

By Sureyyya Evren

Although anarchists have a central interest in problems of domination and oppression, concepts of race and ethnicity have not been subject to sustained analysis in anarchist literature. This failure can be explained with reference to the priority that has been given to the great ideas of a few dead white men in the historical analysis of anarchism. Recent shifts within anarchist movements provide a new impetus to challenge this approach and to draw on traditions of thinking about racism, ethnicism, internationalism, and colonialism to explore the possibility of developing an alternative. Looking first at the eurocentrism of standard histories and then at the eurocentric assumptions that underpin them, I explore the limitations of dominant anarchist historiography and suggest the possibility of an alternative.

Black Flag, White Masks: Anti-Racism and Anarchist Historiography Reply

by • Anarchism/Anti-State, History and Historiography, Race and Ethnicity

By Sureyyya Evren

Dominant histories of anarchism rely on a historical framework that ill fits anarchism. Mainstream anarchist historiography is not only blind to non-Western elements of historical anarchism, it also misses the very nature of fin de siècle world radicalism and the contexts in which activists and movements flourished. Instead of being interested in the network of (anarchist) radicalism (worldwide), political historiography has built a linear narrative which begins from a particular geographical and cultural framework, driven by the great ideas of a few father figures and marked by decisive moments that subsequently frame the historical compart-mentalization of the past. Today, colonialism/anti-colonialism and imperialism/anti-imperialism both hold a secondary place in contemporary anarchist studies. This is strange considering the importance of these issues in world political history. And the neglect allows us to speculate on the ways in which the priorities might change if Eurocentric anarchist histories were challenged. This piece aims to discuss Eurocentrism imposed upon the anarchist past in the form of histories of anarchism. What would be the consequences of one such attempt, and how can we reimagine the anarchist past after such a critique?

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On the Peculiar Character of American ‘Racism’ Reply

by • Economics/Class Relations, History and Historiography, Race and Ethnicity

The main problem I see with this article is that no matter how silly professional “anti-racists”(many of whom are white people looking for a pat on the back) can often be, conservatives typically either believe that class does not exist, or if it does that class domination is a good thing. However, it is hardly coincidental that the subordinated classes are disproportionally from America’s historic minorities like blacks, American Indians, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Alaskans, Hawaiians, etc. Just like the poorest people in India are the Dalits and indigenous peoples of the India subcontinent. Comparing middle class recent immigrants with historic minorities is an apples and oranges comparison.

By David Azerrad, Real Clear Public Affairs

In a thoughtful, cogent, and provocative essay, political scientist David Azerrad challenges the claim that “systemic racism” is the essence of the American proposition and the American political order. A common view today holds that all disparities are evidence of discrimination, and that oppression, even genocide, is the inevitable fate of blacks in the United States. A grievance industry ignores palpable progress in American attitudes and policies regarding race and deems an admirably free and self-critical country incapable of reforming or redeeming itself. Such racialism has a vested interest in maintaining that America was, is, and will always be “racist.” Little or nothing in recent experience supports such a heavy-handed and mendacious ideological judgment.

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Zaid Jilani BREAKS DOWN: Racial Gap Shrinks, What Does It Mean For Both Parties? Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations, Education, Electoralism/Democratism, Race and Ethnicity

According to the data cited in this, “education” (which is really just a euphemism for social class) is becoming a greater fault line than race and gender. Who would’ve thought?

Journalist, Zaid Jilani, weighs in on analysis of pre-election polls that show “Joe Biden gains among white voters and President Trump makes inroads among Black and Hispanic voters.”

Coleman Hughes – Race & Identity Politics Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Race and Ethnicity

Whenever I examine the laundry list of ism-archy-phobia issues (racism, patriarchy, homophobia, etc.), I try to look at these from the perspective of what the social science/economic/political science data actually shows in a way that is devoid of ideological or moral value judgments. What Coleman Hughes talks about is fairly consistent with what the evidence indicates (at least concerning black issues, obviously every ethnic/cultural group(s) is different).  A problem with the left-wing analysis of these kinds of topics is that it’s often 50 years behind the times and ignores cultural, generational, demographic, economic, social class, technological, political, and legal changes that have happened over the last half-century, and often cherry-picks data in ways that ignore context. I don’t think Hughes’ analysis necessarily legitimates any ideological viewpoint. You could hold his views on race (at least concerning black issues) and be anywhere on the political spectrum.

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Nationalism: Left, Right, and Black Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Law/Justice, Race and Ethnicity

More white folks trying to instruct black folks in the “proper” way to go about being black.

Kristian Williams, a left-wing anarchist hated by left-wing anarchists though not as much as yours truly, has a pretty interesting discussion of the ideas and influences of Clarence Thomas. The opening section of this is interesting:

Two flags decorated Clarence Thomas’s apartment at Yale Law School: The red, black, and green Pan-African flag, and the Stars and Bars of the Confederate battle flag.

Corey Robin mentions this detail in passing in The Enigma of Clarence Thomas—which was just released in a paperback edition—but it almost serves as a microcosm of his argument.

Robin—among the most astute, and certainly the most readable, of the left-liberal scholars of the right—is kind enough to offer us a thesis statement: “The central claim of this book,” he writes, is that “Thomas is a black nationalist whose conservative jurisprudence rotates around an axis of black interests and concerns.”

Three Way Fight

 

An Assessment of the Gelderloos/Crimethinc Analysis Reply

by • American Decline, Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations, Electoralism/Democratism, Fourth Generation Warfare, Left and Right, Military, Police State/Civil Liberties, Political Correctness/Totalitarian Humanism, Race and Ethnicity

This is my assessment of the recent piece by Peter Gelderloos at Crimethinc, “Preparing for Electoral Unrest and a Right-Wing Power Grab.” The Crimethinc article is a great companion piece to the recent commentary by It’s Going Down (which I critique here) and Three-Way Fight (which I had a brief comment on here with further elaboration here). It’s also interesting to compare these far-left/anarchist/anti-fascist analyses with that of fourth-generation warfare theorist Bill Lind from the far-right.

By Keith Preston

The main things I would add to or dissent from the Gelderloos analysis would be these: I don’t think there is any ruling class faction that desires the restoration of pre-civil rights era race relations, and views like that are very marginal even on the periphery. The ruling class is opposed to minorities that resist “system values” and as class divisions are widening that has racial implications as well, but it seems the overwhelming majority of the ruling class favors a kind of technocratic multicultural statism for many practical/pragmatic reasons. I have an article about that coming out soon. And leading “right-wing” street fighter groups frequently include minorities, even in leadership positions. Their “racial reductionism” is a longstanding criticism I have of the left-anarchist/anti-racist types. White supremacists are the most marginal sector within the far-right and are often in conflict with other far-right sectors, including some that are very similar in other ways. Most of the far-right views white supremacists in the same way that the far-left views anti-Semitic black racialists.

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Proud Boys, Black Lives Matter leaders hold joint conference: We ‘denounce White supremacy’ Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Race and Ethnicity

This is the worst nightmare of the ruling class, the far-left, and the far-right combined, which makes it a very good thing.

By Jessica Chasmar

Washington Times

Local leaders of the right-wing group Proud Boys in Salt Lake City held a joint news conference with a local Black Lives Matter leader on Wednesday to correct the record and “denounce White supremacy” after President Trump mentioned them during Tuesday’s first presidential debate.

“I will go out and say that the Proud Boys as a whole — I will say this on behalf of the entire national organization — denounce White supremacy,” the chief of the Proud Boys Salt Lake Utah Chapter, who only gave the name Thad, told reporters, FOX13 reported.

“We are in no way, shape or form White supremacists,” Thad said. “We have a vetting system that gets those people out of our hair. We do not have anything to do with White supremacy. We do not have anything to do with the Ku Klux Klan. We denounce those organizations.”

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In the Navajo Nation, Anarchism Has Indigenous Roots Reply

by • Anarchism/Anti-State, Race and Ethnicity

One point that I have consistently tried to make is that “anarchism” is not merely something that was dreamed up by Enlightenment philosophers or 19th-century radicals. While it wasn’t until Proudhon that people started calling themselves “anarchist” (Joseph Dejacque was the first to use the term “libertarian”), there are many philosophical, cultural, ethical, religious, and ethnic traditions extending all the way back to antiquity or to the earliest human cultures that are solidly anarchist in content if not in name.

By Cecilia Howell

The Nation

About an hour west of the New Mexico–Arizona border, an expanse of highway, sky, and sagebrush-spotted terrain ends in sandstone cliffs. The red-orange walls drop down into Canyon de Chelly, the only national park operated on land still owned by the Navajo Nation. This summer, as the per capita rate of coronavirus cases in the Navajo Nation surpassed New York state’s, Kauy Bahe, 19, found himself standing on the canyon’s edge as he delivered food to a Navajo elder and her family as part of a mutual aid effort.

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A Radical Alternative to Whiteness Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations, Race and Ethnicity • Tags:

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

Is it just me or do white people kind of suck lately? I mean more than usual. That’s not racist, I use to be one. I sort of still am, I guess. More on that later. It kind of seems like white folk have fallen into two equally obnoxious sub-species. There’s the White Alpha Douche, bitching like a 13 year old emo kid that he’s the real victim because everybody else is playing the fucking victim card and that’s his card. Then there’s the equally tiresome Squishy White Apology Addict, who’s just terribly terribly sorry about all the savagery his ancestors have dished out to minorities, but now he looks to the Noble Savages and Magical Negroes to show him how to walk and talk and censor people like me for not stepping in line. He’s probably banning me again from Facebook as we speak for self-identifying as a tranny and patting himself on the back for being part of the solution.

Both of these unbearable archetypes are offensively one dimensional and, lets face it, downright racist in their shallow world view. The first one blames all the world’s woes on people of color, and the second relies completely on this same coalition of minorities to save him from his ancestral evil ways. Black folks have enough trouble getting home from the grocery store without getting shot full of ketamine and chucked in the back of a police cruiser without having to choose between smacking us or holding our hand. Why can’t we just get our shit together? Well, believe it or not, it’s not all our fault. Not exactly anyway.

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