Dear friends,
We have to build our communities, starting with how we raise our children. Racism, the euphemism for "White Supremacy", is a cultural institution in America. It is not a disease or a form of xenophobia.
To be sure, the term White Supremacy usually conjures up mental images of men in white bedsheets. However, a far more useful definition is: the United States is a White Supremacist nation, because a person can come from, say, Romania yesterday, declare himself or herself "white" and immediately inherit the oroginal Pilgrim group. George Washington, the battle flag of the Confederacy, country music, and privilege over African Americans and those who look like us, as his or her claim of being "white" will also make him or her part of an artificial "majority" group.
All of our talk thus far concerning people calling themselves "white" has yet to deal with the subject of a often used cult term, the "white male". Supposedly, this "white male" is the cause of our society's problems (if not the world as well). The question then arises, "Who is the white male?" Is he the European American fellow in the unemployment or welfare line?
According to recent federal census figures, there are as many low-income European American men in our country as there are combined for all non-European Americans, regardless of so-called "race" or gender - or age. How about someone who is homeless or imprisoned? Perhaps, this is our powerful "white male". Or, is it an infirmed man in one of our many veterans' hospitals nationwide? Maybe, it is the guy who is about to lose his home or car - or job.
Interestingly enough, not only is the "white male" never clearly identified by his bashers, as well, nobody mentions that this "white male" is nurtured by a mother, wife, lover, sister, grandmother, aunt, cousin, and/or friend who calls herself "white". In other words, from whom does the "white male" learn to be a "white male"? It seems like someone is playing a sidewalk shell game on us.
The point being made here is: in a society where people are placed on various social levels (called social stratification) for any number of reasons (for example, upper vs. lower class, black vs. white, male vs. female, sick vs. well) - a person can often be a member of both an oppressor group and an oppressed one, at the same time. The Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill debacle proves that adequately. Thomas is an agent of Male Supremacy (euphemistically-called "sexism"), yet he is oppressed as a non-European American. Also, this idea is eloquently presented in an anthology of essays, edited by David Theo Goldberg, called Anatomy Of Racism: "Oppression exists in many different forms and degrees...Group oppression occurs when a group is defined or conceived of as a group and is oppressed because of its group characteristics...generally the oppression of a group requires the power of another relatively cohesive group...Group oppression, thus, generally occurs when oppressors act as part of a group to oppress others identified as a separate group." - from an essay by John L. Hodge called "Equality: Beyond Dualism and Oppression"
Obviously, the word "oppression" implies lack or loss of freedom. But freedom is not a lone fixed thing. There is individual freedom and group freedom. All U.S.A. citizens have, to some extent, personal freedom (for example, the right to protest or vote for whomever we choose, the right to express ourselves in a variety of ways, and so forth). Many of us, however, lack group freedom, however. So it seems that there is much more going on here than oppression by the "white male". As a matter of fact, if anything, the white male is a red herring.
One of the worst aspects of this notion of "whiteness" is that many people have been made to use the word interchangeably with "American". More than skin color and nationality is implied in "whiteness", however. For instance, almost forty years ago, as a Black Panther, while doing community organizing work in New Haven, Connecticut, I got into a political discussion with a young Chinese woman who was the roommate of a friend of mine (who also happened to be Chinese and belonged to an organization called I Wor Kuen). At one point, during our conversation regarding racial discrimination, this Asian American woman declared, "I don’t get what you mean...I'm white". When I interrupted, "You're Chinese!" (as both of her parents were) - she burst into tears and walked away. As a matter of fact, regardless of wherever I saw her after that day, she never spoke with me again. (An interesting side note, about three years after the aforementioned incident, while in Boston one night watching television, I saw the same young Chinese woman being interviewed on a local station. She had become the costume designer for a nationally recognized European American ballet company.)
At any rate, in an essay called "The Souls of White Folks" Dr. W.E.B.DuBois wrote: "The discovery of personal whiteness among the world's peoples is a very modern thing...The ancient world would have laughed at such a distinction...by emphasis and omission to make children believe that every great thought the world ever knew was a white man's thought, every great deed the world ever did was a white man’s deed..."darkies" are born beasts of burden...Such degrading of men by men is as old as man and the invention of no one race or people...It has been left, however, to Europe and to modern days to discover the eternal worldwide mark of meanness -color!"
Ultimately, although people will feel disempowered by ceasing to identify themselves as “white” (a fact that blows away the argument against "affirmative action"), they should appreciate the fact that the whole concept of whiteness is an ideological construction anyway. Moreover, it is a phony claim - if not an illusion.
Finally, if African Americans start thinking in terms of "we", instead of the "I" that keeps this market-driven, possession-oriented society going, then we will be able to build communities that are prosperous in every way. Moreover, as a result, other groups may follow our successes in building "community" which will make them have less need to mean-spiritedly pit themselves against us by calling themselves "white" (which allows them to be part of an artificial "majority" group that is getting screwed by the "organized minority" just as much as we are). And so, the information on the link below will have become dated. Dig?
One Love!
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01race.html
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