Angry White Kid

Race or Class or Both? A response to MC Serch

Early this year I started working with author JLove Calderon on a multimedia project she started called Till the White Day is Done. Part of that effort was her interview with MC Serch (of 3rd Bass and executive producer of Nas' Illmatic) and my response to it. Below are both the interview and my brief response. Hopefully we'll be producing more of this in the future.

In the interview, MC Serch comments on the role of both race and class in analyzing the causes of injustice and inequality.  He comes clearly down on the side of class trumping race, stating:

“We have to look at economics and see where it plays, and not race. Because now more than ever the guy with the most money wins.”

“I find it idiotic when people say, ‘It’s a black and white issue.’ It’s not.  It’s a poor or rich issue.”

Without a doubt, Serch is right that class is tremendously important.  It goes without saying that with enough money, a person can have access to almost anything.  But an important aspect of looking at the differences and inequalities between the working and middle classes and the upper and ruling classes, is the racial makeup of those classes.

Numerous studies have shown both that the wealthiest Americans are almost exclusively white and that on average, whites are wealthier than people of color.  For example, a 1997 paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, of all places, points out that the richest 1 percent of U.S. households own 33 percent of the wealth in the U.S.  And of that richest 1%, 92.1% are white.

Thomas Shapiro, director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, writes that in 2007, white households had a net worth that was $142,600 greater than black households, up from $100,700 in 1997. Shapiro states that “the racial wealth gap [is] a fundamental axis of racial inequality,” and that these numbers show “a firmly embedded racial stratification.”

Following Serch’s suggestion, by looking at these numbers to see who the guys with the most money are, the answer is definitive: the white guys.

Most white people reading this are probably wondering, “Well, if white people are the rich ones, then where’s my share?”  That’s a fair question, because obviously most white people are not rich.  But the fact still remains, even if we’re not rich, on average we still have more resources and wealth than people of color do, simply because we’re white.

At first glance, that last sentence doesn’t make very much sense.  A more in-depth explanation will have to wait for another blog post but the brief explanation is this: The reason white people across the board have more money is because for hundreds of years, the U.S. economy was built along racial lines designed to favor whites at the expense of all others.  Through the mechanisms of genocide, slavery, exclusion acts, Jim Crow laws, and redlining and other racist financial practices, whites amassed wealth, reinvested it and passed it on to their children; while entire segments of the population, especially blacks, were barred from owning anything and the wealth they did produce was taken from them.  

Stretch that out over 400 years and it’s easy to see why whites as a whole are in such a better financial condition.  That legacy of unequal wealth distribution and white supremacy is why in 2009, it’s still the case that the wealthiest people in the U.S. are almost all white, and that whites across the board are wealthier than any other racial group.

Hampshire divests and Abe Foxman supports a fascist

Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, the first U.S. college to divest from South African apartheid, has become the first U.S. college to divest from Israeli apartheid. Congrats Hampshire and SJP!

The proposal put forth by SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] was approved on Saturday, 7 Feb 2009 by the Board. By divesting from these companies, SJP believes that Hampshire has distanced itself from complicity in the illegal occupation and war crimes of Israel. Meeting minutes from a committee of Hampshire’s Board of Trustees confirm that “President Hexter acknowledged that it was the good work of SJP that brought this issue to the attention of the committee.”

The six corporations, all of which provide the Israeli military with equipment and services in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza are: Caterpillar, United Technologies, General Electric, ITT Corporation, Motorola, and Terex. Furthermore, our policy prevents the reinvestment in any company involved in the illegal occupation.

While some sectors of the U.S. are ahead of the curve, others, such as Abe Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League, are heading in the opposite direction. Foxman voiced support for Avigdor Lieberman's proposal to force Palestinian citizens of Israel to sign loyalty oaths to the state.  Lieberman's extreme-right party, Yisrael Beiteinu, came in third in Israel's elections this week, behind two other right-wing parties, Kadima and Likud.  Lieberman has previously suggested executing Palestinian members of Israel's parliament for meeting with Hamas members and for ethnically cleansing Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Jewish Voice for Peace has made it possible to email Foxman urging him to condemn Lieberman, not support him.  But given that Foxman and the ADL are not actually concerned with "defamation" but rather fiercely advocating right-wing Israeli policies, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for an about face.

Solidarity and unity in opposing the 2010 Olympics

Statement by the Olympics Resistance Network:

The Olympics Resistance Network is based in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories and exists as a space to coordinate anti-colonial and anti-capitalist efforts against the 2010 Games. Our organizing is based on the recognition that the Olympics is taking place on unceded Native land, and exists to create a movement for all anti capitalist, Indigenous, anti poverty, labour, migrant justice, housing, environmental justice, civil libertarian, anti war, and anti colonial activists to join forces. We come together on the basis of anti-oppression principles and with a respect for diversity of tactics. In addition to building ongoing educational and resistance efforts, we are working towards a convergence between February 10th-15th 2010, based on the call by the Indigenous Peoples Gathering in Sonora, Mexico to boycott the Games.

Spread the word and endorse: olympicresistance@riseup.net

Uncritical Exuberance? Judith Butler's take on Obama

I really appreciate this essay by Judith Butler on the election of Obama and the salient points she makes. Since I couldn't find it online, I've decided to post it in full.

Uncritical Exuberance?
Judith Butler

Very few of us are immune to the exhilaration of this time.  My friends on the left write to me that they feel something akin to "redemption" or that "the country has been returned to us" or that "we finally have one of us in the White House."  Of course, like them, I discover myself feeling overwhelmed with disbelief and excitement throughout the day, since the thought of having the regime of George W. Bush over and gone is an enormous relief. And the thought of Obama, a thoughtful and progressive black candidate, shifts the historical ground, and we feel that cataclysm as it produces a new terrain.  But let us try to think carefully about the shifted terrain, although we cannot fully know its contours at this time.  The election of Barack Obama is historically significant in ways that are yet to be gauged, but it is not, and cannot be, a redemption, and if we subscribe to the heightened modes of identification that he proposes ("we are all united") or that we propose ("he is one of us"), we risk believing that this political moment can overcome the antagonisms that are constitutive of political life, especially political life in these times.  There have always been good reasons not to embrace "national unity" as an ideal, and to nurse suspicions toward absolute and seamless identification with any political leader.  After all, fascism relied in part on that seamless identification with the leader, and Republicans engage this same effort to organize political affect when, for instance, Elizabeth Dole looks out on her audience and says, "I love each and every one of you." 

It becomes all the more important to think about the politics of exuberant identification with the election of Obama when we consider that support for Obama has coincided with support for conservative causes.  In a way, this accounts for his "cross-over" success.  In California, he won by 60% of the vote, and yet some significant portion of those who voted for him also voted against the legalization of gay marriage (52%). How do we understand this apparent disjunction?  First, let us remember that Obama has not explicitly supported gay marriage rights. Further, as Wendy Brown has argued, the Republicans have found that the electorate is not as galvanized by "moral" issues as they were in recent elections; the reasons given for why people voted for Obama seem to be predominantly economic, and their reasoning seems more fully structured by neo-liberal rationality than by religious concerns.  This is clearly one reason why Palin's assigned public function to galvanize the majority of the electorate on moral issues finally failed.   But if "moral" issues such as gun control, abortion rights and gay rights were not as determinative as they once were, perhaps that is because they are thriving in a separate compartment of the political mind.  In other words, we are faced with new configurations of political belief that make it possible to hold apparently discrepant views at the same time: someone can, for instance, disagree with Obama on certain issues, but still have voted for him.  This became most salient in the emergence of the counter Bradley-effect, when voters could and did explicitly own up to their own racism, but said they would vote for Obama anyway. Anecdotes from the field include claims like the following: "I know that Obama is a Muslim and a Terrorist, but I will vote for him anyway; he is probably better for the economy."  Such voters got to keep their racism and vote for Obama, sheltering their split beliefs without having to resolve them.

Woodfin Suites Hotel organizes and provides free lodging for anti-immigrant activists

If we're rent-a-thugs, these kids must have been rented from their parents' country clubs. Perhaps that sign is self-referential.

In an earlier post I called Woodfin an "evil corporation."  But even according evil corporation standards, this is just downright appalling.  An email from the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy reports the following:

The right-wing, anti-immigrant, anti-worker squads are at it again. This time, they're being sponsored, and paid for, by the Woodfin Suites Hotel in Emeryville.

This past Saturday, during our regular picket at the Woodfin, we were joined by twenty five counter-protestors identifying themselves as College Republicans from UC Davis and San Francisco State. They showed up carrying provocative placards - “No Green Card, No Work”, “Justice is at the Back of the Line”, “Union Thugs Go Home”, "Legals YES, Illegals NO," and “Marx Would Be Proud” - and tried to disrupt our protest.

The counter-protestors were openly taking direction from the Woodfin's management, going where the hotel’s General Manager told them to, standing on hotel property. They even bragged that Woodfin management had put them up in free hotel rooms the night before!

When we tried to separate ourselves, they physically shoved into our picket line- even pushing and berating the young children of Woodfin workers! Finally, the Emeryville police created a barrier between them and our peaceful picket, for the safety of all involved.

Join the pickets. Contact the Woodfin.

Warriors, warming and awesome kids

Though I was just giving a friend some flack about engaging the spectacle when he tried to convince me how great Obama is, I gotta say, the Golden State Warriors are unreal. Making Oakland proud.

Here's a gem from Arkansas my uncle sent me.  Honestly, I was unaware of this liberal conspiracy.

And these kindergarten kids have just conducted the best May Day/anti-Minutemen protest ever.

I'm off to Wyoming for the weekend, so any comments might not go up until Sunday night.

May Day 2007

The origins of modern May Day. Haymarket, 1886.

Probably don't need to tell readers of this blog that May Day is coming up.

In the U.S., the National Immigrant Solidarity Network is calling for decentralized, multi-tactic actions based around these ten demands:

1) No to anti-immigrant legislation and the criminalization of the immigrant communities.
2) No to the militarization of the border.
3) No to immigrant detention and deportation.
4) No to the guest worker program.
5) No to employer sanction and "no match" letters.
6) Yes to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
7) Yes to speedy family reunification.
8) Yes to civil rights and humane immigration law.
9) Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers.
10) Yes to education and LGBT immigrant legislation.

There are marches, strikes and protests planned.  Here's an incomplete national list of events.  In the Bay Area there are actions in Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and more.  Indybay is the place to check.

Two articles on the Virginia Tech tragedy

I wanted to share these two pieces on the shootings at Virginia Tech.  Both mainly address the media response from different angles. As, obviously, the media in the end largely will control how people think about, act on and remember this tragedy, such considerations are very important.  The first piece is below, the second is after the link.

And while I haven't been consuming much media as of late, largely to avoid the spin, sensationalism and haranguing, I find this Washington Post page very grounding in thinking about what this is really about.

UPDATE: I should've clarified the sources.  I received both of these in emails, but it looks like  Nopper's piece was originally published on Azine.  As far as I know, O'Donoghue's piece has not been published online.

What May Come: Asian Americans and the Virginia Tech Shootings

Tamara K. Nopper
April 17, 2007

Like many, I was glued to the television news yesterday, keeping updated about the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech University.  I was trying to deal with my own disgust and sadness, especially since my professional life as a graduate student and college instructor is tied to universities.  And then the other shoe dropped.  I found out from a friend that the news channel she was watching had reported the shooter as Asian.  It has now been reported, after much confusion, that the shooter is Cho Seung-Hui, a South Korean immigrant and Virginia Tech student. 

As an Asian American woman, I am keenly aware that Asians are about to become a popular media topic if not the victims of physical backlash.  Rarely have we gotten as much attention in the past ten years, except, perhaps, during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.  Since then Asians are seldom seen in the media except when one of us wins a golfing match, Woody Allen has sex, or Angelina Jolie adopts a kid. 

I am not looking forward to the onslaught of media attention.  If history truly does have clues about what will come, there may be several different ways we as Asian Americans will be talked about.

One, we will watch white media pundits and perhaps even sociologists explain what they understand as an “Asian” way of being.  They will talk about how Asian males presumably have fragile “egos” and therefore are culturally prone to engage in kamikaze style violence.  These statements will be embedded with racist tropes about Japanese military fighters during WWII or the Viet Cong—the crazy, calculating, and hidden Asian man who will fight to the death over presumably nothing. 

In the process, the white media might actually ask Asian Americans our perspectives for a change.  We will probably be expected to apologize in some way for the behavior of another Asian—something whites never have to collectively do when one of theirs engages in (mass) violence, which is often.  And then some of us might succumb to the Orientalist logic of the media by eagerly promoting Asian Americans as real Americans and therefore unlike Asians overseas who presumably engage in culturally reprehensible behavior.  In other words, if we get to talk at all, Asian Americans will be expected to interpret, explain, and distance themselves from other Asians just to get airtime. 

Or perhaps the media will take the color-blind approach instead of a strictly eugenic one.  The media might try to whitewash the situation and treat Cho as just another alienated middle-class suburban kid.  In some ways this is already happening—hence the constant referrals to the proximity of the shootings to the 8th anniversary of the Columbine killings.  The media will repeat over and over words from a letter that Cho left behind speaking of “rich kids,” and “deceitful charlatans.”  They will ask what’s going on in middle-class communities that encourage this type of violence.  In the process they may never talk about the dirty little secret about middle-class assimilation: for non-whites, it does not always prevent racial alienation, rage, or depression.  This may be surprising given that we are bombarded with constant images suggesting that racial harmony will exist once we are all middle-class.  But for many of us who have achieved middle-class life, even if we may not openly admit it, alienation does not stop if you are not white. 

But the white media, being as tricky as it is, may probably talk about Cho in ways that reflect a combination of both traditional eugenic and colorblind approaches.  They will emphasize Cho’s ethnicity and economic background by wondering what would set off a hard-working, quiet, South Korean immigrant from a middle-class dry-cleaner-owning family.  They will wonder why Cho would commit such acts of violence, which we expect from Middle Easterners and Muslims and those crazy Asians from overseas, but not from hard-working South Korean immigrants.  They will promote Cho as “the model minority” who suddenly, for no reason, went crazy.  Whereas eugenic approaches depicting Asians as crazy kamikazes or Viet Cong mercenaries emphasize Asian violence, the eugenic aspect of the model minority myth suggests that there is something about Asian Americans that makes them less prone to expressions of anger, rage, violence, or criminality.  Indeed, we are not even seen as having legitimate reasons to have anger, let alone rage, hence the need to figure out what made this “quiet” student “snap.” 

Given that the model minority myth is a white racist invention that elevates Asians over minority groups, Cho will be dissected as an anomaly among South Koreans who “are not prone” to violence—unlike Blacks who are racistly viewed as inherently violent or South Asians, Middle Easterners and Muslims who are viewed as potential terrorists.  He will be talked about as acting “out of character” from the other “good South Koreans” who come here and quietly and dutifully work towards the American dream.  Operating behind the scenes of course is a diplomatic relationship between the US and South Korea forged through bombs and military zones during the Korean War and expressed through the new free trade agreement negotiations between the countries.  Indeed, even as South Korean diplomats express concern about racial backlash against Asians, they are quick to disown Cho in order to maintain the image of the respectable South Korean. 

Whatever happens, Cho will become whoever the white media wants him to be and for whatever political platform it and legislators want to push.  In the process, Asian Americans will, like other non-whites, be picked apart, dissected, and theorized by whites.  As such, this is no different than any other day for Asian Americans.  Only this time an Asian face will be on every television screen, internet search engine, and newspaper. 

Tamara K. Nopper is an educator, writer, and activist living in Philadelphia.  She can be reached at tnopper@yahoo.com.

Defend Rev. Pinkney

I wrote about Reverend Pinkney and Benton Harbor back in 2005 and last month he was convicted of election fraud and faces twenty years in prison.  Here's a brief backgrounder on the situation, for more in-depth info, visit the BANCO blog.

Benton Harbor Michigan is 94% Black with an average income of $8,000. Across the river is St. Joseph, world headquarters of the Whirlpool Corporation, nearly all white, $41,000 average income. In 2003, the police killing of a young Black man erupted in so-called riots in Benton Harbor. Rev. Pinkney was already publicly identified as a leader of the overwhelmingly Black disadvantaged community. Rev. Pinkney works with his wife Dorothy and others in the Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizations (BANCO). Together they organized the regular monitoring of courthouse proceedings, pickets of the local newspaper, and openly named those involved in corrupt and racist practices.

When the CEO of Whirlpool announced a “development plan” for 465 riverfront acres in Benton Harbor, BANCO and Rev. Pinkney were outspoken in their opposition to this land grab that would do nothing for those of us who have nothing. They successfully recalled a City Commissioner for being in the pocket of Whirlpool, but the recall was overturned and the Commissioner reinstated. Meanwhile the power elite attempted to criminalize Rev. Pinkney, accusing him of election fraud, and charging him with paying $5 for votes and being in possession of absentee ballots.

The first trial, whose jury included two Black people, ended in a hung jury. A new trial was ordered.

During the second trial, as in the first, the Black residents of Benton Harbor came out in support of Rev. Pinkney both inside and around the courthouse. Despite lack of evidence or credible witnesses for the prosecution, on March 21, 2007 the all-white jury found Rev. Pinkney guilty of election fraud, and he now faces 20 years in prison. He is currently under house arrest as his appeal goes forward. Sentencing has been set for May 14.

Between now and then, all fair-minded individuals, particularly those who have had the privilege to meet Reverend Pinkney or follow his work, should write letters of support.

THEY SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO: The Honorable Alfred M. Butzbaugh, Berrien County Circuit Court, 811 Port Street, St. Joseph, Michigan, 49085-1187, regarding the case of People v. Reverend Edward Pinkney.

BUT THEY SHOULD BE SENT TO: Hugh M. Davis, Constitutional Litigation Associates, P.C., 450 West Fort Street, Suite 200, Detroit, Michigan, 48226. Phone: 313-961-2255; Fax: 313-961-5999; email: conlitpc@sbcglobal.net.

Anarchists against the veil?

Last week, a statement from the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG) was blasted out into the internet ether entitled "No to racism and the veil." It was noted this article was published in the first edition of "The Anvil," MACG's newsletter.

I know little about the MACG aside from the brief announcement of their formation and their stated aims and principles.  I found their article very troubling, and in the interest of constructive dialogue, offer my response to it here.

In "No to racism and the veil," the MACG argues that the "veil" is a symbol of the oppression of women in Islam and therefore should not be worn.  Paradoxically, however, they state that women should wear whatever they like - but the MACG really doesn't think women should wear the veil.

To begin with, there are a few blatant problems with the piece.  First off, it condemns "anti-Islamic racism."  "Anti-Islamic racism" is an impossibility because Islam is not a race but a religion with adherents from a wide range of races and ethnicities.  Secondly, the premise that a handful of (I'm assuming) white, male anarchists feel entitled to give direction to at least 500 million women is extremely troubling.  Compound this by the fact that the authors apparently presume the experiences of all women under Islam to be the same, and this piece jumps off into the deep end of Orientalism and what Chandra Talpade Mohanty labels "methodological universalism."

In "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourse" - an essay every Westerner who is going to attempt to save global Southerners from themselves needs to read - Mohanty writes:

The argument goes like this: the greater the number of women who wear the veil, the more universal is the sexual segregation and control of women....For instance, Muslim women in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, India and Egypt all wear some sort of a veil.  Hence, this indicates that the sexual control of women is a universal fact in those countries in which the women are veiled....

[T]he problem is not in asserting that the practice of wearing a veil is widespread....it is the analytic leap from the practice of veiling to an assertion of its general significance in controlling women that must be questioned.  While there may be a physical similarity in the veils worn by women in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the specific meaning attached to this practice varies according to the cultural and ideological context....

[T]he application of the notion of women as a homogeneous category to women in the third world colonizes and appropriates the pluralities of the simultaneous location of different groups of women in social class and ethnic frameworks; in doing so it ultimately robs them of their historical and political agency.... [emphasis in original]

The crux of the problem lies in that initial assumption of women as a homogeneous group or category ('the oppressed'), a familiar assumption in Western radical and liberal feminisms.

By arguing that all Muslim women should wholesale disavow the veil, the MACG is doing just as Mohanty describes above, creating a homogeneous category of "Muslim women" where none exists and robbing women of their agency.

Thirdly, the authors write that the veil "is a physical limitation on a woman's freedom and ability to act in society."  While a niqab or burqa may limit physical mobility in a sense, how a headscarf does so, I'm not quite clear.  As well, the authors reference an article in The Guardian written by a British woman who wore the niqab for one day as proof that the veil is physically oppressive.  Instead, they may have wished to talk to a Muslim woman (or several) who wears niqab every day before making such statements and conclusively evaluating the limitations (or not) of the veil.

Fourthly, and this is where things get really ugly, the authors write:

Here, we find women in the situation where they are burdened with the responsibility to limit their personal freedom because of the poor behaviour of men. In societies where the veil is customary, the assumption is that women are sex objects and a man in the presence of an unveiled woman to whom he is not related cannot reasonably be expected to control himself and keep within the bounds of morality.

The image of Muslim men as rapacious sex fiends who are inherently physically incapable of restraining themselves from sexual attacking a woman who is not veiled qualifies as nothing short of "anti-Islamic racism," the very thing this statement was supposed to be against.  The stereotype of the male Other as sexually predatory and insatiable has long been a weapon in the white supremacist arsenal and it is gravely disturbing to see such rhetoric employed here by anarchists.

Fifthly, the authors lament that "many Muslim women in Western countries have adopted the veil as a symbol of defiance and cultural identity. Despite its physical oppressiveness, they experience it as a liberatory symbol."  The authors promise that "[b]y defeating racism, we will remove the illusory 'liberation' of the veil and make its real physical oppressiveness more obvious."

Not only do the authors find wearing the veil as an expression of solidarity and defiance in the face of rampant Islamophobia troubling, but they (white, male anarchists) have generously taken it upon themselves to do their utmost to demonstrate to these deluded Muslim women just how oppressed and misguided they are in their veil-wearing.

By painting a homogeneous picture of women in Islam and essentializing Muslim men, women and Islam in general, this piece veers beyond mere inaccuracies into Islamophobia and Orientalism.  It also, as Mohanty writes, "perpetrate[s] and sustain[s] the hegemony of the idea of the superiority of the West."  All of these are things anarchists should be fighting - not propagating.

Though undoubtedly the comrades in Melbourne meant well in taking a stand against Islamophobia and the oppression of women, their analysis itself appears to be based on knowledge produced by the West about Islam and women instead of knowledge produced by Muslims and women about Muslims and women.  And in doing so, instead of sticking a wrench in the works of such problematic beliefs, it just ends up feeding and recycling them, even if it does come with a radical bent.