every individual can be racist, yes, but individual racists are relatively insignificant compared to systemic racism, which isn’t targeted toward white people (depending on what “white” means; e.g. against Russians in various European countries)
Think about the media for a moment; In a non-state sanctioned private entity news enviroment like the US where they routinely engage in moral panics about black people and how these narratives go unchecked by the state through censorship it can only be seen as a tactile endorsement of the messages of the ‘private’ media.
When you realize this media scapegoating provides cover for the largest prison population in the history of humanity, and whom most of that population are worked as slaves legally and who are political prisoners held under the drug war for the means of removing there vote, racism can be understood as the output nessacry to provide consent for this.
Racism is liberal ID politics, its trasnmitted from the upper class. I would say I agree with the initial question posed, as the American media holds global hegemony. Dismantle it and previously understood notions of racism come undone. Thats not to say racism might take another character in different ethnic groups, but at least in the west that character is black and white, but also green.
The thing about “whiteness” is that it’s inherently a settler social construct that’s based on exclusion.
The USA is built on this foundation of racial hierarchy, where the “whites” are at the top and everyone else is beneath them. Anyone can be assimilated into this group as long as the settler class wills it, and you can see an example of this with working class German and Irish immigrants all of a sudden being “white” when they came over from Europe. Give them a few concessions and make them citizens and any potential unity between former Afrikan slaves and European immigrants would vanish (which is pretty much what happened).
So it’s more like anyone can be racist, but you can’t be racist towards white people because, like you said, they hold all of the power.
I’m prefacing this with I AM A STRAIGHT CRACKER MALE SO CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG but!
To my understanding, yes. Since racism (the definition typically accepted by Marxists like ourselves at least) is that racism is material and systemic oppression, apartheid-esque realities like the US, South Africa, Israel, etc., and not just “being mean to someone because of their skin color” then it would follow that white people are fundamentally not capable of experiencing racism in any meaningful manner. Sure, you can get called a cracker and be hated by a few people, but that’s literally nothing but a reaction to your “superiority” and child’s play compared to actual oppression. Obviously you can just be an asshole about it and that’s racist but it’s really not the same as a whole system operating intentionally to benefit one and fuck another.
I think it’s also important to break down the concept of what being white is, too, because honestly you can’t really define it. It’s very similar to terrorism, where it’s constantly changing and evolving and always just so happens to be targeted to benefit the status quo. I’m sure you’ve heard of how the Irish were treated prior to like the mid-20th century, they were looked at as animals and similar to how many pigs view anyone browner than them now. But now all of a sudden anyone from the European area is white. Russians were white, now they aren’t with their whole Ukraine conflict. They’re orcs, animals, blah blah blah.
So like others have said before, whiteness is built entirely for the purpose of exclusion and honestly, so is the entire idea of race. I mean, think about it, what purpose is there of breaking down “races” within the human species if there truly is no intent to treat people differently based on it, or if they aren’t already. It’s entirely a social construct.
It’s also honestly harmful to class consciousness in my opinion. Many white people view themselves as privileged and have liberal guilt about it; but because they hold this relative privilege over more oppressed members of the working class, they forget they are oppressed themselves! Yes, it’s important to recognize you’re on the top of this class unfairly, but this class is still oppressed. Many of them would look at a bourgeois white man and a homeless black man and see more similarities to the former than the latter, which is just fundamentally untrue, cope, and also kind of stems from a racist view of the world. It’s a whole thing.
I’d appreciate any advice if I’m wrong on any of this; I’m obviously not an authority, these are just my thoughts based on what I’ve read and heard from other POC working class members.
Whilst labels like “white” are useful for quick discussions and broadly getting your point across, I think to discuss it like this you need to define it a bit more. It seems like white can mean quite a few different things depending on the context, we have some posters mentioning that white in the US would typically not include Irish or German, but if you are in Europe, they would definitely be called white. It seems in general use in the anglosphere, white means English-speaking people, mostly of central/north/western European descent (and hence having pale skin), here I am including the white colonisers of the US.
I agree that this group tends to hold a majority of the power in the imperial core, but because it is a some what loose grouping, you might run into issues talking about the finer points, like for example “white slave trading families”, on an international level, would have to include those in the UK, Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Germany, etc. as well as those in the US. If you are looking from a US-centric viewpoint, you may not consider France in that group (for example), and I think that would be incorrect.
Because this group of white people does tend to hold the greater power in the imperial core, and racism is systemic oppression based on race, I think it is often accurate to say that, in the imperial core, racism doesn’t affect white people.
I think the term white can be a bit misleading, so prefer to just refer to oppressed and oppressing people/classes
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Black Americans as a group are the most oppressed group in America. I find it elitist to say that acknowledging that gives them “a free ride”. Also, blacks are the most oppressed group in the Americas in general where there is a lot of colorism and blacks are at the bottom due to the lingering biases of former colonial slave system and the old slave system money left to the European descendants, and those who allied with them. Systematic racism is real and there is tons of research to back that up.
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How if they have no power to do that as an oppressed group unlike whites who own all the tools of oppression?
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The black proletariat has no power over the decisions of the empire.
There is no nuance here. It is very simple. A group cannot be racist if they don’t have the tools to oppress other races. Therefore, black people cannot be racist.
Can black people be Europhobic, or Asiabphobic or any kind of phobic, sure, but since they don’t have the tools to oppress anyone, they can’t be racist.
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As a group, white people own the means of production and the means to oppress other races. White people run all the institutions of power and are able to control the fate of other races. The White proletariat benefits from systematic racism, definitely not as much as the white bourgeoisie, but it does, and has helped them increased their quality of life and accumulate generational wealth. As a group white people have the means to oppress black people. Black people doesn’t have any power to do this to anyone.
What was Obama then? That is a good example.
As a group black people dont own banks, or big business or weapons factories or any other method that could allow them to put other groups at their mercy to jeopardize their livelihood.
Just because one black person was president once doesnt mean that black people have the power as a group to systematically oppress another group.
The “what about Obama” narrative is a white supremacist tactic used to undermine the reality of systematic racism.
I never said that because there was one black President that black peoples don’t face systemic racism. You are avoiding the original question the commenter posed to you.
Black people as a collective group in the imperial core are still in a more advantageous position of power and privilege compared to people in the third world and periphery countries. Does that mean they face no oppression or systemic racism? No. We never said that. However to act like any oppressed group such as black people cannot be participate or succeed in the imperial machine is disingenuous and removes personal agency for those that do. It either makes them seem like mindless puppets, or “not-black”, which is harmful to the larger conversation.
I never said that because there was one black President that black peoples don’t face systemic racism.
You said “What was Obama then?” when I mentioned that black people don’t have the tools for oppressing others. You literally brought up Obama when I was talking of black people as group not having the tools for oppressing others. You are equating one black president to black people having tools for oppressing other groups, when it is the whole contrary. They are the ones being oppressed, and as I mentioned previously, the “What about Obama?” is a common narrative used by white supremacists to diminish the severity of the situation of systematic racism.
You are avoiding the original question the commenter posed to you.
There was not question posed, just a statement posed.
Black people as a collective group in the imperial core are still in a more advantageous position of power and privilege compared to people in the third world and periphery countries
This statement is not totally true. Sure, black people may have a better overall standard of living when it comes to people in the global south, but in terms of power, as I mentioned previously, they don’t own the means of oppression or the means of production as a group. Therefore, they do not have a greater power than someone in the global south has.
However to act like any oppressed group such as black people cannot be participate or succeed in the imperial machine is disingenuous and removes personal agency for those that do.
No, it is not. Black people cannot in fact succeed as group in the imperial machine because the imperial machine is built in a way to avoid them from succeeding. That is part of systematic racism. I am not taking away their agency. The system is. You cannot will away the barriers that are put into place to prevent this.
It either makes them seem like mindless puppets, or “not-black”, which is harmful to the larger conversation.
I have no words for this comment. Systematic racism is put into place because they are not mindless puppets. It is put into place to prevent capable and smart people from climbing to the top such that the dominant group can stay in power.
America is made such that the power and the means of production stays in the hands of the descendants of the Europeans.
Sure in the hypothetical scenario that black people as group could get their hands in the means of production and the means of oppression, and use them to oppress other races, then yes, they would be racists. But in the world that we live in, that is not the case, and it is made such that it never happens. Therefore, black people cannot be racist.
Can black people be Europhobic, Asianphobic, or discriminatory against any other group, yes. But, racism entails a power dynamic that black people lack of as a group, therefore, they cannot be racist.
Capitalism props itself up with white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy, and so on. Yes, the average black person in the US lives a materially better life than someone in the developing world, but that doesn’t mean that America is any less white supremacist. Obama being the president for 8 years doesn’t suddenly mean that the US isn’t a white supremacist country.
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Yeah read Settlers please this is a dumb take
What is Settlers about?
Basically it dispels the myths behind the “white proletariat” (it’s part of the title actually) and delves deep into the history of settler colonialism in the US.
White leftists don’t like it cause Sakai tells them they aren’t and never have been the main character.
What is “the White proletariat”?
Precisely that- a myth. History claims that the working class of Europe came over to the Americas that were empty and wild and built an entire country out of the ashes, when in reality most settlers that originally came here were petit bourgeois seeking to become bourgeois themselves as the contradictions of capitalism were piling up in Europe and causing more and more people to be wage slaves, which apparently was a fate worse than death to them.
All of this is in Settlers so do yourself a favor and read it
Ngl, you sound like a fed a bit but I’ll answer
No. White people can’t only be racist, but rather that they are the most inclined to hold racist beliefs due to their unequal exchange system depending on it…
However, there can be racists among Asians, Africans, and so forth, that are also upheld by hierarchal and semi-feudal beliefs remnants, which we now consider arbitrary… however, their power wanes in comparison to white people, who’ve set
Lol, if you think that I am a Fed then just ignore me next time 🤣.
