It's Racism, Stupid! (2) Lorenzo Komboa Ervin Hello Dank: My name is Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, and I am the one who wrote *the article* you were reacting to, although I am not sure if you mean the article addressed to Black activists or to the anti-globalization movement. Anyway, I must disagree with most of what you have said. You are *more oppressed* than I am? Do you know me? How can you say such a thing? Also Black people have been historically oppressed as a people, not just as individuals, not only in the United States, but around the world. If I didn't realize that, then it was sure brought to my attention when I recently attended the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. You had Black people [and other peoples of color and oppressed groups] coming from every country in the world, detailing long years of systematic oppression : black Brazilians, from Colombia, from the United Kingdom, from almost all countries of the European Union, from all over Africa, and everywhere else. There were Dalits from India(whom I remember had organzianed a Black Panther Party in the 1960's), Australian Aborigines (who have always called them selves "Blackfellas"), Roma people (derisively called "Gypsy" by Europeans), Baruku from Japan, and so many others who saw the conference as important place to network, even if they didn't think the UN bureacrats would do anything to end racism. You do not know anything at all about me to make such a nonsensical statement about being "more oppressed." One, without making the same assumptions, about you: I do believe it a safe bet that I have been an anti-racist activist a hell of a lot longer than you have been, and have experienced racism first hand most of my life, but seen most of the movements arise against it in my lifetime also. Been poor my whole life, primarily living in the South, seen how the system is used to systematically not only discriminate, but to kill Black people. Seen how the Ku Klux Klux, a racist mass movement supported by both the white working class and the white ruling class terrorized the South. Seen years of class collaborationism by Southern unions, who upheld white supremacy and kept Black people out of unions for decades. Seen and heard of people lynched by white racist mobs and shot down by the cops, with impunity. Served 15 years in prison on a life sentence myself. Been an activist in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later the Black Panther Party in the South at a young age. Been active for the almost the last 20 years in campaigns against racism and police brutality, poverty and oppression, both in the South and the Midwest. I believe I know a *little something* about racism, and how to struggle against it. But maybe you have some special knowledge, perhaps been to a better school for anti-racist actvists, I don't know. My understanding comes from the school of hard knocks, that is having lived it. My friend, myself [and most activists of color], also understand the interlinks with racism and capitalism far better than most of you white radicals, who only understand it *maybe* in theory or with catch phrases out of a pamphlet. It has been my *experience* that when issues of racism are put forward, many white radicals seek to shift the discussion to other issues like "class", as if class existed in a netherworld or if Black people and peoples of color are not part of the working class. Neither is true, and this is really *obscurantism*, that is, a method of clouding or evading the issue. Unconsciously, it creates an ideological ghetto, where class issues are over here and racism is over there with other meaningless "isms" that should just wait until "after the revolution." But there's not going to a be a true revolution that don't include people of colo in the lead or taking equal part, unless we include the original American revolution, which freed the British colonies, but left slavery intact. That is the American history of white supremacy that we are currently still living with. That history should never happen again, but IMHO it unconsciously colors the thinking of most white radicals. So, yes, Black people are part of a working class, but they are also a subject people, and this cannot be foregotten. And from my own experiences and prior discussions on this question, I realize that if Black people and other victimized peoples of color do not lead the struggle against racism, it would left to people like you, who may be sincerely motivated, but haven't got a clue. Regardless of the political limitations of the civil rights movement of the 1960's, it was lead by representatives of the oppressed peoples themselves, not self-appointed white radicals. Dank, we are not all in the *same* class, even in the labor movement. Blacks, immigrants, and peoples of color have historically been placed in a dual tier section of labor, they still work at the hardest, most dangerous and lowest paying jobs, even though sections of the Black middle class may have advanced because of the civil rights movement of the 1960's. The prisons are full of almost a milion Black and youth of color, people of color lead in infant mortality rates, homicide, and other forms of oppression. You just don't have a clue. Listen, I remember something I was told a few years ago when I visited Austrailia, when an Aborigine man was asked why it was necessary for the indigenous people to lead their own movements, instead of just integrating into the Left, he replied "because a white man will never do what I will to fight racism and colonialism, because only those folks who have been subject to racism really understand it, and because nobody can save my life but me". So the reality is that white people can become part of the struggle against racism/internal colonialism, but can never lead it on the proposition that they "know more" than the oppressed peoples themselves, or that somehow they are "oppressed more." It would be a really good thing if Ameerican white radicals would read about the true histories of Africans in America, Chicanos, Asians and other oppressed peoples of color, before they put themselves across as some "expert" who knows it all. Do you know how incredibly arrogant that statement of yours is? It reminds me of an incident when I went to a meeting of Anti-Racist Action a few years ago, [which only a few people of color even attended], but one white radical jumps up and tells a Black woman who was speaking of her experiences, "you be quiet, we know what racism is!" How do you know? Reading a manual? Some of your best friends are Black? What qualifies you to make such a statement? For someone who lives in the United States, which is based on slavery and continued racial oppression, you are in total denial and are totally blind to how racism works in the real world. And you say you are the head of the Alliance Against Fascism [?], then it's a case of the blind leading the blind. I have seen and heard all kinds of nonsense in the Anarchist and white radical scene, but this is a new one on me. It just shows to what extent there needs to be *political education* and more contact with activists of color in the white dominated "anti-racist" scene for a white man to blurt out something like this. This is worse than mindless liberalism, it is naivete and escapism, even bordering on racism itself. You make a decent point when you talk about movements against racism have a broadened focus, but I don't believe you understand it. One thing the civil rights movement did do was become a real social movement destroying "all kinds of discrimination." It was the primary focus for not only civil rights gains for Black people, but even civil liberties issues for all Americans, which held back the death penalty for years, beat back a right-wing political agenda from the 1950's, and it redefined radical politics in the 20th century. It even laid the groundwork for the Vietnam anti-war movement, the Women's movement, Gay Rights, and other such white-dominated "liberation" movements of the 1960's and early 1970's, and encouraged the struggles of other peoples of color. In fact, most contemporary strugles are built up off the work of the civil rights movement, whether white radicals like to admit it. You live in Detroit, do you know it is currently the leading city for deaths in custody, including police shootings, and that is mostly of peoples of color? Do you know anything about the radical history of Detroit? All I can tell you is to read up on the Black Panther Party, Drum/League of Black Revolutionaries, SNCC and other movements, osme of which were in your city. IMHO, like most American youth generally, and white youth in particular, you have no real understanding of radical history or how white supremacy has existed in this society for hundreds of years. So yes, I understand that the struggle against racism is not limited to mere "racial issues" alone [as you put it], but involve other forms of struggle and around other issues, but again I have seen it actually occur. I suppose you know all that too, and have experienced it first hand as well. Man, what qualifies you to make such a comment? You can just smell the smug *superiority* emenating from the letter: "I'm white, but I know what racism is, and I have suffered it more than you." Dank, you may just be young and probably don't know any better, and you might even think you are an aware, caring person who doesn't mean any harm, but statements like this are really hurtful, infuriating and denigrating to peoples of color. It is why white radicals have a reputation for arrogance in dealing with peoples of color, and for being hard to work with. Conversely, I am accused by some Black activists for "coddling" white activists or even working with white people "too much," [it ain't true], but even I won't put with this sort of nonsense. Many Black activists would not even take the time to write you back at all and try to correct your perspective, why bother [?], they would say, "these white folks think they know it all anyway". But, although I have used your letter as an opportunity to chastice you, it is designed to teach as well but , I don't have time to *just* try to "educate" arrogant white radicals [who reject most of what I say anyway], especially when there are peoples of color and true anti-racists out there to work with. Dank, we need to build a broad-based mass anti-racist movement, but we need to work out many things first, or it will crumble because of internal contradictions. It must be based on principled class unity *and autonomy*, that is both respect for the cultures and conditions of peoples of color, and their right to also organize in their communities and among their peoples, their right to self determination, and true recognition for peoples of color as an equal and inherent part of the working class. Anything else leads to chauvanism and internal racism. We will see to what extent "anti-fascist" groups like yours will even be willing to work with activists/communities of color, or just continue to feel like you that they are even "more oppressed," or that anything that does not deal with marginal white supremacist groups or labor issues [which you all see as the only class issues] are insignificant. Many white radicals just feel that Black people cannot be leaders of organizations or handle ideological issues in the broader movement, and should just follow behind the whites. That is why many peoples of color form their own groups, [although it is also done because that is where our base is], so that they will not have to constantly deal with this everyday and fighting through white people's handg-ups and ignorance about issues of race and class. No doubt this explains why even n the Anarchist and socialist movement peoples of color are forming their own tendencies, after experiencing internal racism or total ignorance of our issues. I end it here, and I hope you consider this in the spirit that it is given, more importantly I hope it makes you [and others] think just a little bit. Doubtless, many white radicals/Anarchists will agree with you, and see nothing at all wrong with what you have said, in fact I expect to receive angry letters from them and from you quoting Mao, Lenin, Bakunin, Malatesta, Makhno or some other revolutionary authority. Some feel that when I speak about these things it's just me cutting up and making white folks "feel uncomfortable", some Anarchist even once said I was "race baiting". I leave you to decide that. Well, all I can say is that if you do not think anything I have said here means anything to you, then just chalk it up to an old Black man who is just babbling on, and just does not see that ya'll white folks have figured it all out and don't even need to hear from us anymore. Maybe I'm stupid that way. Sincerely, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin ----- Original Message ----- From: "doug kurz" antipig@deadkennedys.com To: JoNina1@ameritech.net Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 10:01 PM Subject: your input on ainfos > i stongly agree with your statement, but the fight of racism is not just a fight of race, but a fight against stereotypes of all kind, and discrimination of all kind. i may be "white", but i am oppressed probably more so than you as an individual. i think people are people. infact, living things are living things (including plants, for they are alive and don't harm anything). i do not classify myself by race, nor anyone else. i believe in individuality; and with that, equality and unity, of life. > > i do very much enjoy the article however, for everyone. and i very much enjoy the original statement. thank you for your spreading of indy news. my enlightenment fall upon your free soul. > > -dank > head of the Aliiance Against Fascism > > we support you effort fully, and will further spread the news in the detroit area. > for us this is a class war, equalist war, and war for sovereignty of all. revolution is time. 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