Building Black political power is a historic mission including anti-racist whites

There are more than a few journalists & bloggers writing outraged posts against unidentified white writers discussing civil rights in the US & directing hostility at white activists engaged in the new movement. When the outrage comes from privileged “white privilege theory” advocates, that’s one thing. They get their sociology & guilt-baiting all mixed up with politics. But when it comes from Black bloggers, it’s worth some serious attention–although it doesn’t carry the same force as if it came from Black community activists engaged in building the new movement.

As one of those white writers who blog frequently on civil rights let me say I understand some of the resentment since it can be compared to males commenting on the women’s movement. Feminists would appreciate male supporters writing cogent analyses of our struggle but more often what we get is ignorant diatribes & false accusations about our mistakes–like the regrettable piece in the UK Guardian by Anthony Loewenstein or articles that think feminism is all about “sex-negativity” or advancing Islamophobia & US military goals. If they’re going to comment they should at least inform themselves beyond media misrepresentations about feminism.

Most of the bloggers aren’t identifying which white writers they’re offended by & that would be good to know because if we can examine the offensive writings we can better understand what it is that outrages. From what I’ve observed in progressive politics over the past nearly 50 years, one of the chief problems is that white activists patronize Black activists–massively & more than they get things all wrong. Although they also do that.

Political relations between Blacks & whites are so poisoned by decades now of whites standing by whilst SWAT teams go after the Black community that many just can’t conceive solidarity of any kind–maybe because they’re too young to remember the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s & it certainly isn’t taught in US schools. That movement incorporated thousands of anti-racist white people willing to put themselves on the line to oppose apartheid US-style. That movement also educated millions of whites who only observed the struggle. Such is the force of Black political power.

You can talk about white privilege cause it’s for real but it’s also a profoundly mitigated thing because racism contaminates every institution in our society & degrades all human relationships in every sphere of life. It’s the kind of privilege that comes back to bite you in the ass in a malignant “divide & conquer” strategy.

Black activists & the Black community don’t need my blog posts to analyze racism in the US but there are a lot of white people that do because their primary source of information is the media which has been beating the drums against Black youth for nearly 40 years. The media narrative about Black narco-terrorist gangs (used to justify the war on the Black community) was intransigent among whites, including political activists. And I know that because of my own writings on the issue & the hostility they faced from whites.

Anti-racist white people are a new & welcome part of the new civil rights & Black power movement & they are necessary for that movement to achieve its historic goals since it challenges the very foundations of US capitalism, armed to the teeth & accustomed to violence against the Black community.

Racism is fundamental to capitalism ideologically, economically, & militarily & has been since its inception. There will be no social transformation in this country without the leadership of Black activists–not just because of their political insights but because they represent Black power. The historic mission of ending the tyranny of neoliberalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism, requires unity on the basis of justice & solidarity. Not for one moment should Black activists allow themselves to be patronized or humiliated. And not for one moment should anti-racist whites allow themselves to be guilt-baited out of supporting Black power in every way they can.

Animals are not spectacles for human entertainment

Penguins Basel Switzerland zoo (Georgios Kefalas:Keystone) Dec 18 2014

The media caption to this photo said: “Visitors follow king penguins as they march through the Zoo in Basel, Switzerland. The penguins are only let outdoors for a walk in the winter.”

Well everybody loves a penguin but they aren’t on this earth to entertain human gawkers or enrich zoo keepers. They’re from Antarctica where they spend their lives waddling around, socializing, & foraging in the ocean, not warehoused in cement barracks.

They’re considered a “flagship species” in conservation biology which still can’t define what the term means so meanwhile it’s become a fancy marketing term for super-exploitation. By raising the public profile, they can make more dough parading them. There’s more cruelty in these zoos under the guise of biodiversity conservation than you can shake a stick at.

In a humane society the entire concept of zoos will be rethought along with circuses. You don’t have to get up close & personal with gorillas & lions but treating them like spectacles will not be an option.

(Photo by Georgios Kefalas/Keystone)

Tango for the pope

Tango couple (Gregorio Borgia:AP) Dec 17 2014

It isn’t explained anywhere why they threw a tango party in St. Peter’s Square to celebrate Pope Francis’s 78th birthday. It’s very charming but wouldn’t a solemn high mass be more appropriate?

It’s a little disconcerting to know that if there weren’t continents & a vow of celibacy between you, you’d be in the dating range of Pope Francis. Does he even know who Elvis Presley is? Did he ever do the hustle? Why did he take the road less traveled? Maybe we were meant for each other.

But anyway happy birthday to the pope. This is the age when you add “& many others” & really mean it. He could not have celebrated it with a more charming couple than the one here dancing the tango. Looks like they’re still swooning for each other after all these years.

(Photo by Gregorio Borgia/AP)

The symmetries of political struggle in Mexico and the US

Mexican student (Pedro Pardo:AFP:Getty Images) Dec 14 2014

There’s a political symmetry between Mexico & the US that has the potential to change everything to the advantage of the oppressed. For decades, the US has conducted a brutal war on Black youth, including harassment, hundreds of police shootings, mass incarceration. They got away with it all because media drew on fathomless cesspools of racism to persuade people Black youth were feral, dangerous, drug-addicted, gang members.

There was a climate of impunity which cop killers used to full advantage because judges would buy almost anything as an alibi. Even vigilantes like George Zimmerman could take a Black kid out & walk away scot-free.

And then in Ferguson they went too far. The history of why the Black community of Ferguson drew a line against tyranny will have to be written; the participants, the process need to be chronicled because history is never an impersonal dialectic. We want to know those young activists as well as we do Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, & Martin Luther King, Jr., because they are counterposing a new civil rights & Black power movement to the co-optations of Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson who serve the status quo.

Mexico has been under the tyranny of neoliberal plunder for decades now, in agriculture, industry, & now with the privatization of PEMEX (the state-owned oil & gas company) which is making Mexico a land of oil spills & contaminated rivers. It’s now become a narco-state where crime syndicates & state apparatus converge. To carry that off terror & what activists called a “reign of impunity” were required.

Just in the past decade, thousands have been disappeared, thousands murdered by the military. It’s one of the most dangerous countries in the world for reporters & those who speak the truth because President Peña Nieto & Felipe Calderón before him wanted to assure foreign investors that Mexico was safe for business & open for plunder.

And then they pushed the boundaries of impunity too far when the Mexican police abducted 43 student teachers & handed them over to criminal cartels to dispose of like they were garbage. Ayotzinapa, the teacher’s college they attended, became an international clarion call just like Ferguson. The response across Mexico is shaking the foundations of the Nieto regime & challenging the future of neoliberalism.

Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan author of “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent” (as cogent today as it was when published in 1971), recently quoted a previous warning of Mexican political activists: “The rulers have lost control of fear; the rage they have unleashed is turning back against them.”

Not only have the rulers lost control of fear & unleashed undaunted opposition movements, but the struggles in Ferguson & Ayotzinapa have tapped the wellsprings of international solidarity too long dormant but drawn into action around Gaza. It’s all of a piece because neoliberalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism, is running out of options to solve its crises & is attempting to do so on the backs of working people.

To borrow & reformulate the declaration of Attica prisoners in 1971: ‘We are human. We are not beasts & do not intend to be beaten or driven as such.The oppressed have set forth to change forever the ruthless brutalization & disregard for our lives here & throughout the world. What has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those who are oppressed.’

(Photo of Mexican protester by Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images)

Norman Finkelstein caught in Oslo Accord-think

Palestinian activist Dec 17 2014

The problem with Norman Finkelstein (as clearly seen in his December 12th debate monitored by Mehdi Hasan) is that he’s completely locked into Oslo Accord-think, despite the utter devastation they have wreaked on Palestinians & the bankruptcy of a bantustate solution. He’s like a broken record replaying the debate around the Accords & one wishes Edward Said were still around to answer Finkelstein since he seems to respect so few other Palestinians.

Increasingly he reveals his deep conservatism about social transformation & one wonders if he regresses politically to defend the existence of Zionist Israel or if he is just psychologically saddled that way.To speak of limiting justice by going no further than “enlightened public opinion” is a mockery of history. To identify “enlightened public opinion” as embodied in international law or represented by European governments is a mockery of reality. But the evidence in this debate suggests Finkelstein is quite flexible about public opinion since he also asserts his right to differ with majority opinion. Why would he deny that right to others?

The Palestinian call for the economic & cultural boycott of Israel (BDS) counterposes to Finkelstein’s legalism & misanthropy a conviction in the possibility of changing public opinion by convincing millions to support the justice of Palestinian demands–& the proof of their conviction are the millions of people around the world today who stand with Palestine.

Salma Karmi-Ayyoub, the Palestinian activist who debated Finkelstein here, spoke with compelling force, but too briefly. One wishes the clutter in this debate (including the Zionist journalist) would be removed so she could stand toe-to-toe with Finkelstein & bring clarity to this dispute.

A Palestinian man in the audience questioned Finkelstein’s disrespect for BDS since this creates division among Palestinian supporters. His question evoked the most revealing outburst from Finkelstein who said he is not pro-Palestinian, that he has “no interest in Palestine” but only in justice. A most regrettable distinction. And a damning one too.

(Photo of Palestinian man questioning Finkelstein is screen shot from video)

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/headtohead/2014/11/time-boycott-israel-20141116114716395219.html

Hillary Clinton stands accused

Even if you think of Hillary Clinton as a stand-up comedian in the Janus-faced tradition it’s hard to tolerate her when she speaks. Sardonic cannot soften the revulsion of her lies. The former US War-Monger in Chief said the US should never use or condone the CIA torture program on suspected terrorists & claimed the Obama regime “banned illegal renditions & brutal interrogations.”

But she really is amusing if you picture her in an orange prison jumper in the docket of a criminal courtroom & imagine those “suspected terrorists” from Guantanamo lined up to bear witness to the crimes she denies.