I just posted this reply in Reddit, and I’d love for some other communists, and possibly some BIPOC comrades to let me know if I’m off base or what I need more understanding of.
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The designated racial categories that Europeans came up with during the colonial era obviously don’t exist in reality. Biologically, it’s just completely wrong, there’s more genetic diversity within those designated groups than there is between them.
That being said, these categories still carry tremendous sociological weight, no matter how scientifically invalid, so it’s worth analyzing them in that regard. In this light, we can observe that all “races” besides “white,” were designated as such in order to justify and legitimize the project of colonialism. So even though “black” isn’t a valid biological category, for instance, people designated black by the bourgeoise-colonial ruling class have a shared history and experience that reifies the category, making something like anti-racism or black power movements coherent and legitimate sociological formations, even though the category’s origin is a total fabrication.
Taking this one step further, the category of “white” is just as bullshit as the other races, but this one was not imposed on a group by power, it is the group the ruling class considers itself to be, self designated. So, just like the other groups, the category only exists sociologically, but the shares experience and history isn’t one of oppression and struggle, but rather a history of BEING THE OPPRESSOR. Literally, the only thing “white” designates is superiority to every other race, which was the purpose of the invention of the category, to justify settler colonialism and imperialism. Therefore, it is my conclusion that you can be racist toward “white people,” and it’s cool and good to do so.
Ok ok, let me caveat that last sentence, lol. Most people don’t think of race in these terms, and it’s obviously possible for a totally innocent individual designated “white” to be targeted and victimized for that reason by others who understand race as an essential category. The way in like to put it is taken from Adolph Reed Jr, the University of Pennsylvania professor, “Racism is believing that races exist.” White supremacy is the default form of this, since justifying European colonialism is the origin of the “races,” but if you believe in these categories, you can still be racist no matter in which direction your hate is flowing. However, if you understand the races as strictly sociological fictions, hating the concept of whiteness is honestly unavoidable.
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Thanks in advance for any feedback, comrades!
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My one critique, which you acknowledge to an extent, is that “racism against white people” can too easily be interpreted, as with all things race, as the endorsement of individualist racism. Which neither accomplishes much (a black boss calling his white subordinate a cracker doesn’t fix systemic issues), nor has any mass appeal.
I think the better way to frame it is that it’s cool and good to be opposed to whiteness. The issue isn’t white people as individuals or even particular cultures described as “white” but rather the idea of it as a category. Practically speaking, I have much more in common with my coworkers of various ethnic and racial backgrounds than I do with a white German billionaire, yet the concept of whiteness says the opposite. There’s more to gain from promoting the idea that white people need to stop seeing themselves as white and find more meaningful fundamental ethnic/cultural identities.
I’d even go as far to say ‘liberal centrism’ is the political orientation of ‘whiteness’. If someone is allowed to be considered white, then they have a bias to maintaining the status quo. For ‘temporarily embarrassed’ white people without capital, this aligns their politics with liberal economic interests (often against their real material interests). For non-whites that have successfully assimilated, they also feel loyalty to the racist status quo, and often strive to maintain their acceptability by aligning with liberal economic interests as well (against the interests of themselves and others that are not successful at assimilation).
These quotes from US politics get at this aspect:
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
- President Lyndon B. Johnson
You start out in 1954 by saying, “[N-word], [n-word], [n-word].” By 1968 you can’t say “[n-word]”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “[N-word], [n-word].”
- Lee Atwater
Yeah I tried to make that clear with the quotes around “white people,” and the clarifying final paragraph, I just couldn’t resist the provocativeness of “racism against white people is cool and good.” Just my internalized bourgeoise decadence I suppose LOL
Thanks so much!
This maps well onto my understanding of race. I think you did a good job of explaining it too, better than I could have.
My own knowledge is probably not 100% either though, so I’m also hoping some others can weigh in and I’ll learn more too.
Thanks comrade!
another important facet of whiteness is that it is by definition always in peril, which then justifies further murders and exploitation. that it’s designed to instill this siege mentality in white people can be seen by the fact that obama is black. unlike all other races, you only get white children if both parents are white.
This is really great and I’ll keep an eye on this for further insight especially from BIPOC friends.
A way I have thought about it is that the bourgeoisie’s primary drive is to reduce labor costs. There are many well established mechanisms like absolute surplus value and relative surplus value. But a domestic labor market can only be squeezed so hard before they will resist further exploitation.
Thus, the necessary historical development of nation-states, which originate in distinct bourgeois classes but today functions to divide the global labor market for international exploitation, “super-exploitation” as Andy Higginbottom calls it.
Super-exploitation allows for additional exploitation on the basis of the domination of one state by another. Domestically however, we see the same phenomenon, a dividing up of labor which functions to increase the overall rate of exploitation, by means of limiting the cohesion of labor power and reducing its standard of living.
These international and domestic divisions of labor power are what develop into definite categories called races.
Now, I am careful at this point not to portray this as a comprehensive theory of race. We cannot ignore that the dividing lines are not arbitrary, they were already in place according to the latent prejudices existing in the minds of whatever ruling class is already in power. These are merely my thoughts on race as an economically necessary category, not the concrete historical groupings that exist.
