Nonviolence isn't always racist, but here i am suggesting that it can be, and often is, as it is professed by the middle-class, white peace movement in the U.S.
By racism I do not just mean the KKK, I also mean the subtler forms of racism that all white people are guilty of. We live in a racist society built and maintained by white folks for white folks -- an inherently white -- white supremacist nation. First indigenous peoples, then Africans, stolen from their lands, then Mexicans (for the sake of Manifest Destiny) then every immigrant population forced to assimilate away any sense of cculture for the sake of becoming "white" --whiteness in this country has systematically annihilated all other peoples and established for itself the position of top dog, whit all associated honors and privileges.
All white people --especially white radicals -- must see themselves as inheritors of this tradition. We cannot ignore the fact that our ancestors committed genocide and that now we are benefiting from it. Therefore anything, active or inactive, that promotes or simply fails to challenge the system of white supremacy, is racist.
And the people of color on whose backs we have built this empire will not lay down forever. Oppressed peoples always strike back. And when they do, it is racist for white people to expect them to do it through the system that white people have built to benefit us and only us -- our courts, our laws, our whole political system -- it cannot contain this rebellion; it will happen by its own methods.
White radicals need to recognize that giving up our privilege and overcoming racism means not trying to be in charge anymore. it means not telling people of color what they should do achieve their liberation. it's not up to us. Frankly, we deserve what we get. We don't get to build nice lives for ourselves, to achieve systematic supremacy through the blood of people of color, and then tell these people they have to be nonviolent in their struggle for self determination. They will do whatever they want. As white radicals, we need to stand in solidarity with all liberation movements --regardless of the tactics they chooses.
For white people, judging the indigenous people of of Mexico for using arms in their struggle for freedom is racist. Criticizing "insurgents" in Iraq who use any means necessary to combat the occupation and the white colonization of their land is racist. Criticizing poor people of color for their violence --saying we need more education or the white people need to intervene in urban areas as mediators, peacekeepers, is racist. Promotion the nonviolent struggles of King and Gandhi as if they were our own, commending these movements while criticizing other struggles for choosing other tactics is racist. And criticizing the spontaneous,overt violence of the oppressed more then the covert, systematic, cold-blooded institutional violence of the oppressor --although it reaches far more and cuts far deeper -- is racist. White people should promote nonviolence --to the cops, to the military, to the courts and prisons, to the schools and the businesses, the business people -- to the entire white power structure of this country. because this structure and the systems it creates are the real source of violence in this world. Everything else is just a reaction. and focusing on those reactions is just what racism trains us to do. It is easier to criticize a gang-banger than a politician, a prostitute than a businesswoman.. In reality, the violence of the oppressed is nothing in comparison with the systematic white violence requires more thought our, more courage and more compassion to strike against. And so it should be to those forces that we preach nonviolence. But when speaking to victims of our privilege -- he colonized, oppressed peoples of the world -- we must only promote liberation , by any means necessary
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"Oppressed peoples always strike back. And when they do, it is racist for white people to expect them to do it through the system that white people have built to benefit us and only us -- our courts, our laws, our whole political system -- it cannot contain this rebellion; it will happen by its own methods."
Who is the "we" behind the "our" above, where you say "our courts, our laws, our whole political system"? Who counts as white? Do Japanese people? They have a system a lot like ours. What about Persians? They have pretty light skin; in fact, many Persians have lighter skins than many Italians. I'm reminded of Malcolm X's account in his biography of meeting light-skinned Saudis who treated him as a brother.
And where does this confidence come from, that oppressed people will always rise up, and that "our" system (whoever we are) can't contain them? The Italians and Irish didn't used to be white by the reckoning of American nativists. But the American system seemed to do a pretty good job of redirecting their anger and alienation into mainstream politics... And you can see similar things happening now with South and East Asian immigrants as well as Latinos. Not to mention, of course, Mr. Obama.
Finally, I'm not really convinced that every social evil stems from whiteness. Do you suppose that in Ur, before white people existed, everything was hunky-dory? No oppression going on there?
I don't think a screed like this one is really helpful. It obscures the complex and varied texture of racism in American and globally. In other words, it rings hollow and ingenuous and makes white radicals actually *less* likely to give a damn about their inherited privilege.
Two words: "white guilt"
I certainly understand where this is coming from, as a white over-educated guy who proclaims the virtues of nonviolence.
As you probably know, Peter Gelderloos made this case in his book "How Nonviolence Protects the State." I have written an extensive (7-part) review of this book, including his chapter on how nonviolence is racist, in my blog (see the link).
I hope you find my reflections on Gelderloos' work useful.
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