Thread by @BlackSocialists

Let’s dissect the term and/or concept of “white privilege” and how it has been mistakenly used over the last few years by Liberals, Conservatives, and confused Leftists drawn into misinformation and propaganda (once and for all).

You might want to bookmark this thread.

We want to begin by recommending that “white” Americans new to the idea of Socialism read both volumes of Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of the White Race” before even THINKING about cracking into “Das Kapital” or any of the Socialist “classics”:

blacksocialists.us/resource-guide

In order to engage with this discussion, it is imperative that you first understand WHY we refer to “race” as a “social construct,” and understand how it differs from “ethnicity.”

Peep the thread below as an intro to “race vs. ethnicity” when/if you can.

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You’ve heard the cliché, “there’s only one race: the human race,” and it is TRUE, but society does not reflect this reality yet, for those supporting white supremacy (an IDEA) want a place in the racial/socioeconomic hierarchy instead of destroying the hierarchy altogether.

When the first Africans arrived in VA in 1619, there were no “white” people there with them, but “British” people.

According to colonial records, there wouldn’t be “white” people there for another 60 years.

The hands of imperialism extended from ETHNO-STATES; not RACIAL groups.

Other Europeans coming to America?

Poorer Europeans coming to America?

Potential for poor and working class solidarity?

“Oh no,” the ruling-class Europeans thought.

💡

“Let’s construct a racial hierarchy; the psychological ‘wage’ we give whites will divide the proletariat.”

One could compare British rule in Ireland with a similar form of “white” oppression of Indigenous and Black Americans, but Irish immigrants fleeing persecution learned to SPREAD racial oppression in their adoptive country as a part of “white” American assimilation.

Unfortunate.

“White privilege” has enforced the myth of racial superiority; this has been central to maintaining RULING-CLASS domination over poor and working class people of ALL colors throughout AMERICAN history.

“White privilege” ultimately hurts poor and working class “white” Americans.

Now that we have this established, let’s comment on “white privilege” (the term) as it was originally COINED and used by Theodore W. Allen in the 1960s, and as it is popularly (and mistakenly) misused today in 2018.

“White privilege” was originally referred to as “white skin privilege,” and it was a term coined by Theodore W. Allen under a class-based analysis.

What happens when you remove the class-based analysis?

You get Capitalist control of the narrative, and more division as a result.

What Liberal and Conservative media have done is create a dynamic where poor and working class white Americans don’t feel as though they have any room to move in solidarity with poor and working class Black Americans, and vice versa; common “SJW” RHETORIC deepens these rifts.

When egoists throw out terms like “check your privilege,” they seem more concerned with placing white Americans in a lose-lose situation instead of highlighting a ceding of power to the ruling class based upon manufactured social structures, and creating a pathway for solidarity.

Explanations for white supremacy that only rely on “biology” or attribute it to benefits gained by all “white” Americans are fundamentally incomplete, for they analyze “race” within a vacuum; there is always a socioeconomic component that must be addressed in this conversation.

W.E.B. DuBois said in “Black Reconstruction”:

(1) "Race was supplemented by a carefully planned and slowly evolved method, which drove such a wedge between the white and black workers..."

(2) “There prob­a­bly are not today in the world two groups of work­ers with practically identical interests who hate and fear each other so deeply and persistently and who are kept so far apart that neither sees anything of common interest.”

Phrases like “check your privilege” are commonly used today, but NOT to speak to the reality that poor and working class white Americans are ceding power to Capitalist exploiters who couldn’t care less about them (or us).

We must address the ILLUSION of “race” FIRST.

We agree with Allen; the “white race” must be understood, not simply as a social construct (as opposed to a genetic phenomenon), but as a “ruling class social control formation.”

“RACE” and “WHITE PRIVILEGE” are “RULING CLASS SOCIAL CONTROL FORMATIONS” (divide and conquer).

Noel Ignatiev, author of “How the Irish Became White,” has a great quote that we’ll end this thread with:

(1) “The ending of white supremacy is not solely a demand of the Negro people, separate from the class demands of the entire working class.”

(2) “It cannot be left to the Negro people to fight it alone, while the white workers 'sympathize with their fight,' 'support it,' 'reject racist slanders' etc. but actually fight for their 'own' demands."

(3) “The ideology of white chauvinism is bourgeois poison aimed primarily at the white workers, utilized as a weapon by the ruling class to subjugate black and white workers."

(4) "It has its material base in the practice of white supremacy, which is a crime not merely against non-whites but against the entire proletariat. Therefore, its elimination certainly qualifies as one of the class demands of the entire working class."

(5) "In fact, considering the role that this vile practice has historically played in holding back the struggle of the American working class, the fight against white supremacy becomes the central immediate task of the entire working class."

When we say we’re fighting against “white supremacy,” we’re talking about fighting against an IDEA and STRUCTURE; an idea and structure that has left poor and working class Blacks and whites in conflict for centuries instead of rising up against their Capitalist oppressors.

Black Americans and “white” (European) Americans are not monoliths; we are prepared to move through all divisions to bring all poor and working class peoples within America to a multiethnic plane of direct action that sheds the Capitalist system from human existence.

Solidarity!