What to make of this? It depends on who we're talking
about. If a black revolutionary group took the "Settlers" view
of European-Americans, and concluded from it that nothing good
could ever be expected from them, I would not argue, for it is
undeniably true that no black movement ever failed, no black
person was ever lynched, for underestimating the good faith of
white folks.
But for people attempting to intervene politically among
European-Americans, this stuff is a dead-end. I will not here
dispute the "Settlers" version of history: it is admitted that so
far neither white workers nor any other sector of white society
have separated themselves categorically from the entire infamy.
Perhaps they never will. As many people have pointed out, class
is not a listing of individuals by occupation but a process
whereby some people come to see they have common interests in
opposition to the interests of others, and that these interests
include the building of a new society. In the final analysis
only events will determine whether any sector of European-Americans make up a portion of the global proletariat. In the
meantime, for the relatively small number of European-Americans
who are dedicated to the fight for a better world, and who think
that revolution is necessary, what better use of their time,
intelligence, and energy is there than the effort to crack open
white society? And to do that, they need a theory that will
point out the fissures in it, not deny their existence.
This was written in 1996, when the millennial generation that's eaten so much shit over the last ~13 years wasn't part of the equation. Shutting so many people -- including many white people -- in that generation out of the middle class may result in a "sector of white society" distinguishing itself from the mass of deproletarianized European-Americans. It's no coincidence that people of that generation and younger are so skeptical of capitalism.
This part also struck me as insightful:
[T]he [white] people in the garrison are like most human beings in most times and places, as good as their
circumstances allow them to be, willing to do the right thing if
it isn't too inconvenient.
Read Noel Ignatiev's critique of it.
Lots of good stuff in there:
This was written in 1996, when the millennial generation that's eaten so much shit over the last ~13 years wasn't part of the equation. Shutting so many people -- including many white people -- in that generation out of the middle class may result in a "sector of white society" distinguishing itself from the mass of deproletarianized European-Americans. It's no coincidence that people of that generation and younger are so skeptical of capitalism.
This part also struck me as insightful:
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That's about how I read it. "Many will do the right thing if you make it easy for them."
I don't think this is universally applicable to white people, but it might apply to enough.
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