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    • MarxMadness [comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Lots of good stuff in there:

      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.

        • MarxMadness [comrade/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          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.