Building off some good discussion in the other thread today. I’m thinking about how can white Hexbear users can be better here, and in leftist spaces, AND when we engage with the broader BIPOC communities? What are we doing wrong, and what can we do that’s better?
And I 100% get that’s it’s not on marginalized folks to explain it to us. I do. It’s just, at this moment I’m trying not to get overwhelmed with feeling like it’s just not possible to make the world better. Not even get us to socialism, just getting things to be a tiny bit better. I don’t know what else to do. So I’m reaching out to my BIPOC comrades with an open hand. If you feel like sharing, please do.
For the white folks, we need to be better. We do. It may not be comfortable to hear, but we do. Maybe we’re not as bad as the libs and the chuds on this but that’s not a valid measuring stick. Come on.
Not dismissing our indifference over the support of Ukraine after no support has ever been given to us as “whataboutism” or telling me that it’s not the right time to worry about xyz. That’s not to say anyone here is guilty of such, but I believe the majority of white American liberals outside of here consider themselves “leftist” and ask the same question.
I think it’s incredible that what made me stop having a baseline level of respect and trust for white people is seeing them dehumanize another group of white people in real time and advocate for nuclear war. Partly because the same language and tactics have been used against us in the past. It’s like these people buried it deep down their brain and now have an excuse to pull back the tropes without the fear of being called racist.
I never understood this sentiment. Yes it’s annoying to repeat myself, especially if it’s in response to some bad faith asshole. But if it’s some white guy who’s genuinely curious about what I believe then I have no problem explaining it
People used to laugh at me when I said that if the US ever went to war with China, it would not hesitate to put Chinese Americans in camps.
Many of them stopped laughing in 2022.
some points about Germany's racism history
I would like to expand on that a bit. The thing is that from a German perspective - so CW - (and that of plenty racism and othering/group based hate theories, and historical anti-slav racism) they aren't "another group of white people", as the criteria is often factually one of power dynamics.
In Germany before the second world war in the non-materialist parts of society there often was a fiction of a Russian, a Russian soul, about Slavs etc. during the second world war due to the genocidal policies of the Nazis one of the largest groups of victims were Slavs. After the end of the second world war the differentiation between ethnic groups within Eastern Europe from the Central European perspective was not that relevant. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Germanies reunification, the EU eastward expansion you had countries in the East which were dominated by poor economic situations, with it you had plenty of economic and further exploitation in regards to them, especially when people would try to get income or refuge in Germany. This meant that for years racisms were at work that connected to anti slav sentiments. Of course discrimination against precarious marginalized work migrants i.e. from Italians, Turkish hiring were even before 1990 common. This changed with time slightly, but especially in situations in which skin color markers are used to assign others the status of the other and was connected with for example anti muslim, anti arab, anti palestine, anti jewish ideas etc. it is still more prevalent.
I wrote this to give some more perspective from Germany's history. I would like to mention that the concept of "white people" doesn't really work so well transferred from the US perspective as the everyday racism within "white people" work slightly different ("whiteness" still works well, though). For plenty of colonialism related things it is a really fitting concept even within Germany, though.
CW excursion genocide against the Ovaherero and Nama
In 1904-1908 Germany as colonial power unleashed a genocide within a colony in which the aforementioned "white people"/whiteness and racism work well explanatory. Due to the genocide against BIPoC groups in ethnic extermination processes up to hundred thousands were killed, often in camps, virtually indiscriminate in terms of age or gender.
In 2006 there were still streets named after the military commander execution those killings. Successes in the continued political struggle of remembrance are slow. If you are interested in that topic the texts by Israel, one of the speakers of relevant actors, are well worth a read.
Which of course supports your point though, that
is what happened. But it is in continuity with historical ways and anti russian and anti slav sentiments that are commonly established are in work, too. In the 90s I remember reading a newspaper article in which a doctor was writing about refugees from the former Soviet Union and how many are faking illness, even though
CW
"Russians experiences less pain, but are prone to faking things to game the system"
which is a continuation of Nazi thought that became luckily more rare, now that the professors at medical schools aren't people educated in Nazi Germany anymore.
For competitions sake I would like to also mention Romnja and Sintezza (some prefer in English the term gypsy, others don't like that term) and the anti-ziganist racism against them, who are PoC and whose discrimination continued in West Germany by the same people who were executing the Pojaromos.
It was hard to highlight anti-polish and anti-slav sentiments even within the Left in Germany in the 90s post reunification, but especially within the left liberals. Race (the English term) was often put below the economic conditions and put below the main contradiction of capitalism we had to work against.
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