[Peace-discuss] race and AWARE

[Ricky Baldwin]

I read Muata's letter and the responses
day-before-yesterday morning for the first time, and
my first reaction was disappointment.  I had really
hoped that our discussions about racism were heading
in a productive direction, and maybe they still are. 
Maybe it's a phase we have to go thru.  I don't know. 
I think Muata makes some good points, but he's wrong
on others – who isn't?  I think his frustration is
understandable.  If you know me, you know that I get
frustrated, too, and probably for less reason.

But, in thinking about his letter in general way, I
remembered most of all my own first several years of
political awakening in rural Mississippi when no group
or movement under the sun seemed to measure up to my
ideological expectations.  At first I would not join
any of them, because none was perfect.  Then I
realized I was caught in what MLK called "the
paralysis of analysis," and that there were some evils
on the earth so egregious that I could no longer stand
aside, keeping my hands clean until I found the purest
cause.  I joined the local anti-apartheid movement. 
It was black-led, multiracial, and, well,
life-changing.  I joined the union at my workplace,
which was all three of these things again.  I joined
other groups whose goals I shared, in spite of
differences here and there.  Maybe I got a little
carried away, but I wouldn't trade those experiences
for the world.  

At the beginning I was usually pleasantly surprised to
find the people more "aware" than I had expected.  I
learned a lot I hadn't known, and talking to the
others, I often discovered that they, too, shared the
reservations I had about the narrow focus of the
group.  At least some did.  Some decidedly did not. 
But gradually, after much discussion, many outbursts,
and a great deal of soul-searching and listening,
trial and error, I came to the conclusion that I
shouldn't expect any group or movement to be all
things to all sentient beings – but to the extent that
the various groups could work together, "we" could
have the next best thing.  Plus, getting groups to
work together had the added benefit of dodging the
interminable philosophical debates over identity,
priority, dilution of purpose, etc.  Some people even
started to come around once they worked on a coalition
project.

(Aside:  There's an incredible conversion narrative
titled "Why I Quit The Klan" in an old issue of
Southern Exposure by an ex-Klansman who found himself
forced to work closely on a project of mutual concern
with the local civil rights leader, just the two of
them.  It's an extreme case, but a valuable lesson
that applies broadly, in my opinion.)

So I spent a decade or more concentrating on building
coalitions: the Black Student Union and NOW, NOW and
my union, environmentalists and labor, etc.  And,
honestly, I found this coalition building the most
frustrating, depressing, discouraging, maddening
aspect of the frustrating life of an
activist/organizer/whatever.  I could have shot myself
sometimes.  The failures were spectacular: for
example, the aborted alliance between Mississippi NOW
and Mississippi Right to Life in opposition to
"welfare reform".  (Don't laugh!)  But those few real
successes, as in progressive/left movements generally,
made it so much more than worth it.

Well, that's a very long, self-indulgent way of saying
I feel some kinship with what Muata is saying, but I
also think the situation isn't as hopeless as he
suggests.  I could be wrong, of course.  My own
experiences may be clouding my sight too much.  But I
honestly believe that the best hope for making a
better world is not in finding a group or groups that
'measure up' somehow, but in finding those people who
are open to working people with other priorities, and
bringing them together.  It means letting go of a
little self-respect (in more useful ways than we
sometimes do it), dropping our guard a bit, and taking
some risks.  But the alternative is to become an
insular clubhouse of like-minded, similar-looking
individuals who meet once in awhile to congratulate
ourselves on our superior knowledge and understanding
– while the world goes to hell in a handbasket.

Personally, I think AWARE is a great group with some
incredible people, and it has accomplished more than I
dreamed it could in a short amount of time.  It does
have some serious failings, tho.  For one, the mere
thought of race and racism is absent from almost
everything we do.  The seriousness of this, in my
opinion, goes far beyond the question of whether our
name is misleading.  Racism is one of the biggest
divides in American society, still, and a major
impediment to organizing against war or any injustice
– it's like a tall barbed wire fence that we ignore
and therefore remain on one side of (even if we, in
our hearts, believe someone should tear it down). 
That is to say, what we are about is getting people
together, and that effort is greatly impaired because
we haven't built the necessary bridges in this area
(and a few others).

Moreover, whatever the real reasons or the reasons
given, racism is the great (mostly) unspoken
justification for most late-modern wars.  It was
usually articulated as a justification in past wars,
and now more people than we'd like to believe still
articulate it as their reasons for supporting this
war, and the next, and the next.  Millions more who do
not articulate it are nevertheless moved by it, it
seems to me.  It is therefore essential, not just
important, that any anti-war movement address racism
head on and in an integral way.  Not just in word, but
in deed.  Some groups in the US have done so, or
partly done so.  AWARE has not.

In my opinion, anti-racist statements in our
literature and more representatives of communities of
color are not really the solutions, although they are
a start.  A separate pamphlet dealing with racism,
while other pamphlets don't mention it at all, is
certainly not good enough.  And a sentence or two here
or there that says, and by the way, we think racism is
bad, too, is also not the answer.  At the very least,
ideas about racism need to be part of our analysis of
war itself: all the polls say blacks were less
supportive of the Iraq war than whites – for reasons
that need exploring – and many whites saw it and see
it as a "clash of cultures" (code for "race war" in
many minds).  That's why it was so easy.  Etc.  But
more important than all this, and more urgently in my
opinion, we need to build coalitions with groups a
that have compatible agendas that deal with race,
locally or internationally.  I know that, for all my
talk about how hard I've worked on this very project
in the past, it has not been my function in AWARE, so
I am not pointing fingers – but I believe this goal is
long overdue.  It is also not too late to start.

It's a big problem that will never be solved by email
discussions, but I thought I'd throw in my two cents
and change (maybe $1.50 by now – sorry).  I don't know
if I will make the working group tonight, but I hope
there are some concrete suggestions that come out of
it – so it can be discussed at the AWARE meeting (like
P4P was, or the Farmers' Mkt is) – and so we can get
going on it.  AWARE always does so much better when we
are working together on a project than when we are
arguing about priorities, it seems to me.  Maybe that
just me.  But I think there's a reason for it, if
anyone's still reading.  I think it's because AWARE is
and always has been the kind of place where people
with different ideologies – Marxist, anarchist,
liberal, progressive, Christian, atheist, Jewish,
Muslim, Buddhist, etc. – can work together on matters
of common concern.  I think that's an excellent model,
and I think we need to extend it.  Here's hoping we
can.

Ricky


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