[Peace-discuss] race and AWARE

[Morton K.Brussel]

Thanks, Ricky, for a useful, constructive, and stimulating discussion. 
It stimulated a few reactions:

1) To critique is not necessarily to be against. I think, therefore I 
critique (apologies to Descartes), even those that I want to support. 
The objects of a critique ought to understand this, especially in a 
group like AWARE.
2) The activist's question is usually not what ought to be done, but 
how to do it, not so much ends as means. People often favor different 
means (of action) to achieve a common desired end result. Obvious?
3) I have problems with the words "race" and "racism". For me, the 
problems associated with race are really problems of the "other", those 
who don't belong to your "club", whose membership is variously defined. 
It is a much larger problem than that of skin color. I could go into 
this in greater detail if anyone were interested. On the other hand, 
the "color" problem in the USA is perhaps our biggest internal "other" 
problem, most particularly with regard to Afro-Americans, American 
Indians, and Hispanics. It has multifaceted aspects/reasons for 
persisting: economic, class, historic, tradition, ignorance, etc.
4) Not everything on the world stage is predominantly about "race". 
Economics and  geopolitics play important roles. So to conflate "race" 
with all the problems or conflicts of our times, e.g., the war in Iraq, 
is to muddy the waters. Certainly, there are connections—race is used 
to divide peoples, but it is not (always) the determining reason for 
the conflicts. That people are contemptuous of far off (or even next 
door) lives is a problem of the "other", of jingoism, callousness, 
selfishness….
5) I admit to annoyance when someone demands that their oppression take 
precedence over all others. I understand and sympathize with their 
pain, but am not always sympathetic to their reasoning. There are other 
urgent issues: the threat of nuclear war, or the recent and ongoing 
wars, from Aceh to the Congo to Iraq. The race issue here and elsewhere 
for me is a deep, secular, on-going, problem, and needs steady 
attention and activism, but at particular moments in time will not take 
precedence in everyone's minds. Similar kinds of issues are women's 
rights or the environment.
	Muata said he is running out of patience. Fine; he'll do what he feels 
he must, but he ought not to expect a similar reaction from everyone. 
Note, this is NOT to say that AWARE should not be more proactive in 
trying to attend to racial issues. People do what they think they can. 
The working group is, I hope, trying to formulate actions that can be 
taken in our name and promoting ideas to be considered by the whole 
group. Let the working group bring them forward to be discussed.
6) Your plea for tolerance, and working together with others aiming at 
the same goals, cannot be overestimated.

Mort

On Thursday, Jul 17, 2003, at 07:27 US/Central, Ricky Baldwin wrote:

> 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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Morton K. Brussel
2003 George Huff Drive
Urbana, Illinois, 61801-6203
Tel. 217 337-0118

Preferred email: brussel at uiuc.edu