I don’t endorse Sam’s words that people should move–in the current economic crisis, moving to places like Portland, Seattle, San Francisco is a bad idea (very high unemployment) and most people there don’t want you, especially if you don’t come with your own set income. There are a lot of local solutions that should be advanced where people are.

That rural people should move to where the food is, is pretty funny. Or that anyone in a city should hop on public transit like he does to shop. You know, many millions of people live under dire circumstances. They have no job or they are underemployed, or they are sick or disabled, the can’t afford to move, their car’s a clunker, or they have no car, they have no gas money, they live paycheck to paycheck when there are paychecks at all, they are caretakers of others, rents and mortgages are far higher in amenity neighborhoods, and life just gets harder as one gets older.

Or to really get real, how many cities have the transit systems that match that of Seattle? In most cities in America, once rush hour is over it may be more than an hour’s wait for the next bus – or you might need two buses. Try that after a day of work. Try shopping for 4 or 5 people by bus after work. Try lugging a half dozen or more grocery bags to the bus stop – negotiating that trip, and then lugging the bags from bus to home. Do that on a repetitive basis – and then see how appealing a near-to-home KFC starts to look. Especially compared to Whole Paycheck prices at Whole Foods.

It’s been a century since Jacob Riis told us ‘How the Other Half Lives.’ And we still have people – much more often than not, white people – who still subscribe to the notion of people picking themselves up by their bootstraps.

So you aren’t denying your connection, you’re just justifying it. Whiteness has become the ‘oppressive power’ in your mind. Since this is the case, you look to the ‘defining voice’ without considering how your voice defines the outcome. You also operate on the assumption that ‘whiteness’ is the power of the EU, as if the EU was a coherent body made up of allies. If you define the outcome using racial distinctions, you are by all comprehensible standards, a racist.

cheers

I’m not claiming there is a universal “White” person. I’m talking about power. And when we talk about white people we are locating racial power. Because, while race does not exist, race ideas do. And they are powerful. And they are wielded by whiteness. That’s why when you talk about Turkey jockeying for entry in the EU, we see a re-racializing happening, a “positive” self racializing. In the case of Turkey, it is carried out by positioning themselves closer to whiteness, by pushing others down on the imaginary racial hierarchy. This *is* whiteness. What David Roediger calls working for the “Wages of Whiteness”.

But on the ideological race hierarchy, imperialist Europe is a stronger defining voice, and it is that power base that shapes the Turkish EU race maneuvering. And most Turks are still marginalized and oppressed racially in Europe.

Anyway… signing off for the night. Thanks for the discussion, I appreciate your thoughts and think your cautions are important.

I understand you more and more. You are trying to equate ‘whiteness’ with the ‘dominating impulse’. You are an absolute fool for doing so. You are engaging in racial (colour coded) labeling. You are equating ‘power’ with ‘whiteness’ as if those in power, regardless of colour (you should appreciate such sentiments as a ‘progressive’) were always ‘white’ and thus easily distinguishable.

In doing so, you actually reaffirm ‘colour’ as the dominant factor in judgment. You reaffirm the racist impulse.

Hue, thanks for joining in.

But, I think you are ignoring what’s been said. In fact, the term ‘other’ was popularized through academia; mainly jewish studies. I do not deny the ‘otherness’ of those who have been persecuted, but you continue to connect this to ‘whiteness’ and separate it from its actual use. The ‘Jews’ are white and ‘western’ and largely involved in ‘racism’, but within the ‘english context’ they qualify as ‘others’… imagine a ‘Chinese’ (white) ‘Canadian’ ‘Christian’ (white) trying to emigrate to Israel…. who is the other in that situation? More importantly why does this ‘racialization’ occur again and again? and can one side really claim the ‘otherness’ the ‘purity’?

Again, I’m not trying to dismiss your claims, but you’re being careless. Turkey is trying to get into the EU. I know ‘urban planners’ who have traveled to Turkey to address the ‘gentrification’ that is ongoing there. They are currently kicking a large Gypsy community out of their neighbourhood, and the adverts that go along with the gentrification depict ‘dark featured’ people as the ‘before’ and blonde haired ‘western-style’ (your ‘white style’) people holding shopping bags as the ‘after.’

The same impulses occur worldwide… your attempts to connect them to race are contrary to your professed goals.

cheers

I’m loving the conversation and not as a correction to anything being said by Suthiano or postcap…

Those with the privilege (no matter how unrealized it may be) get away with not being the “other”. And not being directed at Suthiano at all (who could be anyone), but it always seems to be white progressives who complain about definitions when the marginalized (and of course not that postcap is a “other”) define themselves or the privileged- the latter who again get the benefit of not being anything other than “Not Black”, “Not Mexican”, “Not Chinese”. “Hey, we’re all part of the human race” is easier to say when you don’t have a boot on your neck and like Melvin Van Peeples said, “Can always cut your hair”.

Yes, I grasp this. But consider what you’re saying. Compare with the statement “When I talk about ‘browness’, I talk about irresponsibility, not some racial distinction.”

It is not controversial to say that there are people who are regularly called ‘brown’ who are ‘irresponsible’, but it is controversial (and irresponsible) to use the terms interchangeably.

How can you possibly separate ‘whiteness’ from race or identity? You’re pigeon holing people by using such colour-coded terminology.

It’s interesting that you choose Turkey and Peru as places for an example. It astonished me how negatively racialized Turks are in “White” europe. It happened again and again when I was in Germany that I’d meet young people who self identified as “revolutionaries” and “anti-racists” but made exceptions for “Turks” who they thought were “uncivilized” and “barbaric”. It came out of a profound Islamophobia. I know I can be silly, but it shocked me. As part of that, they also supported Israel because “Arabs are fascists”. The anti-imperialist left! Crazy no? Demonstrated to me the power of race ideas and where the center of that discourse lies… in Germany anti-anti-semitism is pro-settler anti-Palestinianism. Contorted, I know.

And in Argentina there is an intense racism against Peruvians and Bolivians. Wannabe-white Argentines point to Peru and Bolivia as “non-modern” / “uncivilized” nations to define themselves as an imaginary europe of the south. Again, this is done largely by racializing certain kinds of culture and eating.

Can you explain what you mean? I don’t understand.

I am not making claims of racial distinction. I think the categories of “racial distinction” are themselves constructions. The kind of seeing we do when we look at people is constructed by our experiences with explanations given us by powerful voices through our lives. But I’m afraid I’m misunderstanding you. And… what is a “white Turk / white Peruvian”?

When I talk about “Whiteness” I’m referring to a pretty specific Euro/US-ian race ideology and *not* “racial distinction.

Again, sorry if I’m misunderstanding.

This is not an argument. Everyone operates on the ‘assumption’ that they are the ‘centre’. It is inextricable from consciousness. In every culture that is the ‘Other’, they define the ‘majority’ (I assume that’s what establishes the ‘other’) as something different (goyim for example).

It’s actually required by any ‘value system’ to oppose such rhetoric. The rhetoric undermines the possibility of any values… “I value what other people value”… spoken even as the ‘other’ negates his own reality by submitting to any value other in accordance with submission. The only values that remain unacceptable are those that challenge the value of holding values… ‘diversity’ is undermined by becoming a universal cause; the ‘other’ holds contrary values, and yet they must be accepted over and above your own, in order to prove that they are not ‘other’.

You’re true in saying that “whiteness” is not a “race”…. in the sense that it is no way to define yourself. However, it is nonsense to say that “white” is not a “racial distinction”. I agree it is a “false” distinction, but that is the point; reactionary movements fail to recognize the role they play in buttressing the establishment. Do you think that a “white” Turk has much in common with a “white” Peruvian? Why even make the distinction? It’s only pointing to, and consequently reinforcing, the opposing argument?

chers

I’m identifying Sam within the power base of the racial discourse. Sam is defining Sam as “white” (in my opinion), or to use another, non-racial, metaphor, Sam defines Sam as the Center by defining the Other as the Margin.

Others eat “unethical” food. Sam is, therefore, ethical.

I was actually thinking a lot of how “White” workers on the “American” west coast defined themselves as “White” (and part of the white empire project) by constructing the “Chinese” racial container through behaviors and eating habits the racial center racialized “Chinese”.

If my angry rant came across as racialist, it was just because I was angry and I was taking too much for granted. That is a “progressive” trait; I’ll give you that.

I agree with 99% of your comment, but you’re yet another “progressive” who turns to racism as rhetoric. I’m not trying to exonerate anyone of their crimes, but think about things strategically; what do “progressives” gain by regressing to racial vocab? If you think that there’s actually something (beyond nurture) that defines “whiteness” then you are a racist by your own definition, and thus you reinforce the existing divisions. In other words, if you do think there’s a causal connection between “attitude” and the colour of your skin, then you’re only promoting racism and reinforcing your “enemy”.

cheers

Sam said:
“Well, stay where one is and starve then. I do not understand the “logic” here. What about water? Is one supposed to stay away from water too, if they don’t have any? Duh.”

And Sam said that they would only eat food from “a health food store which sells locally and organically grown produce/real food with nutrition. Preferably a “green” certified store that is a worker-owned co-op.”

Sam thinks that only “green”, “organic”, “locally grown” food bought from a “worker owned coop” is… what? Responsible? Ethical? Intelligent? Civilized?

This *is* a very “White” attitude Sam… especially in the context of a comments section of an article about colonialism. Why? No, not because of Sam’s particular tastes and class privileges about being able to choose what to eat from a broad range of conscious options. Sam is extending their tastes and class privileges as universal point of judgement of others. And Sam is blaming others for not “choosing” to make the same “choices”Sam makes. What does this mean? It means that Sam thinks we’re all born into an imaginary world where we can each draw our consciousness, tastes, geographies, eating habits, sexual proclivities (etc) from a list like santa claus. Only the “intelligent”, “responsible”, “ethical”, “civilized” ones like Sam make the “intelligent”, “responsible”, “ethical”, “civilized” choices that Sam has made and makes. Sam’s devotion to Sam’s choices is proof further of Sam’s great traits in making “correct” choices.

Sam. Come on. It’s a fucking article about colonization. Who has the highest level of diabetes in the “America”? Colonized people who eat “unethical” food. Who gets poisoned by water in the “America”? Colonized people who drink “bad” water. Why? Because their geographical position was organized against them by colonial regimes. Because their water was poisoned by colonial corporations stealing their resources. Because their horrendous poverty, depression, abuse, suicide rates, murders, were organized by a colonial administration that STILL operates under the maxim “the only good indian is a dead indian.” The organization of the oppressive colonial apparatus is so efficient now that it is nearly invisible and the colonizers don’t have to talk about “good/dead indians” anymore. Now the colonizers talk like you, Sam.

But they have CHOICE right? So “why don’t they just leave” for Sam’s city? Sam is suggesting that Indigenous people abandon the lands they stand on and defend and fight for as positions of anti-colonial claim so they can be “ethical” with their “food choices”. And Sam is suggesting that if they do not do what Sam says that they are irresponsible. Unethical. (etc) Sam thinks that if Indigenous people “choose” to “stay” (motionless apparently) on reservations or small poor towns (or in poor areas in cities) then “they” deserve to starve and die. Good colonial drive you got Sam. Assimilate to the new white liberal code of food ethics, or die. Very good.

Today I heard on the radio that one in six US-ians are hungry. And Sam wants them to go to “Worker Owned Coops” in cities that Sam wants them to move to. Sam thinks all these millions of people are all those bad things Sam imply with Sam’s glorious self inflation.

And you too “Lichen” (hilarious by the way… you’re a cartoon character): no body asked you for your “absolvement”. Who do you people think you are?