Date: 14 Jun 00 12:10:21 CDT
Subject: Culture, race, and activism.



I'm writing this about both the anarchist movement and the 
"anti-globalization" movement in general (with an emphasis on youth
and student involvement) because I've heard the same question asked 
repeatedly in regards to both:

"Why aren't there more people of color in the [insert group/cause] 
 movement?"

Now, I happen to be a white male (although being Italian/Sicilian, I 
resent the term 'lily white'), but I have a few thoughts on this
that I haven't heard brought up.

Don't activists of color find it insulting when other activists say
things like 'why is the movement so white', or 'how can we bring
more people of color into the movement?'  Isn't that kind of ignoring
the presence of people of color who *are* in the movement?

Plus, the whole idea tends towards tokenism.  Maybe we shouldn't be 
questioning so much, and instead just focusing on doing.  The more
globalization touches people (and the nature of the beast is that
eventually it will effect just about everyone), the more reason people
will have to get involved.

Another thing I noticed: The Black Bloc in Seattle had a very good 
portion of females (it seemed as though they outnumbered black bloc 
males), whereas the black bloc in D.C. for A16 was much more diverse 
racially than Seattle, despite leaning more towards being more 
male-oriented.

But here's the deal:  Even though the racial diversity was there, the
cultural diversity wasn't.  The black bloc (and the anarchist movement
in general) is almost completely dominated by the punk culture.  Now,
this isn't a bad thing, personally I like a lot of punk ethics and 
ideals, and since the Latino punk movement is growing on the west coast 
and in Tijuana and elsewhere, I think that racial diversity will come 
with it.

But, maybe people shouldn't be focusing on making their movement 
more racially diverse, and instead focus on making it more culturally 
diverse.

My contention is that cultural inclusion will open things up to more 
racial inclusion.  Being a hacker/political-geek type person, I have
been in situations where I've been the minority in a group, racially, yet
I didn't feel alienated or threatened, simply because I was involved with
people who have similar interests and goals.

So back to punk.  A latino punk would probably feel a lot less alienated 
amongst a group of punk anarchists than a white candyraver with a 
teletubby backpack.  There are certain cultural groups that people 
identify with, even if they may not consider themselves that kind of 
person (I identify with punk a lot, but I am definitely not a punk), and 
if they find themselves in a group that they can't identify with, that's 
more alienating, I would think, than something like skin color.

I know that I've been in situations where I've been *totally* alienated 
because I was a working class community college student in the midst of a 
group of middle class university students.  This happened at a student 
meeting in D.C.  My affinity group consisted of two community college 
students, a union electrician in the middle of his apprenticeship, and a 
public high school student.  After about ten minutes of dealing with 
students from Wesleyan, Harvard, Princeton, etc., each one of them 
attempting to assume leadership of the meeting, my affinity group 
unanimously agreed to leave the group and go elsewhere.  A student of 
color from the University of Maryland (he was the only university student 
there who went to a public university) had a similar reaction.

We have plans in my area to possibly open up an infoshop, and one of 
the pitfalls that I don't want to fall into is catering only to the punk 
and hippy cultures.  Even if it's something as simple as having political 
flyers that are done in different styles (rave, hiphop, tagging, anime, 
etc), or not just having punk bands play, but inviting techno, hiphop, 
metal, etc. groups to play.

If a group or movement doesn't focus on cultural diversity, and only 
focuses on racial diversity, I don't think very much will be accomplished 
in either area.



--

 Michael Chisari         "Got a revolution behind my eyes, 
 mchisari-AT-usa.net         we got to get up and organize." 

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