I look at it like this. The book is correct until it isn’t. If you’re a white worker settler, do what you gotta do to help prove Sakai wrong. Obviously to prove Sakai wrong would be to have the whole of white workers to overturn white supremacy and play reparations and surrender power to nonwhite revolutionaries and the colonized.
If you’re a white worker settler, do what you gotta do to help prove Sakai wrong.
What even is a modern settler? Modern white Statesians did not come from Europe, they are born in USA. In the same vein there are black Statesians who reject the term “African American,” because they are not born in Africa, and they have very little in common with Africans.
Obviously to prove Sakai wrong would be to have the whole of white workers to overturn white supremacy and play reparations and surrender power to nonwhite revolutionaries and the colonized.
Racism is not intrinsic to skin color. It’s ideology. How did China manage to fight Han chauvinism when Han people are 92% of the population? Because there was an organized movement fighting against it instead of saying “Han people are enemies of the revolution because they want to preserve their privilege,” and just leaving it like that.
White people continue to benefit from their hegemony. A not insignificant number of politicians and wealthy Americans can trace their lineage directly back to slave owners. White people still benefit from preferential hiring practices (in a place with no social safety nets where jobs dictate how well you do in life). American businesses benefit from exploitation of third world countries and use a small chunk of their superprofits to bribe workers into becoming Labor Aristocrats. Police still disproportionately murder and imprison people of color, and protests about this condition continue to get little support from white people. Native Americans continue to get very little support against state oppression, and the Supreme Court recently ruled that Reservations are now in the jurisdiction of States rather than being separate entities. News companies have very little trouble convincing people of conspiracy theories and the efficacy of proxy wars so long as it theoretically leads to material benefits for their readership. Roe v Wade has been repositioned as a win for the white race by conservatives. There’s the run-of-the-mill stochaistic violence rooted in Great Replacement conspiracies in particular. You can even point to the establishment of AUKUS (or AUSCANNZUKUS) to the exclusion of other European countries as a form of Anglo supremacy. These countries form an ethnic military bloc.
The United States is most energetic and cunning in promoting neo-colonialism. With this weapon, the U.S. imperialists are trying hard to grab the colonies and spheres of influence of other imperialists and to establish world domination.
This neo-colonialism is a more pernicious and sinister form of colonialism.
We would like to ask the leaders of the CPSU, under such circumstances how can it be said that the abolition of colonial rule has already entered the “final phase”?
In trying to bolster up such falsehoods, the leaders of the CPSU have the temerity to seek help from the 1960 Statement. They say, does not the 1960 Statement mention the vigorous process of disintegration of the colonial system? But this thesis about the rapid disintegration of old colonialism cannot possibly help their argument about the disappearance of colonialism. The Statement clearly points out that “the United States is the mainstay of colonialism today”, that “the imperialists, headed by the U.S.A., make desperate efforts to preserve colonial exploitation of the peoples of the former colonies by new methods and in new forms” and that they “try to retain their hold on the levers of economic control and political influence in Asian, African and Latin American countries”. In these phrases the Statement exposes just what the leadership of the CPSU is trying so hard to cover up.
The leaders of the CPSU have also created the theory that the national liberation movement has entered upon a “new stage” having economic tasks as its core. Their argument is that, whereas “formerly, the struggle was carried on mainly in the political sphere”, today the economic question has become the “central task” and “the basic link in the further development of the revolution”.
The national liberation movement has entered a new stage. But this is by no means the kind of “new stage” described by the leadership of the CPSU. In the new stage, the level of political consciousness of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples has risen higher than ever and the revolutionary movement is surging forward with unprecedented intensity. They urgently demand the thorough elimination of the forces of imperialism and its lackeys in their own countries and strive for complete political and economic independence. The primary and most urgent task facing these countries is still the further development of the struggle against imperialism, old and new colonialism, and their lackeys. This struggle is still being waged fiercely in the political, economic, military, cultural, ideological and other spheres. And the struggles in all these spheres still find their most concentrated expression in political struggle, which often unavoidably develops into armed struggle when the imperialists resort to direct or indirect armed suppression. It is important for the newly independent countries to develop their independent economy. But this task must never be separated from the struggle against imperialism, old and new colonialism, and their lackeys.
Like “the disappearance of colonialism”, this theory of a “new stage” advocated by the leaders of the CPSU is clearly intended to whitewash the aggression against and plunder of Asia, Africa and Latin America by neo-colonialism, as represented by the United States, to cover up the sharp contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations and to paralyse the revolutionary struggle of the people of these continents.
And in Settlers, Sakai goes over the various instances where white people repositioned labor movements for their own benefit at the expense of other groups. I don’t know how you could view any of this as not an attempt to uphold the hegemonic power of white people in the West.
And in Settlers, Sakai goes over the various instances where white people repositioned labor movements for their own benefit at the expense of other groups. I don’t know how you could view any of this as not an attempt to uphold the hegemonic power of white people in the West.
You are correct, there is a systematic effort not only to push white supremacist ideology in the West, but to materialize it by all means, not only in the US. It is the case for Latin American countries as well. But behind this effort lies a major political interest, like comrade @muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml brilliantly stated:
The main thesis of settlers stands, that is proven thoroughly throughout, is that the US perfected a system of socialized bribery that allowed a minority of capitalists and slave-owners to recruit white settlers from europe, to form a settler garrison in the US, and gain from the genocide and conquering of hundreds of Indian tribes, and to steal the country from coast to coast, in a phase of orgiastic primitive accumulation.
This is why I think Settlers is a valid work, even though I disagree with its main thesis, or rather, its conclusion. This is a very correct understanding of why white supremacy is promoted so intensely in the US through many forms. But if anyone reads Silvia Federici’s work Caliban and the witch, which is an outstanding work that every Marxist should read to understand the gender question (even though she pokes at Marxism here and then), you will notice there is a systematic effort to promote male supremacy as well.
Indeed, the first paragraph you’ve written can also mostly apply not only to white people but also men:
Men continue to benefit from their hegemony. A not insignificant number of politicians and wealthy Americans are men. Men still benefit from preferential hiring practices (in a place with no social safety nets where jobs dictate how well you do in life). Men still disproportionately assault women, and protests about this condition continue to get little support from them. Roe v Wade has been repositioned as a win for men by conservatives. (…)
I brought this to attention so that the thesis of Settlers can be extended to its ultimate consequences. The thesis which I refer to is that it is impossible to conquest the alliance of white people, and that it is ultimately a fruitless effort to do so (even though the Rainbow Coalition, which challenged white supremacy, concretely proved otherwise). Should that be extended to men as well? We all live under a patriarchal system which benefits men (in comparison to women) and that serves as reproduction of capitalism. Should we give up advocating for gender solidarity because it is ultimately a fruitless effort since men tend to be chauvinistic assholes, even though they are 50% of the population? I leave that as food for thought.
But very well, I happen to have an agreement with Settlers idea that the white identity was created to serve as the spearhead of the imperialist-colonialist weapon. But what does J. Sakai propose as practice? Taking into consideration J. Sakai’s work, what is the objective of Marxists-Leninists revolutionaries to organize a revolution without white people? How would that be accomplished? Where to begin?
As I said in my response to aworldtowin, Sakai’s thesis is not that white people can’t be radicalized, his thesis is that it’s extremely difficult. White people are proletarians, and are still oppressed, and in some instances can be aware of that oppression. The issue is in deconstructing the culture of hegemony enabling their tendency toward Labor Aristocracy.
Sakai promotes the idea of totally destroying the concept of the United States, because it can only exist as a Settler Colonial project. A lot of white socialists see this proposition as white erasure which is really telling on themselves if they see the concept of America as equivalent to white people. Emilien Petit would be proud if they were French instead of Anglos.
The task of laying out what should replace the US is not a the responsibility of Sakai though, he doesn’t aim to be Lenin. That task should be up to the communist parties instead. His only suggestion for said parties is that, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, they should not make any attempts to rehabilitate America or Americanism; because while the initial boost in numbers is attractive, that liberalism and patriotism will eventually cause the party to betray its own values and be consumed by the reactionary tendencies of the majority of its members. Instead there has to be a policy of educating members away from Americanism and white supremacy as quickly as possible such that they don’t become weak links who won’t see the movement through to the end. There are numerous examples in the book showing that this eventuality isn’t just possible but is likely. Americanism is just foundationally too destructive to be useful. It’s like the Demon Core that gives everyone who touches it radiation poisoning.
I do appreciate the shoutout to Silvia Federici though, which is why I think any good movement should have an intersectional character to it, but it doesn’t feel like a lot of lemmygrad people are quite ready to talk about that yet. We don’t seem to have many women in the userbase (and tbh, site culture needs a little bit of TLC to even be attractive to women). In a similar vein to the race issue, men aren’t inherently reactionary, but educating men out of reactionary and sexist tendencies is a lot harder and it would help if men recognized this. Even well-established parties and orgs have issues with sexual abuse and patriarchal posturing among their male members (some of whom turn out to be Feds). Addressing that isn’t impossible, but it does mean that women and queer people, and especially victims of sexual assault in these orgs need to be taken more seriously in their criticisms and suggestions.
As I said in my response to aworldtowin, Sakai’s thesis is not that white people can’t be radicalized, his thesis is that it’s extremely difficult. White people are proletarians, and are still oppressed, and in some instances can be aware of that oppression.
I’m sorry, you are not describing Sakai’s points. I agree with your points, but these are not Sakai’s. Even in the title Sakai makes it very clear: Settlers: the mythology of the white proletariat
I do appreciate the shoutout to Silvia Federici though, which is why I think any good movement should have an intersectional character to it, but it doesn’t feel like a lot of lemmygrad people are quite ready to talk about that yet.
Oh please, comrade. If you think Lemmygrad people are not ready, it’s just more reason for you to talk about it. I agree with your views wholeheartedly. For years I was a male chauvinist myself, and there’s absolute need for revolutionaries to fight the male patriarchal subjectivity, just as much as the white supremacist subjectivity.
I agree with the propositions of your comment, comrade, but I feel like we’ve read two different books.
I think we might have interpreted it differently for sort of personal reasons. I’m not a particularly good person, I don’t think, so I’m used to being told to check myself. I don’t think that’s an indictment that I’m incapable of change, just that I’ve done stuff that I need to learn from. If I refused to recognize those things, however, it would make me pretty unappealing to be around. The list of things white socialists have done in the US seems pretty damning, but not impossible to recover from. And imo Settlers is the only marxist book really asking white socialists to check themselves without going at it from an anarchist or liberal perspective.
Speaking as a white, male, cis gendered, heterosexual the way I see it is if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem. If white men want to read theory and really (I mean on a deep, visceral level) understand the struggles of the oppressed that’s good. Do all that stuff, join a movement or party, engage in praxis, fine. However, white people need to sit down and take a backseat when it comes to defining party lines, organizing tactics, determining what viewpoints are centered, prioritising who gets help etc. If you’re not willing to do that then you’re one of the people Sakai is talking about in the book and you probably can’t be trusted to do the real work of building socialism in an organising space.
Socialists in the Imperial Core aren’t going to be able to deprogram 90% of the white settler establishment. Focus on working with the 10% that doesn’t want to put you in a camp. After the revolution socialists will have to rely on education programs and a strong proletarian militia to do the work of fixing the deeply broken society they inherited.
Socialists in the Imperial Core aren’t going to be able to deprogram 90% of the white settler establishment.
I feel this too. I’ve had those “dinner table conversations” with my fox-news watching family countless times, and after painstaking hours I can get them to agree that mayyyybe immigrants aren’t the problem, and the rich are at fault. Next time I visit home, all that’s erased: they’re back to hating immigrants again. The propaganda machinery plays a big role, but IMO the social bribery plays the biggest factor. White workers don’t need to ally with immigrants or imperialized peoples, because their bourgeiosie has already guaranteed them a stable lifestyle, and has always been their ally. Politics just becomes a “choose-your-own-adventure” story, or a team sport, not anything that affects you materially.
Agreed. I certainly don’t think my white supremacist, “right to work but still in a union” father is going to change after 60 years of being submerged in the bullshit.
It’s fine.
I look at it like this. The book is correct until it isn’t. If you’re a white worker settler, do what you gotta do to help prove Sakai wrong. Obviously to prove Sakai wrong would be to have the whole of white workers to overturn white supremacy and play reparations and surrender power to nonwhite revolutionaries and the colonized.
It’s a tall order. But it isnt impossible.
What even is a modern settler? Modern white Statesians did not come from Europe, they are born in USA. In the same vein there are black Statesians who reject the term “African American,” because they are not born in Africa, and they have very little in common with Africans.
Racism is not intrinsic to skin color. It’s ideology. How did China manage to fight Han chauvinism when Han people are 92% of the population? Because there was an organized movement fighting against it instead of saying “Han people are enemies of the revolution because they want to preserve their privilege,” and just leaving it like that.
deleted by creator
How so? I would love if you elaborate further.
White people continue to benefit from their hegemony. A not insignificant number of politicians and wealthy Americans can trace their lineage directly back to slave owners. White people still benefit from preferential hiring practices (in a place with no social safety nets where jobs dictate how well you do in life). American businesses benefit from exploitation of third world countries and use a small chunk of their superprofits to bribe workers into becoming Labor Aristocrats. Police still disproportionately murder and imprison people of color, and protests about this condition continue to get little support from white people. Native Americans continue to get very little support against state oppression, and the Supreme Court recently ruled that Reservations are now in the jurisdiction of States rather than being separate entities. News companies have very little trouble convincing people of conspiracy theories and the efficacy of proxy wars so long as it theoretically leads to material benefits for their readership. Roe v Wade has been repositioned as a win for the white race by conservatives. There’s the run-of-the-mill stochaistic violence rooted in Great Replacement conspiracies in particular. You can even point to the establishment of AUKUS (or AUSCANNZUKUS) to the exclusion of other European countries as a form of Anglo supremacy. These countries form an ethnic military bloc.
The fact is: you can walk into any white-picket fence suburb and see how white people disproportionately benefit from neocolonialism in the global south
And in Settlers, Sakai goes over the various instances where white people repositioned labor movements for their own benefit at the expense of other groups. I don’t know how you could view any of this as not an attempt to uphold the hegemonic power of white people in the West.
You are correct, there is a systematic effort not only to push white supremacist ideology in the West, but to materialize it by all means, not only in the US. It is the case for Latin American countries as well. But behind this effort lies a major political interest, like comrade @muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml brilliantly stated:
This is why I think Settlers is a valid work, even though I disagree with its main thesis, or rather, its conclusion. This is a very correct understanding of why white supremacy is promoted so intensely in the US through many forms. But if anyone reads Silvia Federici’s work Caliban and the witch, which is an outstanding work that every Marxist should read to understand the gender question (even though she pokes at Marxism here and then), you will notice there is a systematic effort to promote male supremacy as well.
Indeed, the first paragraph you’ve written can also mostly apply not only to white people but also men:
I brought this to attention so that the thesis of Settlers can be extended to its ultimate consequences. The thesis which I refer to is that it is impossible to conquest the alliance of white people, and that it is ultimately a fruitless effort to do so (even though the Rainbow Coalition, which challenged white supremacy, concretely proved otherwise). Should that be extended to men as well? We all live under a patriarchal system which benefits men (in comparison to women) and that serves as reproduction of capitalism. Should we give up advocating for gender solidarity because it is ultimately a fruitless effort since men tend to be chauvinistic assholes, even though they are 50% of the population? I leave that as food for thought.
But very well, I happen to have an agreement with Settlers idea that the white identity was created to serve as the spearhead of the imperialist-colonialist weapon. But what does J. Sakai propose as practice? Taking into consideration J. Sakai’s work, what is the objective of Marxists-Leninists revolutionaries to organize a revolution without white people? How would that be accomplished? Where to begin?
As I said in my response to aworldtowin, Sakai’s thesis is not that white people can’t be radicalized, his thesis is that it’s extremely difficult. White people are proletarians, and are still oppressed, and in some instances can be aware of that oppression. The issue is in deconstructing the culture of hegemony enabling their tendency toward Labor Aristocracy.
Sakai promotes the idea of totally destroying the concept of the United States, because it can only exist as a Settler Colonial project. A lot of white socialists see this proposition as white erasure which is really telling on themselves if they see the concept of America as equivalent to white people. Emilien Petit would be proud if they were French instead of Anglos.
The task of laying out what should replace the US is not a the responsibility of Sakai though, he doesn’t aim to be Lenin. That task should be up to the communist parties instead. His only suggestion for said parties is that, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, they should not make any attempts to rehabilitate America or Americanism; because while the initial boost in numbers is attractive, that liberalism and patriotism will eventually cause the party to betray its own values and be consumed by the reactionary tendencies of the majority of its members. Instead there has to be a policy of educating members away from Americanism and white supremacy as quickly as possible such that they don’t become weak links who won’t see the movement through to the end. There are numerous examples in the book showing that this eventuality isn’t just possible but is likely. Americanism is just foundationally too destructive to be useful. It’s like the Demon Core that gives everyone who touches it radiation poisoning.
I do appreciate the shoutout to Silvia Federici though, which is why I think any good movement should have an intersectional character to it, but it doesn’t feel like a lot of lemmygrad people are quite ready to talk about that yet. We don’t seem to have many women in the userbase (and tbh, site culture needs a little bit of TLC to even be attractive to women). In a similar vein to the race issue, men aren’t inherently reactionary, but educating men out of reactionary and sexist tendencies is a lot harder and it would help if men recognized this. Even well-established parties and orgs have issues with sexual abuse and patriarchal posturing among their male members (some of whom turn out to be Feds). Addressing that isn’t impossible, but it does mean that women and queer people, and especially victims of sexual assault in these orgs need to be taken more seriously in their criticisms and suggestions.
I’m sorry, you are not describing Sakai’s points. I agree with your points, but these are not Sakai’s. Even in the title Sakai makes it very clear: Settlers: the mythology of the white proletariat
Oh please, comrade. If you think Lemmygrad people are not ready, it’s just more reason for you to talk about it. I agree with your views wholeheartedly. For years I was a male chauvinist myself, and there’s absolute need for revolutionaries to fight the male patriarchal subjectivity, just as much as the white supremacist subjectivity.
I agree with the propositions of your comment, comrade, but I feel like we’ve read two different books.
I think we might have interpreted it differently for sort of personal reasons. I’m not a particularly good person, I don’t think, so I’m used to being told to check myself. I don’t think that’s an indictment that I’m incapable of change, just that I’ve done stuff that I need to learn from. If I refused to recognize those things, however, it would make me pretty unappealing to be around. The list of things white socialists have done in the US seems pretty damning, but not impossible to recover from. And imo Settlers is the only marxist book really asking white socialists to check themselves without going at it from an anarchist or liberal perspective.
Speaking as a white, male, cis gendered, heterosexual the way I see it is if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem. If white men want to read theory and really (I mean on a deep, visceral level) understand the struggles of the oppressed that’s good. Do all that stuff, join a movement or party, engage in praxis, fine. However, white people need to sit down and take a backseat when it comes to defining party lines, organizing tactics, determining what viewpoints are centered, prioritising who gets help etc. If you’re not willing to do that then you’re one of the people Sakai is talking about in the book and you probably can’t be trusted to do the real work of building socialism in an organising space.
Socialists in the Imperial Core aren’t going to be able to deprogram 90% of the white settler establishment. Focus on working with the 10% that doesn’t want to put you in a camp. After the revolution socialists will have to rely on education programs and a strong proletarian militia to do the work of fixing the deeply broken society they inherited.
I feel this too. I’ve had those “dinner table conversations” with my fox-news watching family countless times, and after painstaking hours I can get them to agree that mayyyybe immigrants aren’t the problem, and the rich are at fault. Next time I visit home, all that’s erased: they’re back to hating immigrants again. The propaganda machinery plays a big role, but IMO the social bribery plays the biggest factor. White workers don’t need to ally with immigrants or imperialized peoples, because their bourgeiosie has already guaranteed them a stable lifestyle, and has always been their ally. Politics just becomes a “choose-your-own-adventure” story, or a team sport, not anything that affects you materially.
Agreed. I certainly don’t think my white supremacist, “right to work but still in a union” father is going to change after 60 years of being submerged in the bullshit.
deleted by creator
Okay