Racism is NOT Black and White
JVL Introduction
A fascinating DoubleDownNews presentation by Gary Younge – writer, journalist, professor, activist and more – in which he moves from thinking about how we should understand race to thinking about what it means to be a radical activist today:
“Race never operates alone. It operation with a bunch of rogue characters – class, gender, sexual orientation, region, ability – it is one identity among many and actually to try to understand race without those other aspects is to misunderstand it completely. Race isn’t real. We think we know what it is but actually what it is is a social construct to understand the world that racism built…”
“There is a phrase that the realists often use which is that politics is the art of the possible and I’d like to think that radicalism is the art of imagining different possibilities and then fighting for the world that you want. Going beyond what we can see which is often inadequate, thinking Paulo Freire the Brazilian educator and radical who said what can we do today so that tomorrow we can do what we couldn’t do today…
RK
Race is not real
Gary Younge’s New Book: Dispatches from the Diaspora: From Nelson Mandela to Black Lives Matter ► https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571376827-dispatches-from-the-diaspora/
I have huge respect for Gary Younge – his writing was head and shoulders above that of most of his colleagues. And I certainly intend to read his new book. However, I cannot forget that, though he didn’t make a big thing of it (unlike just about all his colleagues who we could regard as broadly on the left) , on more than one occasion he dropped a reference to left antisemitism into his articles. I understand that it might have been career suicide in the Guardian for a journalist to have actively challenged the prevailing ethos, but Younge simply didn’t need to make the references. That would have been enough. I would like to see JVL engaging with him on the issue of the Labour antisemitism wars, the destruction of the left in the Party and the massive number of expulsions from the Party of Jewish activists, always linked with (if not explicitly attributed to) accusations against them of antisemitism. I wrote to him once or twice but got no acknowledgment – I understand. Journalist commentators must get mountains of what they see as ‘green ink’ communications from people they don’t know, but maybe JVL itself would have better luck.
PS: Short talk is terrific. Best line: When Martin Luther King went up to the Lincoln Memorial, he didn’t say ‘I have a ten point plan’, he said ‘I have a dream’.
An inspirational talk in so many ways. This was my comment on the DDNews site after watching the video –
As an activist starting from the late 60s and still going strong, I was in tears by the end of this video. Inspirational. Told me why I need to keep plugging away even though it all seems so hopeless at times. Thank you Gary. And I’ll take this opportunity and space to say something about one of the greatest ongoing injustices – Palestine WILL be Free! We will lay the groundwork for that just as we did to defeat that other evil apartheid system
Raises very profound questions for everyone. Often racial and cultural prejudice is associated with numerous unatractive characteristics which are prejudicial associated with the bigotry of the perpetrator, such as: coloured people are largely criminal and disrespectful of laws; or working class people are feckless and disrespectful of other’s property and values. These are the kinds of prejudices that ferment in an ethos of ignorance. At root, prejudice is often ignorance which some elevate, by ill-founded argument, to be justified. It is a strange irony that ignorance on such a scale is revered by those supporting prejudice.
Some wonderful quotes in this talk. As well as his own writing talents Gary Younge is a sensitive and inspired listener / reader.
I was particularly struck by Angela Davies’ insight into “the difference that makes no difference, the change that brings no change” in relation to the Diversity-washing that now seems to be everywhere. Then Younge adds a different facet, that the success of the individual who rises nonetheless bears testament to the movement that made that rise possible. And then he moves into Paulo Freire’s question: “What can we do today, so that tomorrow we can do what we can’t do today”. Forgive me if I’ve misquoted anywhere, I’d really love to see a written version of this talk so that I could get the words exactly right.
Such an impressive DDN video with Gary Younge. Half way through he likens the success of exemplary Black individuals, held up as proof that the system is fair and just, to the presidential “pardon” awarded to one privileged turkey at Thanksgiving in the US. A brilliant analogy he attributes to Arundhati Roy.