By Herbert Dyer, Jr.
As I came of age in the mid-60’s during the thick of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, great debates raged over when, whether, and how so-called “white liberals” could or should contribute to our cause. White clergy held prominent positions during many of the demonstrations and marches led by Dr. King. At times, white liberals outnumbered Black “Freedom Riders” on those tortuous bus trips throughout the South. And a not insignificant number of whites were actually injured or killed during many such protests.
And, when I finally matriculated at Indiana University in ’66, there was already a robust Black and white anti-Vietnam War and Women’s Liberation Movement confronting IU’s intransigent Administration. But after Dr. King’s murder in ’68, things began to rapidly – radically – change. Over 110 cities exploded into revolutionary fires immediately following that assassination. “Black Power” as espoused by Kwame Toure (nee Stokely Carmichael) and Huey P. Newton’s Black Panther Party came to the fore and swept across this nation-state with a hurricane-force cleansing wind.
On campus we began to suspect that our white allies were not quite as committed to Black empowerment as they claimed to be. One of our leaders, “Rollo”, began to not just notice this phenomenon, but condemned it. “When the going gets tough,” he declared, “they (the Hippies, Yippies, and other assorted white friends) will cut their long hair, put on skirts, suits and ties and go home to their fathers’ and uncles’ firms, businesses and farms, while we will still be in the ghetto competing with each other for janitor jobs.” And you know what? He was absolutely right. When the crackdown came in the guise of “Law and Order, ” as proclaimed by President Nixon, our “white liberal” friends abandoned us as though we had the Bubonic Plague. And today? They will not even talk about their “youthful indiscretions” and certainly do not regale their children and grandchildren with stories of Black/white unity from “the good old days.”
It is impossible to come of age as a so-called “white” person in this nation-state and not be afflicted with the scourge of white supremacy. Each and every social, political, economic and cultural practice, policy and process is skewed to protect, maintain and grow white power and white privilege over and above everybody else. This is not news to Black folks, white supremacy’s second most beleaguered victims. But so-called “white liberals” always seem to struggle with the very idea that they, by their conscious or unconscious acceptance and practice of “white privilege”, bolster white supremacy’s death-grip on this nation-state and rest of the world.
The foremost reality that white liberals must understand and then deal with is that every square inch of land, every lake, river and stream, every mountain, field, every blade of grass or desert that they proudly refer to as the “United States of America” is stolen property – stolen from a people who rarely if ever warrant even a back-handed mention in today’s socio-economic and political discourse. This terrible reality lies at the bottom of a continent-wide and unimaginably deep sea of red blood which separates the two blue eastern and western oceans. By now they must be aware of the magnitude and meaning of such an unconscionable atrocity. Hell, at some level they’ve always known; but do they care?
White liberals must go further, though. They must understand that the reason Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, New Orleans, St. Louis, etc., ad infinitum, sport such high and gleaming alters to capitalism is because the raw materials and laborers used in their construction were ripped from the soil and souls of Black, Brown, Red and Yellow peoples not only here but from throughout the world. The white liberal must understand that those villages, countries, nations and nation-states are labeled and defined by them as “Third World”, “underdeveloped”, “developing” because it was and remains white supremacy and their embrace thereof that put and keep them there.
Appalling numbers of white liberals are in deep denial of the unfathomable pain, suffering, and death that the pursuit of white supremacy has wrought. Yes, their denial is appalling but completely understandable. They labor under a grand form of “cognitive dissonance” which exquisitely defines the term. I have wondered often that had I been born “white”, how utterly impossible it would be, must be to simply look into a mirror knowing how much innocent blood lay behind my reflection, my history. Absolute denial and rejection of that blood, of that reflection and history would be the only means of maintaining even a semblance of sanity.
On another level, though, many, perhaps a majority, of white liberals appreciate quite clearly what they have done. Indeed, they celebrate and gleefully swim in that bloody sea of denial, ever thankful for their whiteness and their conscientious and well-meaning liberalism. This set of white liberals eagerly embraces their unearned privileges and power and protect themselves and their whiteness behind world-destroying weapons, multi-million-man armies – or “gated” enclaves. Their fear is understandable as well for they have much to fear, going all the way back to and starting with Indian attack and slave revolt.
Black folks know very well that all white people are not knowingly white supremacist in their worldview and daily lives. That is, there are now and always have been some “good” white folks – those few who fought and died alongside Blacks at various stages of history against white supremacy. The problem is, however, that the good have never outnumbered the bad. The “good” white people have never constituted the majority of white people. And, somehow it seems that when it comes to Black folks, some sort of “compromise” must always be made in order that white supremacy remains supreme.
Finally, what can and must white liberals do to redeem themselves, their people? The time has long passed for any more perfunctory “national discussion of race” between whites and Blacks. There is nothing more to talk about. White people, including white liberals, invented “race”, racism and white supremacy. They must begin the redemption process by disavowing and denouncing the validity, legitimacy of each of these self-serving and pernicious concepts and ideologies.
They must acknowledge, recognize and accept their guilt.
Then repent. Repentance can take many forms, but it must be holistic, all encompassing, just as holistic and encompassing as the past 500 years of white supremacy have been. White liberals must teach each other and their children the unvarnished history of this nation-state. They must begin and see through to the end the hard work of dismantling all of the covert and overt institutional structures and scaffolds which have framed and perpetuated a white racial consciousness and its attendant white supremacist practices for the last 25 generations.
They must teach themselves and their children that the number one problem in the world has been, is, and remains Europe’s and America’s Original Sin: white supremacy – not global warming nor environmental degradation, not the national debt/deficit, not gay rights, not the energy crisis, and not women’s liberation – but white supremacy. In doing so, they will discover that these other “issues” are but symptoms and byproducts of the most debilitating disease that has afflicted the whole of mankind since those first Europeans began rampaging across the seas circa 1444.
And, yes, white liberals must undertake permanent, sweeping, demonstrative and affirmative actions to repair the damage white supremacy has done to all “nonwhite” people, but especially Black and African people. This will require discussions with Black people – discussion not negotiation.
But if history is any guide, white supremacy will not die a quiet death. White liberals (and white folks generally) have shown themselves incapable of just living and let living; of accepting their place as just another group of people among the masses of humanity. My mother used to wonder just under her breath why do white people think they must have or are entitled to the lion’s share of everything, leaving the crumbs for the rest of us. There is no good or logical or reasonable answer to her question. Thus, the entire world of variously colored peoples will have to someday face down and then take down this damnable doctrine, and set the world aright again.
Herbert Dyer Jr. is an African American writer in Chicago. Herb also works at Roosevelt University’s “Life Skills and Re-entry Program” as a tutor in computer skills, language training, job-readiness skills to ex-offenders. He has a masters degree from Governors State University in Political & Justice Studies and can be reached at: accra0306@yahoo.com.
Express yourself my brother..You are going hard!!!!!
White liberals don’t need redemption they advocate and do as they were meant to. What redemption does need to take place is one of our understanding about white liberals in general. White liberals may want you to be spared the most egregious forms of our oppression, however they never ever wanted you to be equal with them. If you can’t see that I’d like you to simply study the reaction to the issues of reparations, reconstruction and the true intentions of abolitionist who were not John Brown.Even more importantly the convergence of Jewish interest in the civil rights movement that accounted for many white deaths and also to lose this messianic idea that the vast majority of white liberals died for us and not for themselves. You’re right when you assert white supremacy will not be killed quietly but I’d add it also won’t be killed by its children and beneficiaries. No slavery in history has been ended by some grandiose epiphany especially not in this country. Histories understanding and dissemination has been tampered with, so it can be hard to see clearly by design. Often rose-tinted myth, half-truths or lies takes the place of facts so we can claim greater imagined successes or completions. Post-racial Americas and so on.
Absolutely on point when you assert that there is no purpose in a “conversation on race”. Nothing we can say to white people that previous generations of Black folks did not make abundantly clear. Always refreshing and penetrating analysis here- with a blessed absence of that false premise which holds Black and white Americans equally responsible for the racial cesspool that is present day America.
James Baldwin once responded to a white reporter’s assertion that the white man needed more time to “adjust” to and accept the Negro’s demands. Baldwin said (in paraphrase): “You took my mother’s time; my father’s time; my grandfather and grandmother’s time; my great great grandparent’s time. Now, you want my time, too?”
Peace & Power,
White Liberals must choose [& Blacks & Browns have to insist that they do] between being a safe & cozy liberal, or progress toward true justice for all & away from white Privilege USA. Because the United Police-States of America is now coming after white folks too. Recently a 37yr old white homeless man w mental health issues was tazered & beaten to death cops in Cali [see http://www.commondreams.org/further/2012/05/09-5 ]. Two of them [1 is Hispanic] are rightly being charged w homicide. Yet the precedence for this case is Mr Chamberlain’s murder by cops in NY. Mr Chamberlain, who had a documented case of a weak heart [which is why he had a med-alert system] was tazered, shot w a bean bag shot-gun & then shot to death in HIS OWN HOME, by cops who were supposed to be assisting him on a medical alert [So why did the cops show up like they were a swat team on a drug bust?!- These cops even refused / dismissed Chamberlain’s family member offers to intercede!]. Yet a [lily-white?] grand-jury has rejected charging any of those cops in this case. And also there’s Rodney King’s case- where a lily-white jury let those cops off Scott-free.
Also recently the FEDs entrapped 5 young white guys, who had a loose link to the OWS movement in OH, in a phony plot to blow-up a bridge in Ohio. But the precedence for that is the FEDs, both under the Bushites & under Obama & AG Eric Holder’s DoJ, have been entrapping African, Black & Brown Muslims in phony War on Terror plots for the last decade.
Mainly white ‘main-stream’ ‘middle-class’ folks are now being virtually ‘stripped-searched’ by naked body scanners every-time they take a plane ride [after that ‘suspicious’ so-called {non}underwear bomber incident- allegedly by a young Nigerian Muslim out of Yemen]. But the precedence for that is- in the late 1980s thru the 1990s, mainly Black & Brown women on incoming foreign flights were routinely stripped-searched [For REAL - NOT virtually] & man-handled at US airports- after being racially-profiled as likely ‘drug-mules’. Not to speak of how many Black & Brown men are routinely stripped-searched in jail- which the US Supreme-Court just gave their official seal of approval to.
The precedence to the FEDs’ attack on & incineration of those mainly white folks at WACO, was the Philly cops Bombing of the MOVE brothers, sisters & children- which burned-down a city block of Black folks’ homes. The precedence to the FEDs’ assault on that white family at Ruby Ridge- was the COINTELPRO sponsored joint FBI, CPD, Cook County Sheriffs’- assassination of Mark Clark & a sound asleep Fred Hampton.
The point is that white liberals who are truly concerned about Justice for All- have got to progress from their complacent positions of self [= selfish] interests- to enlightened Self{less}-interest. Those who practice Enlightened Self{less}- interest, understand that ‘Injustice Any-Where Is a Threat to Justice Every-Where’- including to themselves!
[NOTE: True Black Champions for Freedom have got to make it clear to white 'liberals' that voting for Obama won't let them off the hook. That- That ain't the same-thing as demanding true justice for Black & Brown people!]
An example of white {liberal} double standards. Everyone’s expected to recognize & even feel guilty for [including those who had no hand in it- IE: Black People] the horrors of the NAZI Holocaust against the Jews [FYI: it also included the Roma People {aka Gypsies} & communists- but this is largely forgotten] 75 yrs ago. Yet if you bring up the Maafa enslavement of African People, which ‘officially’ ended less than 150 yrs ago in the US [125 yrs ago if you count Brazil]- & is estimated to have killed +35 – +50 million or more Africans- most white ‘liberal’ react by saying- ‘That’s was so long ago in the past’ – ‘Forgive & Forget’ – ‘Let by-gones be by-gones’ – “We’re in the ‘Post-Racial’ Obama Era” – etc…
Bring up the subject of reparations w the average white ‘liberal’ & many will all-of-a-sudden remember that their fore-parents were post-slavery immigrants, which they would claim lets them off the hook on both the slavery, extermination of the Native American & reparations issues [ironically many of these same folk often by into the illegalization of Hispanic immigrants].
YET- Reparations need not boil down to ‘Pay all Black & Native Americans $1 Million+$’- in fact that’s probably not the best approach. Reparations for Black & the remaining remnants of Indigenous Peoples- could be in the form of Gov’t guaranteed- life-long full employment under safe & fair conditions & at fair & living wage [including adequate retirement benefits]; -&- Gov’t guaranteed adequate- housing, health care, education up to the BS / BA or certified vocational training level- The roll-back / ending of US policy of mass incarceration of Black [& Brown] people, the Prison Industrial Complex, & the Gov’t guaranteeing of ending all vestiges of racism & white-supremacy in its current Criminalized {in}Justice System, & respecting & protecting the HUMAN rights of all Black & Indigenous People! IE: Things the Gov’t should [but fails to] be providing & doing for all of its citizens anyway!
The truth of the matter is no white society or a-rab society feels any guilt about our slavery. All of them are just as bad as their parents because they choose to live off the material and social wealth that was ravage from the body and soul of our ancestors. The reason the white power structure in this country is so fearful about the quantifiable amount of value produced by slavery even being calculated, is because they know where their countries wealth came from. Reparations may not be a good idea to give to every person because they’ve been trained to merely be consumers and vagabonds of other peoples industries and products, however that doesn’t negate the fact that it’s owed. Also your idea is good for people who see their future tied to the well being of America but not everyone would wants that model. Some people may simply want their right to self-determination and the money and future that was stolen from them. Life time government employment is already here in the form of crack cocaine,prison and the military. Ultimately any value you create for this country is like helping to build your own Frankenstein… and we all know how that story ended.I want be facetious on this subject because the reality is that reparations will never come unless it is forcefully taken. At the present time we have no real national power in Africa or in the diaspora. No connection to Africa that is powerful or organized enough to advocate for its wayward children here in this country. Without a connection and organization to Africa were unimportant to this country because spitting upon a small group of negros is not the same as spitting on a Nation of billions of Africans and Afrodescendants around the world. The problem we face with a lack of unity and collective purpose. These political life poisons are administered and maintained by many forces who profit off our disorganization as well as make their living off our misery and poverty. The same issues we face are faced on the Motherland. The purpose of the many divisions is merely to rob us and safe guard threats to stolen wealth. So without the resolution of the major problem at home our micro reactionary problems here are difficult to solve without begging. The problem with language of begging is that it has no time table and there is no “Or Else” in its vocabulary. So the call for reparations never has to be heeded and white liberals can continue to play us like a bunch of chumps. The reason white liberals can do this is because they know the situation and know we haven’t learned the lesson. To solve these problems there has to be a political, economic, cultural and ideological connection with Africa whether you choose to live here or at home. A people without a strong Nation have no protection from the Ills and whims of this societies attitudes… slavery proved that.
To the true believers in white liberals I leave you with this quote from Kawme Ture see how your “friends” measure up.
“We have taken all the myths of this country and we’ve found them to be nothing but downright lies. This country told us that if we worked hard we would succeed, and if that were true we would own this country lock, stock, and barrel — lock, stock, and barrel — lock, stock, and barrel. It is we who have picked the cotton for nothing. It is we who are the maids in the kitchens of liberal white people. It is we who are the janitors, the porters, the elevator men; we who sweep up your college floors. Yes, it is we who are the hardest workers and the lowest paid, and the lowest paid.
And that it is nonsensical for people to start talking about human relationships until they’re willing to build new institutions. Black people are economically insecure. White liberals are economically secure. Can you begin to build an economic coalition? Are the liberals willing to share their salaries with the economically insecure black people they so much love? Then if you’re not, are you willing to start building new institutions that will provide economic security for black people? That’s the question we want to deal with. That’s the question we want to deal with.”
I do fully appreciate & respect your position. Though there is a significant minority of Blacks who want some degree of autonomy [if not total separation] from the US Gov’t [ala the Martin Delaney, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammed], the fact is that the vast majority aren’t prepared to go that far- besides the logistical issues of repatriating 35 – 40 million Afro-Americans out of the USA. It’s also a sad fact that too many ‘Afro’-Americans actually seem to hold prefix Afro in contempt [or are ignorant of its significance]- reflective a lack of regard for our African heritage & Africans in general [IE: the Negro mind-set]. The thesis RE reparations that I articulated had those facts in mind, yet is a way to keep this issue on the table in front of so-called ‘liberal’ & progressive white folk- as a litmus test so to speak. I wrote this alternative set of reparations as a response to some white ‘liberals’ comments @ the ‘progressive’ CD website to an article @ CD [& @ BAR] on Jan 23, by white progressive political writer Bill Quigley entitled ‘10 Steps for a Radical Revolution in the US’- in which he, to his credit, mentioned the issue of reparations for African & Native Americans. Some hi-lights from his Article:
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.” –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. April 4th 1967
1} Human rights must be taken seriously. Every person is entitled to dignity & human rights.
2} We must radically reinvent the US’ {un}Democratic system of Gov’t. Current systems are deeply corrupt & unresponsive to the people’s needs. Gov’t officials are chosen & govern by money & corrupt influences. This is unacceptable.
3} Corporations aren’t people & aren’t entitled to human rights. Amend the US Constitution so it’s clear Corps do not have constitutional or human rights.
4} Leave the rest of the world alone. Cut US military spending by 75% & bring all troops outside the US home now. Eliminate all nuke, chem & bio weapons [including their R&D].
5} Property rights, privilege & money-making aren’t as important as human rights. Current property & privilege arrangements aren’t just, & thus must yield to the demands of human rights. Money-making can only be allowed when human rights are respected. Exploitation is unacceptable. People & businesses w excess houses, cars, luxuries & incomes must share much more to help everyone else be able to exercise their basic human rights to shelter, food, education & healthcare. If that disrupts current property, privilege & money-making, so be it.
6} Protect Mother Earth. Stop pollution, & stop destroying the land, sea, air, the eco-system & the Earth’s people. The very existence of life is at stake.
7} Reverse the privatization [= Corp profitization] of public services. Quality education, health & safety for all must be provided by transparent accountable public systems.
8} UP-ROOT THE CURRENT CRIMINAL LEGAL PRISON SYSTEM & START OVER. CEASE THE CRIMINALIZATION OF IMMIGRANTS, POOR PEOPLE AND PEOPLE OF COLOR. Roll-back the so-called ‘War on Drugs’.
9} THE US WAS CREATED BASED ON 2 ORIGINAL CRIMES THAT MUST BE CONFESSED & MADE RIGHT. REPARATIONS ARE OWED TO NATIVE AMERICANS BECAUSE THEIR LAND WAS STOLEN & THEY WERE UPROOTED & SLAUGHTERED. REPARATIONS ARE OWED TO AFRICAN AMERICANS BECAUSE THEY WERE KIDNAPPED, ENSLAVED & RUTHLESSLY ABUSED. THE US HAS PROFITED WIDELY FROM THESE INJUSTICES & MUST MAKE AMENDS.
10} ALL who want to work should have the right to work & earn a living wage. Workers who want to organize & advocate for change in solidarity w others must be protected from recriminations from their employer(s) & the Gov’t.
Those are all great demands, but how do you see or believe them coming to fruition (your perspective not his)? I agree that not everyone is a nationalist or a Pan-Africanist but I would assert to some degree African people who are not, should want a degree of what the nationalist and Pan-Africanist want. The reason being is because if the stabilization of the greatest economic powerhouse in the world (Africa) was to occur it would lend the majority the bargaining power they don’t have now. With this power, if you decide to stay here you would be able to accomplish diplomatically what you couldn’t accomplish in hundreds of years of appealing to a non-existent moral consciousness. I personally can’t take Bill Quigley’s good assertions with any seriousness for the simple fact it is beyond my comprehension of a workable reality in America. To give an example, I’ll draw from the only holocaust were forced to recognize, so I’ll be dealing with the Jewish holocaust as a backdrop. If a Nazi says,”Hey it’s terrible whats happening to the Jews we should free them.” is that going to make the multitude of Nazis have a moral epiphany? If so will his words stop the Nazis who don’t come to such a moral conclusion? I’d argue that dealing with good ideas without the autonomous power to put them into motion is like spitting in the wind. If Bill Quigley was truly sincere, I would have to say he’s far too few and we don’t have the time to cultivate people like him into human beings that stand for justice. The quickest political education is force. On a side note I wouldn’t ever advocate a forceful wholesale repatriation for those who don’t want it but I don’t run the government. I’d go further to say that if you’re of no use to your race here and you have the means you wouldn’t be much help in Africa. If you can help you should but exporting our current problems isn’t helpful at all. Though it might one day happen regardless of what we think or feel about it.One thing I would dictate if I could, is that we tie our economic aspirations and earnings with Africa’s future. If Africa continues to be looted and treated as the doormat of the world you can expect to be in the same position of vulnerability. That’s really all I’m trying to get across.
Well written narrative. It is so heart-warming to see young people write about what’s on their minds!
“On another level, though, many, perhaps a majority, of white liberals appreciate quite clearly what they have done.” This quote sums it all up for me.
Yep, I think the message to whites is that they had better decide which side they’re going to side with.
If they continue to tie their fates to their elites then they will suffer the same destruction as their elites.
That’s as much as I want to say to white people.
For blacks, when all is said, all that’s left is what is to be done -
we will have to learn how to fight.
We must fight them on every continent where they bring their terrorism. Every black man woman and child alive on earth in this day must be enlisted to fight white supremacy.
I our war against white supremacy
the 1st agents will must deal with are the colored(black, brown, yellow and red) ones.
How convenient to not mention that the IRISH were forced to help build this land and that they were enslaved for 100 years by the English and treated as lower than black slaves (due to being Catholics). Many Irish had their hands tied behind their backs before their feet were set on fire. Liberal history classes tend to “forget” how the Irish and the Scottish were enslaved and abused. Hoe about giving MY people lifelong jobs and pensions for what WE, The Irish, suffered through?
In Ireland, when the Irish and the blacks were both enslaved at the same time, the Irish were treated worse than the blacks and so while the white women slaves were in the fields picking cotton for the elite English the blacks would look over the whites and when the urge ‘arose’ the BLACK SLAVES WOULD RAPE THE WHITE FEMALE SLAVES. The truth hurts.
/////”We must fight them on every continent where they bring their terrorism. Every black man woman and child alive on earth in this day must be enlisted to fight white supremacy.///////////////////
And in the meanwhile I’ll try not to get terrorized by a group of young blacks tonight as I go out for a quart of milk.