The Point Is Not To Interpret Whiteness But To To
Abolish It
Noel Ignatiev
Talk given at
the conference "
The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness" Berkeley, California, April 11-13, 1997.
Now that
White Studies has become an academic industry, with its own dissertation mill, conference, publications, and no doubt soon its junior faculty, it is time for
the abolitionists to declare where they stand in relation to it. Abolitionism is first of all a political project:
the abolitionists study whiteness in order to
abolish it.
Whiteness is not a culture... Whiteness has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with social position. It is nothing but a reflection of privilege, and exists for no reason other than to defend it.
Various commentators have stated that their aim is to identify and preserve a positive
white identity. Abolitionists deny
the existence of a positive
white identity. We at
Race Traitor,
the journal with which I am associated, have asked some of those who think whiteness contains positive elements to indicate what they are. We are still waiting for an answer. Until we get one, we will take our stand with David Roediger, who has insisted that whiteness is not merely oppressive and false, it is nothing but oppressive and false. As James Baldwin said, "So long as you think you are
white, there is no hope for you."
Whiteness is not a culture. There is Irish culture and Italian culture and American culture -
the latter, as Albert Murray pointed out, a mixture of
the Yankee,
the Indian, and
the Negro (with a pinch of ethnic salt); there is youth culture and drug culture and queer culture; but there is no such thing as
white culture. Whiteness has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with social position. It is nothing but a reflection of privilege, and exists for no reason other than to defend it. Without
the privileges attached to it,
the white race would not exist, and
the white skin would have no more social significance than big feet.
Before
the advocates of positive whiteness remind us of
the oppression of
the white poor, let me say that we have never denied it.
The United States, like every capitalist society, is composed of masters and slaves.
The problem is that many of
the slaves think they are part of
the master class because they partake of
the privileges of
the white skin. We cannot say it too often: whiteness does not exempt people from exploitation, it reconciles them to it. It is for those who have nothing else.
Either America is a very democratic country, where cab drivers beat up city councilmen with impunity, or
the privileges of whiteness reach far down into
the ranks of
the laboring class.
However exploited
the poor whites of this country, they are not direct victims of racial oppression, and "
white trash" is not a term of racial degradation analogous to
the various epithets commonly applied to black people; in fact,
the poor whites are
the objects of
race privilege, which ties them to their masters more firmly than did
the arrows of Vulcan bind Prometheus to
the rock. Not long ago there was an incident in Boston in which a well-dressed black man hailed a taxi and directed
the driver to take him to Roxbury, a black district.
The white cab driver refused, and when
the man insisted she take him or call someone who would, as
the law provided, she called her boyfriend, also a cabdriver, on
the car radio, who showed up, dragged
the black man out of
the cab and called him a "nigger."
The black man turned out to be a city councilman.
The case was unusual only in that it made
the papers. Either America is a very democratic country, where cab drivers beat up city councilmen with impunity, or
the privileges of whiteness reach far down into
the ranks of
the laboring class.
We are anti-
white, but we are not in general against
the people who are called
white. Those for whom
the distinction is too subtle are advised to read
the speeches of Malcolm X. No one ever spoke more harshly and critically to black people, and no one ever loved them more. It is no part of love to flatter and withhold from people what they need to know. President Samora Machel of Mozambique pointed out that his people had to die as tribes in order to be born as a nation. Similar things were said at
the time Afro-Americans in mass rejected
the term "Negro" in favor of "black." We seek to draw upon that tradition, as well as - we do not deny it - an even older tradition, which declares that a person must die so that he or she can be born again. We hold that so-called whites must cease to exist as whites in order to realize themselves as something else; to put it another way:
white people must commit suicide as whites in order to come alive as workers, or youth, or women, or whatever other identity can induce them to change from
the miserable, petulant, subordinated creatures they now are into freely associated, fully developed human subjects.
If abolitionism is distinct from
White Studies, it is also distinct from what is called "anti-racism."
The white race is neither a biological nor a cultural formation; it is a strategy for securing to some an advantage in a competitive society. It has held down more whites than blacks. Abolitionism is also a strategy: its aim is not racial harmony but class war. By attacking whiteness,
the abolitionists seek to undermine
the main pillar of capitalist rule in this country.
If abolitionism is distinct from
White Studies, it is also distinct from what is called "anti-racism." There now exist a number of publications, organizing programs and research centers that focus their energies on identifying and opposing individuals and groups they call "racist." Sometimes they share information and collaborate with official state agencies. We stand apart from that tendency. In our view, any "anti-racist" work that does not entail opposition to
the state reinforces
the authority of
the state, which is
the most important agency in maintaining racial oppression.
The simple fact is that
the public schools and
the welfare departments are doing more harm to black children than all
the "racist" groups combined.
Just as
the capitalist system is not a capitalist plot, so racial oppression is not
the work of "racists." It is maintained by
the principal institutions of society, including
the schools (which define "excellence"),
the labor market (which defines "employment"),
the legal system (which defines "crime"),
the welfare system (which defines "poverty"),
the medical industry (which defines "health"), and
the family (which defines "kinship"). Many of these institutions are administered by people who would be offended if accused of complicity with racial oppression. It is reinforced by reform programs that address problems traditionally of concern to
the "left" - for example, federal housing loan guarantees.
The simple fact is that
the public schools and
the welfare departments are doing more harm to black children than all
the "racist" groups combined.
The abolitionists seek to
abolish the white race. How can this be done? We must admit that we do not know exactly, but a look at history will be instructive.
When William Lloyd Garrison and
the original abolitionists began their work, slavery was
the law of
the land, and behind
the law stood
the entire machinery of government, including
the courts,
the army, and even
the post office, which banned anti- slavery literature from Southern mail.
The slave states controlled
the Senate and Presidency, and Congress refused even to accept petitions relating to slavery. Most northerners considered slavery unjust, but their opposition to it was purely nominal. However much they disapproved of it,
the majority "went along," as majorities normally do, rather than risk
the ordinary comforts of their lives, meager as they were.
The weak point of
the slave system was that it required
the collaboration of
the entire country, for without
the support of
the "loyal citizens" of Massachusetts,
the slaveholders of South Carolina could not keep their laborers in bondage.
The weak point of
the slave system was that it required
the collaboration of
the entire country, for without
the support of
the "loyal citizens" of Massachusetts,
the slaveholders of South Carolina could not keep their laborers in bondage (just as today without
the support of
the law-abiding,
race discrimination could not be enforced).
The abolitionists set to work to break up
the national consensus. Wendell Phillips declared that if he could establish Massachusetts as a sanctuary for
the fugitive, he could bring down slavery. They sought to nullify
the fugitive slave law, which enlisted
the northern population directly in enforcing slavery. They encouraged and took part in attempts to rescue fugitives - not, it must be pointed out, from
the slaveholders, but from
the Law. In all of this activity,
the black population took
the lead.
The concentrated expression of
the abolitionist strategy was
the slogan, "No Union with Slaveholders," which was not, as has often been charged, an attempt to maintain their moral purity but an effort to break up
the Union in order to establish a liberated zone adjacent to
the slave states. It was a strategy that would later come to be known as dual power, and neither Garrison's pacifism nor his failure to develop a general critique of
the capitalist system should blind us to its revolutionary character.
John Brown's attack on Harpers Ferry was not an aberration but
the logical application of
the abolitionist strategy.
The slaveholders retaliated for it by demanding new guarantees of loyalty from
the federal government, including a stronger fugitive slave law, reopening of
the slave trade, and especially
the expansion of slavery into
the territories.
The white race is a club. Certain people are enrolled in it at birth, without their consent, and brought up according to its rules. For
the most part they go through life accepting
the privileges of membership, without reflecting on
the costs.
As Phillips said, Brown "startled
the South into madness," precipitating a situation where people were forced to choose between abolition and
the domination of
the country as a whole by
the slaveholders. It was not
the abolitionists but
the slaveholders who, by
the arrogance of their demands, compelled
the north to resist. From Harpers' Ferry, each step led inexorably to
the next: Southern bullying, Lincoln's election, secession, war, blacks as laborers, soldiers, citizens, voters.
The war that began with not one person in a hundred foreseeing
the end of slavery was transformed within two years into an anti-slavery war, and a great army marched through
the land singing, "As He died to make men holy, let us fight to make men free."
The course of events can never be predicted in other than
the broadest outline, but in
the essentials, history followed
the path charted by
the abolitionists. As they foresaw, it was necessary to break up
the Union in order to reconstitute it without slavery. When South Carolina announced its secession, Wendell Phillips was forced into hiding to escape
the Boston mob that blamed him; two years later he was invited to address Congress on how to win
the war. He recommended two measures, both of which were soon implemented: (1) declare
the war an anti-slavery war; (2) enlist black soldiers. Has ever a revolutionary been more thoroughly vindicated by history?
The hostility of
white laborers toward abolitionism, and their failure to develop a labor abolitionism, was not, as some have claimed, an expression of working-class resentment of bourgeois philanthropists but
the reflection of their refusal to view themselves as part of a class with
the slaves - just as a century later
white labor opposition to school integration showed that
the laborers viewed themselves more as whites than as proletarians.
The white race is a club. Certain people are enrolled in it at birth, without their consent, and brought up according to its rules. For
the most part they go through life accepting
the privileges of membership, without reflecting on
the costs. Others, usually new arrivals in
the country, pass through a probationary period before "earning" membership; they are necessarily more conscious of their racial standing.
The white club does not require that all members be strong advocates of
white supremacy, merely that they defer to
the prejudices of others. It is based on one huge assumption: that all those who look
white are, whatever their reservations, fundamentally loyal to it.
For an example of how
the club works, take
the cops.
The natural attitude of
the police toward
the exploited is hostility. All over
the world cops beat up poor people; that is their job, and it has nothing to do with color. What is unusual and has to be accounted for is not why they beat up black people but why they don't normally beat up propertyless whites. It works this way:
the cops look at a person and then decide on
the basis of color whether that person is loyal to
the system they are sworn to serve and protect. They don't stop to think if
the black person whose head they are whipping is an enemy; they assume it. It does not matter if
the victim goes to work every day, pays his taxes and crosses only on
the green. Occasionally they bust an outstanding and prominent black person, and
the poor whites cheer
the event, because it confirms them in their conviction that they are superior to any black person who walks
the earth.
On
the other hand,
the cops don't know for sure if
the white person to whom they give a break is loyal to them; they assume it.
The non-beating of poor whites is time off for good behavior and an assurance of future cooperation. Their color exempts them to some degree from
the criminal class - which is how
the entire working class was defined before
the invention of
race and is still treated in those parts of
the world where
race, or some functional equivalent, does not exist as a social category. It is a cheap way of buying some people's loyalty to a social system that exploits them.
When it comes to abolishing
the white race,
the task is not to win over more whites to oppose "racism"; there are "anti-racists" enough already to do
the job.
What if
the police couldn't tell a loyal person just by color? What if there were enough people around who looked
white but were really enemies of official society so that
the cops couldn't tell whom to beat and whom to let off? What would they do then? They would begin to "enforce
the law impartially," as
the liberals say, beating only those who "deserve" it. But, as Anatole France noted,
the law, in its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in
the streets, and to steal bread.
The standard that normally governs police behavior is wealth and its external manifestations - dress, speech, etc. At
the present time,
the class bias of
the law is partially repressed by racial considerations;
the removal of those considerations would give it free rein. Whites who are poor would find themselves on
the receiving end of police justice as black people now do.
The effect on their consciousness and behavior is predictable. That is not to say that everyone now regarded as "
white" would suddenly become a progressive, any more than everyone now "black" is. But with color no longer serving as a handy guide for
the distribution of penalties and rewards, European-Americans of
the downtrodden class would at last be compelled to face with sober senses their real condition of life and their relations with humankind. It would be
the end of
race.
When it comes to abolishing
the white race,
the task is not to win over more whites to oppose "racism"; there are "anti- racists" enough already to do
the job.
The task is to gather together a minority determined to make it impossible for anyone to be
white. It is a strategy of creative provocation, like Wendell Phillips advocated and John Brown carried out.
A traitor to
the white race is someone who is nominally classified as
white but who defies
white rules so strenuously as to jeopardize his or her ability to draw upon
the privileges of whiteness.
What would
the determined minority have to do? They would have to break
the laws of whiteness so flagrantly as to destroy
the myth of
white unanimity. What would it mean to break
the rules of whiteness? It would mean responding to every manifestation of
white supremacy as if it were directed against them. On
the individual level, it would mean, for instance, responding to an anti-black remark by asking, What makes you think I'm
white? On
the collective level, it would mean confronting
the institutions that reproduce
race.
The abolitionists oppose all forms of segregation in
the schools, including tracking by "merit," they oppose all mechanisms that favor whites in
the job market, including labor unions when necessary, and they oppose
the police and courts, which define black people as a criminal class. They not merely oppose these things, but seek to disrupt their functioning. They reject in advance no means of attaining their goal; even when combating "racist" groups, they act in ways that are offensive to official institutions.
The willingness to go beyond socially acceptable "anti-racism" is
the dividing line between "good whites" and traitors to
the white race.
A traitor to
the white race is someone who is nominally classified as
white but who defies
white rules so strenuously as to jeopardize his or her ability to draw upon
the privileges of whiteness.
The abolitionists recognize that no "
white" can individually escape from
the privileges of whiteness.
The white club does not like to surrender a single member, so that even those who step out of it in one situation can hardly avoid stepping back in later, if for no other reason than
the assumptions of others - unless, like John Brown, they have
the good fortune to be hanged before that can happen. But they also understand that when there comes into being a critical mass of people who look
white but do not act
white - people who might be called "reverse oreos" -
the white race will undergo fission, and former whites, born again, will be able to take part, together with others, in building a new human community.
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