chapotraphouse

You absolutely should not trust white people based off of the words they say.

I’m a white communist and I sometimes feel like a vampire who’s trying not to be a vampire. White people in the west have so much to lose (at least in the short term, until the destruction of whiteness) from communism that it’s not unusual at all to distrust us. I don’t trust us either.

2020 is on my mind all the time actually, and I think a lot about how many people were marching at one point, and then how most of us stopped marching. Like…the problems are still there. They’re even worse than they were in 2020. Marching didn’t solve them, marching by itself is not going to solve them, but a lot of people were marching for a left cause (even if a lot of it was fucking lib shit), and then we stopped.

My friend you fucking know why, it's the same reason why I don't trust self-proclaimed "progressive/leftist whites" until they prove themselves also, and it's also the reason why I tend to go out of my way to prove myself early on too. Like, I have touched grass and I have been to predominantly white activist spaces, I have seen white bullshit and I have done white bullshit. I have learned through all practical experience not to trust whites for even a second, especially not those who refers to whites as a """we""" or in any way identify with whiteness, as if "white" is an actual meaningful group identity rather than a fucking Indiana Jones sandbag of a """culture""" whose continued existence is inherently destructive and antithetical to decolonization, anti-imperialism, Black liberation, and socialism.

You do not have to ask "why" you lack an ability to trust whites, you are in fact very wise to do so. It is not something you should feel guilty about, as if you're being racist by "judging books by their covers", it is in fact whites who are racist and it is on whites to prove themselves to you.

When you grow up white in America, there’s so much that you have to deprogram from your brain before you can even move left. I had some really shitty views as a kid and I know I held to those just because it was coconut tree in which I fell out of. And beyond that, so much of society is geared towards privileging whiteness, you have to actively work to break out of it.

That said, I am grateful for people in my life who have called me out of stuff and have helped me be better. This is a reminder to all the white folks, if you get called out on something… apologize, understand - actually understand - where you went wrong, and be better.

From experience, it feels to me that white people can never fully understand what racism means. I mean, they understand it on a cognitive and intellectual level, but perhaps never on an experiential level.

It’s gotten to a point where I don’t even blame my white friends for not grasping certain issues anymore. It’s something that is very hard to internalize if you have never experienced it. As long as they promise to do their part of anti-imperialism from within the imperial core, I’m fine with that.

because white people can't be trusted, simple as

i can't really blame you at all. most progressive white people i've met start saying wild shit once they think you trust them enough.

When a person of color, especially if they're black like me, affirms their support for causes such as queer liberation, feminism, animal rights, or socialism, I immediately feel that I can believe, with minimal doubt, that they're truly convicted and principled in what they're advocating for. However, when a white person claims to support leftism, until my skepticism is proven wrong, I immediately assume they're a dishonest and performative libshit.

It depends, I do not trust any person of any race immediately when it comes to topics like LGBT rights or feminism for example. There are many homophobic and sexist people of all races. There are many performative people of all races. People are people, after all. However, when it does come to issues around race, I agree with you. I think most white people simply do not understand the concept of structural racial discrimination as they have no experience with being on the side that gets discriminated against because of their skin colour and/or ethnic group. Obviously there are exceptions, but as a whole Eurocentric thought, which includes white supremacy, has been dominant throughout the past couple of centuries.

With regards to socialism, I find that in South Africa black people in general tend to have a much better understanding of what socialism is. I would say that is because part of the struggle against apartheid was based on socialism, and people from other racial groups, in general, have been influenced heavily by red scare propaganda or a comparador mindset.

It's okay I don't trust myself either.

You pay attention.

Don't trust our Yakubian tricknology

With all the white people self flagellating in this thread it does make everyone seem less sincere which validates op question lmao. This thread is just a dumpster fire, people arguing if interracial marriage or having Black friends makes you racist or not, are asians poc?

All I know is when over half of these white "progressives" I met throughout my life in the west openly mock east and southeast asians and at the same time telling us that we are somehow the most racist group while also saying that they love and support the minorities to other non asian minorities, all that trust was immediately gone. Malcolm X's comment on liberals pretty much confirmed to me with regards to my experiences with them.

Lots of normal comments, very conducive to building a mass movement

Yeah as a white person, don't believe anything I say. Please judge me and other white "leftists" by our actions. Look at what we actually do and care about, only then can you tell if we're communists or socialists or anarchists, or if we are just using the words and performing. I know real and fake white leftists - the good ones do lots of great organizing and the bad ones talk a lot and end up derailing plans.

Cause you have object permanence?

It is reasonable to have these suspicions. In my everyday life I feel infuriated hearing the racist shit the white people I work with may bring up around me, since they assume that I'll agree with them since I'm white too. Most of the shit they talk about is their callous obsession with the oppressed migrants at the southern border. If that's what those people do openly and outwardly express, I can imagine just as well that there are white leftists who have not examined and gotten rid of all their prejudices. It's reasonable to think they have just used their knowledge of left norms and attitudes to hide it way better than the chuds I see irl. I'd say your vigilance is warranted.

I hate how the continued existence of these racial hierarchies poison the minds of so many white people, teaching them a multitude of ways to be alienated from their fellow human beings. The task of the left in dismantling these oppressive hierarchies is a Herculean one, requiring massive socioeconomic changes and I at times despair when thinking of its chances of success in the heart of empire during such a turbulent time in human history.

I'm white and I still give a massive eyebrow raise to any other white person who claims to be leftist if I don't really feel like I know them

Because that's how it keeps going. I have tried time and time again to ignore the little danger signs from White people and kept getting burned by some, even by self-professed leftists. Not by all, of course, but by enough to be wary. It's unpleasant; this hypervigilance around White people is a real burden and I wish it hadn't been forcibly inflicted on me, but that's what living in a White Supremacist society does.

I find it helpful to differentiate between "White" and "white" people.
Capital-W "White" means the person exhibits a lot of the toxic settler-colonial, imperialist, and casually racist behaviors that Amerikkkan society perpetuates.

Lower-case w "white" means the person has skin tones that make them look like the Capital W's but they don't do that shit. They're actively antiracist, they're vigilant and purge any trace of white supremacy from themself, they're learning, and they support people of color in our fight against white supremacist fascism.

It's not about skin color, and it's not even essential to who they are -- White people who rehabilitate themselves can become white people, that is, people whose skin is light but aren't being toxic or shitty in any way.

A pretty basic litmus test I've found is checking how they feel about American Imperialism. If I say, "Joe Biden belongs in prison for what he did to Iraq" and they agree, then they probably understand on a visceral level that brown people are people. If they argue, that tells me they don't actually value our lives -- because it is fundamentally impossible to care about nonWhite lives and also be ok with any of these genocidal fucks.

This is how I feel about French people, unless they've explicitly clarified that they've read works by anti-colonial writers and have read the history of their evil empire and recognize the current imperialism of it today, they're a Nazi in my eyes.

I dead ass peace’d out from activism because of this shit.

For some reason, a lot of people in the “activist community” are incredibly snotty and mean, too.

ngl i feel very similar about cis men. is this intersectionality?