[WSMDiscuss] Working Together to Build a New World (Fred Ho, with Matt Meyer)

[Jai Sen]

Friday, July 10, 2020

Viruses in movement…, The US in movement…, Racism in movement…, Resistance in movement…, Identity in movement…

[The US is afire, its peoples are aflame…  Here, a trenchant essay on the burning issue of the role in change of ‘anti-racist whites’, and of the challenges they must face, from back in 2013; asking some very hard questions.  For thought and discussion in our times…

[Thanks, Quincy, for sending this to me :

Working Together to Build a New World

Fred Ho, with Matt Meyer

https://www.newclearvision.com/2013/06/12/toward-a-maroon-society/ <https://www.newclearvision.com/2013/06/12/toward-a-maroon-society/>
{MM: The following piece was written by a founder and a supporter of the organization Scientific Soul Sessions, a majority oppressed nationality revolutionary group. Wrestling with the question of white membership, they have been engaged in recent struggles which have revealed how pervasive, entrenched, and odious “whiteness” is, even in these contexts. This article was penned in the course of those struggles.}





“Anti-racist whites” are against some of the right things, but what are they for? As we fight for a society of more than just tolerance and “equality” but for true justice and liberation, our goal is to escape the Matrix of the current systems. Like the historic maroons of the past, and the contemporary political prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz who continues to resist from behind enemy lines, we must build for a Maroon militancy that fully rejects the shackles of the past as we build for a new tomorrow.

“Anti-racist whites” may believe in color-blindness, but we know that this is an impossibility in American society. Any obfuscation that believes that a “post-racial” society can be achieved simply by ignoring or eradicating the notion of “race” is fundamentally mistaken about the roots of racism and the function it serves: the social reproduction of assimilation (and therefore control) within the American Empire.

“Anti-racist whites” don’t necessarily challenge the fundamental presumption of assimilation and integration into the USA (The Empire).  Rather, racism is a byproduct and an integral part of the very construction of the USA as an Empire that occupies and controls a vast territorial land base that extends for several thousands of miles into the Pacific Ocean and a thousand miles northwards from its Northwest.

“Anti-racist whites” may believe in the illusion that “Americans” can be changed for the better. This deception about the nature of America — confusing some national pride with the reality of imperialism — ignores the basic design of the USA: for domination over peoples and territories.

“Anti-racist whites” are typical of the entire (white) Left: willing to acknowledge some degree of “white skin privilege,” willing to be berated by some megalomaniacal Third World leaders (of their choosing) without challenging them, willing to accept the inevitability that the Left will be white majority controlled.

“Anti-racist whites” may be content to serve as “race traitors” — special white folks who somehow transcend race because of their theoretical or academic views, but fail to actually engage in constructing liberated territories or spaces (Maroon societies) escaped from the Empire.

“Anti-racist whites” may be content to organize solely inside white communities as a sense of their obligation and political responsibility (to relieve whites of their racism!), without questioning whether those whites need to or should dismember and destroy the territorial integrity of the Empire.

History has shown that these whites are unacceptable; they will more than likely show their “true colors” through Eurocentrism, which reveals their inextricable belief in their own monopoly upon science, knowledge, leadership, expertise, finances, and/or power.  Often displayed as egotism (a bourgeois European doctrine), these practices can be seen as endemic, essential and acceptable “character flaws” — but they are inherently political. Most egomaniacs, of whatever “color,” are expressing bourgeois individualism. Eurocentric egotists take up too much space displaying these characteristics in the context of collaborative possibilities with oppressed nationalities, weakening multi-national, liberatory organization and Maroon community-building.

The 21st century needs Maroons, including Maroon whites! Maroon whites want to leave the toxicity of American society — not believing it can be reformed or changed, even as a socialist society.

“Anti-racist whites” may be satisfied with “activist” work, coalitions, united fronts, and mass work; Maroon whites will push these structures — with their Maroon comrades — towards more disciplined, highly accountable, soulful visionary formations designed to drive people beyond empire to more collective, humane, sustainable modes of living.

Maroon whites will join with oppressed nationalities — including national liberation movements of Native American Indian nations, Puerto Ricans, [email protected] <https://www.newclearvision.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection>/[email protected] <https://www.newclearvision.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection>, Black/New Afrikans, and others — in the desire to make a new identity, a new culture, a new relationship to Mother Earth that rejects the bourgeois European mentality of domination and control, a desire to create an entirely new humanity.

Maroon whites, if given the chance for reforms or improvements in American society which will split them from revolutionary Maroons as a whole, will reject these and remain part of the Maroon community as a whole, and never accept any invitations, bribes, inducements, and temptations to leave or betray their fellow Maroons.

Maroon whites will sacrifice their lives to defend their Maroon societies. Maroon whites won’t assimilate into American-anything. Maroon whites believe that the toxicity of white supremacy must never be allowed into the Maroon societies.

Maroon whites gladly accept an oppressed nationality majority.  They shun white majorities everywhere. A Maroon society will never be a white majority as Maroons are outlaws against the American mainstream.

Maroon whites believe oppressed nationality Maroons are their brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers and would never betray them, or give up this community for anything.

Maroon whites gladly work side-by-side with oppressed nationalities, will take the worst abuse from racist whites, and immerse themselves in the deepest Afro-Asian-Indigenous cultures.

Maroon whites do not accept or use terms like “people of color” or “minorities” or any nomenclature or appellation for which the American mainstream preferences and promotes in pronouncements about their brother and sister Maroons.

Maroon whites don’t accept anything white: white people, white culture, white history, white narratives, etc. Maroon whites learn about the world as it is, for which Europe and North America are indeed the true minorities. Maroon whites don’t dress white, don’t eat white, don’t do anything white. They have ended whiteness in everything in their existence.

We require a world of Maroons — radical rejecters (not just resisters) ready to take on Empire, white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and all oppressions, including the war being fought against the Earth itself.

Maroons must work passionately together to build for matriarchy, eco-socialism, and an end to “civilization” as we know it…


[JS note : This article is from 2013, and so also the following information :
For more information, readings, and some ways to break into “marooning” work, check out Scientific Soul Sessions <http://www.scientificsoulsessions.com/>, the Campaign to Free Russell Maroon Shoatz <https://russellmaroonshoats.wordpress.com/>, and EcoSocialist Horizons <http://ecosocialisthorizons.com/>.

Fred Ho, famed composer-musician, is an award-winning master innovator of the baritone saxophone. A playwright and bandleader, he is noted for his unique Afro-Asian Music Ensemble. A writer and social activist, Ho is the author of Legacy to Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America, and the inspiring Diary of a Radical Cancer Warrior. A self-described “revolutionary matriarchal socialist and aspiring luddite,” Ho is also a founder of the cultural-political organization Scientific Soul Sessions. He is editor of the recently released book of writing of former Black Panther political prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz, Maroon the Implacable, for which Meyer (co-chair of the Campaign to Free Maroon) co-wrote the Afterword.

Matt Meyer is an educator-activist, based in New York City, and serves as convener of the War Resisters International Africa Working Group. His recent books include Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan-African Insights on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle and Liberation <http://www.akpress.org/2005/items/gunsandgandhiinafrica> (Africa World Press, 2000), the two-volume collection Seeds of New Hope: Pan African Peace Studies for the 21st Century <http://www.africaworldpressbooks.com/servlet/Detail?no=444> (Africa World Press, 2008, 2010), and  (PM Press, 2008). Meyer is a contributing member of the Editorial Advisory Board for New Clear Vision.

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____________________________

Jai Sen

Independent researcher, editor; Senior Fellow at the School of International Development and Globalisation Studies at the University of Ottawa

jai.sen at cacim.net <mailto:jai.sen at cacim.net>
Now based in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325) and in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded and unsurrendered Anishinaabe territory (+1-613-282 2900) 

CURRENT / RECENT publications :

Jai Sen, ed, 2018a – The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our Dance. Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
Jai Sen, ed, 2018b – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ? (Indian edition). New Delhi : AuthorsUpfront, in collaboration with OpenWord and PM Press.  Hard copy available at MOM1AmazonIN <https://www.amazon.in/dp/9387280101/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522884070&sr=8-2&keywords=movements+of+movements+jai+sen>, MOM1Flipkart <https://www.flipkart.com/the-movements-of-movements/p/itmf3zg7h79ecpgj?pid=9789387280106&lid=LSTBOK9789387280106NBA1CH&marketplace=FLIPKART&srno=s_1_1&otracker=search&fm=SEARCH&iid=ff35b702-e6a8-4423-b014-16c84f6f0092.9789387280106.SEARCH&ppt=Search%20Page>, and MOM1AUpFront <http://www.authorsupfront.com/movements.htm>
Jai Sen, ed, 2017 – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ?.  New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press.  Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
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