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

[Id Khajuria]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 10:19 PM Jai Sen <jai.sen at cacim.net> wrote:

> 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/
>
> *{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.*
> <https://www.printfriendly.com/privacy> <https://www.printfriendly.com>
>
> ____________________________
>
> 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
>
> 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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