Watching the people of colour in USA rise up for justice and their very lives, the first thing I would like to say is that #BlackLivesMatter
and if you don't agree you can message me privately and I will try to
change your mind, but please do not respond publicly because right now
your opinion is violence if it is anything other than that Black Lives
Matter. Now and forever black lives must matter.
I need to say something as a white European, to other white Europeans. Those of us outside of USA cannot be complacent, just because it looks like it’s happening in ‘crazy’ USA with ‘insane’ Mr Trump. It’s not about that. It’s a complex, systemic problem, in which we are all of us complicit.
Understand: The dynamic at work here is the same dynamic that killed over a hundred women when a clothing factory (sweat shop) burned down in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2012. It is the same dynamic which allowed Coca Cola to murder trade unionists in Columbia in the early 2000s. It is the same dynamic which means that the electronics we use are built by people who throw themselves out of the windows of FoxCon in China, and the metals they are using were mined by children in war torn Congo. It is the dynamic that leads us to drown children in the Mediterranean. This dynamic is not a simply American problem that we can feel free of responsibility for. This is the outcome of the global economic system called Capitalism that we are all part of.
Notice something: people of colour the world over have a boot on their neck. Right now we see Minneapolis. And we also see, when we want to look, the boot on the neck of the people of Palestine. We see a boot on the neck of the people of Western Sahara. We see the first nations peoples of Canada or Australia. Everywhere you look you will see a boot on the neck. There is a reason.
Oppression is necessary for the functioning of Capitalism. No Capitalism has ever or could ever exist without this oppression, because Capitalism is a pyramid scheme. It started (in Britain) with the oppression of the English peasantry, the Welsh, Scottish protestants and then they were used to oppress the Irish. Other European peoples followed on their own trajectory. Soon it became the peoples of the Azores and Canary islands, then the people of Southern and Central America, the West Africans, the peoples of North America, and then Slavery. Then the peoples of Asia, and so on. Then the ruling classes of Europe spread this oppression the world over. And though people fought to end slavery, wherever they did, the European powers ruined them. Did you know Haiti is the only country in the world to have had a successful slave revolution? Did you know that they only finished paying off the reparations to France for the lost slave profits 143 years later? Do you think it's a coincidence that the Americans continue to intervene in their elections, that Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world?
Did you know that slavery is still legal in the USA if you are a prisoner? (The 13th Amendment).* Do you think it's coincidence that USA has by far the highest rates of incarceration in the world? Do you think it's a coincidence that the war on drugs was used to send young black & latinx folk to jail in a country whose economy and law allowed and rewarded corporations for using those folks for slave labour? This is an economy built on slavery. This slavery never went away. The role of the police officer is to catch new slaves, to terrorise the slaves into staying in line. That's the historical role, now you tell me if it ever changed.
And so it is everywhere in the world where Capitalism holds. It is a pyramid scheme, where every rich person must exploit and oppress ten thousand people to maintain their wealth. How do you think fifty people own the wealth of half the world? And it is racialised in America because of its racist history, which has been maintained so that way they can buy the votes of the white population a little easier. In India a similar oppression exists but it is more through caste and religion than race (though still also racial). The oppression is required by the economy, how it is expressed varies historically and culturally. In Britain, Germany, France, it still falls on the people of colour, as well as simply the working classes of all colours, but for the most part we export that oppression.
The fact that, for the most part, the situation in the 20th century improved for many (by no means all) of the white peoples, is not an indication that things are getting better. It is an indication that the base of oppression moves around. We exported oppression, through our military and through economic strangulation, to the people of the Middle East, to the peoples of Latin America, to Vietnam, wherever seemed appropriate when the moment came. When the economy fell, whoops here’s the boot again on the necks of the Spanish and Portuguese and Greeks. Once it was China that was oppressed to provide the British and French wealth, now China is involved in its own resource grab, now China will export some of its oppression to Africa and Latin America, Tibet and Muslim peoples. The buck never stops. Capitalism doesn't solve its problems, it simply moves them around.**
The point I'm making is that the people of colour the world over will continue to have a boot on their neck for as long as we continue to exist inside Capitalism.*** There is no squaring this circle. We may not be in the USA, we might not be watching the murder outside our very windows, but this makes us more and not less complicit.**** We, each of us, simply by supporting the status quo, demand that our masters press the boot down harder on their necks for fear that one day it might step on ours. And unless things change, one day it will. We live inside national gated communities, we bomb Iraq and Libya and Syria and then drown their children in the Mediterranean. We watch as Global Warming drowns the island nations and flood plains of the world, and we are building higher walls instead of longer tables.
And for what? What does all that black and brown and red blood buy you? Does it let you rest? Does it leave you alone? No, it demands that you work forever or starve. This is the price we sell our conscience for. This is the value of our souls. For fear that we might slip down the pyramid, we continue to prop it up.
Until and unless we join the revolution, we are all of us complicit. Our choice is simple:
Continue as we are, support the status quo, and bathe in the blood of people of colour until the ocean comes over our walls and washes us off of the face of the Earth and history.
Or:
Revolt. Fight for a new world, fight our own masters, join the oppressed peoples of the world in lifting the boot from their neck and allowing them, finally, to breathe.
#Blacklivesmatter
#NojusticeNopeace
#Saytheirnames
*Amendment XIII
Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
**To learn more about crisis in Capitalism and why Capitalism can’t solve its problems, watch David Harvey's excellent explanation of the 2008 financial crash.
***Unless, of course, the peoples of colour become strong enough to place a boot on the white necks of the world without changing the system. On that day we'll wish we had fought for socialism.
****https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/1500-and-counting-film
https://novaramedia.com/…/the-uk-is-not-innocent-police-br…/
I need to say something as a white European, to other white Europeans. Those of us outside of USA cannot be complacent, just because it looks like it’s happening in ‘crazy’ USA with ‘insane’ Mr Trump. It’s not about that. It’s a complex, systemic problem, in which we are all of us complicit.
Understand: The dynamic at work here is the same dynamic that killed over a hundred women when a clothing factory (sweat shop) burned down in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2012. It is the same dynamic which allowed Coca Cola to murder trade unionists in Columbia in the early 2000s. It is the same dynamic which means that the electronics we use are built by people who throw themselves out of the windows of FoxCon in China, and the metals they are using were mined by children in war torn Congo. It is the dynamic that leads us to drown children in the Mediterranean. This dynamic is not a simply American problem that we can feel free of responsibility for. This is the outcome of the global economic system called Capitalism that we are all part of.
Notice something: people of colour the world over have a boot on their neck. Right now we see Minneapolis. And we also see, when we want to look, the boot on the neck of the people of Palestine. We see a boot on the neck of the people of Western Sahara. We see the first nations peoples of Canada or Australia. Everywhere you look you will see a boot on the neck. There is a reason.
Oppression is necessary for the functioning of Capitalism. No Capitalism has ever or could ever exist without this oppression, because Capitalism is a pyramid scheme. It started (in Britain) with the oppression of the English peasantry, the Welsh, Scottish protestants and then they were used to oppress the Irish. Other European peoples followed on their own trajectory. Soon it became the peoples of the Azores and Canary islands, then the people of Southern and Central America, the West Africans, the peoples of North America, and then Slavery. Then the peoples of Asia, and so on. Then the ruling classes of Europe spread this oppression the world over. And though people fought to end slavery, wherever they did, the European powers ruined them. Did you know Haiti is the only country in the world to have had a successful slave revolution? Did you know that they only finished paying off the reparations to France for the lost slave profits 143 years later? Do you think it's a coincidence that the Americans continue to intervene in their elections, that Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world?
Did you know that slavery is still legal in the USA if you are a prisoner? (The 13th Amendment).* Do you think it's coincidence that USA has by far the highest rates of incarceration in the world? Do you think it's a coincidence that the war on drugs was used to send young black & latinx folk to jail in a country whose economy and law allowed and rewarded corporations for using those folks for slave labour? This is an economy built on slavery. This slavery never went away. The role of the police officer is to catch new slaves, to terrorise the slaves into staying in line. That's the historical role, now you tell me if it ever changed.
And so it is everywhere in the world where Capitalism holds. It is a pyramid scheme, where every rich person must exploit and oppress ten thousand people to maintain their wealth. How do you think fifty people own the wealth of half the world? And it is racialised in America because of its racist history, which has been maintained so that way they can buy the votes of the white population a little easier. In India a similar oppression exists but it is more through caste and religion than race (though still also racial). The oppression is required by the economy, how it is expressed varies historically and culturally. In Britain, Germany, France, it still falls on the people of colour, as well as simply the working classes of all colours, but for the most part we export that oppression.
The fact that, for the most part, the situation in the 20th century improved for many (by no means all) of the white peoples, is not an indication that things are getting better. It is an indication that the base of oppression moves around. We exported oppression, through our military and through economic strangulation, to the people of the Middle East, to the peoples of Latin America, to Vietnam, wherever seemed appropriate when the moment came. When the economy fell, whoops here’s the boot again on the necks of the Spanish and Portuguese and Greeks. Once it was China that was oppressed to provide the British and French wealth, now China is involved in its own resource grab, now China will export some of its oppression to Africa and Latin America, Tibet and Muslim peoples. The buck never stops. Capitalism doesn't solve its problems, it simply moves them around.**
The point I'm making is that the people of colour the world over will continue to have a boot on their neck for as long as we continue to exist inside Capitalism.*** There is no squaring this circle. We may not be in the USA, we might not be watching the murder outside our very windows, but this makes us more and not less complicit.**** We, each of us, simply by supporting the status quo, demand that our masters press the boot down harder on their necks for fear that one day it might step on ours. And unless things change, one day it will. We live inside national gated communities, we bomb Iraq and Libya and Syria and then drown their children in the Mediterranean. We watch as Global Warming drowns the island nations and flood plains of the world, and we are building higher walls instead of longer tables.
And for what? What does all that black and brown and red blood buy you? Does it let you rest? Does it leave you alone? No, it demands that you work forever or starve. This is the price we sell our conscience for. This is the value of our souls. For fear that we might slip down the pyramid, we continue to prop it up.
Until and unless we join the revolution, we are all of us complicit. Our choice is simple:
Continue as we are, support the status quo, and bathe in the blood of people of colour until the ocean comes over our walls and washes us off of the face of the Earth and history.
Or:
Revolt. Fight for a new world, fight our own masters, join the oppressed peoples of the world in lifting the boot from their neck and allowing them, finally, to breathe.
#Blacklivesmatter
#NojusticeNopeace
#Saytheirnames
*Amendment XIII
Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
**To learn more about crisis in Capitalism and why Capitalism can’t solve its problems, watch David Harvey's excellent explanation of the 2008 financial crash.
***Unless, of course, the peoples of colour become strong enough to place a boot on the white necks of the world without changing the system. On that day we'll wish we had fought for socialism.
****https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/1500-and-counting-film
https://novaramedia.com/…/the-uk-is-not-innocent-police-br…/
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