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> Yassin Al Haj Saleh. I am afraid that it is too late for the > leftists in the West to express any solidarity with the Syrians in > their extremely hard struggle. What I always found astonishing in > this regard is that mainstream Western leftists know almost > nothing about Syria, its society, its regime, its people, its > political economy, its contemporary history. Rarely have I found a > useful piece of information or a genuinely creative idea in their > analyses.*My impression about this curious situation is that they > simply do not see us,* > > This is racism. Can we have a psychological and political discussion > of the mechnanism white people us to render colored people invisible. > > The number ! problem with the US Left is racism. > I made these brief comments before I went to work this morning. I am surprised, and frankly saddened, to see the lack of response. clay, i'm not sure who this is for, whether it is even appropriate for me to respond. i simply can't speak about racism on the left with any authority, primarily because i can't speak about the left at all with authority. my failure in this regard isn't to say that i am oblivious to the certainty of racism on the left. but i am certain in a rather indirect way i suppose. i live in the most deeply racist country that has ever existed. racism is my inheritance. so why wouldn't racism permeate everything here, including the left in the states? even while the left has done more in the fight against racism than liberals, moderates or the right. i always must judge myself and others here with this understanding. Racism is one of the central problems of our movement. I believe racism is the main factor holding back a Left that is dominated by white people. Racism is an extremely complex system with intertwined economic, political, cultural and psychological aspects. The invisibility of non-white people by white people has long been recognized as one of the key features or methods of racism and it operates in many and complex matters. From a theoretical POV it has long been discussed in a wide range of academic materials and I think it can be useful in explaining things as wildly different as why the suffering of the Syrian people can be ignored down to why my comment can be ignored. Sometimes that is simply the easiest way to deal with an unpleasant issue, provided you are in a position to ignore people and get away with it. But this question of the invisibility of colored people goes deeper than that. I would recommend Joel Kovel's "White Racism: A Psychohistory" as a good starting point. As he says, "Race, is already a produce of white racism" there's a lot to unpack here. a long history. psychology. sociology. specific political questions. praxis. i have no answers. one does what one can. i think you're raising of the question in this forum is valuable and contributes to a broader understanding. ah, you see? platitudes. i am uneasy with invisibility as the dominating metaphor. invisibility simply cannot account for many of the active elements in this world. drones do not seek the invisible. as for the left's blindness ... ah, well. here we are talking. knowing this group, in my short time here, others, better than me, will join in time. however, questions nag me. what should left solidarity look like with respect to syria? what do the syrians need that we can provide? what is the left failing to do? You can not explain the reaction of the US Left to the struggle in Syria, of the reaction of Americans generally to much of what goes on in the world without looking at the role racism plays. While Yassin did not name it. I think that we should. His observation about the US Left with regards to Syrians is spot-on. "*they simply do not see us" *is an aberrant behaviour of white people that we can given a name to, that we can connect to the invisibility of non-white people that is a disease which runs through our society and without the defeat of which revolution is impossible. is the left's failure with respect to syria much different to it's failure with respect to spain, the ukraine, greece or any of its other failures? But that's okay, just carry on as through I never made that important observation. touche! _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/lacenaire%40comcast.net _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
