William F Buckley was a Nazi!

My fellow Vidalophiles will have seen the famous clip of the Gentleman-Bitch crossing swords with the reactionary William F Buckley, Jr. back in 1968. Here's the juicy bit, and here it is in context. It must've been clear to anyone who followed Buckley closely in those days that he was a racist. Here's an excerpt from his editorial in a 1957 issue of National Review entitled 'Why The South Must Win' which I found in an old CounterPunch article:

The central question that emerges is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes–the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage. The British believe they do, and acted accordingly, in Kenya, where the choice was dramatically one between civilization and barbarism, and elsewhere; the South, where the conflict is by no means dramatic, as in Kenya, nevertheless perceives important qualitative differences between its culture and the Negroes’, and intends to assert its own. National Review believes that the South’s premises are correctThe great majority of the Negroes of the South who do not vote do not care to vote, and would not know for what to vote if they could.Universal suffrage is not the beginning of wisdom or the beginning of freedom. The South confronts one grave moral challenge. It must not exploit the fact of Negro backwardness to preserve the Negro as a servile class. It is tempting and convenient to block the progress of a minority whose services, as menials, are economically useful. Let the South never permit itself to do this. So long as it is merely asserting the right to impose superior mores for whatever period it takes to effect a genuine cultural equality between the races, and so long as it does so by humane and charitable means, the South is in step with civilization, as is the Congress that permits it to function.

As he was about so many things, Gore Vidal was right about Bill Buckley.

The scarred language of race.

It's interesting how racial language lingers to this day. Sometimes it is the case that the words we employ fail to keep pace with the progressive strives we have accomplished.  The rise of feminism in the 1970s and subsequent shifts in attitudes and lifestyles has led to a state of affairs where we increasingly fixate on what kind of language is most appropriate. Many couples I know have debated to themselves how appropriate terms like 'girlfriend/boyfriend', 'partner', 'spouse', 'my other half', are today. The decline of marriage and increasing prevalence of cohabitation and the emergence of non-monogamous relationships has led many to find such terms estranged from their own lives. The same is true in other areas.

On the racial front we find the idioms of scientific and cultural racialism remain with us. In census forms 'white' and 'black' are used as identity-markers abstracted from any historical context: the events of Bacon's Rebellion, where European indentured servants and African slaves fought side by side, only for the legislative moves towards instituting white privilege. The word 'white' was first used as a racial term with laws passed to prevent Europeans from marrying Africans in the Thirteen Colonies. The European workers were bound to the slave-masters even as they had much more in common with the African. This was how the white race emerged. It was not biological, yet it is objective, - as Theodore Allen told us long ago - it came about in the late seventeenth century as a formation of social control.

With the nineteenth century came the intensified biologisation of racial classifications. Racism became scientific and anthropological. It increasingly became about skin-colour, but not totally over night. For a long time, the Irish were not regarded as equals to 'white' American and Englishmen, they were regarded as racially inferior, often marginalised to the same quarters as African-Americans, and attacked as 'monkeys' in such outlets as Punch. Once the Irish were accepted as 'white' then they campaigned against German immigrants on the grounds that the new settlers were not 'white'. This was going on throughout the nineteenth century. The classifications of race were certainly flexible and highly relative. Its relativity and ambiguity reveals the absurdity of such classifications.

The use of the word 'coloured' to describe Africans, South Asians, and 'mixed-race' people, is somewhat revealing. It's a floating signifier with multiple applications, but it's clear from the outset that those who are 'colourless' are 'white' people. In South Africa a sudden shift in classification could move one's relatives to another part of town and deny them freedom of movement and a whole array of other rights. Of course, neither white nor black is a colour. Perhaps the terms of race sets its own rules by which we are one or the other. Many progressive Americans use 'people of colour' to refer to African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans, unifying Black and Brown; while 'coloured' has been properly relegated to the past along with its cousin term 'negro'.

Both terms could serve to further reinforce the status of white people as colourless, but only in negative relation to those who are coloured. In the same way as John Derbyshire writes of 'non-blacks' when he means 'white people'. It makes sense that the origins of the 'white race' lie in the slave trade and the type of power structure necessitated by class society. The displacement of class consciousness by racial consciousness facilitates class society to reproduce itself. The promise of a harmonious and organic social order in conjunction with a thriving capitalist economy has been the dream of conservatives for centuries. The 'white race' finds itself situated as multi-class formation against those who are external to this collaborative relationship. The 'non-whites' are conceived as a disruptive presence in what should be a harmonious social system.

Then we have the way in which we talk about miscegenation. The term mixed-race is derivative of miscegenation, a word which was coined by anti-abolitionist propagandists in 1863. It was used in a pamphlet accusing the abolitionist movement of pursuing 'race-mixing'. This is a persistant trope on the Far-Right to this day. It used to be acceptable to describe someone as 'half-caste' for having a white parent and a black parent. It's a sore point for the generation of those who fail to understand the term, its history, and implications. It literally translates to half-pure. Setting aside the obvious implication that the person is 'halved', and somehow incomplete, it has far from an immaculate past to put it lightly. Half-caste was originally a term in Australian law. The children of European and Aboriginal Australians would be seized by the state under the auspices of this law and forcibly assimilated into 'white' Australian society.

All of this just goes to show the extent to which the language of race is itself highly problematic. We can't decode every term we use before we use them and yet we cannot dispense with them either. Without the proper historical perspective we can easily take such terms to be constant, unchanging and timeless. Can we do any better right now? The primary alternative to talking of race has been to talk of culture. We have gone from the era of multiracialism to multiculturalism since the late 1980s. There are those on the Right who push back against multiculturalism as they insist that their problem is not with multiracialism. The banal and toothless language of culture does more to obscure and gloss over than to illuminate and challenge. In multiculturalism race is left intact as a disavowed category while in multiracialism the categories are reinforced and left unexamined.

Death to Slavery.

Below I have reproduced the letter Marx and Engels wrote to President Lincoln upon his re-election in late 1864. The letter was signed by every member of the International Workingmen's Association (the First International) and was originally printed in The Bee Hive in January 7th 1865 just months before Lincoln was assassinated. Beneath the next photograph, I have reproduced Marx's letter to Lincoln's successor President Andrew Johnson.

    To Abraham Lincoln,
    President of the United States of America.
    Sir: - We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority. If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war-cry of your re-election is, Death to Slavery.
    From the commencement of the titanic American strife the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class. The contest for the territories which opened the dire epopee, was it not to decide whether the virgin soil of immense tracts should be wedded to the labor of the emigrant or prostituted by the tramp of the slave driver?
    When an oligarchy of 300,000 slaveholders dared to inscribe, for the first time in the annals of the world, 'slavery' on the banner of armed revolt; when on the very spots where hardly a century ago the idea of one great democratic republic had first sprung up, whence the first declaration of the Rights of Man was issued, and the first impulse given to the European revolution of the eighteenth century; when on those very spots counter-revolution, with systematic thoroughness, gloried in rescinding "the ideas entertained at the time of the formation of the old Constitution," and maintained "slavery to be a beneficent institution, indeed the only solution of the great problem of the relation of labor to capital," and cynically proclaimed property in man "the cornerstone of the new edifice"; then the working-classes of Europe understood at once, even before the fanatic partisanship of the upper-classes for the Confederate gentry had given its dismal warning, that the slaveholders' rebellion was to sound the tocsin for a general holy crusade of property against labor, and that for the men of labor, with their hopes for the future, even their past conquests were at stake in that tremendous conflict on the other side of the Atlantic. Everywhere they bore therefore patiently the hardships imposed upon them by the cotton crisis, opposed enthusiastically the pro-slavery intervention, importunities of their "betters," and form most parts of Europe contributed their quota of blood to the good cause.
    While the workingmen, the true political power of the North, allowed slavery to defile their own republic; while before the Negro, mastered and sold without his concurrence, they boasted it the highest prerogative of the white-skinned labourer to sell himself and choose his own master; they were unable to attain the true freedom of labor or to support their European brethren in their struggle for emancipation, but this barrier to progress has been swept off by the red sea of civil war.
    The workingmen of Europe feel sure that as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle-class, so the American anti-slavery War will do for the working-classes. They consider if an earnest of the epoch to come, that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working-class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.

 

 

    To Andrew Johnson,
    President of the United States.
    Sir:
    The demon of the "peculiar institution," for the supremacy of which the South rose in arms, would not allow his worshippers to honourably succumb on the open field. What he had begun in treason he must needs end in infamy. As Philip II.'s war for the Inquisition bred a Gerard, thus Jefferson Davis' pro-slavery war a Booth.
    It is not our part to call words of sorrow and horror, while the year after year, and day by day, stuck to their Sisyphus work of morally assassinating Abraham Lincoln and the great republic he headed stand now aghast at this universal outburst of popular feeling, and rival with each other to strew rhetorical flowers on his open grave. They have now at last found out that he was a man neither to be browbeaten by adversity nor intoxicated by success, inflexibly pressing on to his great goal, never compromising it by blind haste, slowly maturing his steps, never retracing them, carried away by no surge of popular favour, disheartened by no slackening of the popular pulse, tempering stern acts by the gleams of a kind heart, illuminating scenes dark with passion by the smile of humour, doing his titanic work as humbly and homely as heaven-born rulers do little things with the grandiloquence of pomp and state; in one word, one of the rare men who succeed in becoming great without ceasing to be good. Such, indeed, was the modesty of this great and good man that the world only discovered him a hero after he had fallen a martyr.
    To be singled out by the side of such a chief, the second victim to the infernal gods of slavery, was an honour due to Mr Seward. Had he not, at a time of general hesitation, the sagacity to foresee and the manliness to foretell "the irrepressible conflict"? Did he not, in the darkest hours of that conflict, prove true to the Roman duty to never despair of the republic and its star? We earnestly hope that he and his son will be restored to health, public activity, and well-deserved honours within much less than "90 days."
    After a tremendous war, but which, if we consider its vast dimensions, and its broad scope, and compare it to the Old World's Hundred Years' War, and Thirty Years' Wars, and Twenty-Three Years' Wars, can hardly be said to have lasted 90 days, yours, Sir, has become the task to uproot by the law what has been felled by the sword, to preside over the arduous work of political reconstruction and social regeneration. A profound sense of your great mission will save you from any compromise with stern duties. You will never forget that to initiate the new era of the emancipation of labour, the American people devolved the responsibilities of leadership upon two men of labour - the one Abraham Lincoln, the other Andrew Johnson.

Belief and Action.

The centenary of Ronald Reagan's birth was marked with empty words of admiration from the incumbent President, but will the 100th year since the birth of Bayard Rustin be distinguished with comparable veneration? I doubt it. Even though the man came out of the Mahatma Gandhi school of non-violent resistance to battle for the kind of rights and freedoms that are taken for granted today. The commitment Bayard Rustin showed to the cause of human liberation went much further than the shallow words of every conservative icon in American history. It wasn't libertarians who bestowed freedom unto the black man of the South. Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were the faces of the respectable reaction against the struggle for equal rights. And these men had the temerity to speak of liberty! In Rustin's own words "The proof that one truly believes is in action."

With those words in mind it cannot be said that Bayard Rustin did not believe. For around six decades Bayard Rustin served as an activist to a multiplicity of causes - from civil rights to anti-imperialism. And in doing so he demonstrated that these causes could potentially be linked together in a common struggle. Rustin had been a member of the Communist Party until Stalin ordered it to give up on the civil rights struggle to back American entry into World War II. He remained a leftist and moved on to the Socialist Party of America and later would lead it as it became Social Democrats USA in the 1970s. All of this made him a primary target of right-wing attacks on the Civil Rights movement. But he was easily scapegoated within the movement itself as he was openly gay. He found himself forced from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference because of his sexuality.

Nevertheless, Rustin was unofficially the primary organiser of the March for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. Roy Wilkins of the NAACP did not want to see Bayard Rustin take any credit for the march whatsoever. At the march itself Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous "I have a dream..." speech, the all-American rhetoric of which served to distance himself from the anti-American figure who had organised the march. He was exceptional in that he was at the forefront of so many struggles and yet he was never a public face in the same way as his contemporaries. We shouldn't forget that Malcolm X was a spokesman of the Nation of Islam, which provided him with a remote platform from power where it was safe to speak from. The Nation of Islam languishes in comfort from power, where it is easy to talk tough. It has shirked from any direct confrontation with the US government since Elijah Mohammed was imprisoned for supporting the Japanese in World War II.

Bayard Rustin never joined this particular black nationalist crowd with its anti-Semitic populism and peculiar understanding of the Qu'ran. These were the symptoms of an impotent organisation and Rustin never succumbed to such powerlessness. Rather he was the sort of guy willing to be dragged off to a jail cell dozens of times in the struggle for equal rights and freedoms. A resistant position is by definition uncomfortable. Rustin was never a public face in the same way as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X even though he rubbed shoulders with them - as a mentor in the case of King. We may not know of Rustin but we certainly know of his influence. Just think of the politics of non-violent resistance and the slogan that the "new niggers are gays". People forget that the 1963 March on Washington was a march for jobs and freedom, economic justice loomed in the background of calls for equal rights and universal suffrage.

The radical spirit of Rustin reemerged in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1967. Then at the Riverside Church the Reverend talked about of "true revolution in values" which "will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth" and went further to speak of Western capitalists investing in Asia and Africa only before taking the profits out with no concern for these countries. King went on to say "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than programmes of social uplift was approaching spiritual death." Then came the stinging line for the elites "The United States government is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." It provoked merciless attacks, he was charged as a leftist demagogue by the mainstream media and the establishment. King had crossed the line. This is the figure that we aren't supposed to revere, though we are meant to pay lipservice to "I have a dream..." and nothing more.

By then Malcolm X had been wasted by hired thugs and soon enough King would meet a violent end too. Bayard Rustin did not meet this fate, but he would become a convenient victim of America's cultural amnesia. The case of Bayard Rustin tells one a lot about bigotry, how it penetrated both sides of the civil rights struggle in the 60s. The point at which civil rights for blacks and gays may converge with the struggle for working-class emancipation is something that could never be accepted. Everything from race, sexuality and gender can be incorporated into capitalism at the shallow level of 'sameness'. But when it comes to class, the system cannot even speak its name. The politics of class-war are something to move beyond apparently, whereas there is plenty of time for talk of positive discrimination and quotas to make sure there are women on the board of directors. If anything Bayard Rustin embodies the relentless spirit which made the impossible possible and has yet to fully triumph in the United States.

Make Bradford British?

If you heard about Make Bradford British a couple of weeks ago on Twitter you might be excused for mistaking it for a racist slogan. But then you might have found a link to the Channel 4 citizenship test and discovered that if you wouldn't pass the tests immigrants go through to get into this country. This was a step-up from the pinhead documentary Proud and Prejudiced, which almost portrayed the crypto-Nazi EDL as defenders of multicultural Britain against radical Islam. The stated point of Make Bradford British was the standard concern about the lack of integration in a racially tense place like Bradford to create a model for a multicultural Britain. The line that the liberal intelligentsia was the main proponent behind multiculturalism was quickly trotted out, but in terms that the mission had failed to deliver integration outside of London. The emphasis on a set of 'common values' came out at the beginning and end of the episodes.

A pair of 'diversity experts' invite us to watch this search for an answer to the question "What does it mean to be British nowadays?" The problem with this is that it assumes there is or should be a thing called 'Britishness'. We have forgotten that Great Britain is composed of a union between the English, the Scottish, the Welsh and the Irish. It is a marriage of convenience that has lasted a very long time. It was never about a nation, tradition or identity. It is almost as absurd as the French having a fit over the disappearance of the King of France. The standard spectrum on this debate runs from the view that we ought to respect 'other cultures' to the position that we need to reassert 'our values'. These are just empty signifiers and that remains so even if we are calling for a return to the values of Boudica. At best we can only tolerate the Other, which is especially easy if they fit into a neat unit which renders them 'one of us'.

Rashid and Damon were the most interesting to see 'interact', the rest was a standard mash up of fake lessons regurgitated for the camera upon command. The copper had to learn to look beyond the blackness of Desmond and the liberal bint had to find someone who won't tolerate her sinuous nonsense. Rashid and Damon are set up to share the same bedroom, but they move one bed out of the room so that the two can sleep separately from one another. It was an agreement that they both reached. Rashid was presented as a Muslim absorbed by his faith to the point of inconveniencing the team with the call to prayer. The cheap lesson in the first episode was Rashid putting aside going to his mosque to pray in order to go on an outing with the team. Whereas, Damon came out with the predictable lines about the Muslim community - the lack of integration demonstrated by women wearing headscarves etc. - that you can enjoy in our fine press. He went as far as to defend the use of the slur 'Paki' at dinner and admits that he viewed mosques as 'terrorist centres'.

Then Damon started to go to the gym with Rashid and visits the mosque in a predominantly Asian area which Damon had avoided for so long. It was warming to see these two men paint the bedroom of Damon's daughter. Even more heartening was the scene where Damon tells Rashid that it is he - the bearded Muslim - who is in fact closer to his grandparents and their 'British values' than he is. Damon has since attended the wedding of Rashid's sister. This moment went beyond the multicultural trite of liberals and the white whines of conservatives. Even though the rest of the participants regurgitated the same old platitudes and shallow ideas of what it means to live in a multicultural democracy. It may have meant to just reenforce the old narrative that there needs to be a national centre to a plurality of cultures in contemporary Britain. But it included a moment of great potential.

Holism, White Whines & Multiculturalism.

 The White Whine.

In 1968 Enoch Powell delivered the notorious 'Rivers of Blood' speech in which he speculated that "in 15 to 20 years time the black man would have the whip hand over the white man." The speech is often invoked by the radical Right as prophetic of the "failures" of multiculturalism, with it's liberal ideas of tolerance, diversity and equality. So whenever there is a suicide-bombing we are reminded that "Enoch was right" supposedly. Enoch Powell was the first to remind us he was right in 1981 when he saw the riots of Brixton and Toxteth. Coincidentally these riots were the result of the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher, which Powell had supported and actually promoted for years. So the calls for voluntary repatriation from Powell provided a cover for the consequences of monetarism, when mass-privatisation and deregulation lead to the devastation of the working-classes there is a need for a scapegoat. For Powell it was clear that the scapegoat had to be black.

Today it is typical to hear about the "multicultural experiment" that began in the 1960s or vaguely after WW2 with a massive influx of immigrants from the West Indies and later India. Actually the tradition of the British Empire was to allow all people loyal to the British monarchy into the country and it was only when the Attlee administration introduced the Nationality Act that this practice became formal. Enoch Powell believed that his speech might put Ted Heath on the spot, a situation from which he might then capitalise on. If the Conservatives failed to defeat Labour in 1970 Powell could have challenged Heath's leadership and then lead the Party on a populist ticket against Wilson in '74. Instead, Ted Heath marginalised Powell and won the General Election. Ted Heath pushed through the Immigration act of 1971, which restricted immigration even further than the Commonwealth Immigrants act of 1962 - which had restricted immigration to people who had been allocated work vouchers - and immigration was almost put to a complete stop.

It is often forgot that Enoch Powell was a monetarist and a proponent of small government, which has made him influential amongst Thatcherites. So he was no fan of Europe, budget deficits and immigration, but Powell was a fan of the privatisation of public services. Powell was born into the lower middle-class, he joined the army and aspired to become the Viceroy of India without serving on the battlefield. After Indian independence Powell drew up a plan to reconquer India. Powell was also a classicist and served as a Lieutenant-Colonel in Northern Africa in the Second World War, it was not a heroic service though it was marked by an amusing incident in which he burned his moustache when trying to get a fire going. Though Powell did think he was the right kind of man to rule over millions of black people. He hated Neville Chamberlain for selling Britain out, not for appeasing Hitler specifically, and was always deeply troubled by the decline of Britain as an imperial power. In a nutshell, the 'Rivers of Blood' speech was a white whine and nothing more.

On a regular basis we still hear the white whinging today about immigration, even as we are entering a pensions crisis which may be avoided through immigration. The presupposition of such whinging is that the liberal doctrine of multiculturalism has been imposed by the state through mass-immigration for decades which has undermined British values and led to division in society. Immigration has not been left to flow without a stop for decades, it has been opened up and closed before being opened up a little bit and closed once more. The class divisions in British society are far bigger than 'cultural' divisions created by immigration. As for British values, there were never any to begin with and that is because there has never been a British nation. The notion of multiculturalism has never been a consistent part of policy. But it has merely been talked about an awful lot whilst partially initiated only as far as the tendency of the market is towards pluralism and relativism.

A Community of Communities.

The liberal conception of multiculturalism is insufficient, putting aside cultural relativism as it's disturbing manifestation in South Africa is too often overlooked. Officially apartheid was initiated to separate the multitude of tribes and ethnic groups into Bantustans in order to prevent such groups from "drowning" in white culture. The racist hegemonic nature of multiculturalism was not obfuscated in South Africa, rather it was taken to its most logical conclusion and the African National Congress were labelled "terrorists" by the regime. The cynical liberal wisdom was supplanted with white nationalism and we can see this in Holism as propagated by Jan Smuts. Holism held that the world is composed of wholes, each of which constitute a grand system that can sustain and stabilise itself. The stability of the system was guaranteed by the arrangement of wholes, provided each whole remained in the right place the system could be maintained. Every whole is made up of small wholes which are evolving and will inevitably come together to form larger wholes until finally becoming part of a single unified whole.

At the time Holism provided a justification for British imperialism and racial segregation. The Empire was the self-organised system; the wholes were the lands colonised along the way. To guarantee the order of such a system it was imperative that the wholes be kept in place. The essence of Smuts' argument was that the blacks have to be kept in their place otherwise the natural order will be disturbed beyond repair, from whence the idea of the Bantustan comes. The liberal vision of multiculturalism offers us a conception of society as a community of communities, each with a distinct identity and set of moral values which is appropriate to that community. Then we find ourselves witnesses to the condemnation of homosexuality in one community and the election of politicians by another community to defend gay rights. In the Netherlands we have seen the gay community rally behind the nationalists against the Muslim community in this way.


Typically there is no mention of the white community in all of this, but that is not because multiculturalism is racist to white people as the reactionaries claim. The notable similarities between liberal multiculturalism and Apartheid proves such a claim absurd. The presupposition of multiculturalism is that the white community is hegemonic, it is the dominant community into which all other communities can be meshed neatly. In multiculturalism it is the neutral framework which protects each culture so that it can thrive in its appropriate way. The Harm Principle is invoked as a way of setting limits to such 'thriving', but even the limits of the Harm Principle are not clear enough and we find ourselves demanding the average Muslim to become a white middle-class liberal. Because liberalism works best when everyone is a fucking liberal! The forces of the market lean towards pluralism, but these same forces require a reaction against such pluralism in order to defend the market as Enoch Powell demonstrated.

There is a genuine need for a common project which is universal in nature, international in scope and radically egalitarian all at once. In Tahrir Square there was a common struggle against Mubarak which united Muslims and Christians. There have also been instances in which Muslim women in traditional dress and lesbian Jews have been brought together in protest against the Israeli government. These are just glimpses of what is possible at a societal level of solidarity. The liberal form of multiculturalism offers a decaffeinated Other, a Muslim community without a Muslim community. The nationalists drive this to it's logical conclusion and call for bans on the veil, halal meat and so on in defence of freedom. To put it bluntly the dichotomy of the debate is shaped by the contradictions of the economic system and the way fascists respond to such contradictions from a managerial perspective. We need to make radical changes if we want to construct the universalist alternative to multiculturalism and fascism.

Aryan History X.

The Mythical Supermen.

There was a mythology prevalent in the United States in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries – the myth of specifically Anglo-Saxon origins. The myth had been developed in 15^th Century England and was then picked up in America soon after colonisation. Though, it is fundamentally not too dissimilar to the myths and ideals of the National Socialists. The end result of such widely propagated myths include genocide and slavery. The myth was that there was an Aryan race, originating in what is today Iran, a unique and superior species to all over human beings. The characteristics of this race included: a round cranium, tall in stature, blond-hair, blue-eyes and a paper-white complexion. They were the embodiment of physical perfection, in the eyes of the people of that time and place. This noble race stood for freedom, the Aryan race were said to have been actively dedicated to justice and law. Today, it is easy to say that such mythical supermen are only real to the KKK, but the truth is rather more unsettling.

Once the Aryans had emerged in the East, they migrated to the West and eventually settled in the Black Forests of Germany where they became the Teutons – who were a “perfect race”. But as they had migrated, some of these Aryans had inter-married with the people in the East and produced the “degenerate race” of the Mediterranean. The Aryans, who were dedicated to the purity of their race, exterminated everyone and later became the Angles and the Saxons. The Angles and the Saxons moved onwards to ancient Britain, where they maintained their purity by exterminating inferior tribes they came across. The Anglo-Saxons later came to America in the form of the colonists, again committing genocide along the way. The implication being that indigenous British and American people are descendent of the "perfect race". Racism runs deep in Western civilisation, to an ideological extent by now, and America is no exception. Even the Founding Fathers" believed in this myth, Thomas Jefferson thought that the race had been “poisoned” by immigration to Britain in the centuries since the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain. For Benjamin Franklin, even Germans did not fit the criteria of the Aryan ideal, for they were too “swarthy” for his liking.

It was this myth which fuelled the extreme racism of the time. Which was a factor in the enslavement of Africans, the genocide of Native Americans and Mexicans. Since then, every influx of immigrants into the United States has been persecuted and scapegoated. When the first Irish people came to America – the "Land of Opportunity" – to escape poverty, famine and the tyrants of England, they were the immediate subject of persecution. Signs such as “No dogs or Irish” were hung in shops and restaurants for all too see. Eastern Europeans and the Jews fleeing pogrom were treated in similarly dehumanising ways. But it wasn’t until many Chinese people began to immigrate to the United States, that the methods of segregation were “developed” further by the government. In fact, the first “racial exclusion act” was passed against Chinese immigrants. Black people soon became the subject of these same methods of segregation, particularly after the abolition of slavery. Each of these perceived “races” also became the scapegoat for the problems in American society. Today, the new targets of scapegoating and persecution in the US are Mexican immigrants and Arabs. Though, the way in which groups are persecuted and scapegoated has changed greatly, thanks to the progress made over the last five decades. But it remains a real influence on the way Western politicians act.

The Race War.

It was this primitive myth which became a form of sophistry, favouring racial persecution, segregation, slavery and genocide, before becoming ideological. By which I mean, it became a set of ideas, beliefs, values - some of which function independent of conscious belief by individuals - and a way of interpreting the world. A dominant ideology can function regardless of the belief of mere individuals, because such an ideology is embedded in daily life. In times of segregation in the US, you would be bombarded constantly with signs designating who uses what. Even if you consciously disagree with separate water fountains, if you drink from them you are actively obeying the dominant ideology. This is because it is the intended way, by those who put up the signs "white" and "coloured", in which water fountains are used that is ideological. The only way to escape from this is to act on one's disbelief, the Montgomery Bus Boycott is an example of how to challenge ideology. This ideological racism was actualised further through war.

It was first actualised in this way as America was "expanded" - namely, the theft of half of Mexico and the mass-murder it entailed. Unfortunately, the American politicians wanted to move onwards to the homeland of the Aryan supermen, in what may have been Iran or India. So Hawaii and the Philippines were later conquered by the US, again the conquest was characterised by mass-murder. From there, it was intended, that they would go on to conquer China and the rest of the East, so that the rightful descendents of the Aryans could return to their "homeland" once they had circled the earth. In fact, Theodore Roosevelt designated the Japanese "honorary Aryans", because they were seen as the key to defeating the Chinese and in doing so he laid the basis for the Pacific battles of WWII. Arguably, this was also the ideological aim for American involvement in the war in the Korean peninsula. Luckily, the US government never accomplished this imperialist goal, as it would have probably required genocide to "succeed".

Of course, the way ideology functions today has changed much since those primitive bigoted days. Today, as Slavoj Zizek has pointed out, ideology can function through cynicism (though, not always). For instance, upon Barack Obama's victory it was immediately said by many that he won't bring change. To believe that political change is impossible, because politicians are compromisers and all government is corrupt, is to accept the status quo as it is. Obama has not accomplished change, but to simply state "He was never going to..." implies it doesn't matter because politicians aren't meant to deliver change. If we follow this logic to it's ultimate conclusion we find that voting is a meaningless gesture that we might as well not participate in. Effectively, this hands over the polity to people who aren't expected to bring change and aren't representative of the population. This remains so if one does not actively pursue the desired change.

It is interesting to think about American imperialism, and it's guise of jingoism, as an extension of racist ideology, especially as Iran and China are still discussed in terms of their potentially "threatening" military. Many fear a war with Iran and many cynics are resigned to the fact that the US want a war with Iran - "The government will invade Iran, like they invade Iraq, we have no say in the matter..." Though, this ideologico-political explanation of American racism and military aggression isn't the only dimension to take into account, there are also the politico-economic reasons. Nevertheless, it is revealing of the "We own the world" mindset of American politicians, let alone the self-proclaimed "masters of the universe" running the corporations who benefit most from war and exploitation. Time will tell if the "master-race" will return to their rightful homeland in Iran.

Life after Race.

"The proof that one truly believes is in action." - Bayard Rustin

Since the election of Barack H Obama in 2008, the first African-American President, there has been much talk of the possibility of a post-racial America. Even Obama himself has said that his election has taken race out of the equation. The electoral victory of Barack Obama was met with an explosion of optimism in America, and the West in general. The optimism, widespread among the people, at the possibility of a black family entering the White House for the first time in history, was met with a reaction from the corporate world. This reaction consisted of optimism - not for change, but for more of the same - and an eagerness to hold racial issues at arm's length, along with issues of class and gender. This is why the electoral triumph of Barack Obama has been portrayed as evidence of America's successful transition, from a fragmented white supremacist state to a united post-racial society.

During the campaign, Barack Obama was put on the defensive as his association with the "anti-American" Reverend Jeremiah Wright was called into question. The sentiments expressed by Wright were misrepresented by the media. Wright is often quoted as saying "not God bless America, God damn America!" But the full quotation was never released by the mainstream media, which was "It's not God bless America, God damn America, that's in the Bible, for killing innocent people! God damn America for treating citizens as less than human!" Nevertheless, Barack Obama was put on the defensive as Wright was accused of being "anti-American". Though, terms like "anti-American" only exist in totalitarian states, in the Soviet Union there was the concept of "anti-Sovietism" used to vilify critics of the state. So it is very typical for the term to be applied to Reverend Wright for condemning the US government for violating human rights and killing innocents - as the US government has done for decades. The function of the term's use is clear, to shut up Wright and to make sure that Obama is not a radical.

Unfortunately, Barack Obama has reassured the "masters of the universe" that he is no radical and this is reflected by the fact that Obama's campaign received $700 million from corporations, the most funding in history and around $300 million more than John McCain raised. In his speeches, Obama has continuously referred to the "wounds" of racism as something people need to move on from. This is part of the rhetoric on unity his campaign team dished out - the idea of a United America existing beyond socio-economic and political divisions. In disguising this assertion, that racial issues are a thing of the past, as a way of unifying the nation the Obama campaign made it clear that solving America's race problem would not be the focus of the Obama Years. It is almost as if issues of race may be becoming a taboo subject, just like issues of class. However, between the two it is clear that the elites prefer to pay lip-service to fighting racism, while keeping their foot on the neck of "Black America".

America is a patriarchal society founded on slavery and violence. The suffering of the black woman and man has been tremendous over the last four centuries, let alone the suffering of Native Americans, the white working class and women. Countless Africans died in slavery, at the hands of the slave-masters who settled in America. But the abolition of slavery was just one battle won. Over the decades after abolition, the rights that people had died to see applied to black people were applied to property, as corporate lawyers sought to endow corporations with the rights of human beings. The KKK and Jim Crow Laws that brutalised African-Americans for decades. Segregation became a distinct part of society in America throughout the early 20th Century, it was only in the 1960s and 70s that desegregation finally took place. But that was down to the Black Civil Rights Movement, the struggle of young black women and men - many of whom died for basic human rights. It took the American political class nearly 20 years to dedicate a day to Martin Luther King Jr. and the ideals he fought for.

For instance, Ronald Reagan opposed the proposal of a Martin Luther King Day when it was first proposed in the 1970s and opposed it until Congress caved to a petition of 6 million signatures in the early 80s. He had also voted against the Civil Rights act in the 1960s, as did many other politicians. In 1988, the Reagan administration added Nelson Mandela to a list of "terrorists" kept by the government - a list which does not include the KKK, who have murdered thousands of blacks, Jews and any whites who got in the way. Mandela was removed from the list in 2008 by the Bush administration. Crimes such as the Jackson state shootings, in which 2 black students were left dead along with 12 injured by state police, and the Orangeburg massacre, in which 4 black students were killed and 31 injured by police officers, are still relatively ignored in political discourse. Not only is it naive to assert that America is now a post-racial society, on the basis that there is a black family in the White House, it is insulting to assert such a monumental falsehood. It is true that the election of Obama is a sign of progress, from the horrors of lynchings and segregation, but it is only one battle won in the ongoing fight for equality and liberty.

"When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him." - Bayard Rustin

It was nearly 50 years ago, that Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his most well known speech, at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, calling for equal rights to transcend the so-called boundaries of "race". The poignant line "I have a dream..." was used recurrently throughout the speech by King, and in doing so he emphasised the idealism of the demonstration. The dream he spoke of, was a vision of equality in America, the dream came embossed with heavy religious overtones and patriotic rhetoric. The words spoken by Martin Luther King Jr. that day have echoed through the decades since and are still remembered today. King's words are remembered as the definitive moment and expression of the ideals which the Black Civil Rights Movement fought for in those days.

Many have forgotten, or not even heard, of Bayard Rustin who helped organise the march with A Phillip Randolph. Partly because many other figures involved in the Civil Rights Movement, namely Roy Wilkins, did not want Rustin to receive any praise for his role in the march - because of his open homosexuality and his socialist beliefs. During the 1950s, the decade of anti-communist crusades, Martin Luther King Jr. and other African-American figures were attacked for their association with the perceived "anti-American" left-wing elements such as unionists, Marxists, socialists and anarchists. One function of the patriotic and religious language utilised by King in his speeches, was to distance himself from socialists like Bayard Rustin. This is even true of King's speech at the Washington March for Jobs and Freedom.

There are people who would rather remember the Civil Rights Movement as exemplified entirely by King's tearful eyes, grace and eloquence in the face of brutality by white supremacists and reactionaries. But not as a struggle fought by young men and women against a power structure. A power structure based on violence and tyranny, sanctioned and sponsored by the government and "Corporate America". This power structure could be described simply as rich, white and male - though, one could add heterosexual and Christian to that description. For the most part, this structure has remained entact and continues to function, despite the best efforts of radical activists representing ethnic minorities, women, homosexuals and the poor alike.

We are taught to remember King's brave fight against segregation, racism and oppression - which should not be ignored. But we are not taught to remember King for his pacifist opposition to the Vietnam War or his socialist leanings. Many aren't even aware of King's friendship with Bayard Rustin, who served as his adviser and introduced him to Gandhi's ideas of nonviolent resistance. At the time of his death, Martin Luther King Jr. was involved in a campaign, which was much broader than the African-American Civil Rights Movement and had goals of equal importance, and was aiming to construct a movement for poor people. At the time class issues were taboo in political discourse, and still is in many ways, as was race. But it seems as though there has been a return to the days when both were topics to avoid in order to succeed.

Many American journalists and pundits attempted to portray Jeremiah Wright as a racist and attempted to portray his sermons as separatist in nature, as a threat to the unity of the nation. This is reflective of the preference for Martin Luther King Jr. over Malcolm X that is common in predominantly white societies. King is remembered for his unconditional love and compassion, as informed by his religious conviction. Malcolm X is remembered more as an aggressive figure, even as a racist figure. Martin Luther King Jr. is commonly associated with peace, whereas Malcolm X is commonly associated with violence. King is associated with integration, Malcolm X is associated with the Nation of Islam and by extension separatism. Wright's aggressive tone and style of delivery is what has led to him being likened more to Malcolm X than to Martin Luther King.

The truth is that Malcolm X is a lot scarier to whites than Martin Luther King Jr. This is because of the aggressive style in which Malcolm X conveyed ideas of self-determination, independence and autonomy for African-Americans. On the other hand, King spoke with the style of a Baptist preacher and spoke with love about peace and unity. Malcolm X would not accept the surname "Little", which was probably passed onto his ancestors by a slave-master with the surname "Little", and instead chooses "X" as symbolic of the African name he will never know. The name Malcolm X is in itself is a distinct reminder of the nameless condition experienced by black people since the days of slavery. Unlike Martin X, Martin Luther King Jr. kept the name he had been given at birth - the name of Protestant theologian Martin Luther.

Despite what "White America" may want, think or feel, the words of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X had to be said and need to be heard. The uncompromising and "harsh" rhetoric of Malcolm X, and the Nation of Islam, had to be said because a firm condemnation of white supremacy had to be made. The horrific and immoral nature of the crimes committed by white men had to be addressed. The "Love thy Enemy" approach taken by King would not suffice in condemnation of such crimes. Only Malcolm X had the bravery to indict "White America" for its criminal conduct in the "harshest" of terms, almost as a way of reciprocating the anger and mistreatment white men often "dished out" so eagerly.

"To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true." - Bayard Rustin

During the campaign months, Obama was able to capitalise on black solidarity as he made an effort to reassure the business class of his credibility and neutralise the anxieties prevalent among white voters. To "Corporate America" he proved his credibility by accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in backing, which will no doubt shape policy during his tenure. In accepting such corporate support, Obama confirmed his dedication to the same long-term plans and goals as the Republicans - to maintain the status quo. To "White America" he distanced himself from the rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright, and by extension the black liberation theology which was developed during the Civil Rights Movement. It could be argued that this was a necessary move to win the election. Nevertheless, it is a shame that the struggle for racial equality is now considered too radical for mainstream American politics. Though, if we're honest with ourselves, it always was.

History appears to have repeated itself, as Marx once said "first as tragedy, then as farce." The way in which the faces of the Black Civil Rights Movement distanced themselves from the gay leftist Bayard Rustin in 1963 was tragic, because it mimicked the kind of discrimination exercised by whites against blacks. But the way in which Obama, and the Democrats, distanced themselves from the black radical Jeremiah Wright seems farcical by comparison. In fact, some of the defenders of Jeremiah Wright have claimed that his words did not differ so greatly from the words spoken by Martin Luther King Jr. But as Dr Cornel West pointed out, the big difference between Wright and King is that the latter delivered his message with love and compassion for the victims of oppression - but also for the oppressor who will inevitably reap what they sow. Rustin embodied that which was considered "un-American" in the backward days before desegregation. But today it is Wright, a preacher of liberation theology, who is considered "anti-American" in this supposedly post-racial age.

The facts are that race still matters in America, and in the West in general, despite the many years of struggle and the progress made. This was demonstrated perfectly by Hurricane Katrina and it's aftermath - thousands have yet to return to their homes. But it should not be surprising in this day and age that rich white men do not care, or even think about, the needs of poor black people. Just as the rich do not care about the needs of any minority, woman or working-class individual. In the words of Howard Zinn: "I wish President Obama would listen carefully to Martin Luther King. I'm sure he pays verbal homage, as everyone does, to Martin Luther King. But he ought to think before he sends missiles over Pakistan, before he agrees to this bloated military budget, before he sends troops to Afghanistan, before he opposes the single-payer system. He ought to ask what would Martin Luther King do? and what Martin Luther King would say?"

From Protest to Politics - by Bayard Rustin (1965)