Scott of the Insurgency Culture Collective

Anarchists Hate Racism

Retrieved on January 1, 2005 from www.cat.org.au

What we believe

Anarchists believe in Equality between all people regardless of where their ancestors came from, what color their skin is, or where they were born. We believe in social equality regardless of ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. We believe in an economy and community where everybody cooperates to make sure that we all can live healthy, prosperous, and pleasant lives. Anarchism is the philosophy of personal freedom, personal responsibility and mutual respect between all people. Anti-Racist Action is based on the ideas of Solidarity and Mutual Aid. Solidarity is our natural outrage every time we see an act of injustice or evil. Mutual Aid is the practice of people banding together to oppose a common enemy or confront a challenge that may seem insurmountable to individuals but, can be overcome when we work together as a group.

Where did racism come from?

Racism was invented by rich people to keep working people divided so they wouldn’t unite and overthrow capitalism. Racism originated with the European class system where people had pigmented skin only if they had to work outdoors. The rich considered manual labor the duty of inferiors and therefore viewed anyone with the characteristics of a worker as below their station. The term “blue blood” originated from the ability to see a rich persons veins through their pale skin. The term “gentleman”,“gentlewoman” or “gentry” referred to a person raised to believe that physical exertion was the work of inferiors. Aristocrats developed strict codes of conduct to exclude any outsider from the privileges they enjoyed. The power of the ruling class originated with ownership of the land which gave them a monopoly over food production. Control of the land eventually gave them influence over the government. Capitalism originated with traders and bankers who owned no land but, bought and sold the products of craftsmen and landowners. The invention of industry enabled these traders to outstrip the wealth of landowners. When Capitalists began to dominate the economy they aspired to live like the gentry which included their class prejudices. European countries exploring the world justified taking land from non-Europeans based on religious or cultural bigotry. Aristocrats who believed workers to be inferior saw “non-Christian” or “colored” people that they sold as slaves or forced into poverty and starvation by stealing their land as less than human (Blacks were worth 3/5 of a person in the U.S. Constitution and Native Americans didn’t count). They found that they could use their armies to force these people to live on less than they paid their European workers if they told the Europe an workers that “coloreds” would only get the dirty work they didn’t want to do.

There is no such thing as race

Biologists have found no genetic similarity between people who have been grouped as races because of their skin pigmentation. Human blood types have no correlation with racial groupings based on skin pigmentation. Humans with different ethnic characteristics, including skin pigmentation, are capable of interbreeding. Most Americans who are descended from slaves have some European ancestry. Skin pigmentation is a product of the geographic origin of a persons ancestors. People whose ancestors lived for many generations in tropical climates will tend to develop darker skin pigmentation as a biochemical defense mechanism against exposure. People whose ancestors lived in forested regions with seasonal cold and snow will tend to be more pale. History shows that all major language groups in the world show evidence of large scale migrations throughout history. Language groups were created by trade between peoples who lived in geographic proximity to each other. There are many genetic characteristics which transcend language families. This is because most groups have interbred with other groups to a great enough degree to share these traits across ethnic, cultural or linguistic barriers.

How do we fight racism?

The foremost thing we have to do is to attack the institutions which “legitimize” racism: Those political and economic powers which tell people that racist behavior and ideas are respectable rather than shameful. We must show that we believe racism to be cowardly, shameful and beneath contempt. We must embarrass those who are comfortable with their racism and show others who question racism that their anti-racist instincts are correct. Our best weapons against racism are our commonsense and our unity against racist violence and exploitation. Our goal is social equality for all people. We will achieve this after we do away with all the institutions who depend on racism in order to exploit us. Racism is motivated by greed and perpetuated by power and ignorance. We want to abolish capitalism in favor of worker ownership and self-management of the workplace. We want to abolish governments which create division to protect a few wealthy and powerful people in favor of autonomous self-governing communities who coordinate their activities through decentralized federations. We want to create free schools in the community where children can grow up happy and without bigotry. Doing away with capitalists, bosses and professional politicians and returning control of work and the community to people who do productive labor in a society where people can have as much as they can earn by working in a single lifetime will create a society where everyone who wants to work can have a comfortable life.