Looks like I’m gonna be full of ‘controversial’ opinions today so I’m just gonna be real about this next topic that’s been itchin’ at me for a while:
I genuinely don’t think a lot of white leftists understand just how integral anti-black racism is to keeping class oppression in power and they often gloss over their own internalized racism while using the argument of ‘uwu don’t assume all poor/rural white people are racists and have more compassion uwu’ as a way to try to ‘band’ together as a community of lower class people.
Here’s the thing, though: you CANNOT ‘defeat’ this class struggle, especially in the United States, if you CANNOT acknowledge the pivotal role that anti-blackness/racism in general has played in keeping poor communities struggling. Race has always played a part in determining rent, mortgage, education, and other basic human necessities within a community because if that community just so happened to have a lot of black folks in it, the ‘value’ of that area was inherently seen as ‘lower class’ or ‘unworthy’ of fair opportunities that could improve that area.
This should not be a surprise to ANY so-called leftist but I’m starting to see more and more white leftists try to weaponize the whole ‘don’t call rural white people rednecks, they’re not all racists’ and ‘we need to band together to defeat the rich and stop focusing on little things that divide us’ as a way to deter any deep conversation about the inherent racism involved in the class struggle.
Y’all really need to start reading more articles and books from past black/non-white leftists who have already talked about this entire subject YEARS before any of us became the ‘leftists who occasionally make good points on a public blogging platform’.
Because I’m tired of seeing white people complain about how poor/rural white folks are seen as racists and it’s ‘not fair’ to them while I’m an Afro Latino person who has lived in a rural area for MOST OF MY LIFE and has experienced nothing but racism from poor/rural AND rich white people, with no mercy.
White leftists need to stop using ‘class struggle’ as a way to band people together and actually work on their own internalized racism, do more research by actually READING information given about this subject by previous non-white leftists, and then confront the anti-black racism in their own communities. Especially if those white leftists live in poor and/or rural areas themselves.
Relying on black/non-white people to do all the heavy lifting for you and risk their lives by having to ‘educate’ rural/poor white people on how to be decent human beings to poc is not a good look.
EDIT: y’all can reblog this but if you start being disrespectful, I will block you.