RNC Welcoming Committee to Unmask, Answer Questions

Yes, and we live in a white supremacist society. That guarantees special privileges for white people. More job opportunities, more lenient sentencing in front of judges. Less reason to worry about the cops unless they are rioting. You know, daily stuff, driving a car, looking for a job, relationships. Yeah, white kids have a right to be angry, punk rock all the way. But do you really think the majority of the kids who were out in the street were 'working-class'? Does that mean that they actually have a regular job? How did they grow up? Are they college educated? I am willing to bet the farm on the fact that most of the kids, I know, not all, but most of the kids doing direct action come from middle class or even upper middle class backgrounds. Kind of like the 'militant radical middle class white kids in the sixties' the SDS and Weather Underground who mostly came out of privilege and their choice of tactics showed this. This merely means that their parents were professionals, you know doctors, lawyers, teachers, they grew up with health insurance, summer vacations, travelled to europe in college. And the tactics that are chosen, and seen as the most 'radical' are individualistic, short sighted and not very smart strategically. And more than that, not very collectivist in nature and certainly don't allow people who are more marginalized by society to participate, actually kept certain contingents like the immigrant rights contingent smaller than it would have been.

This critique is not designed to put anyone down or make less important the fact that there was resistance to the republicans. But you have to look at White Supremacy and racism and how it plays out in our movements and in the choice of our tactics. As a majority white movement, the direct action movement needs to be committed to an anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic and anti-classist agenda and that includes dialogue about what tactics make sense. There also needs to be a discussion about all the macho crap that parades as strategy, lets go fight the cops even if we have pathetically small numbers and will be easily picked off. Those voices are often the voices of infiltrators and provocateurs who encourage folks to carry out actions that will get those involved put in jail and often without the sympathy of the larger community, because again we need to look at the groups that we claim to be fighting for, you know the 'working class'. Were those folks out in the street? Did our tactics pull them closer and find sympathy and win hearts and minds, you know 80 percent of folks in this country are against the war and think that the economy sucks...so you'd think there would be a connection there.

Middle class kids grow up on the model of the hero, individualistic, and work to be the next Abby Hoffmann, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden. It's sexy to pick up a tear gas canister and throw it back at a line of cops wearing gas masks, it's a huge adrenaline rush, and then it's off to jail and most likely the sentence is reduced because you have a college degree and the judge knows that you will wise up eventually, I mean have you seen the pictures of Norm Coleman, long hair, protesting the Vietnam war, now he's a senator. A lot of the weathermen went on to become college professors and stock brokers, not working down at the Ford Plant or in a garmet factory or sweat shop. It's cool to think that middle class white kids are going to lead the revolution, but they are not. It's impossible, they have as much stake in the system as the people they are fighting against. It's important to look at this and realize that unless a consciousness around combating all forms of oppression is a cornerstone of a movement of white kids, they will end up replicating all of the fucked up patterns of the society that they inherit.

And last but not least. If you are a bunch of white kids who decide to riot and break a window or two (not a very successful riot/ can do that in a small affinity group alone at night and not go to jail), then that becomes the story. Not the poor peoples' march or the situation of immigrants or the voices of vets coming back from the war and facing unemployment and no health insurance, or the family who just lost their home and who are now out on the streets, the story becomes one of police tactics and protester rage, and that's it: tear gas, batons and people crying foul at their treatment. The issues facing our communities are lost. And a lot of people turn off the T.V. and put down the newspaper and know that the hidden story in this is privilege, people who can afford to riot because they don't die doing it.