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June, 2002



Affirmative Action Means Democracy
by Frank Scott

"Back during slavery...There were two kinds of Negroes. There was that
old
house Negro and the field Negro. And the house Negro always looked out
for
his master. When the field Negroes got too much out of line, he held
them back in check. He put 'em back on the plantation.” Malcolm X



Malcolm X, a  hero to millions the world over, would have been 77 years
old on
May 19. He might not think kindly of present  policies which transform
the
descendants of slaves into the indentured servants of  capital. Such
policies
never stop the production of victims, but simply award some professional

degrees in victimology, so that a few may prosper while the many still
suffer.

As long as  corporate affirmative action programs are  seen as agents of

change, racism will continue and democracy will not. And the only way to
end
racism is through democracy, when united  citizens create majorities
that are stronger than minority financial power .

The failure of racial tokenism may never have been more poignantly
realized
than in the recent performance of two black  leaders, reduced to
political
impotence on a global stage.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan’s intelligence and
statesmanship
have meant nothing when it came to the exercise of any real power. Too
often, he has been treated like a head waiter at an exclusive, white
owned
restaurant.  But his status was lowered to that of a dishwasher  when he
had
to disband a  commission to investigate  Israel’s possible war crimes in
Jenin.
Israel simply told him, and the UN, to buzz off.

Almost as sad was white America’s favorite black man,  Secretary of
State Colin Powell, helplessly rushing around the  world like an
overworked messenger , asking Israel to temper its assaults on
Palestinians.  He was criticized  for being ineffective , but that is
his job description . His  mild questioning of Israel, while dutifully
reprimanding Arafat and the  Palestinians, was an expression of U.S.
policy. Israel dealt him the same contempt it gave to Anan.

The racist term  “nigger” has been retired from official speech ,  but
racist
behavior is  still highly permissible in official practice,  by police
departments, real estate agents, insurance companies and the foreign
policy establishment, as evidenced by the treatment of Anan and Powell.

These two supposed  leaders were simply  walk-ons in a global
production
directed by corporate white power , headquartered in the U.S, with
branch
offices in  England and Israel . Theirs is the fate of all who rise to
the top
through  policy that  prevents social transformation by allowing only
cosmetic change. The kind that puts non-whites in positions of upper
class  power , but merely as figureheads who are ultimately  treated
like  lower class servants. Like Malcolm’s house Negroes, they serve to
make the master look good, and his critics seem unreasonable.

Allowing individual non-whites entry into the white power structure does
not
change social disparities; it strengthens them . Those entrants  have
to  obey  establishment dictates and make criticism only in  acceptable
forms that represent no threat to the entrenched power of corporate
capital. And no matter how many affirmative action programs capital
promotes, its power remains western, European and white.

And its exercise  is nowhere more diabolical and dangerous than among
the
world’s Arab and Muslim people, of many nations and cultures, but all
lumped
into one alien, non-white “them”. Political economics are at the base of
these
warped global relations, but racism flourishes on its foundation.

Israel is a white western power in an oil rich area where millions of
non-western, non-white  people live. That is why it receives special
treatment
from the US, though popular mythology has it that we are supporting a
homeland for survivors of anti-Jewish hatred in the world. Bipartisan
liberals
and  conservatives passionately “push Israel into the sea” of U.S.
taxpayer
dollars, supposedly protecting it from anti-Semites.  But the founders
of Israel were  white  Europeans, as were the bloody bigots  whose
slaughter of
European Jews are the  rationale for its existence. This is tragically
ironic, given that  Semites - the Palestinians -  have paid most dearly
for those crimes  of Europe.

Bigotry and hatred in the middle east are the by-product of white
western
cruelty in making an innocent Palestinian people pay for European  sins.

The world’s dark skinned people are akin to those Malcolm called field
Negroes, and suffer even more than the exploited  whites whose status is
not much higher than those he called house Negroes. When non-white
people are compelled to emigrate by forces of the market , they
encounter animosity from white  people who are almost as helpless and
easily manipulated by political reactionaries. The economics that throw
people off their home lands to provide  cheap labor  somewhere else, are
those  that contaminate people and environments with the poisonous
pollution of ignorance and racism.

That economic system will maintain its global control of the segregated,

anti-democratic “field” , as long as it is allowed to get away with
cosmetically integrating only its staff in the “house”.

While Anan serves at the UN and Powell fronts for the regime in
Washington ,
Africa suffers a disastrous health  crisis , American jails are packed
with black prisoners , and the non-white  world continues to be kept in
poverty  by the white world’s plunder of its wealth.

Individuals who front for the system  and make it look good  with their
personal success are like the old house Negroes in Malcolm’s quote .  It
is racist evil to mistreat human beings because of their color, but it
is a defense of racism to privilege only some of those human beings
who’ve been mistreated. To affirm the aggrieved  only on an individual
basis is to continue the denial of collective humanity. It perpetuates
racism, and the anti-democratic system of corporate capital. The
ultimate affirmative action is Democracy, and that calls for unity, not
separation, between those in the  field and those in the house. Happy
Birthday, Malcolm.

Copyright (c) 2002 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.

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frank scott
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