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TheAnarchistLibrary Anti-Copyright Anarchists Hate Racism Scott of the Insurgency Culture Collective ScottoftheInsurgencyCultureCollective AnarchistsHateRacism RetrievedonJanuary1,2005fromwww.cat.org.au theanarchistlibrary.org Contents Whatwebelieve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Wheredidracismcomefrom? . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Thereisnosuchthingasrace . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Howdowefightracism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2 What we believe AnarchistsbelieveinEqualitybetweenallpeopleregardless of where their ancestors came from, what color their skin is, orwheretheywereborn.Webelieveinsocialequalityregard- less 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 pleas- ant lives. Anarchism is the philosophy of personal freedom, personalresponsibilityandmutualrespectbetweenallpeople. Anti-Racist Actionis based on the ideasof Solidarity and Mu- tual Aid. Solidarity is our natural outrage every time we see an act of injustice or evil. Mutual Aid is the practice of peo- plebandingtogethertoopposeacommonenemyorconfront a challenge that may seem insurmountable to individuals but, canbeovercomewhenweworktogetherasagroup. Where did racism come from? Racism was invented by rich people to keep working people divided so they wouldn’t unite and overthrow capitalism. RacismoriginatedwiththeEuropeanclasssystemwherepeo- plehadpigmentedskinonlyiftheyhadtoworkoutdoors.The rich considered manual labor the duty of inferiors and there- foreviewedanyonewiththecharacteristicsofaworkerasbe- low their station. The term “blue blood” originated from the abilitytoseearichpersonsveinsthroughtheirpaleskin.The term“gentleman”,“gentlewoman”or“gentry”referredtoaper- sonraisedtobelievethatphysicalexertionwastheworkofin- feriors.Aristocratsdevelopedstrictcodesofconducttoexclude anyoutsiderfromtheprivilegestheyenjoyed.Thepowerofthe rulingclassoriginatedwithownershipofthelandwhichgave them a monopoly over food production. Control of the land eventuallygavetheminfluenceoverthegovernment.Capital- 3 ism originated with traders and bankers who owned no land trade between peoples who lived in geographic proximity to but,boughtandsoldtheproductsofcraftsmenandlandowners. eachother.Therearemanygeneticcharacteristicswhichtran- Theinventionofindustryenabledthesetraderstooutstripthe scend language families. This is because most groups have in- wealthoflandowners.WhenCapitalistsbegantodominatethe terbred with other groups to a great enough degree to share economy they aspired to live like the gentry which included thesetraitsacrossethnic,culturalorlinguisticbarriers. theirclassprejudices.Europeancountriesexploringtheworld justifiedtakinglandfromnon-Europeansbasedonreligiousor How do we fight racism? cultural bigotry. Aristocrats who believed workers to be infe- riorsaw“non-Christian”or“colored”peoplethattheysoldas The foremost thing we have to do is to attack the institu- slaves or forced into poverty and starvation by stealing their tions which “legitimize” racism: Those political and economic landaslessthanhuman(Blackswereworth3/5ofapersonin powerswhichtellpeoplethatracistbehaviorandideasarere- theU.S.ConstitutionandNativeAmericansdidn’tcount).They spectableratherthanshameful.Wemustshowthatwebelieve foundthattheycouldusetheirarmiestoforcethesepeopleto racism to be cowardly, shameful and beneath contempt. We liveonlessthantheypaidtheirEuropeanworkersiftheytold must embarrass those who are comfortable with their racism theEuropeanworkersthat“coloreds”wouldonlygetthedirty andshowotherswhoquestionracismthattheiranti-racistin- worktheydidn’twanttodo. stincts are correct. Our best weapons against racism are our commonsense and our unity against racist violence and ex- ploitation. Our goal is social equality for all people. We will There is no such thing as race achieve this after we do away with all the institutions who depend on racism in order to exploit us. Racism is motivated Biologists have found no genetic similarity between people by greed and perpetuated by power and ignorance. We want who have been grouped as races because of their skin pig- to abolish capitalism in favor of worker ownership and self- mentation.Humanbloodtypeshavenocorrelationwithracial management of the workplace. We want to abolish govern- groupingsbasedonskinpigmentation.Humanswithdifferent mentswhichcreatedivisiontoprotectafewwealthyandpow- ethnic characteristics, including skin pigmentation, are capa- erfulpeopleinfavorofautonomousself-governingcommuni- bleofinterbreeding.MostAmericanswhoaredescendedfrom ties who coordinate their activities through decentralized fed- slaves have some European ancestry. Skin pigmentation is a erations. We want to create free schools in the community product of the geographic origin of a persons ancestors. Peo- where children can grow up happy and without bigotry. Do- plewhoseancestorslivedformanygenerationsintropicalcli- ing away with capitalists, bosses and professional politicians mates will tend to develop darker skin pigmentation as a bio- and returning control of work and the community to people chemical defense mechanism against exposure. People whose who do productive labor in a society where people can have ancestorslivedinforestedregionswithseasonalcoldandsnow as much as they can earn by working in a single lifetime will will tend to be more pale. History shows that all major lan- createasocietywhereeveryonewhowantstoworkcanhave guage groups in the world show evidence of large scale mi- acomfortablelife. grationsthroughouthistory.Languagegroupswerecreatedby 4 5