The Make-Up of Lib Com

there's a famous (in new york) story about this. a job broker on the docks was driving with a buddy by a shape-up one day (the kind of thing you see in On The Waterfront, where you line up and wait to be picked for a day's work) and howled "look at 'em! and not a white man among 'em!", all of them being italians.
also: http://www.amazon.com/Are-Italians-White-Race-America/dp/0415934516

i think that it just isn't limited to america, even in italy there was/is some level of racism (im not sure thats the right word) between those from the north who are maybe perceived as whiter and fairer whilst those from the south and sicily maybe tended to have darker skin, but it was also that the south was poorer and characterized as stupid peasants.

woah that's OLD SCHOOL UFC. Last tie Ken Shamrock fought in UFC was about 3yrs ago where he got hammered again by Ortiz I think. Frank does Strikeforce nowadays.

woah that's OLD SCHOOL UFC. Last tie Ken Shamrock fought in UFC was about 3yrs ago where he got hammered again by Ortiz I think. Frank does Strikeforce nowadays.

Just picking up on the colour conversation. Is colour an appropriate descriptor of the types of people who may or may not post here?

"While I have no evidence for this second claim, I'd guess the membership is predominately caucasian."

Should this comment be discussed in terms of skin tone, or, as I would suggest, in terms of culture, background etc. I don't think being dark skinned, light skinned or freckled makes a difference, but cultural upbringing and current cultural background might. The way issues are discussed will be dictated by cultural paradigm and make it easier for people who share culture than for people who don't. That's the issue.

Discussion of skin tone is just a lazy and irrelevant descriptor.

2p

I remember reading about Italian and Spanish immigrants in New York and apparently initially they got on well haviong similar languages etc but over time they dissassociated from them, perceiving them as lower class. I can't remember where I saw it though.

Excellent post, which neatly links in with my point about the Italian-Vzlan...

I'm saying the length of time past in lineage contributes to a term's usefulness.

So obviously race and ethnicity plays out differently in different places. I think some people are forgetting that here. I don't believe there is such thing as a 'best term', but I definitely do not believe there would be one that could apply to all regions equally. Every place has their own specific history with nuances and taboos that don't match up elsewhere. It's difficult enough to even discuss the topic of race with those from other places without running into trouble.

As far as the term 'people of color', according to Wikipedia:

So because the term defines people only by their exclusion from one 'race' it highlights racism rather than being another example of it?

I'm confused. Are you trying to make an 'affirmation vs. negation' type argument or are you saying 'people of color' is a racist term since it purposefully excludes white people?

Does it really change anything from non-White? PoC is a term that is still defined in relation to the white standard.

I've come to this discussion late.

I would say that in the city where I live no, around 50 - 60% of radical practical (anarchistic and solidarity based) politics are carried out by women, and in some groups like No Borders it's more like 90% women. Most trot and anti racist groups are roughly 50/50 as well, though some like the IWW and Socialist Party are overwhelmingly male.

From what I've seen the far left as a whole across the UK tends to have a real mix genderwise, and certainly I would say on average (though with wide variations between specific groups in specific areas) the gender balance is generally 50/50 with some weighting towards males sometimes.

There is certainly under - representation of women from families with kids.

I also would say it hasn't been true to say teh internetz or forums are overwhelmingly male dominated for several years.

I'll always remember being on a bus and hearing a man say to the person sitting next to him "Don't you call me coloured, man, you make me feel like a packet of felt tip pens!"

I didn't say that.

There's so much arguing as to whihc term or phrase is best, but why do we need to find some generic term to distinguish 'black', yellow or 'coloured' people from 'white' ones? This always puzzles me.

I don't think jef is taking issue with the term because it 'excludes white people' but because, as several people have pointed out, PoC is not really any different to the term 'non-white' since its still defining millions of people solely by their relationship to white people.

No girls on the internet.

Actually in my experience in the US, those who belong to more margninalized sexual and ethnic groups tend to gravitate more towards anarchism. I have met more transgendered people and hermaphrodites among the anarchist milieu than anywhere else. Anarchist organizations I've been involved with have been predominately female. Africans, American Indians, Latinos, and Jews tend to be "overrepresented" so-to-speak in anarchist circles.

Maybe it has more to do with the insipid male chauvinist and knee-jerk anti-cultural nationalist politics that floats around this forum

Can you please explain what this means?

Basically whining about how symbols of cultural expression especially among oppressed social groups are "nationalist" and therefore evil. Not everyone on libcom does this, but it's common enough..

And then there was the whole black vagina thing...

can you give an example because i have no idea what you're talking about. and i assume you're joking about the black vagina thread.

are there really anarchist organizations in blacksburg/roanoke area? i assume, based off the description of where you live, this is the general region?

also, not directed specifically at you, there is so much bullshit in this thread i wouldn't know where to start. tons of disingenuous point scoring and nebulous quasi-accusations mostly done by folks without any vested interest in any kind of improvement but instead it seems to fulfill some kind of self-righteous crusader complex. i trust that every single known and regular poster here would do anything they possibly could to end sexism, homophobia, and racism. that a large porton of the criticisms seem to be from folks whose sole purpose on libcom appears to be slagging off libcom does not lend much credibility to the arguments.

Agree with jwiedner, say what you will about Libcom, there's no way that it is a bastion of homophobic, sexist white dude-politics. Aside from reporting on, initiating and showing solidarity with struggles across the board, throughout the broad and diverse international working class, what can be done to be more inclusive without tokenising and fetishizing certain groups?

Edit: this is a rhetorical question, because I expect the answer would have been found in the last 30 years if it were simple enough to be hashed out on a message board.

Random example I found by aimlessly searching around past conversations on the forum:

Someone immediately responds with:

That sort of crap.

Except I'm also serious. Just because libcom is a white boy's hangout doesn't mean that the libertarian left tends to be predominately white and male. It would be a major mistake to infer such...

Err...what is the purpose of this inquirty? This might be a conversation that would be better had over private message. The political organization I'm referring to is now sadly defunct.

If you do know anything about Virginia geography (which you seem to) than you should think a little bit more north if for some morbidly curious reason you want to pin-point my exact location.

I assume you're talking about the content of the libcom library (which exceeds all expectations) whereas I'm talking about the milieu that has developed around the forums.

Anyway I'm not interesting in proposing saccharine, politically correct measures of pandering and tokenizing to make this message board "more inclusive", merely pointing out in a sardonic tone how utterly asinine it is to explain this board's own skewed demographics under the flimsy pretense that the libertarian left is allegedly all and all predominately made up of whites and males. (Globally speaking this simply statistically must be untrue. It's also counter-intuitive that the most marginalized segments of the working-class wouldn't gravitate towards politically extremist ideologies)

There's really nothing wrong with the fact that the majority of forum posters are white or male. There's nothing wrong with being a white male. I really don't give a shit. But don't say that white males on the whole are more likely to be libertarians just because of the demographics of a single message board, otherwise you are being tacitly bigoted.

Well, make that the two of us, because you apparently live in the one place on earth where all the anarchist organizations with a white male minority are from.

what are you on about? an honest curiosity and surprise at hearing there might be anarchist orgs in a region best known for evangelical colleges, lawn sitting, and confederate pride becomes morbid curiosity about your exact location? if you don't want people to know the couple hundred miles or so around the area you post, it's probably best to not say where you are in multiple posts. but if security is srs bzns for you, i'll gladly delete my post.

as to the quote above without any context i can't comment though i can't help but imagine there would be cross-class alliances involved that would lead to such a response, in which case i would agree. but again, without knowing what was said by whom and in reference to what, it's hard to say if you have a point or not in this particular case.

I don't give a shit about my own personal security, I've already compromised it extensively. I'm sorry if you read my statements as being overtly hostile in tone, I was only imagining that since you knew a lot about Virginia geography you were probably sincerely interested in whatever political projects might be going on in the area. As you expected there's not much, but in all sincerity if you want to discuss it I would be happy to over PM...

At the same time I thought you might have the hostile intention of simply wishing to debunk my argument...I'm sorry if we've gotten off on the wrong foot.

Here is the context, no specific organization was only being discussed, only "the Mohawks" in a general sense.

I don't know, I would be seriously shocked if the anarchist organizations in say, Thailand, had a white male majority.

d/p