"All That Glitters Is Not Gold": Racial Justice, "White Privilege," The Non-Rich, and Socioeconomic Justice

greenpeaceRdale1844coop @Bis "I´m not quite sure what 'racial justice' means.".... Your question isn´t a bad one, but the issue isn´t just about reparations, ultimately. Racial justice has gotten ignited because of police brutality, but extends to the levels of incarceration of Afro-Ams, and others, and other issues that are systemic. As a social justice and human rights activist, I´ve felt annoyed by the superficial switch by BLM supporters from the local white supremacy in police brutality to calling systemic issues by the same terms. Even at the local level, white supremacy has to be analyzed more deeply than a police detective´s mindset. Forensic analysts don´t say "all that glitters is gold," because there is fool´s gold, and broken mirrors, and so on. Details matter if you want to know what you´re talking about, and not say, "All that glitters is gold." Is it?

Religious freedom helps us here because when white supremacists commit police brutality, we are called in Christianity to "love our enemy." When BLM, or its fans, goes beyond the acts of brutality and starts accusing all whites of being "white privileged" in a "white supremacist system," something´s wrong. That is, many of us need to take the plank out of our own eye as Jesus taught, and it´s not just because all white´s are privileged and abusing that privilege. Thus, if churches and concerned people are making claims, but something doesn´t add up, then having a larger picture to look at can help solve the problem. God as transcendent, and in Jesus´ legacy, University-based for all interested religious parties, we can check ourselves through multidisciplinary empirical philosophy.

We can check the saying, "All that glitters is not gold." That analogy works well here. "All that is to blame is not white, nor is all that is white to be blamed." Local white supremacist police officers are part of what group? Non-rich whites. Who has been hit hard since Reagan-era´s Big Biz friendly deregulation? Anti-labor and anti-social, the GOP has led a reactionary program, and the Dems have followed fairly spinelessly, if less willingly or more reluctantly. There are some differences. In recent years, Tenn-based VW and Miss-based Nissan, run by locals, have had union votes and lost, with ample anti-union management interference and propaganda. That´s after millions of jobs were sent abroad, as to Mexico´s maquiladora´s and most infamously, China of the suicidal workers jumping out of factories. Michael Moore´s films have been a powerful cultural informational resource and alert. If the white non-rich have been getting squeezed, that´s all socioeconomic inequality and stress. Any ideas what happens when anybody gets socioeconomically stressed? Is racism the only form of violence? How about domestic and child abuse? Ever heard of mass murder? It´s rare outside of war, and rarer everywhere than the US. Racism is one of those forms of violence.

We might go deeper. Slavery existed before Anglo-Am US slavery of Africans, etc, and Brit Empire-US use was obviously economic. It was socioeconomic injustice. However, as non-rich, high integrity Christians in the UK led the social movement to abolish slavery, the sci-tech-biz Industrial Revolution switched on. The UK and US Northern abolition movements happened as industrial factories were half-innovated, half-imposed since they were brutal wage-slavery and class war against artisanal tradespeople. By the 1790s, R Owen in the UK, inspired by a Christian doctor, already broke the mold and went pro-labor.

All the while, white men without property could not vote (in the US until 1861, UK after WWI!), not to mention white women, and in the UK labor unions were banned (until 1871). And so on and so forth until FDR´s New Deal was pro-social in the US, and UN human rights no less, that the US rejected Economic, etc Rights, Cold War or not. In fact, a Rev Fifield wormed his way up with millionaires to spur the industrialists at the NMA to link Cold War propaganda to fundie right wing religion, so that anything pro-social got smeared as communist. The rich execs of Big Biz funded right wing think tanks as M Friedman climbed on board, and Nixon and Reagan followed the JFK and RFK assassinations. And MLK, et al. Fannie Lou Hamer didn´t get assassinated, but did get snobbed by some black intellectuals at least, as she went from zero on plantations to a hero talking up civil rights and the Bible, until she started the Freedom Co-op Farm.

By Reagan´s election and deregulation for "trickle down" doubletalk, offshoring was starting for Big Biz profiteering and Wall St.´s Milken blurted out, "Greed is good." Al Gore wrote Earth in the Balance as a Senator and prez candidate, but the Dems couldn´t make the link between save the people with regulations and Corporate Social Responsibility. Dick Gephardt took a shot. Clinton and the Dems let the Glass-Steagall bank regs of FDR´s New Deal get squashed in 1999 without a squeak, however.

That´s how the rich, mostly white, have been stamping down on the non-rich. Racial justice can´t happen without socioeconomic justice, because squeezed non rich whites don´t deserve to be fingerwagged about "white privilege." (Just saw an article about non-college ed white suicides whose rates are higher than blacks etc). In fact, non-rich whites up to a certain level need help getting oriented.

Rich blacks, for their part, have glommed onto rich white culture, and echo it. "There´s no racism," says Morgan Freeman. "Don´t call me African-Am. I´m just an American," says Luther, switching to a Smokey Robinson talk. By contrast, I´ll cite Angela Davis who said, "I don´t want to be exploited by blacks or whites."

The solution is for anybody and everybody who can to get hip. Community gardens were a movement in NYC, where a few food co-ops had survived since the 1970s, as had dozens across the US. A number have low income assistance projects. Grameen Bank has arrived from Bangladesh and is up to five US branches. I haven´t heard that they promote co-op biz partnerships. SEWA in India is a co-op from the 1970s by Eli Bhatt to help street vendors, for ex. Solidarity Economics arrived from Brazil around 2007, and Jackson Rising honors Fannie Lou Hamer using it, and inviting young whites to participate. The Federation of Southern Co-ops is an Afro-Am farmer org since 1967. In 2004, a group of mostly white non-rich formed the US Fed of Worker Co-ops, although member Afro-Am Omar Freilla founded Green Worker Co-ops in NYC

That´s all a reality check.