What's Wrong with White People?

[this is an excerpt from "some thoughts," a talk by Bob Avakian in 1987 which was published in  Revolution  magazine (Issue No. 57, Fall/Winter 1988)]

I think we need to dig more deeply into the whole question of what we could call white "real proletarians," as opposed to higher-paid, more stably employed white workers. (Included among white "real proletarians" are "city whites," white proletarians who do not live in the suburbs and have never made it to that stratum but basically have been stuck in the cities and are part of the proletariat in that way too.  This is a phenomenon that needs more investigation, as does the question of white "real proletarians" more generally.) How to materialize and concretize unity between these whites and other proletarians, specifically Blacks and other oppressed peoples inside the cities? I raised previously in one of my letters the idea for a message addressed from some proletarian whites to the oppressed peoples -- Black people and others within the proletariat -- calling for class unity on a revolutionary basis and specifically on the basis of opposing racism, national oppression and discrimination.

Obviously, this is a tricky question because you don't want white people speaking as white people. You want them speaking as proletarians. But there is a point to their speaking as white people who are speaking as proletarians: explicitly saying, "We're white people but that's not our identity, our identity is as proletarians and we recognize the need to build the unity of our class on a revolutionary basis going up against all the rotten racism, national oppression, and discrimination that's a basic part of this system -- yet another very important reason why the system has to be overthrown." That kind of unity is very important, even if it's only a small number of advanced white proletarians that can be drawn together to take a stand like that at the start. And we'd also have to bring forward a class-conscious response among the oppressed nationality proletarians, relying on the advanced among them. But I think this is something to at least think about and investigate, and certainly we cannot abandon or fail to give due attention to the strategic orientation of uniting the proletariat as a class of all nationalities and building the solid core of the united front, the unity of the class-conscious proletariat with the struggle of the oppressed peoples against their oppression as peoples. It is very important that we persevere and find ways to make breakthroughs in this orientation.

I had actually played around with the idea of trying to write something with a provocative title, "what's Wrong with White People?" I had the  first couple lines and the last line written, but the reason I didn't write it (right now at least) is because its something that would have to be done extremely well. It has to be extremely artistic, and as soon as it gets baldy "political" in its analysis it's no good. I couldn't pull it off right now, and I dont know if I ever will be able to. I had this idea: I was going to write the title, "What's Wrong with White People," and then the first sentence: "What is wrong with white people? -- that's a question that's asked by a lot of people, especially people who aren't white (and even some who are)." Then I was going to run down all the pulls the system has which make many white people take backward, even reactionary stands, but also run down how there is a real class contradiction in society. and the last line was going to be, "To return to the original question, what's wrong with white people? Answer: nothing that a good proletarian revolution couldn't cure." But I couldn't quite pull it off. I had the opening line, I had the ending, but the stuff in between started getting too "political" and it wasn't artistic enough, and if it isn't then it would sink and it would stink, so I didn't do it.

This is a question a lot of people ask, and some of the answer I want to give people is, first of all there are a lot of white people out there who are far from reactionary -- and this speaks to the importance of doing revolutionary work in various social movements which draw forward progressive white people as well as people of other nationalities, of making an organization like Refuse & Resist!  a living reality, of bringing forward the advanced in these movements and influencing them in a revolutionary way. All this has a very important effect in helping the masses of the oppressed nationalities to see that there are a lot of white people with whom there is a basis of unity, who are real or potential allies in a revolutionary struggle; that there are many white people who, minimally find a lot of things about the system that they dont like, and some of them have come to the point of wanting to get rid of the whole system too. Included among these whites are masses of women outraged by endless abuses suffered by women in this male supremacist society as well as other crimes of this system.

That's on the one hand.

But let's get back to the problem of white people more generally. Speaking of the intermediate strata among them, including the many who are not absolutely hopeless, it's not just a question that there's something wrong with white people in the abstract. The point is, first of all, there's the whole position of U.S. imperialism in the world and the way people are given the spoils from that. But within that there is class differentiation as well as differences between nationalities. So white people, particularly better-off white people, get more of these spoils. Second, there's white supremacy built into the system, and even whites who are on the bottom still have something that puts them over Black people in important ways. And third, there are a lot of real material ties that people get into that have to do with the nature and functioning of the system.

There are many whites who are poor and exploited -- there are in fact more than a few white "real proletarians." But even among many of these whites who find themselves in conditions of poverty and misery and who see no prospects for "improving their lot" there is a marked tendency to get down on themselves, to blame themselves for their situation, and to be very demoralized. Not that such sentiments cannot be found among Black people, for example, but at the same time among the Black masses there is a much more widespread and intense feeling that their miserable conditions are not their own fault, that someone else, their oppressor, has cast them into these conditions and is doing everything to keep them in these conditions. The fact that this sentiment is not common among poor white proletarians is, ironically, a product of white supremacy and racism to a significant degree: being white, there is more of an inclination to believe that you can, or should be able to, "make it," and if you can't then it must be your own fault. Obviously, this is a pull away from class consciousness, and it is a class-conscious revolutionary understanding -- including, as a key part of that, an understanding of the hatred for white supremacy and racism -- that will lift people beyond such demoralization.

At the same time, there are in the U.S. many whites who have accumulated some money and property. And this has a concrete effect. For example, if you are able to make a little money and get a small business then you begin to develop the mentality that goes along with it. It's not just abstraction. You begin to worry about property taxes and the value of your property. Very powerful, conservative pulls are exerted on you. You've even seen it happen to people who were pretty good people in the '60's, for example. Its not just some abstract general phenomena, that they get a few things and they get stuffy and conservative -- they have real pulls on them. They are in debt, everything they have us tied up in property which is affected by everything that happens in society and the world, and the least little ripple can ruin them in many cases. And people who buy a house, they start worrying about mortgages and property taxes and the value of their property, and what's happening in the neighborhood. They become very narrow and petty and worry about whether the neighbors are keeping up their lawn, They worry what happens when you buy your house and then you want to resell it and move somewhere else. and what are you going to do when you retire, and how are you going to get your kids through college, and so on.

Once you see all this you can see, on the one hand, what's wrong with white people and even what's wrong with Black people are never allowed to participate equally. Even they begin to get influenced by a lot of this stuff and have these pulls on them. And you can also see that it takes something very powerful to rupture people out of this. On the other hand, we've seen through the '60's and we'll see again that powerful things can and do develop that do rupture people out of this in a massive way.

These are important points for people to understand, especially among the proletariat and the oppressed nationalities particularly. But I had difficulty putting it all together in one little sharp artistic piece. Yet I do think it's important that in different ways we bring this understanding to people, including what's the substance of the punch line. In other words, why can you say -- without it being a leap into fantasy, or a leap from nowhere -- "Well, nothing is wrong with white people that a good proletarian revolution couldn't cure." There are real backward pulls, but there are also material; reasons why, with a real rupturing of some things, masses of people -- including masses of white people -- could be radically transformed and won to revolution. This shows you, from yet another angle, why you have to have a revolutionary movement and specifically a revolutionary movement that's based among people who aren't caught up in all those "ties that bind" -- who frankly are not allowed to be caught up in all that. It has to be based most solidly among people who have been kept out of all that and therefore, to paraphrase a line from the comedian George Carlin: because they have the least, they are freer to be free.

The people who have more aren't so free to be free. And that's why those with nothing are the ones who can lead the kind of all-the-way struggle that can rupture a lot of those other people out of the bind they're in and win them to revolution.

At the same time there are a lot of things going on in society that are already pulling people in that direction. And here again, the youth are very important. While there are a lot of bad trends among the youth, particularly the white youth, there are also some good ones. And it's important that people see this and understand it, both in its contradictory character and also in terms if the material things that underlie all this. As Lenin said, it is crucial that the masses begin to get a materialist analysis and a materialist estimate of what's going on with different strata in society in all their different expressions. And this doesn't have to be dry and boring, It can be very concrete and living. We have to bring this home to people.

Again, I had wanted to do this in the form of a snappy, provocative little article with the title "What's Wong with White People?" I had wanted to make that the form -- an "artistic" vehicle -- for making these points, I couldn't quite get it together for that, the way I really wanted to. But maybe this can stand in its place -- giving some flavor of such an artistic presentation and, most importantly, speaking to the very important questions that are involved and are on the minds of many people, particularly many people who know that something is very wrong with the whole system and want to see other people getting, and acting upon, that understanding.