DagSeoul: Positions, Populations, Punk, Poetics

dagNotes: Notes On Whiteness, White Power, Capitalism & Anti-Capitalism

dagseoul:

Bear with me fleshing out some language.

This is the mistake they* make: that whiteness is a quality we can sense, that it’s in some significant way material. That we can examine it and eradicate it without transforming society. It’s talked about like it’s a simple sin, a mistake, a form of revisionism, or an act, sometimes rising to a crime. We use words like transparent and opaque. We excuse its appearance as careless at best, mistaken at worse. We outline it as if it were a structure, like an organized cell.

Whiteness and White Power are now you see it now you don’t like part of a tacky magician’s act: white power is the reappearing thing itself, whiteness the object pulled out of a hat. Or, the result of birth. As in, I was born this way. What can I do about it.? A matter of rhetoric. Or worse, I’m not white. I’m free from guilt. I can do no wrong. Or, the not-white other who can actually claim he’s the hope himself for change simply for being not-that and nothing else.

White power isn’t material. It’s culture. It’s in the spirit of place: Great Britain, America, Europe. It hovers above the wreck of The Enlightenment. It infuses western religion with a sense of dominion over human being. It’s power is an idea that people have faith in but cannot utter. It’s a refusal as much as it is testimony or plan. It resists its own narrative but calls on the narrative of its individual constituents for proof of their allegiance to a man-made purpose. Seek self-help. Confess your sins. Do it alone.

Whiteness is powerful in the same manner Capital is self-valorizing. It’s the result of doing being. We let it happen because it’s how we tell the story of Nature organizing human action. It’s History itself. We shouldn’t romanticize it, manipulate it, look at it as a tragic formation of ideas. It’s not the debris in the rear-view mirror. It’s always already forgotten. It’s essential to character and habit.

Yet, it’s a wreck after all. A mess. On the other hand, it’s an order of being that instills within individuals a sense of duty to individualism that profits community regardless of location and direction. It’s purpose without purpose. It’s a dumb notion of Freedom based in the liberty to freely exploit. Dumb because it ignores the essential goal of its labor: to destroy everything first and then myself. It’s dumb because it ignores all science that it relies on in favor of the imaginary representations of reality in fanciful ideological formations. One wouldn’t be too mistaken to infer that individuals’ labor in white capitalist societies is to prove the value of its ideological assumptions about individual labor in white capitalist society.

White power is the will to expend everything first at the expense of Myself. (It’s always My Self in relation to others.) Forget the stupid medieval notions of the sin in the king’s hoard—the old king who takes everything for himself condemning his realm to rot and ruin and finally becoming the festering dragon protecting its useless treasure. The capitalist’s goal is nothing less than a barren landscape heaped with useless gold coin. (Ron Paul, I’m thinking of you.) The white power mad capitalist has nothing to protect. His goal is nothing less than the purposeful extinguishing of all natural resources for nobody but himself.

I often wonder how anyone would think it’s possible for me to do everything I want for myself and benefit others by so doing. The notion that such human action is possible must be based in the idea the Nature as it organizes us will infinitely provide resources to expend. It’s patently stupid thought.

This is the end of Ron Paul’s notion of Liberty, of Hayek’s Liberal Social Order. It’s the Republican reason for stalling government to promote corporatism. It’s the hope behind Obama’s neoliberalism. It’s not “Yes We Can” after all, it’s “Yes You Should Have Some, Too”.

Fleshing out the character and habit of whiteness is one manner to better understand white power. We can see it, in a way. White power, on the other hand, is a part of the practice of contemporary capitalism. No matter where you find it, what’s most conspicuous about it is its whiteness-for-itself. Capitalism uses white power as a kind of warrant for the free market (like I’m a free man,) as if its promotion were the point all along, and by simply doing things in the free market is to not be a slave.

I suppose this is why to be anti-white power, to be anti-fascist, to be an environmentalist, to be anti-racist, to be feminist, is necessarily to be anti-capitalist. To say otherwise is to accept white power, to embrace white ideology and its absurd ideological framing of societies.

*”They” are capitalists: liberals, progressives, activists. Of course, conservatives, corporatists and fascists.

(via dagseoul)

dagNotes: Notes On Whiteness, White Power, Capitalism & Anti-Capitalism

dagseoul:

Bear with me fleshing out some language.

This is the mistake they* make: that whiteness is a quality we can sense, that it’s in some significant way material. That we can examine it and eradicate it without transforming society. It’s talked about like it’s a simple sin, a mistake, a form of revisionism, or an act, sometimes rising to a crime. We use words like transparent and opaque. We excuse its appearance as careless at best, mistaken at worse. We outline it as if it were a structure, like an organized cell.

Whiteness and White Power are now you see it now you don’t like part of a tacky magician’s act: white power is the reappearing thing itself, whiteness the object pulled out of a hat. Or, the result of birth. As in, I was born this way. What can I do about it.? A matter of rhetoric. Or worse, I’m not white. I’m free from guilt. I can do no wrong. Or, the not-white other who can actually claim he’s the hope himself for change simply for being not-that and nothing else.

White power isn’t material. It’s culture. It’s in the spirit of place: Great Britain, America, Europe. It hovers above the wreck of The Enlightenment. It infuses western religion with a sense of dominion over human being. It’s power is an idea that people have faith in but cannot utter. It’s a refusal as much as it is testimony or plan. It resists its own narrative but calls on the narrative of its individual constituents for proof of their allegiance to a man-made purpose. Seek self-help. Confess your sins. Do it alone.

Whiteness is powerful in the same manner Capital is self-valorizing. It’s the result of doing being. We let it happen because it’s how we tell the story of Nature organizing human action. It’s History itself. We shouldn’t romanticize it, manipulate it, look at it as a tragic formation of ideas. It’s not the debris in the rear-view mirror. It’s always already forgotten. It’s essential to character and habit.

Yet, it’s a wreck after all. A mess. On the other hand, it’s an order of being that instills within individuals a sense of duty to individualism that profits community regardless of location and direction. It’s purpose without purpose. It’s a dumb notion of Freedom based in the liberty to freely exploit. Dumb because it ignores the essential goal of its labor: to destroy everything first and then myself. It’s dumb because it ignores all science that it relies on in favor of the imaginary representations of reality in fanciful ideological formations. One wouldn’t be too mistaken to infer that individuals’ labor in white capitalist societies is to prove the value of its ideological assumptions about individual labor in white capitalist society.

White power is the will to expend everything first at the expense of Myself. (It’s always My Self in relation to others.) Forget the stupid medieval notions of the sin in the king’s hoard—the old king who takes everything for himself condemning his realm to rot and ruin and finally becoming the festering dragon protecting its useless treasure. The capitalist’s goal is nothing less than a barren landscape heaped with useless gold coin. (Ron Paul, I’m thinking of you.) The white power mad capitalist has nothing to protect. His goal is nothing less than the purposeful extinguishing of all natural resources for nobody but himself.

I often wonder how anyone would think it’s possible for me to do everything I want for myself and benefit others by so doing. The notion that such human action is possible must be based in the idea the Nature as it organizes us will infinitely provide resources to expend. It’s patently stupid thought.

This is the end of Ron Paul’s notion of Liberty, of Hayek’s Liberal Social Order. It’s the Republican reason for stalling government to promote corporatism. It’s the hope behind Obama’s neoliberalism. It’s not “Yes We Can” after all, it’s “Yes You Should Have Some, Too”.

Fleshing out the character and habit of whiteness is one manner to better understand white power. We can see it, in a way. White power, on the other hand, is a part of the practice of contemporary capitalism. No matter where you find it, what’s most conspicuous about it is its whiteness-for-itself. Capitalism uses white power as a kind of warrant for the free market (like I’m a free man,) as if its promotion were the point all along, and by simply doing things in the free market is to not be a slave.

I suppose this is why to be anti-white power, to be anti-fascist, to be an environmentalist, to be anti-racist, to be feminist, is necessarily to be anti-capitalist. To say otherwise is to accept white power, to embrace white ideology and its absurd ideological framing of societies.

*”They” are capitalists: liberals, progressives, activists. Of course, conservatives, corporatists and fascists.

dagArchives: Writing about Whiteness, White Privilege, Crass Libertarianism Super-Post

dagseoul:

Always looking for conversation about these things.

dagseoul:

In June last year, I began working on how I write about whiteness, white power, capitalism, and anti-capitalism mainly to develop concepts that are central to a manuscript I’m working on. Immediately, I was engaged by two groups of tumblr bloggers: libertarians and social justice bloggers. Neither appreciate my representations of free market capitalism and white social justice activists. Too bad, right.

I’ve received several requests for a post with links to what I’ve written. This is not everything, but it includes the posts where I work on concepts I think are significant.

I’m into revision, so I’ve edited and proofed and added a little here and there, but this is mostly as it was posted. You can use this long post if you like as each entry is present after “Read More”, or save the individual links. I’ll add to it as people help me find things I’ve written that they’d like included.

1. dagNotes: Notes On Whiteness, White Power, Capitalism & Anti-Capitalism
2. On Crass Libertarianism (a vehicle for white supremacist capitalist society)
3. dagNotes: A little bit on how I see privilege and white power working, even in Korea
4. White Power 101: White Privilege Denial Discourse
5. Why it’s racist. In one sentence.
6. (On why colorblindness is white supremacist.)
7. To Ziggystardyke: On Being White
8. dagNotes: The reason I wrote “White is not a skin color”
9. dagAsk: Three Lessons
10. Possessive Whiteness
11. 11A. Possessive Whiteness and Liberals:
12. dagNotes: on writing about whiteness
13. My Super-Post on Crass Libertarianism, Liberty, Ideology, Ron Paul fans

Read More

dagArchives: Writing about Whiteness, White Privilege, Crass Libertarianism Super-Post

Always looking for conversation about these things.

dagseoul:

In June last year, I began working on how I write about whiteness, white power, capitalism, and anti-capitalism mainly to develop concepts that are central to a manuscript I’m working on. Immediately, I was engaged by two groups of tumblr bloggers: libertarians and social justice bloggers. Neither appreciate my representations of free market capitalism and white social justice activists. Too bad, right.

I’ve received several requests for a post with links to what I’ve written. This is not everything, but it includes the posts where I work on concepts I think are significant.

I’m into revision, so I’ve edited and proofed and added a little here and there, but this is mostly as it was posted. You can use this long post if you like as each entry is present after “Read More”, or save the individual links. I’ll add to it as people help me find things I’ve written that they’d like included.

1. dagNotes: Notes On Whiteness, White Power, Capitalism & Anti-Capitalism
2. On Crass Libertarianism (a vehicle for white supremacist capitalist society)
3. dagNotes: A little bit on how I see privilege and white power working, even in Korea
4. White Power 101: White Privilege Denial Discourse
5. Why it’s racist. In one sentence.
6. (On why colorblindness is white supremacist.)
7. To Ziggystardyke: On Being White
8. dagNotes: The reason I wrote “White is not a skin color”
9. dagAsk: Three Lessons
10. Possessive Whiteness
11. 11A. Possessive Whiteness and Liberals:
12. dagNotes: on writing about whiteness
13. My Super-Post on Crass Libertarianism, Liberty, Ideology, Ron Paul fans

Read More

dagNotes: on recent events and recognizing privilege

I want to flesh out how my recent experiences have informed the way I’m thinking about my privilege.

It’s clear I have access to distinct privilege, but it’s important for me to flesh out how it’s both passively and actively applied in social spaces. I’m consistently permitted access in public discourse, access without much criticism, to say what I like about economics, politics, philosophy, literature, sex, gender, class, race, history, art, aesthetics, film, music, psychology, and sociology—all the things I like to read and think about. However, at work and other private places, I’m denied the privilege to freely speak out. Though I’m denied that privilege, privilege doesn’t merely vanish. It’s transferred (not transformed). I’m now privileged to be disobedient and to be criticized. It’s a privilege of rehabilitation in public. I want to work this out: how I’m used at work and in public on behalf of the social order to illustrate to others appropriate behavior and being.

This is my first attempt to do this on the blog. So, bear with me. I’m bound to make points that will need further clarification. Feel free, as always, to participate.

At my last job, I would not have been fired for my vocal criticism of the school’s principal. In the end, I had to quit to make my point. (I think this shows, in our capitalist culture and no matter who you are, eventually you lose your job after you fail to become a fully composed individual in your work space. I’m parenthetically making it a point because of an ongoing discussion I’m having with a blogger about whether or not my rhetoric about culture is over-determined and I want him to see I’m thinking about his engaging claim.) I was allowed to say what I wanted to say at work and was privately reprimanded via “verbal warnings” to stop. I can only imagine what would have happened if one of the Cambodian faculty said anything like what I said to the principal. They would have almost certainly been written up and fired shortly after the write up. I even said as much to my principal. He didn’t like that. “Prove it” was his response. I asked him to stop with the verbal warnings and to write me up. I told him I wanted a written record of our disagreement. I wanted the people in the US who were really in charge of the school to see what I had to say and what he had to say in response. He wouldn’t do it and insisted he didn’t want me fired just for me to cooperate. (The demand to cooperate is one I’ve heard countless times since I started working when I was 15.) When he wanted something recorded, he’d bring his wife in as a witness and yell at me. When I wouldn’t respond, he’d record I was witnessed being uncooperative.

So, you see, it’s not just a simple interpretation of how I’m treated differently than others because I’m white and male, an interpretation people can disagree with. I’m often privately asked by whites in power—I’m never an obedient employee—to please cooperate with their attempts to socially organize others. Why? Because I’m educated and outspoken and purposefully and publicly transgress. I know why I’m transgressing, I articulate my reasons, and I demand a response. THIS is privilege. I get to do this. It’s not just that I do it anyway, and believe me I would do it anyway, but I’m always permitted to do it. It may be the right thing to do. When I do it, I have to understand that their are others who also know what I know and who are explicitly forbidden to transgress in the manner I’m permitted to transgress. White people often ignore this aspect of privilege and get upset when people of color insist that bloggers of color should be able to talk about their experiences without white bloggers’ disciplining the conversation.

I’ve highlighted how a kind of conversation I’m always already permitted is restricted for others who aren’t permitted access to it in the same manner. Thus, I see a prohibition, a proscription, actually. Certainly, there’s not a law for this, but I’d call it an unwritten law of the capitalist social order. And this proscription serves a purpose. I’m permitted to be disobedient for several reasons. I’m white and male and am offered a privilege of position. In the social hierarchy, that liberals and conservatives both assume is natural, I’m granted more mistakes than others. But this is too simple. Actually, my disobedience is more welcome than others’ disobediences because I’m tasked with serving as an example for others because I’m the ideal representation of the composed citizen. And this is a problem. It’s a kind of oppression that I can benefit from and it’s what I’m addressing when I write about the bargain white subjects make with white power. My oppression can benefit me in a way that its equivalences only harm people of color.

Let me continue to use my last employer as an example. If I had chosen to publicly criticize my boss, then that much is permitted me. And I did. My boss permitted my criticism. He then scolded me for it and asked me to behave. Had I chosen to behave, my new silence in the face of the social organizing forces at my job would have been a way to passively participate in the cultivation of the resultant social order. This would benefit both me and my boss. My disobedience, then, is another way for me to benefit from my privilege for it invokes the disciplinary action of corrupt social order in a manner that permits me advancement and profit. In addition, if I’d have cooperated, I’d have permitted my boss and myself to save face. I’d have been instrumental in cultivating the social order at my school.

Certainly, for all subjects to behave properly is to behave in accordance with a corrupt social order and, as such, is to bear oppression. But for me and people like me, we’re always permitted efficient opportunities to benefit from our oppression without having to give anything up, without having to suffer much more than the indignities of an unnatural social (vertical) hierarchy.

Additionally, racist white bosses don’t publicly punish people of color because they don’t want to look like racists. So, there’s that. The racist boss will always find a white employee to hassle whenever possible.

This is a good place to stop and consider what I’ve already written for a bit and revise and add to it where necessary.

dagNotes: On Freedom; Or, Why I don’t trust most white people.

dagseoul:

They believe they have a freedom that, factually and historically, no person of color has, the freedom (to pretend) to be ignorant of difference. The performance of this ignorance to others—white and not-white—is one of the most pervasive and irritating aspects of everyday whiteness. This freedom is a distinctly white privilege. I’d say, this freedom is the most recognizable marker for whiteness as it’s the most ordinary in appearance. People who can be free from knowing about others who are not white are fully composed white individuals. The others-to-be-ignorant-of are composed white subjects. The relation is inherently oppressive. One group is liberated while the others are bound. 

In the US, the social interpellation process is one of becoming white, living with whiteness, bargaining with white power, coping with white supremacy. It’s violent, interpellative social action. It occurs where all social action is organized, within the free market. Thus, it is both passively and actively consumed. It’s both affliction and consolation. Those who are afflicted are passively composed white subjects who endure composition regardless; those who are consoled are actively composed white individuals who answer an invitation to composition without endurance. It’s from this interpellation the supremacist conception of the individual and its western philosophical tradition springs. Capitalism has embraced this conception from its beginnings and has sublimated the concept in its contemporary state. Hence, white individuals are often aggressively recalcitrant participants in anti-racist action; obstinate and uncooperative toward the authority in any discourse that confronts white supremacy, yet passively obeisant to the authority in white power. For example, we’re asked to embrace an equality and social justice discourse that ignores oppressive power relationships in exchange for attention to singular issues that fail to significantly confront white supremacy and its power structure. We must talk about distribution of goods and services; we must address all individuals as consumers and employees. In other words, we are always already encouraged to see others without difference, to see others as if we all are equally born, that we are, in a significant manner, equivalencies.

It’s a rare occurrence to find a white person unconditionally willing to betray the authority in whiteness. And it’s why I’m dutifully mean about it with white tumblr bloggers; as mean as I am about it IRL. I won’t permit the passive violence in white power between social liberals to sit unexamined and have made a promise to return any and all forms of violence with like violence. I’m especially mean to tepid social justice discourse that pushes for the degraded equality I discussed just above. I expect the libertarian white boys to deny all of this outright. I expect more from people who claim enlightenment and progressivism.

I will do this until we reside in societies that have overcome white power. Don’t see that happening any time soon. So, fucking deal is my attitude. I can’t trust white people who aren’t willing to betray their permissive whiteness, their unexamined possessive-whiteness, their unearned ambition.

(via dagseoul)

dagNotes: On Freedom; Or, Why I don’t trust most white people.

dagseoul:

They believe they have a freedom that, factually and historically, no person of color has, the freedom (to pretend) to be ignorant of difference. The performance of this ignorance to others—white and not-white—is one of the most pervasive and irritating aspects of everyday whiteness. This freedom is a distinctly white privilege. I’d say, this freedom is the most recognizable marker for whiteness as it’s the most ordinary in appearance. People who can be free from knowing about others who are not white are fully composed white individuals. The others-to-be-ignorant-of are composed white subjects. The relation is inherently oppressive. One group is liberated while the others are bound. 

In the US, the social interpellation process is one of becoming white, living with whiteness, bargaining with white power, coping with white supremacy. It’s violent, interpellative social action. It occurs where all social action is organized, within the free market. Thus, it is both passively and actively consumed. It’s both affliction and consolation. Those who are afflicted are passively composed white subjects who endure composition regardless; those who are consoled are actively composed white individuals who answer an invitation to composition without endurance. It’s from this interpellation the supremacist conception of the individual and its western philosophical tradition springs. Capitalism has embraced this conception from its beginnings and has sublimated the concept in its contemporary state. Hence, white individuals are often aggressively recalcitrant participants in anti-racist action; obstinate and uncooperative toward the authority in any discourse that confronts white supremacy, yet passively obeisant to the authority in white power. For example, we’re asked to embrace an equality and social justice discourse that ignores oppressive power relationships in exchange for attention to singular issues that fail to significantly confront white supremacy and its power structure. We must talk about distribution of goods and services; we must address all individuals as consumers and employees. In other words, we are always already encouraged to see others without difference, to see others as if we all are equally born, that we are, in a significant manner, equivalencies.

It’s a rare occurrence to find a white person unconditionally willing to betray the authority in whiteness. And it’s why I’m dutifully mean about it with white tumblr bloggers; as mean as I am about it IRL. I won’t permit the passive violence in white power between social liberals to sit unexamined and have made a promise to return any and all forms of violence with like violence. I’m especially mean to tepid social justice discourse that pushes for the degraded equality I discussed just above. I expect the libertarian white boys to deny all of this outright. I expect more from people who claim enlightenment and progressivism.

I will do this until we reside in societies that have overcome white power. Don’t see that happening any time soon. So, fucking deal is my attitude. I can’t trust white people who aren’t willing to betray their permissive whiteness, their unexamined possessive-whiteness, their unearned ambition.

dagNotes: On Freedom; Or, Why I don’t trust most white people.

They believe they have a freedom that, factually and historically, no person of color has,  the freedom (to pretend) to be ignorant of difference. The performance of this ignorance to others—white and not-white—is one of the most pervasive and irritating aspects of everyday whiteness. This freedom is a distinctly white privilege. I’d say, this freedom is the most recognizable marker for whiteness as it’s the most ordinary in appearance. People who can be free from knowing about others who are not white are fully composed white individuals. The others-to-be-ignorant-of are composed white subjects. The relation is inherently oppressive. One group is liberated while the others are bound. 

In the US, the social interpellation process is one of becoming white, living with whiteness, bargaining with white power, coping with white supremacy. It’s violent, interpellative social action. It occurs where all social action is organized, within the free market. Thus, it is both passively and actively consumed. It’s both affliction and consolation. Those who are afflicted are passively composed white subjects who endure composition regardless; those who are consoled are actively composed white individuals who answer an invitation to composition without endurance. It’s from this interpellation the supremacist conception of the individual and its western philosophical tradition springs. Capitalism has embraced this conception from its beginnings and has sublimated the concept in its contemporary state. Hence, white individuals are often aggressively recalcitrant participants in anti-racist action; obstinate and uncooperative toward the authority in any discourse that confronts white supremacy, yet passively obeisant to the authority in white power. For example, we’re asked to embrace an equality and social justice discourse that ignores oppressive power relationships in exchange for attention to singular issues that fail to significantly confront white supremacy and its power structure. We must talk about distribution of goods and services; we must address all individuals as consumers and employees. In other words, we are always already encouraged to see others without difference, to see others as if we all are equally born, that we are, in a significant manner, equivalencies.

It’s a rare occurrence to find a white person unconditionally willing to betray the authority in whiteness. And it’s why I’m dutifully mean about it with white tumblr bloggers; as mean as I am about it IRL. I won’t permit the passive violence in white power between social liberals to sit unexamined and have made a promise to return any and all forms of violence with like violence. I’m especially mean to tepid social justice discourse that pushes for the degraded equality I discussed just above. I expect the libertarian white boys to deny all of this outright. I expect more from people who claim enlightenment and progressivism.

I will do this until we reside in societies that have overcome white power. Don’t see that happening any time soon. So, fucking deal is my attitude. I can’t trust white people who aren’t willing to betray their permissive whiteness, their unexamined possessive-whiteness, their unearned ambition.

dagAsk: What exactly is a “voluntaryist”?

fuck these sniveling white boys and their “self-ownership” shtick. gtfo.

Here’s an apropos bit from Foucault’s “Introduction to a Non-Fascist Life” a bunch of us posted earlier today:

“Do not demand of politics that it restore the “rights” of the individual, as philosophy has defined them. The individual is the product of power. What is needed is to “de-individualize” by means of multiplication and displacement, diverse combinations. The group must not be the organic bond uniting hierarchized individuals, but a constant generator of de-individualization.”

dagseoul:

itscustomtaylored asked you: What exactly is a “voluntaryist”?

I think it has to do with voluntarily fellating a white man in a Murray Rothbard mask on your own property.

But seriously, it’s the belief in private property and sovereignty of the individual (self-ownership). I know: How can you own your self? It’s a hoot.

Basically, voluntaryists believe individuals should be free to do anything they want on their property without threat of aggression from the state, police, or other sovereign individuals. To be a true voluntaryist in the US, you really do have to be a separatist. That’s why voluntaryists on tumblr are fantasyists, to put it kindly. It’s pure fantasy. Kind of like crass libertarianism insisting that a capitalist free market can exist without a state.

Voluntaryism is the most possessive white ideology to derive from free market capitalism. For crass libertarianism, to be at liberty is to be free from others. This is something voluntaryists take seriously. Of course, many of them live in communities all over the US, using roads, hospitals, schools, working for corporations. It must suck to everyday have to compromise your beliefs to have all the things you really would like to take for granted. But that’s white people for you. Anyway, to be free from others is what their construction of liberty is really all about.

…

In addition, voluntaryists will criticize guys like me, a fan of anti-fascist action and streetwork, because I propose a threat to their well-being. Why you might ask? Well, voluntaryists are not pacifists, but they do not believe that they have the right to initiate aggression and/or coercion. It’s a problem, right?

The crass assumption about wealth is that it’s earned by an individual. When we examine how wealth is actually formed, though, we learn that it’s largely a component of two things: inheritance and availability of resources. Resources is defined by both labor and material.

Libertarian voluntarism is capitalist and aristocratic. It springs from the capitalist myths of merit and upward social mobility. These are white myths constructed by people who can afford to be free from others. It represents a lack of desire to consider labor and an inability to consider poverty. All this discussion of will and desire is for aristocratic assholes.

dagAsk: What exactly is a “voluntaryist”?

dagseoul:

itscustomtaylored asked you: What exactly is a “voluntaryist”?

I think it has to do with voluntarily fellating a white man in a Murray Rothbard mask on your own property.

But seriously, it’s the belief in private property and sovereignty of the individual (self-ownership). I know: How can you own your self? It’s a hoot.

Basically, voluntaryists believe individuals should be free to do anything they want on their property without threat of aggression from the state, police, or other sovereign individuals. To be a true voluntaryist in the US, you really do have to be a separatist. That’s why voluntaryists on tumblr are fantasyists, to put it kindly. It’s pure fantasy. Kind of like crass libertarianism insisting that a capitalist free market can exist without a state.

Voluntaryism is the most possessive white ideology to derive from free market capitalism. For crass libertarianism, to be at liberty is to be free from others. This is something voluntaryists take seriously. Of course, many of them live in communities all over the US, using roads, hospitals, schools, working for corporations. It must suck to everyday have to compromise your beliefs to have all the things you really would like to take for granted. But that’s white people for you. Anyway, to be free from others is what their construction of liberty is really all about.

They are statists and monopolists, but in their own minds.

Almost all white supremacists and white nationalists, in the US, who claim to be libertarian and/or support one, like Ron Paul, will also claim to be voluntaryists.

In addition, voluntaryists will criticize guys like me, a fan of anti-fascist action and streetwork, because I propose a threat to their well-being. Why you might ask? Well, voluntaryists are not pacifists, but they do not believe that they have the right to initiate aggression and/or coercion. It’s a problem, right?

…

dagseoul:

First, racism is not in capitalism’s past. See, Marable’s How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America. See Angela Davis on the prison system. See the Chicago Teachers Strike, which is trying to illustrate how students and schools in poor districts are under-funded to serve the desire to privatize education and corporatize educational policy. And who overwhelmingly lives in those poor communities all over the US? Not white people.

Hate of people of color and the poor is built into American Capitalism.

Let me clarify something:

See the Chicago Teachers Strike, which is trying to illustrate how students and schools in poor districts are under-funded to serve the desire to privatize education and corporatize educational policy. In other words, keeping people poor and underprivileged profits business owners and venture capitalism and education corporations in the long term.

(Source: lordchuckle)

You’re wrong.

libertarians-and-stoya:

Wealth growth - literally, how much money people have in absolute terms in the whole nation - didn’t happen until the late 1800s onward.  Sure, there were a few wealthy slave owners, but that wealth didn’t carry onward through the 1900s.  Wealth accumulation happened way after wards.

There has been a gradual, approximately 4%, growth in the economy for a long ass time. One of the things neoclassical economists can’t explain is that no matter the recessions, depressions, technological advances, what have you, there is a remarkably consistent level of growth over the long term. We call this aspect of modern capitalism gradualism.

You are trying very hard to frame an argument to shield capitalists’ long-term profit as a result of exploiting the poor and underprivileged members of society. You are wrong. No matter how you’d like to frame historical narrative, over the long-term, capitalism is purposefully racist as fuck.

Slavery cultivated the ground for much of what became a stable American economy. Black people are the sine qua non the ground would not exist. Capitalist culture in the United States is inherently racist. I mean inherently, by definition, as something that is an essential characteristic of capitalism. It’s there and because it’s present it’s here.

First, racism is not in capitalism’s past. See, Marable’s How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America. See Angela Davis on the prison system. See the Chicago Teachers Strike, which is trying to illustrate how students and schools in poor districts are under-funded to serve the desire to privatize education and corporatize educational policy. And who overwhelmingly lives in those poor communities all over the US? Not white people.

Hate of people of color and the poor is built into American Capitalism.

(Source: lordchuckle, via libertarians-and-stoya-deactiva)

dagSeoul: Writing about Whiteness, White Privilege, Crass Libertarianism Super-Post

dagseoul:

In June last year, I began working on how I write about whiteness, white power, capitalism, and anti-capitalism mainly to develop concepts that are central to a manuscript I’m working on. Immediately, I was engaged by two groups of tumblr bloggers: libertarians and social justice bloggers. Neither appreciate my representations of free market capitalism and white social justice activists. Too bad, right.

I’ve received several requests for a post with links to what I’ve written. This is not everything, but it includes the posts where I work on concepts I think are significant.

I’m into revision, so I’ve edited and proofed and added a little here and there, but this is mostly as it was posted. You can use this long post if you like as each entry is present after “Read More”, or save the individual links. I’ll add to it as people help me find things I’ve written that they’d like included.

1. dagNotes: Notes On Whiteness, White Power, Capitalism & Anti-Capitalism
2. On Crass Libertarianism (a vehicle for white supremacist capitalist society)
3. dagNotes: A little bit on how I see privilege and white power working, even in Korea
4. White Power 101: White Privilege Denial Discourse
5. Why it’s racist. In one sentence.
6. (On why colorblindness is white supremacist.)
7. To Ziggystardyke: On Being White
8. dagNotes: The reason I wrote “White is not a skin color”
9. dagAsk: Three Lessons
10. Possessive Whiteness
11. 11A. Possessive Whiteness and Liberals:
12. dagNotes: on writing about whiteness
13. My Super-Post on Crass Libertarianism, Liberty, Ideology, Ron Paul fans

Read More

dagArchives: (March 9, 2012) On the plea for the existence of reverse racism

reposting this with two small additions that clarify context and strengthen the conclusion.

dagseoul:

Anonymous Ask’d:

I have no idea how to make my friends see that there is no reverse racism because they keep telling me that the definition of racism is being discriminated based on the colour of your skin, so my argument is invalid because people from other ethnicities sometimes discriminate white people. fucks sake, what do I do? they keep saying that the black panthers are racist etc etc. one of them is actually half black.

___________________________________________________________

Social movements, past or present, that are self-defined, self-determined, well-organized, popular, and opposed to the white power structure, not white people, are always called racist. I’ll get to why below. The Black Panther Party (in actuality) was a social organization working to educate, protect, feed, and house black people. It had nothing to do with white people. For your friends to claim that The Black Panther Party is a racist organization is typical. If anything, the Black Panther Party attempted to step outside of the socially constructed binary for racial discourse in America. They were organized to work without whites, not in opposition to whites. This is significant because white culture has always represented its self-determination as just and manifest destiny. To claim Black Panthers are racists is to willfully ignore and to silently admit centuries of racist white power.

Racism is not discrimination based on the color of your skin. It’s discrimination based on the color of their skin. (It’s more complicated than that, but I’m sticking to our specific example of reverse racism and focusing on the pronouns in the context of American discourse.) Ethnicities without dominant power structures in Europe and America may hate the dominant white power structure and hold white people in contempt and responsible for inequality and bigotry, but that does not make them racist. Racism is not recognizing inequality and oppression. While the white (and liberal) response to racism is reactionary, self-determination and disciplined social organization is a reasonable and rational response to oppression.

Racism and white supremacy both involve a directed discourse. As I mentioned at the beginning of last paragraph, it’s a directed discourse from us to them. In other words, racism has a trajectory, and white supremacist rhetoric cultivates its force. Reverse racism is problematic because it ignores the us versus them dynamic that racial discrimination constructs for racist discourse. Moreover, it ignores that dynamic while invoking it. Reverse racism doesn’t really exist. Racism exists.

The plea for the existence of reverse racism is an attempt to legitimize white reactionary racial discourse. It deconstructs the us-them binary and interpellates a white subject who claims, I am the one experiencing an unjust response to a situation I am not responsible for creating. Reverse racism is actually an appeal to the innocence of white subjects who have chosen to bargain with white supremacy. The plea for the existence of reverse racism evokes racism and racist discourse for a very good reason. Reverse racism cannot exist without white supremacy. The white power structure is its sine qua non. In addition, it only works in one direction, to me. It only works for white subjects.

Reverse racism is itself a racist construction. It’s always a white response to critical discourse about white supremacy. Remember: white ideology interpellates all individuals as white subjects. In other words, you’ll find people of color who claim reverse racism is a reality. That doesn’t matter. The plea for the existence of reverse racism naturalizes the white gaze. In other words, the white gaze is constructed to be natural and naturally dominant, inevitable, useful and positive while the gaze of all others directed at white subjects is naturally submissive, constructed, useless, and harmful.

This is how I’d begin to answer your friends’ concerns because it illustrates the reasoning behind the argument that The Black Panters are a dangerous, racist organization and why the reasoning is incorrect and false. To be sure, Black Panthers were a righteous group of radicals who were doing what white America has always claimed we have the right, freedom, and obligation to do. They were doing what they had to within the law to strengthen themselves and their community. To claim otherwise is to purchase a racist lie about black power and to be anti-black, as far as I am concerned.

dagSeoul: Writing about Whiteness, White Privilege, Crass Libertarianism Super-Post

keeping this post near top fer reasons.

dagseoul:

In June last year, I began working on how I write about whiteness, white power, capitalism, and anti-capitalism mainly to develop concepts that are central to a manuscript I’m working on. Immediately, I was engaged by two groups of tumblr bloggers: libertarians and social justice bloggers. Neither appreciate my representations of free market capitalism and white social justice activists. Too bad, right.

I’ve received several requests for a post with links to what I’ve written. This is not everything, but it includes the posts where I work on concepts I think are significant.

I’m into revision, so I’ve edited and proofed and added a little here and there, but this is mostly as it was posted. You can use this long post if you like as each entry is present after “Read More”, or save the individual links. I’ll add to it as people help me find things I’ve written that they’d like included.

1. dagNotes: Notes On Whiteness, White Power, Capitalism & Anti-Capitalism
2. On Crass Libertarianism (a vehicle for white supremacist capitalist society)
3. dagNotes: A little bit on how I see privilege and white power working, even in Korea
4. White Power 101: White Privilege Denial Discourse
5. Why it’s racist. In one sentence.
6. (On why colorblindness is white supremacist.)
7. To Ziggystardyke: On Being White
8. dagNotes: The reason I wrote “White is not a skin color”
9. dagAsk: Three Lessons
10. Possessive Whiteness
11. 11A. Possessive Whiteness and Liberals:
12. dagNotes: on writing about whiteness
13. My Super-Post on Crass Libertarianism, Liberty, Ideology, Ron Paul fans

Read More

(via dagseoul)