Michel Montvert

Thank you, I shall view this this evening when I get the gardening done. Interesting topic, to be sure!

I got the music but no Dudley. Not bad music... If time is cyclical, and our lives are in part determined by karmic imperatives, I've wondered if when we reach a point on the cycle where we are repeating something from past cycles, we don't have a perception of that prior time. I've often felt that at times when I am relaxed, in an interval between actions, that I glimpse the same circumstance but in a different place, in the past. It is as if I'm being made aware that what I'm doing is part of a larger pattern, to realize that this keeps happening, and I should get it right this time. In India such talk is readily accepted. It is said that Indians did a poor job of recording their history because they never considered the specifics of this time around the cycle to be of much importance. Understanding the cycles is more important than the points along the timeline of a particular one. Some have said that our existence is simply bits of Creator trying to find their way back home. Time perhaps is the means by which we were separated. It's a giant cosmic game. Time ends for each individual, perhaps, at the time of moxa (enlightenment), and yet for everyone that point will occur at the same "time". or within the same timelessness.

It's like TV... a force for good, to inform us about the world, yet it ended up broadcasting mostly insipid nonsense. The internet is repeating that pattern. Yes, you get to meet people from all over the world and broaden your horizons, but also nefarious forces are in there manipulating what info you see, what is allowed, and so on, and the big ones like Facebook are already notorious for these manipulations. I hate Facebook because they allow Russian propaganda, antisemitism, and other filth to be propagated freely but will attack anyone who confronts those things! I'm convinced that Zuckerberg, to use Prof. Snape's phrase, is "up to something".

I think you're giving the rightwing working-class whites FAR too much credit as thinkers. They are not willingly sacrificing themselves to anything. They think that their problems are all caused by exterior forces (never the actual oppressor who is screwing them). They are NOT aware that their situation is enabled by anti-black racism. The racism is one of the primary means by which they are conned into supporting their oppressor. It is not conscious!!! They are full of FEAR! The old Southern politicians would get elected by stirring up fear of the blacks. Now they also use immigrants, Muslims, trans, etc., but the dynamic is the same. How informed can they be if they refer to the ACA as "socialist garbage", when in fact it is Romneycare! Romney is a socialist now? These fools wouldn't know socialism if it crawled up their leg. I know it's difficult to understand for us more rational folks, but these dupes really do believe the nonsense fed to them! They think Obama closed coal mines because he's a socialist Muslim! Makes no sense... but don't let that stop them! The folks in WV who correctly identify the COAL company as the problem... well those are the Democrats. Union people. The fools believed their handlers, refused vaccination and masks, and died in piles! Did they do that as a conscious sacrifice to keep the system going and keep blacks down? HELL no, that is too much "thinking" for them. They just believe what their idiot hero tells them and do what they're told. I've tried arguing with those types... I'm convinced they are not intelligent or aware enough to sacrifice themselves for anything.

Yes nearly every ethnic group in the USA has produced gangs. I still can't see how that is a good thing in any way. Gangs are not "for the other", but they don't prey on "the other"; they prey on their own people. KKK you can call a gang but they had a particular political view, which was toxic of course, but that meant they were fighting for political change (or to maintain the racist Jim Crow status quo). Gangs usually are not political, though I have seen political expressions coming from the Latin Kings in Chicago. I was familiar with gangstas in S. Central L.A. where I taught school. I'd talk to them in the street. One once walked up and shook my hand, saying, "Thank you for trying to show our little brothers a better way, to get out of this life." "Just doing my job," I said. "Yeah, but you're about the only teacher doing it." So I understood their dilemma... they themselves knew that gangbanging was not a good thing. They wanted better. I have to point out that it is racist to always separate out "white Jews". Jews are Jews. Are there "non-white" Jews in the USA? I've known Iranian Jews and they could pass as Ashkenazim. Also, the adjective is "Jewish". You use "Irish" and "Italian", but refer to Jews using the noun as an adjective. That is how antisemites talk. Hitler referred to "Jew art" and "Jew science". Certainly he did not consider any Jew to be "white". But then, "white" is an artificial construct created in Virginia in the 17th century to facilitate the enslavement of blacks... As for gangs... there are still white gangs in California. One called the Peckerwoods. And I'd say that outlaw motorcycle gangs are, well, GANGS. I've been around those people too, and they are in no way preferable to the non-white versions. Gangs often are a symptom of alienation, dispossession... in other words, oppression. Lift the oppression and those gangstas would have an education and real jobs and be contributing to their community. Certainly that's what I taught my inner-city students they ought to do...

I've said nothing racist and you know it. Nothing flipped. I am simply supporting indigenous rights against outsiders trying to steal their history. Africans have Eurasian admixture. Eurasian DNA is common in the Horn, northern Nigeria and Cameroon, and other places. Eurasians means neandertal genes! Also it was discovered by an anthropologist named Hammer that W-Central Africans are mixed with another species, which is likely bodoensis. What we learn from this is that our species interbred with other Homo species wherever they were encountered. There are at least 3 species included in "Denisovans", and all 3 mixed with sapiens. None of this is racist. It is simply scientific fact. Very few humans on earth are pure sapiens. As I am graduate educated in anthropology, I know about this material. I know about Van Sertima and why he is not accepted by real science. He did NOT provide any citations, any real evidence. It's all hearsay and speculation. Do I CARE who are ancestral to whom? No. Anyone on earth could be part black or part white and why should I care? Only a racist would be bothered by that. What I care about is science, logic, evidence, facts. My primary interest in this forum is in the politics of the movement for liberation, specifically of African-Americans, a cause I've supported since childhood. I am interested right now in what will occur in the future regarding BLM, who now has a scandal going on. My view is that black lives matter, without the caps, and that is the focus of struggle, not any particular org. I'm hoping that the various crises mounting rapidly will impel change on many fronts, including attention to ending the racism in this country. It's about time, no? I'm tired of having a flame war with someone who doesn't understand the science and only calls me names. I mean, for dismissing Van Sertima, one is a racist? That is ludicrous. Keep in mind that white anthropologists assert that Egypt was created by black people, that humanity originated in Africa from black people. Yet we're racists? I think not.

The conditions and forces which make those poor people dysfunctional are structural and by design. Keep them unhealthy, subject to bad food and conditions, poorly educated, and pumped full of media BS, and naturally they'll behave badly. I'm not trying to inject WV into the forum but I mention it for comparative purposes, and it is instructive because we have there a subset of the USA which suffers high levels of poverty and dysfunction, and are overwhelmingly white. I look at their behavior and it makes me feel ill. The grandchildren of farmers who watch grandpa's tractor rusting in the field while they eat junk food and complain about the unpicked fruit which falls and rots on the ground. I just have to remember that I'm university educated, we got out of WV young. I grew up in affluent suburbs of Pittsburgh and L.A., so they perhaps rightly dismiss me as a pointy-headed smartypants outsider if I criticize what they're doing in WV. So I end up having the same view you express. that they are willfully dysfunctional and hurting themselves. The rich of course are behaving rationally. They have to in order to preserve their position of privilege, which requires a lot of manipulation to pull it off.

If it's change we want, I don't think the question comes down to violence or non-violence. It comes down to effective tactics. There are times when violence is appropriate. However, non-violence has great advantages, and is a way of breaking with the violent past of humanity. And violence has the disadvantage that once it starts, it becomes indiscriminate. People end up being shot just for being black or white. That accomplishes nothing. So, I think the BPP was right to carry guns for self-defense, but at the same time it seems that as a political tactic, non-violence is the best way to go, pragmatically if not ethically.

I think it's likely that black people remember what happened to "Black Wall St." in OK, and similar incidents, and many perhaps just become fatalistic, that none of that is possible. I disagree, I say it is all possible and one should fight for what is right and beat the odds. Yes, the history of Mexicans in the W is as you say. How do gangs help that? They mostly victimize their own people. That is how they're betraying them. If they were fighting for their lands back, in the manner of Tijerina, or even like Juan Murrieta, that would have some validity. Most of these gangsters are children of immigrants, not descendants of those who lost the war to the gringos. Their war was in Mexico, the Revolution of 1910, which was won and then lost... it's complicated. I've lived in the "barrio", I've taught school to the children who are immigrants or the children of immigrants. I see clearly what the gangs are up to, and it is bad for the community. How are they hurting the gringos with that behavior? They just give the system an excuse to lock them all up. The Mexicans who worked effectively against oppression were groups such as La Raza Unida Party, the UFW, MEChA, Brown Berets, and such. I worked with 2 of those groups. The Chicano Movement adopted much of the language of pachucos, cholos, gangbangers, but the criminal activity no. ¿Qué pasó, vato? ¡Órale! It is too bad the schools and society generally has failed those people, and other people as well. The best thing you said: "...but neither have whites in the usa so..." Bingo! WHITES haven't done it either! They're screwing US, too! It would be helpful if all non-whites understood that. and even more helpful if the damned dumbassed delusional brainwashed WHITES would get it! This system is by nature oppressive and exploitative! If anyone thinks that is directed only at non-whites, they should read up on the history of Ireland and Scotland.

You should stop the name-calling and the lying. I spoke no racism, nor did I speak falsely about anything. I simply reported what science knows of this issue. Your behavior is reminiscent of Trump followers who simply want to silence all voices they don't like. As for Van Sertima, he is respected only by cultists, his work is worthless, and he proved nothing. Find ONE of the proofs of anyone here before Columbus. You cannot, and you know it, hence the vitriole and vile lying name-calling. How disappointing... and you call me racist, while one of your first statements was that no scientist can be trusted who is white! You lost the argument. You produce no evidence. Because there is none. Find it, if there is. Something real, not Van Sertima's vain speculation. Why did he not get peer-reviewed? Why does all real science reject his "work"? Because it's bogus. And the RACISM is in trying to steal other peoples' histories. Get y'all's hands off the Maya and Olmec and worry about someone else. And cease and desist with the slander against me. You lost, be gracious and mature and move on. Why would this get you so heated? Agitated, like racists get. Listen to them seething over BS like CRT and you'll hear attitudes similar to yours. Check yourself. If you want online discussion to be nothing but an echo chamber for those in your own cult, you could find some really nasty fora to join... this one generally seems reasonable and intellectual, so I wonder why you think throwing temper tantrums is appropriate here. I've already won this argument and am interested in discussing issues of importance to the betterment of this society, and specifically black people. There is a big scandal brewing over BLM leadership which the white racists will seize on... I wonder where the anti-racist movement goes from here... It's getting nasty out there! Don't make it nasty in here, too, please.

Trump himself is rampantly criminal. So... a remedy for crime is to be ruled by a felonious psychotic narcissist megalomaniac who hates democracy and fancies himself a dictator? Now THAT is confusion!

This pretends that no forces of oppression are arrayed against the people, which is of course an absolutely false assumption. One's individual efforts are laudable, but when the system is stacked against you... then systemic remedies are required. That means one does not sanely close one's eyes and pretend that society is just and functional. Also, your comment regarding Hegel has nothing to do with Hegelian thought, which stipulates that a synthesis is achieved through the interaction of disparate forces. So... add struggle against injustice to injustice. and often a better result is the yield.

Yes, how you describe the changes wrought by Reaganomics. And yes, we sure could use a real labor movement as in the 30s! We had a brief moment after WW2 when Unions were very strong and the people could have grabbed their freedom, but failed to perceive the game the system was playing on them. A real labor movement... oh yeah. Reagan and Gingrich engineered and propagandized all these changes supposed to set us "free". convinced most whites that to be rightwing and pro-corporate was a good thing (what???) and off we go... at-will employment, goods produced in Chinese sweatshops. white supremacists stirred up and mainstreamed. This stuff did not start with Trump. It is 42 years old. Agreed though I'm a "leftist" and we generally go for institutional reforms, I also learned a lot of anarcosindicalismo in Spain which emphasizes local economy autonomy. The wealth of the community sustains the community's RIGHTS as well as its welfare, is the idea. Notice that since Reagan the rural white communities have also been gutted... rampant underemployment, lots of drugs, single parents, etc. Where there used to be locally owned businesses now are all corporate franchises. All of these communities of various ethnicities would benefit from the entrepreneurship and freedom of which you correctly speak. I hear NO politicians addressing this meaningfully. Neither Party is providing the infrastructural supporter which would facilitate all this. They continue to enable almost exclusively CORPORATIONS, NOT people.

I've seen this syndrome at work, it is true, you are right. However, I cannot remember a job which was as you describe an all-white workplace. They treat white workers as powerless dependent and disposable drones. and those behaving otherwise are quickly replaced. We are not FREE on the job and likely haven't been for 4000 years. But yeah, they make everything worse for non-whites. Like the Walmarts. Go to one where there are mostly whites and there are lots of cash registers open and inconspicuous security. Drive to the next town where everyone is Mexican and the Walmart has 2 cashiers working. and security visible and intimidating. To see a more free workforce you'd really have to go to one of the developed nations, e.g. France, Singapore. Israel, Japan, Germany, Canada.

Good awareness of history you have, and a good perspective. I may want to be less pessimistic, if that's what it is... I try to imagine myself in that situation (slavery, then Jim Crow) and I'd likely not be real happy about white folks either. The cult of Love-USA, yes, that is the cult, not black people realistically reacting against oppression by whites. Reaction against oppression is sanity. I guess I feel a need to bring awareness to the fact that the racist system created the distinction of black and white, they made us into these 2 groups and then told us we were opposed to each other. That is a lie. And therefore, not every white person is the enemy. Some of us do NOT like the ambient racism in this country. I saw a Jim Crow "whites only" sign in Virginia in 1959, and I asked my Mom, "What's a white?" I did not know that I was "white". She replied, "You know, like us, not colored." So... our identity is predicated on NOT being black??? At nine years old I was a smartassed little kid and I saw that, saw the contradiction. We are defined by NOT being THEM??? Oh hell no... We define ourselves as "white" by not being them, and then we won't let them eat at the diner??? Cracka please... I voted for Shirley Chisholm for President. And she's right. Economy, as any Marxist would say, is the basis of everything. I do not hold to the economic determinism of Marxism, but certainly economy is essential, crucial, paramount, damned near close to what Marxists say. Here I am now in rural Virginia, near Charlottesville and near where I had that nasty experience in 1959 with Jim Crow and with the nasty cracker who reacted to my naive Yankeeboy comments. Around here are many black people. We intentionally patronize them. We hire guys to do tree work, painting. tractor work, all sorts of stuff. They have businesses doing this stuff. There's one outfit who has all the tree equipment, the huge manipulators of logs and all that. They're nice people. We are conscious that the black economy is important and we support it. Besides, the WHITES who are the alternative are all Trumpos! I don't want to even associate with them, let alone give them money. If you're not aware of this already, let me inform you that there are MANY whites like us who feel this way and do NOT like the racist and rightwing whites. And they threaten us as they threaten you. So, we may not have to suffer the daily racist environment as blacks do, nobody pulls us over for driving while black, but when these nutcases rise up they intend to shoot us before they shoot you. They've told me that many times. I utterly agree with the self-help economic rap as used to be pushed by Tony Brown, if you're old enough to remember him. That is true for all communities. My white West Virginia people have the exact same problem. There aren't even food stores up there for many people. It's a food desert, a rural white ghetto. We have common interests. We're stronger united. Right-thinking people, I advocate that we unite. Forget about the irredeemable racist dungheaded whites and the unconscious asleep blacks. The rest of us will get it done.