“Race Mixing Is Communism”
by Guest Contributor Lisa, originally published at Sociological Images
Protesters in Little Rock, Arkansas, (1959) declared that “race mixing” (or school integration) was “communism”:
A reader at Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish argues that accusations of communism then, and socialism now, are not only about the redistribution of wealth. They are about the redistribution of privilege of all kinds, including white privilege.
Read it here.
Thanks to Dmitriy T.M. for the link.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist wrote:
the United States, as far as I’m concerned, is the only Western nation to have such a stupid, irrational, ignorant fear of Communism, Socialism, Marxism, and anything associated with the “Commies.”
I agree with Sullivan that “commie” charges is based on redistribution of privileges. Just what I’ve been thinking all along, anyway.
Posted 13 Oct 2009 at 10:40 am ¶
Brooke wrote:
Good link, and it really rings true. The “socialism” complaints have never struck me as being about money or wealth or anything as material as that. It goes a lot deeper.
Posted 13 Oct 2009 at 11:14 am ¶
Montclair Mommy wrote:
Yeah, what is with the all-consuming fear of communism/socialism (not interchangeable, but used interchangeably by fear-mongering politicos in the U.S.)? I don’t get it. I love this link. This really is pertinent given the criticism of the decision to give Pres. Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. I have read so many articles about how MLK earned his peace prize…and they fail to discuss how, at the time, MLK was not universally supported in the U.S.. MLK was also accused of being a communist and there were lots of people who hated the man and thought he didn’t deserve the prize. This claim of “SOCIALISM!!” is so tired…I don’t understand how people can make it with a straight face. I wonder how people’s criticism of Pres. Obama will be viewed in the future? Hopefully much of it will be seen as the fear of change [cough RACISM cough, cough] that it really is…
Posted 13 Oct 2009 at 4:03 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
I’d like to force certain people today to take a very short test:
1) Warm-Up Question: Who invented Marxism?
2) Easy Question: can you define any one of these three: communism, socialism, Marxism?
3) Hard Question: can you provide the above definition in such a way that the following words do not occur even once: “Satan”, “Homosekshul”, “Negro”?
Posted 13 Oct 2009 at 4:46 pm ¶
Joe wrote:
While I wholeheartedly agree with this post, DIMA’s first reply misses the mark — looking at all the damage Left parties have caused in Europe (and the sorry state of European politics in general), it’s hard not to conclude that our American aversion to collectivism has been a blessing overall, even if it gets a bit silly sometimes.
Posted 13 Oct 2009 at 5:54 pm ¶
GüeraLola wrote:
The struggle continues!
That’s all I have to say
Posted 13 Oct 2009 at 8:42 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
@Joe: look at all the damage in Europe, indeed. Better life expectancy than the U.S., better workers’ rights, lower infant mortality, better social safety nets, smaller gap between workers and CEO pay…
Europe isn’t a paradise by any means, and I think most European countries are actually behind the U.S. when it comes to racial and religious issues. But their economic structures have a lot of aspects we can learn from…
Right-wingers are constantly prophesying the imminent doom of Western Europe. Supposedly, these socialist nanny states have been on the verge of collapsing into Mad Max-style howling anarchy… for about half a century now. Yet, miraculously, they keep on standing.
Posted 13 Oct 2009 at 9:52 pm ¶
Eurasian Sensation wrote:
Race mixing = communism. Therefore Obama as a mixed race man, is the walking embodiment of communism. No wonder they hate him.
Posted 13 Oct 2009 at 10:06 pm ¶
Invasian wrote:
They hate socialism because they love exploiting the lower and working classes, POC’s, women, homosexuals, etc. to get a bigger piece of the pie.
Posted 13 Oct 2009 at 10:37 pm ¶
Manju wrote:
“They hate socialism because they love exploiting the lower and working classes, POC’s, women, homosexuals, etc. to get a bigger piece of the pie.”
This is a little ahistorical in the american context. from reconstruction to the civil rights act, the more progressive party, the Democrats, was the party deeply entwined with segregation, jim crow, the kkk, and lynching.
in fact, the progressive era was one of the worst for african Americans.
Posted 13 Oct 2009 at 11:37 pm ¶
Joy-Mari Cloete wrote:
South African is another nation that have been, and is still very much afraid of the communist and socialist ‘threats’. Which is funny because many of us are flocking to the UK…
Posted 14 Oct 2009 at 3:10 am ¶
Dzifa wrote:
@ Joy-Mari. You took the words right out of my mouth South Africa is another place where communism is still seen as a threat and you see alot of comments refering to the “current corrupt communist leaders of the ANC” by the privileged minority on many news blogs … and especially here in Cape Town where I live … sad.
Posted 14 Oct 2009 at 6:04 am ¶
dersk wrote:
@Joe – yeah, lots of damage. You ever actually been here in Europe? Take atlasien’s comments, and add: better food, much better beer, actual political dialogue vs. teabagging idiots, better public transport, much less of an insane focus on consumption at any price.
Take away from it: lack of a decent national park system, much higher tax rates, and it’s impossible to find decent Mexican food in Holland.
And atlasien, while I’ll agree with you that in general the US is ahead of Europe, we don’t have the Westboro baptists over here, and doctors who perform abortions don’t have to fear for their lives.
Posted 14 Oct 2009 at 7:56 am ¶
Manju wrote:
I agree with Joe. While combating racism there’s no reason to minimize oppression yielded out by collectivists–marxists and communists in particular–not just in Europe but around the world.
It is true at one point in history America was almost alone in viewing these systems of government for the totalitarian nighmares that they were, and in the case of cuba and north korea, still are. its humbling to look back now and see such intistuions such as the NYtimes ant the Nation once denied the existence of the Ukrainian famine, demonstrating that support of violemnt op[resionisn’t limited to the type of people in that picture.
Posted 14 Oct 2009 at 9:32 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
@Manju: nope, support of violent oppression falls over the scale, although violent capitalist-friendly dictators get a lot more support than the socialist ones.
And Cuba is hardly a totalitarian nightmare. I actually went there on a family vacation once (Cuba is a popular tourist destination for a lot of non-USians). The lack of free media obviously sucked… if I was born there, I would probably have wanted to leave because of that. But Cubans were quite candid, individually, about what they liked and didn’t like politically. We met several out gay people. There was no abject poverty. All in all, it seemed like a much more pleasant environment than when I visited Peru around the same time, at the tail end of Fujimori’s power seizure and anti-communist crackdown… the poverty was heartbreaking, and it seemed like everyone was looking over their shoulders nervously the whole time we were there.
When it comes to racism, the Cuban government has issues… very few high-ranking officials are black, in a country where a third of the inhabitants would be viewed as black according to American standards. But support for the government was higher among black people, because many families benefited economically from the Revolution…. they started at the bottom of the ladder in the old caste-like semi-feudal system, and they moved up when the economic structure flattened under communism.
Posted 14 Oct 2009 at 10:09 am ¶
Mary wrote:
Don’t forget the word “Jewish” and its attendant epithets. One white supremacist wingnut theory I’ve heard repeatedly is that “The Jews” encourage race-mixing as a conspiracy against the white race. In fact, in some of these people’s minds, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that is the hidden nexus between “race mixing” and “communism.”
Posted 14 Oct 2009 at 10:25 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
@Mary: oops, you’re right, I should not have omitted the “Jews are the communists wielding the paintbrush of race-mixing” thing.
Posted 14 Oct 2009 at 12:06 pm ¶
Pickly wrote:
to the various people arguing about Europe, are you talking about western or eastern europe, and at what time? (As this might effect the information that;s being compared.) (Not that this would likely end any arguments anyway, since there are probably tons of statistics and experiences, with different priorities, to compare.)
Posted 14 Oct 2009 at 9:15 pm ¶
Pickly wrote:
In terms of the actual government program arguments/debates, the problems seem to go the other direction as well, in that arguments made from more “conservative” or “libertarian” points of view get drowned out by the nuttier stuff. I have read some free market oriented pints of view that, whatever system is chosen, are useful to consider.
(This is something I’ve found highly annoying about politics in general, I like checking out multiple points of view to try and get as complete a picture as I can, but its often hard to get any sort of useful picture with these sorts of emotional appeals and associations flying around.)
Posted 14 Oct 2009 at 9:34 pm ¶
PatrickInBeijing wrote:
Thanks Lisa, great link!
I remember going door to door for candidates in white neighborhoods in VA in the 1960’s. The first question I was usually asked was the candidates position on race mixing (marital).
There were billboards in the countryside showing Dr. King in a schoolroom with the message that these were pictures of him attending communist training schools.
Today, people ask about homosexual marriage, and there are pictures of Obama attending communist training schools. Nothing changes.
(It is not polite to ask about inter-racial marriages anymore, but really, anyone who thinks that a heck of a lot of folk have changed their minds on this one is kidding themselves.)
Accusations of being communists and socialists have always been closely tied to the civil rights movement, this is because a lot of white folk believed that POC could not create a movement on their own (it hurts to even type this! sheesh!), but needed white communists to do it for them. Some folks still think like this, though I do believe they are careful about saying it in public.
When I talked to such folks, they would always say “the communists want to take away all my stuff”. Presumably up and including white skin privileges.
(I did make up one thing here, but really, it wouldn’t surprise me.)
And people would frequently suggest that the purpose of race mixing was to destroy the white race, because if race mixing was allowed, white people would all want to do it, and they would never want to be with each other. So, white people (being defined as 100% pure blooded white (whatever that is)) would disappear.
But it’s all a plot by the communists to destroy America anyway.
Posted 15 Oct 2009 at 6:16 am ¶
dersk wrote:
@atlasien and @mary: Hey, don’t forget about us godless atheists! We’re the reason they put ‘under god’ into the pledge of allegiance, after all… (:
Posted 15 Oct 2009 at 6:49 am ¶
Nub wrote:
I don’t think the people who use those words know what they even mean
Posted 15 Oct 2009 at 5:27 pm ¶
Joy-Mari Cloete wrote:
@Dzifa: Yip, I’m also in Cape Town. Good to see another one of us on here
Posted 19 Oct 2009 at 6:16 am ¶