New Song: Racism is a Weapon, in The Class War.

It is PRECISELY because most people think of Racism as a personal flaw, a petty hatred,  a weakness rather than as the social weapon system created by the Ruling Class, that Racism persists within Western Democracies.

We need to up our game.

#ToryRacism 

Here's why.

MP Kim Johnson sat on the Education Select Committee, which issued it's report this week.

First Report: The forgotten: how White working-class pupils have been let down, and how to change it

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/203/education-committee/publications/

"In the name of championing the white working class, the Tory-led Education Select Committee report released this week picks up the mantle of the government’s highly discredited Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.

The report calls for public bodies – including schools and charities – to ‘seriously consider their responsibilities’ when promoting the term ‘White Privilege’. 

This was watered down from the preferred recommendation from some committee members, which called for financial penalties for public bodies doing this work. It was taken off the table after legal advice that it would contravene human rights legislation by having a chilling effect on freedom of speech.

It’s a shameful attempt to limit the freedoms of ethnic minorities to articulate their experiences of racism, and to stoke the culture war by scapegoating them for the poverty endemic in ‘left behind’ communities.

The report also pushes a free schools agenda, despite plenty of evidence to suggest that academies do not reduce the attainment gap for disadvantaged children in comparison to local authority-run schools.

Since 2010 there have been 92 Education Committee reports and only two of these reports have explicitly focused on a named ethnic group – both on white pupils.

Instead of focusing on the multitude of evidence that shows that cuts, lack of investment and stark poverty has on the opportunities of so many communities, the Tories once again take the cowards way out by pointing the finger at the red herring of ethnic minority communities.

The use of data and language is highly selective in the report, allowing it to make misleading assertions that the white working class as a whole is achieving less than disadvantaged ethnic minority students."

https://leftfootforward.org/2021/06/kim-johnson-mp-i-sit-on-the-committee-behind-the-white-working-class-education-report-its-a-disgrace/

In short, the English Government are trying to assert that efforts to address Racism and Misogyny are the root cause of the difficulties of poor white schoolchildren living in areas where unemployment, low wages and cuts to funding for social programs are contributing to poverty. The English Government are using skin tone and gender as weapons to sow social discord and prevent grass roots solidarity emerging. 

They are broadcasting this via vexatious abuse of their majority in parliament and it's select committees, and they are quite deliberately targeting the alt-right amidst those  impoverished by 12 years of Austerity who are on  low incomes or are dependent on benefits, the poorer sector of the English population, 14 million strong and growing due to callous Conservative policy. They are saying to those people that the difficulties their children face are being caused by too much concern about Racism and Misogyny and not enough concern about them and their condition. 

They omit that Austerity has harmed children of every ethnicity in England.

The recent Sewell Report which asserted that there was no such thing as Institutional Racism in England is part of this campaign. Denial and then the allegation that those who seek to address the 'non existent Institutional Racism' are creating a distraction that is harming poor white children. 

This is using Race as a weapon. Which is how Racism was invented in the 1600s, by the British Colonial plantation owners and ruling class, as a device to thwart emergent worker solidarity, which they perceived as a mortal threat to their power, privilege and status. The legalisation and Institutionalisation of Racial discrimination was a grooming operation that took 4 decades to engineer, and the ill effects are with us still  400 years later.

I have written a song to articulate this.

Race is a Weapon in The Class War - a brief historical outline

Australian Aboriginals - Genocidal Racism Exported by The British Empire

The Curse of Ham was taken as the basis of the definition of Race, and Superiority in Colonial America.

The Colston Statue in Bristol was Removed  by Activists

England's Players were booed for making a public anti-Racist symbolic gesture

A new song, fresh from the studio. As usual, a rough mix.

Race is a weapon, in the class war.

This is the story of the co-opting of Biblical myth, and the re-invention of Race and skin colour as a tool of discrimination and then the crafting of legalised Racism, in the British Colonies, in the 1600s.

Prior to this period, discrimination was largely religious or cultural, and rooted in war fare, with slavery as part of the 'booty' of war.

The conquered of the colonies would be enslaved by the conquerors, although it often turned out that native peoples were unsuited to enslavement and they mostly died out rapidly, burned out by the trauma of conquest. They did not have much to live for.

This was why the Spanish Empire started to import slaves from Africa to the Caribbean and to South America. They basically genocided the local populations through over working them as slaves.

In the British Colonies it was different : the development of indentured worker systems which included free citizens, usually too poor to pay their way, who worked for a contract that paid their passage, and convict workers, imported from Europe and from Africa, was dominant in the early period.  There were also cases of Africans who had been enslaved by the Spanish, and were on board Spanish ships which were attacked by English Privateers. The English would bring the Africans to the colonies, and they would be sold as indentured workers, who would be freed at the end of their contract, and allowed to enter into society as free people, equal citizens, they could own land, develop businesses and so on.

This was a time in the British Colonies when African and European indentured workers worked side by side on plantations, and were routinely freed at the end of their indenture, and given land and tools to develop their own futures as equals. They formed villages, towns and communities, inter marriage was common enough.

It was not multicultural in as much as it was not an issue because they were all part of the same culture, a new culture growing in the colonies. Pioneers. Breaking new land together. There were various languages spoken, there were enclaves of various European ethnicities. Irish people, Dutch, Germans would live close to each other.

Life was incredibly harsh. Many, many people died during their indenture, and from time to time, the indentured 'rebelled' and took out their frustration and pain on their 'employers'.

It was this that frighted the Plantation owners - that the working class - indentured and free - might unite, and together in solidarity, undo them, take them down from their positions of absolute power as a reaction to the owners cruelty and oppression. The owners needed a plan to protect their long term prospects, a plan for many generations.

Thus the concepts of Race and then Racism were developed over time slowly, bit by bit, to divide the working class of the colonies.  A political grooming operation over a 40 year period, starting from the Pulpit, concocting themes to marginalise, dehumanise and then legalise the oppression of freed black folk,  culminating in the legalisation of Slavery of African people, with conversion to Christianity offered as a 'mercy' to those who were enslaved, for life. 

A mercy denied the Native peoples, who were ethnically cleansed, in a multi-century genocide.

Race and Racism, Xenophobia and Religious bigotry continues to split the working class across the Earth, and all of these protects the Oligarchy, the owner class, even still, and will continue until the working class as a whole figure this out - honest history is crucial to effective political organisation and action.

Slavery - essentially free forced labour - was the primary human 'resource' that generated the wealth that seeded the Industrial Revolution.and funded the Capitalist Oligarchy that emerged from that set of circumstances.

From the initial back breaking toil of clearing of land by hand, through to planting, harvesting and processing sugar, tobacco. coffee, cotton and other materials that generated the first immense merchant fortunes and Oligarchy networks which became political power centers in their own right, to the first investments into factories and the development and expansion of the factory system, Racism and class continues through to the present as a thread of oppression and extraction upon which the wealth of Europe and America is founded, with European and American controlled colonial assets protected by military and political dominance. This is why England and America and France, and others, are engaged in combat operations continuously .

Racism is a weapon in the class war.

https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2021/05/racism-is-not-xenophobia-both-are.html

MP3 version:



CD version:

coreluminous · RACISM IS A WEAPON

FOR FIVE LONG YEARS YOU WORKED SIDE BY SIDE

FOR FIVE LONG YEARS YOU BOTH SHARED THAT LIFE

FOR FIVE LONG YEARS YOU WORKED THE MASTERS FIELDS

AFTER FIVE LONG YEARS YOU BOTH WERE FREED

YOU WERE GIVEN A PLACE ON WHICH TO BUILD A HOME

BUILDING A NEW COUNTRY, YOU WERE NOT ALONE

YOU WERE GOOD NEIGHBOURS, YOU WORKED YOUR OWN FIELDS

YOU WERE HOPING FOR A FUTURE, A FUTURE YEILD

YOU FELLED TREES, YOU DUG WELLS, YOU SHAPED STONE

YOU BUILT FARMS, VILLAGES, TOWNS, AND YOU BUILT HOMES

YOU OPENED SHOPS, BLACK SMITHS, CHURCHES AND HALLS

AFRICAN,EUROPEAN FREED WORKERS ALL

BUT IT WAS NOT ALWAYS EASY, THE LIFE WAS VERY HARSH

THE MASTERS WERE CRUEL, THEY MADE CRUELTY AN ART

MANY NEVER MADE IT THROUGH, MANY FELL, MANY DIED

THE CONDITIONS WERE AWFUL, HOW YOUR HEARTS CRIED

TREAT US LIKE PEOPLE, TREAT US WITH RESPECT

DON'T HOPE TO EXHAUST US, TO KILL US WITH NEGLECT

SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO FREE US, GIVE US OUR AWARD

LISTEN TO OUR COMPLAINT, HEAR OUR HONEST WORDS

WHEN THE MASTERS DID NOT LISTEN, TURNED THEIR HEARTS AWAY

THERE WAS NOTHING LEFT FOR THE WORKERS TO SAY

THEY TOOK UP THEIR TOOLS, THEY STOLE THE MASTERS GUNS

THEY FOUGHT FOR THEIR LIVES, THEY MADE THE MASTERS RUN

AFTER BACONS REBELLION, THE MASTERS MADE A PLAN

ELEVATE THE EUROPEAN TO OPPRESS THE AFRICAN

THIS DIVIDED THE WORKERS, THEY WOULD PROTECT THEIR PLACE

AS LORDS OF THIS LAND THAT'S WHY THEY INVENTED RACE.

THEY MISUSED THE BIBLE, SPUN THE STORY OF HAM

SET THE WHITE RACE AS SUPERIOR TO THE AFRICAN

MADE LAWS AGAINST THE FREE BLACKS, APARTHEID VERSION ONE

THEN THEY LEGALISED SLAVERY, THAT'S HOW THE JOB WAS DONE!

~~

RACE IS A WEAPON, IN THE CLASS WAR

SO WHEN YOU ARE BOOING AS THE TEAM TAKES THE KNEE

KNOW YOU ARE WAGING WAR ON BEHALF OF THE ELITE

THE OWNERS HAVE CONVINCED YOU TO TAKE THEIR SIDE

USING THE LIE THAT BLACK IS INFERIOR TO WHITE        

THEY SOLD YOU A LIE 

RACE IS A WEAPON, IN THE CLASS WAR

RACE IS A WEAPON, IN THE CLASS WAR

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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Racism is not Xenophobia, it is not Anti-Semitism: all three are global working class issues.

What is the intended impact of an education system that does not teach the true origins of White vs Black Racism nor reveal the long awful history of anti-Semitism, both of which are European origin invented weaponised hatreds?
It is precisely because most people think of Racism as a personal flaw, a petty hatred, a weakness rather than understanding Racism as the social weapon system that it is, created by the Ruling Class, that Racism persists within Western Democracies.

We need to up our game.

#ToryRacism

Racism is a weapon designed by the ruling class to divide the ruled.

Anti-Semitism has always been a scapegoating weapon, invented and used by Christian Rulers down the centuries. It too divides the ruled.

In this blog I will lay out the facts on Racism in particular as they exist. Racism, in the form of White Supremacy, was invented.

Racism and Slavery in the British Colonies of the Americas did not happen over night. In the same way that Brexit did not happen in the few years around the Referendum. Brexit started the day the UK joined the Common Market.

Racism and Slavery in the American colonies were carefully inculcated over two generations, close to 50 years of constant effort, bit by bit, starting from a place where African and European indentured workers worked side by side, were freed at the end of their indenture, given land and integrated into the working free community as equals the bosses worked their political grooming operation to the point where European folk classed themselves as superior to all African folk, by natural and divine right and were willing to enslave African folk in the most brutal fashion, in huge numbers, simply because they were African, inferior in every way. A lie carefully nurtured to divide a working class against itself. Racism is a weapon devised by the bosses to disunify the workers. Racism is learned. Racism is not a biological or psychological dynamic, even though there are biological and psychological dynamics at play, it is an outcome cultural conditioning. It is true that our brains and sub-conscious cognition systems are attuned or primed to notice difference and to be alert to difference, however this is a baseline function of pattern analysis that is largely determined by experience and culture. Thus before the grooming of the workers into 'us' and 'thems', African and European worked sided by side, and saw each other as 'us' and saw the owners as their 'them'. The owners sough to change that. and by creating a different set up of us and them, with Europeans in general as 'us' and Africans in general as 'them'.

Racism is a global working class issue.

It predates the Industrial Revolution and it had a profound effect on the way the Industrial Revolution played out. Racism and Xenophobia are quite distinct. Xenophobia is much, much older. Racism is a recent invention.

THIN LIZZY: PHIL LYNOTT, BRIAN DOWNEY,GARY MOORE IN 1974. 

PHOTOGRAPH: MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY

Thin Lizzy, a successful working class rock band from Dublin, Ireland : emblematic of working class folk comprised of African and European, side by side. The Human Race as one race.

Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia trial, tried for Treason by the Racists

"You'll never kill our will to be free!"

coreluminous · RACISM IS A WEAPON

I wrote a song about this: Racism is a Class War Weapon.

Racism is a class War Weapon

Most working class folk probably don't know that Racism (white skin good superior, black skin bad inferior aka White Supremacy) was invented by British Colonial Plantation owners, the Colonial Oligarchs, to get European indentured workers and African indentured workers to hate on each other so that they would not unite to take on the oligarch rulers in the British Colonies of the Americas in the mid to late 1600s.

The Colonies imported labour, most often as indentured workers - workers who would work for a fixed term, and be released upon completion of that term, and these would include Africans and Europeans, who often worked side by side. Freed Africans and Europeans became part of the culture of the Colonies. The turnover of labour was high, conditions were pretty tough and those who survived tougher than nails. Those that made it through were often given land on the edges of the colonies, where only the hard nailed could survive and thrive. They formed an advance guard of colonial expansion. There were in the early decades of the British Colonial conquest, expansion and development of plantations quite a few violent uprisings of indentured workers - conditions were often brutal and profoundly unfair even in terms of indenture agreements - European and African workers joining together to attack their oppressors, sometimes with help from Native peoples. These rebellions led to the owners becoming very concerned that their grip on power was vulnerable, that they were at risk - they were the few facing the many. They needed to figure out a way to divide the workers, to set them apart as different classes. The resorted to the old strategy of favour one group at the expense of the other. And so they had to define the groups. This led to the definition of The White Race, as the starting point.

They had to established the legal concept of Race by defining the White Race in legislation. Race and thus Racism was invented as a weapon to to be deployed against working class Europeans and working class Africans who had previously worked side by side, as equals in the oppressive system of indentured 'employment' that supplied labour to the plantation owners. Race and Racism were invented by British Christian plantation owners, using the Bible as a foundational text to justify discrimination, as it defined one group as spiritually and morally superior to the other, by the word of God. This was followed through with incremental legislation that placed limitations on African citizens, removing various rights from them and conferring advantages to European workers, bit by bit.

Then when they had convinced enough of the European workers they were innately superior humans than Africans, they then institutionalised and legalised Slavery. With that it followed the slaves would from time to time attempt to escape such oppressive situations, given that there was a vast wilderness into which they could go, where they could possibly find a niche. Laws were passed to arrange for paid groups of volunteer Europeans to give chase to the fleeing slaves and bring them back to their owners, dead or alive. These posses are the very roots of grass roots policing in the colonies and in the USA.

If you didn't know that.

It is not your fault.

Now you do.

Here's some of the evidence, in just over half an hour of viewing.

Xenophobia is not Racism. There are two other threads in the Racism discourse that need to be addressed. The first is the idea that tribalism, othering is an innate human trait, and for this modern neuroscience is routinely enrolled as evidence of innate othering at the unconscious level when subjects, usually from developed countries, are tested in various laboratory experiments that show faster than thought reactions to different skinned faces. What these tests do not do is cover egalitarian based cultures - there is no known testing of egalitarian people for these kinds of tests. So at best we can say in the modern culture where Racism and othering is common, we see hyper-fast reactions at the unconscious level to skin colour, and given the cultural background that is to be expected. We cannot assume that there is an innate behavioural dynamic that feeds into othering, racism, adverse tribalism. The second thread is that Racism is a personal flaw, that the Racist is somehow inferior to the non-Racist. I think this is wholly inaccurate. It is another form of dehumanisation. We can so readily dismiss the other person, the 'Racist', without asking how did that person learn to be Racist? We truly need to understand what Racism is and what othering is contextualised with awareness of egalitarian evolutionary behaviour as a dominant form of social behaviour for the human species for the past 80,000 years if not longer - I cite 80,000 years because that is the time span of Australian Aboriginal culture. It is more likely that egalitarian behaviour is much, much older than that culture. Racism is learned behaviour.

Irish hating English is Xenophobia, not Racism. It does not emerge naturally within Irish children - we are not born at birth with such a hatred. We are taught it.

Irish wanting only Irish in Ireland is Nativism, it is not Racism. That too is not something we are born with. We are taught it. Who plants these ideas and concepts into young minds that become adults habituated to such feelings of animosity? Why would they do such a thing? Who created the State? Which few exercise power that influences the situation of the lives of the many? What is the State? The State is an institution of power, that operates a leveraged power system over a population within a defined boundary. The State as we know it, by origin, was rooted in violent hierarchy systems, within which slavery, serfdom, and other forms of coerced labour working for a ruling class were institutionalised and under which the workers have struggled for centuries to regain human dignity, the dignity removed by their violent oppression. That is a historical truth. That truth presents as a historical struggle, the struggle to be fully human, to be free from oppression and as Paolo Friere puts it, free from the perceived need or desire to oppress others.

The power politics of Capitalism and Neo-Liberalism, of Communism, and of the Industrial Hierarchy in general are oppressive systems where a small class of people exercise powers that affect and afflict the majority in ways the ordinary find impossible to counter. The ordinary person cannot change interest rates, determine average wages, dictate to bureaucracies how they ought be treated start or stop wars.

Modi, Johnson, Bolsonaro, Trump, Netanyahu, The Saudi Rulers, Biden, Xi, Putin, Musk, Bezos, Patel, Hancock, Murdoch (I can list a few from the polities I am most familiar with, you readers will have your own lists) and all the others, so many of them, hundreds of thousands of individuals who wield immense systems of leveraged power and who are so assured in their own minds of their entitlement to use that power and who cause harm, rather than prevent harms, are operating a system that is oppressing the majority - inequity has adverse effects on everyone within any society that maintains inequities. To oppress and to be oppressed are both dehumanised conditions for any human to find themselves in. We can see this all around us.

Dehumanised in different ways, oppressor and oppressed must be liberated for all to find peace.

Education needs to be honest, precise and transparent. Race is a social or cultural construct - there is no genetic or biological delimiting dynamic that can be identified as establishing Race as a biological reality. The question for workers, wage earners in general is why do the owners devote so much effort to get workers to disengage from solidarity? What is it that the owners fear so much that they behave so cruelly towards the entire community of workers?

Children ask "Why?" because they really want to know in order to understand.

Any kind of a lie by way of an answer is abusing their trust and it undermines their integrity, thus it is best to say "I do not know." when one does not know, rather than make up some story for the child to believe.

Kindest regards Corneilius "Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."