On Revolutionaries and Politicians

I was just reading myself some Racialicious, and there was an article that referenced people's disappointment in Obama's lack of obvious measures to help African-Americans. Now, this is nothing new, but it again made me think on something I've been meaning to write about for a long time (but just never seemed to get to).

This is the difference between revolutionaries and politicians.

In brief, a revolutionary is somebody who - through passionate, radical action - sparks drastic change. Most often, we associate revolutionaries with war, of course (because they are generally catalysts for revolution, hence the word). But revolutionaries aren't always fighters. They can be present in times of martial peace. Because, to me - revolutionaries are folks who spark change through non-political means. Revolutionaries can be people like the American Civil Rights leaders of the 60s, who sparked change through non-compliance with racist laws. They can be folks who spark grassroots movements to change systems that governing bodies can't or won't change.

Politicians, on the other hand, work through government. These are literal politicians who run for elected office, but they can also be lobbyists and other folks who drive their desires through the hoops and bureaucracy that is the government machine. These people also bring about change, but more subtly. They work through compromise and diplomacy, and an attempt to establish a middle ground.

Both sides can bring about just change. Both sides can bring about destruction and injustice. They just have different mentalities and methods in doing so.

And the big problem people already disappointed by Obama have is that they mistook him for a revolutionary. His charisma and speaking ability conveyed passion to his listeners, and they mistook their own inspired passion as that of revolution. His historic rise to the White House was a symbol of change that people mistook for a step towards revolution. These folks got caught up in the wave and thought they had voted a revolutionary into the White House. And now - as they start to realize that sweeping reforms are not forthcoming, they are disappointed.

But the key here is that they voted Obama into office. Revolutionaries do not get voted in (until after their side of the revolution has prevailed, at least). Revolutionaries put themselves into power. Through acts of war or a passionate motivation of the people. Obama got the vote.

And, to do so, he had to be a politician. He didn't stomp and call out all the ills of this country. He didn't condemn its sick history. He didn't demand justice. He ran the middle ground. He noted this country's past, then said how great it had become. He called out his predecessor's mistakes, but never said he'd pull our armies out of foreign lands. He made use of his mixed heritage to say how white folks and black folks and everyone else walk the same road, more or less. He compromised. Because that's what you do, as a politician. That's how you get elected. That's how you bring about slow and steady change within our governmental system, and within the parameters of the law (just or otherwise).

And he's not going to stop being a politician now that he's in. He's part of the machine - there's no override switch once you're in. And so you will NOT see Obama suddenly call attention to race and disparities in this country - because a politician can't do that and survive.

Although, neither can a revolutionary.

The photo above is of Patrice Lumumba, the first elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He served that role for less than a year before he was murdered (with Belgian and US CIA complicity). His newly-independent country fell into chaos at around the same time (more or less as he got himself elected), and it has probably been one of the most war-torn, historically, nations in all the world since.

And the question is: how did that happen? Because it's widely accepted that Lumumba was an amazing man. Passionate, brilliant, and - most importantly for a revolutionary - charismatic. His fire and determination fueled his country's fight for independence from Belgian -and helped them prevail. He sparked drastic change. His vision for the future inspired other African nations to fight for their own independence and to try to work together to rebuild.

And yet - as his government tried to settle in, he already had his army mutinying, and multiple rivals tearing the people apart. The UN swept in, the CIA chose their best interests, and Lumumba was murdered. And the country hasn't seen real hope since.

And that's the problem with revolutionaries - they are not about compromise. And so, as they are inspiring people to their cause, they also end up burning bridges. They are also about passion and big ideas - and government has no time for big ideas when all the little things need taking care of. Revolutionaries are two-to-three steps ahead of reality, and they often pay for that. Because revolutionaries do not make good politicians. Once the drastic change has come, most revolutionaries are unable to settle into the nitty-gritty daily grind of simply running things.

And so? Both are necessary. We need the revolutionaries to challenge the status quo and kick people into tearing down accepted injustices. But we need the politicians to calm things down and keep people fed and employed. To keep the water running and the utilities covered. We need revolutionaries to think big and outside of the box. And we need the politicians to work within the box to steadily enlarge it.

It's hard to accept, sometimes. Because politicians often seem to end up so soulless in their roles of compromisers. Constantly pandering to their public and trying to keep the most powerful interests happy. We love the revolutionaries because they're so inspiring and make such a good story. So many of them end up dying at the height of their glory - making it easy to turn them into heroes. But, to put it in more day-to-day terms: it's the politicians that keep the family fed and the electricity running.

I often find myself wondering which side I tend towards. I definitely lean to the revolutionary in terms of my "big ideas" and demand for "justice." It's so easy for me to see all that's wrong with society and condemn it. And in doing so, I often jump right past realistic modes of change. However, I also find myself playing the slow-and-steady middle ground quite often. I try not to attack my opponents, try to slowly bring them over to my side. But I have no patience for the steady grind and day-to-day management of "the little things."

So which way do I turn? What will be my legacy when I look back on my small fight for change in the world? Am I going to be the bread-winner and take care of the kids' daily needs, or am I going to dream big and risk them going hungry (with the possibility of making it big and bringing back that huge paycheck)? The revolutionaries earn our acclaim (or hatred) while the politicians earn our contempt (or disappointment). Who do I want to be?

Obama? Or Lumumba? Or is there a somewhere-in-between?

Hapa in Hawaii: Mixed Feelings

So, in my previous post (Hapa in Hawaii: Kumu Kahua), I covered how incredible it felt to be in Honolulu, surrounded by folks that actually looked like me, for one of the first (and only) times in my life. And - due to that - I kind of think of Hawaii as my adopted homeland in a lot of ways.*

But - being me - I wasn't able to just stop there and bathe in the warm glow of blending in. No - I had to go deeper. I had to really examine why this place existed - an island where a majority of the people resemble me, phenotypically-speaking.

And, of course, it comes down to history. Due to its position 3,000 miles from any continent (Asia, Australia, or Americas), Hawaii was able to avoid the earliest rushes of colonial expansion and empire. It wasn't until 1778 when white colonizers arrived on Hawaiian shores with Captain Cook.** Shortly thereafter, King Kamehameha I was able to unify the islands under his rule through a relatively quick war of conquest. Ironically, evidence suggests that Kamehameha was able to defeat his opponents largely due to his use of European guns and weaponry (brought by American and European traders).

A united Hawaii, in theory, should have led to furthering Hawaiian strength. Sadly, it was all downhill from there.

Over the course of the next 100 years, foreign interests (mostly white American businessmen) steadily gained a firmer foothold on the islands. By the mid-1800s, there were basically two opposing sources of power in Hawaii - the Hawaiian-run government that held political power and legal authority, and the American businessmen, who controlled Hawaiian economic power. We've seen this sad story a million times - so what happened next, when American capitalism and greed was pitted against an indigenous government?

Right. In 1893 U.S. marines landed and helped the American business interests (led by Sanford B. Dole, founder of the Dole fruit empire) overthrow the Hawaiian government. In 1895, Queen Lili'uokalani was arrested for treason when she attempted to regain power. Can I repeat that? The Queen of a previously-independent state was arrested for treason by American business interests when she tried to rule her previously-independent state. In 1898, President McKinley (I'm glad he was shot, but I should note here that Grover Cleveland - McKinley's predecessor - was actually opposed to annexation) signed the resolution of annexation to make Hawaii a U.S. territory. Notably, native Hawaiians weren't allowed to vote on the decision to petition for annexation. Upon joining the union, Sanford Dole became the first governor.

- Brief interruption - Dole becoming governor is like if Lee Scott, Jr. (Walmart CEO) took over the Phillipines and then the U.S. made him governor.*** Put that way, though - would you really be surprised if it actually happened?

Anyway. So - Hawaii was colonized by the U.S., had its freedom curtailed, and was forced to become part of the Union (without native Hawaiian input). Deep down, somewhere, everybody understands this, but let's just make it clear: Hawaii is a colony, plain and simple. And, just like with the U.S. mainland, it has never won its independence. The only difference being native Hawaiians are actually still visible and harder to ignore on the islands.

Okay - so where do all the Asian folk come in? Well, unfortunately for Dole and his buddies, Hawaiian annexation came 30 years after slavery was made illegal, so free labor wasn't available. So they did what American business interests have been doing for centuries (and continue to this day) - they found cheap immigrant labor to work under slave-like conditions. It's no coincidence that in 1865 - only two years after the Emancipation Proclamation and the year of the end of the Civil War and realization that the North had won - ships from Hawaii arrived in China to bring back plantation laborers.

By the early 1880s, 22% of the islands' population was Chinese. Enter the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1884. The Chinese well dried up as Chinese laborers were no longer allowed to come to the States. Suddenly, an influx of Japanese workers appeared on the scene. Then, when the Japanese island population became too large (and deemed a "threat" by white Americans), the Filipinos began to roll in. The first large wave of Korean immigration began around that same time.

So, by the early 1900s, Hawaii's ethnic demographics fell out like this: 24% "colored" (which would include Filipinos and other Asians, as well as black and other ethnicities), 23% white, 22% Native, 21% Japanese, and 8% Chinese (that Exclusion Act sure was effective). As far as the hierarchy went, you had the Asian laborers at the bottom with indigenous Hawaiians, and the white folks running the show at the top. So - as usually occurs with such distinct class divisions - some racial mixing began with the "lower" levels. Various Asian ethnicities began to mix (a little, there is still a lot of intra-Asian cultural hostility) with each other, as well as some mixing with native Hawaiians.

So - 100 years of racial mixing led to the racially-ambiguous look of the people living in Hawaii presently. Few with native blood aren't mixed to some degree.

But we're not finished yet. Because we still haven't explained the explosion of "hapas" that hit the islands some decades back.

Interestingly, along with the Asian laborers coming in at the beginning of the 20th century was a large population of Portuguese immigrant laborers. At that point, Portuguese wasn't white, they were on the same class-level with the rest of the laborers, and a large numbers of mixed folks in Hawaii with white blood have Portuguese ancestry.

But wait - there's more. Starting in the 1980s, Asian economies (specifically Japanese) began to gain momentum. And, with the increase in economic power of these Asian peoples came with their increase in political power (and levels of acceptance) in Hawaii. So, as Japanese (and some other Asians) began to mix, politically and socially, at the highest class levels, they also began to mix their bloodstreams. Et voila! The birth of the modern "hapa" movement.

Whoo! So here we are - present-day. "Hapa pride" is a catch-phrase, and the majority of mainland Americans think "Hawaiian" folks look like me. If we're talking about people living in the state of Hawaii, then that's true, of course. But if we're talking about indigenous Hawaiians? Not at all.

And so, after putting all these pieces together, I realized that my "blending in" as a hapa-haole in Hawaii is actually a consequence of racial privilege. The majority of the hapas on the islands come from a relatively privileged background in comparison to the indigenous Hawaiians. The only reason folks of my mixture exist in such large amounts on the islands is due to American colonization and Asian economic dominance.

So, really - my "look" is a symbolic representation of American empire and the rule of capitalism. My "blending in" in Hawaii served as a bridge for further connection from myself to native Hawaiian issues, but, in a way, I am a cause of those same issues.

What do I do with this knowledge? How does this affect my excitement at the opportunity to see people like me all over the place?

I'm not really sure. My first step is open acknowledgement of it. I'm not going to hide from it. I will examine it, deeply, and accept whatever I find. And then I'll share it. Through my writing on this blog, as well as artistically (I already performed a piece that addresses this). The second step is to allow myself to still appreciate my opportunity to be "normal" - no matter the historical significance of that. Being any kind of racial mixture is a remnant of cultural expansion and empire, and there's no avoiding it. In spite of how people with my particular phenotype came into existence, I still have the right to feel a sense of normality.

And, finally - I will continue to look for ways to rectify past wrongs. It isn't my fault that things are the way they are, but nor is it my subsequent right to allow things to remain that way. As a direct recipient of benefits wrought by privilege (however small and fleeting, in this case), it is my responsibility to do something.

And so I will. Because I refuse to hide in ignorance, no matter how soothing - even when it comes disguised as something I've longed for for so long.



* China being the "motherland," literally, but obviously not really my place. The mainland U.S. more or less the "fatherland," but - again - not fully my place in a lot of ways. My "homeland," then, being where both sides meet.

** At this point, y'all don't need me to explain why I qualify "white" explorers . . .

*** I use the Phillipines as an example, because their current state of being a quasi-U.S. colony with heavy military presence mirrors that of Hawaii before the overthrow . . .

On the Invention of Racism, Part II

Oh, what a way to start the party I referred to a couple days back. From the very beginning. Note to the upstairs party - make sure you read the full post before you let the way it all begins get you, because it was very intentional, and NOT because I hate white people.

For the first installment, see "On the Invention of Racism, Part I."

So, where did I leave off? Oh, right - what history really looked like before it got re-written.

I was talking about the fact that white Europeans were simply NOT superior - AT ALL - for most of the period of time we like to call "written history." In fact, if we were talking about technological and social advances, we'd have to call them plain inferior. To - pretty much - everyone else. Seriously.

And me writing that probably blows people's minds. Because that's not how our textbooks tell it. And isn't that just racist to say in the first place?

My response? I don't know - is it? Is it racist to state the simple fact that white Europeans literally swam in their own sh-- during much of the second millennium while civilizations of color in Africa, Asia, and the "American" continent practiced good hygiene? Is it racist to say that white Europeans in the 1300s were illiterate savages, in contrast to the highly-educated, scientifically-advanced Moors, or Mayans, or Sudanese, or Chinese, or . . . (you get the picture)? Is it racist to speak of the barbarism of white European colonists in contrast to the settled, civilized natives that they butchered? Is that racist? Because it really seems to me that that's what every single American child learned in school . . .

Oh, wait. No. My bad. They learned the opposite. Right. They (we) learned that white Europeans were the advanced ones, while everybody else was backwards. But that wasn't racist because it was true.

Except it wasn't.

No - it was only true after racism was invented. And institutionalized.

Because there was a time (through all these years of primitive European backwardness) when different races of people didn't exist. The concept of race didn't really exist. There was the acknowledgement of different skin color, of course. And of different places of origin and civilizations. But it wasn't about race. The differently-colored civilizations of the world traded with each other, took advantage of the advancements (and weaknesses) of the others, and lived in a relative state of peace with each other (and I specify "with each other," because they were obviously fighting amongst themselves - but more within the same racial groups than without).

And nobody was "superior." Sure, the Chinese have always thought themselves superior to everybody else, but nobody was actually superior in terms of dominance or advancement or anything else like that. One culture had their way of doing things, the other culture had their own way, and that was how it was.

So what caused superiority to happen? It started with wars of subjugation and slavery.

But most wars of subjugation through the majority of historical time were not between different races. No - they were one tribe or group from one race* taking over land or control of another tribe or group of the same race. And, with that, came slavery. Africans enslaved Africans. Indigenous Americans enslaved other Americans. And white Europeans enslaved other white Europeans. And wasn't it all so hunky-dory? No. But it wasn't about race, either.

Wars that happened between different races weren't about race, either. The major ones were about religion - Christians and Muslims during the Crusades. And neither side thought the other was inferior - simply wrong about God. And so it went until the Inquisition. And, at that point, race starts to appear in the picture - because, although it was ostensibly about religion - it fell out to start eliminating people of the wrong "look" or opinions (I believe this is where true anti-semitism really made its first major stand, the dark-skinned Moors were pushed from Europe, "witches" were persecuted, etc.) . . .

And then Columbus' terrorist attacks on the Americas began. As white Europeans gained control of the Americas (again, through brutality and plague), they gained wealth. Wealth in terms of gold and trinkets, but also in terms of manpower - SLAVES. Because the most slaves in the original Americas were not actually Africans - they were Native Americans. So many that there certainly wasn't a need for white slaves, anymore. But then the plague started wiping out the Natives, so the white Europeans, used to all the extra slave help to do their work, had to ship in African slaves to take their place.

And that's about when the invention of racism really began to take full shape. Because Columbus' initial reports on the natives he met were highly positive. Commenting on their regal physical appearance, their kindness, and their civilized culture. That was until he decided he would kill them and take over their land for "God and country." Then, suddenly, he started talking about their "savagery" and their uncivilized nature, likening them to animals.

Because the problem was this: how could a God-fearing Christian man kill off a whole race of kind, regal, and civilized people? He couldn't. Which presented two options: either, a) don't kill them and leave their land and resources, or b) change how you look at them, so you can feel okay about killing them all.

Guess what option Columbus went with?

And the rest followed suit. There are hundreds of accounts of "explorers" and "statesmen" initially having positive things to say about native peoples, only to do a complete 180 in opinion once they started profiting by killing them.

It was simply a matter of propaganda. If you can convince your people that the "enemy" is less than, then they will have no problem killing them. This kind of dehumanization during wartime has always occurred (and still does).

But it stopped happening only during wartime. Because the majority of slaves became black slaves. And - again - no God-fearing man or woman could whip another man or woman, split up their family, rape them, murder them, etc. No. But they could do all these things if they changed their mind about who those people were. In fact, changed their mind to not even make them people.

And so history had to be re-written. Because if the conquerors acknowledged the previous power (and superiority) of these peoples' civilizations, then how could they adequately justify their current actions? Again - they couldn't. So they - very intentionally - changed history to put white folks on top, from beginning to end. Suddenly, Europeans conquering and colonizing the world wasn't an act of epic brutality and fascist Empire - it was inevitable. It was the ever-constant march of progress. Something that nobody could stop.

They took the morals right out of the equation. And never put them back in. Think back to your history lessons of your childhood - how often was this battle presented as "more advanced" versus "less advanced"?** Manifest Destiny. Exploration. Africa became the "Dark Continent" as slavery reached its peak. None of this was a coincidence.

Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry - they all owned slaves. They had them beat. They broke up their families. They acknowledged the wrong of it all (in a way), but they continued it. Because that was how it was. Because it was easier to let it continue than to function without it.

But slavery did end (at least in the most literal, legal sense). And, afterwards, Reconstruction occurred. Black Americans were given full rights, put into positions of authority, sat in government. But it fell through. Not because the black folks were unable to handle the new way of things, but because white racists (which was the majority of white folks) were murdering black officials. They attacked entire towns. Burned the homes of the most successful black folks.

And suddenly the rights were revoked by the government. But they couldn't admit that it was because the white racists had won - of course not. So it got re-written as the newly-freed slaves being unable to handle authority. Being too uneducated to be successful. Because that story felt better for the authors.

And that story was so effective and became so ingrained, that few people today even realize that black people actually served in government and had legal equality any time before the Civil Rights movements of the 60s. We're taught to believe that things have steadily been getting better. That the racist institution of segregation had to bow to the "inevitable" might of "progress." Uh-oh. Sound familiar?

That's the story we keep hearing. That things "are getting better." Which is often code (when said by people with power) to mean, "stop complaining - be thankful for what you're given;" a justification for those same people to do nothing active to change how things are.

But the problem is - things haven't "been getting better." Things are better now than they were during the 1800s and early 1900s, for sure. But, as far as race relations go, they aren't better than a few hundred years before that. So, if we're looking at the BIG PICTURE, things (racially speaking) have actually been getting WORSE over the course of history. But that kind of outlook doesn't really help the current straight*** white male power system keep us blind and apathetic. If we become too aware of all that, then we might actually start doing something about it, instead of passively talking about "progress" and waiting for the "inevitable" improvement.

In the meantime, racism prevails. We continue to think that welfare recipients are black, single parents that are waiting for handouts without working for it (when data proves to us that those black, single parents actually tend to work MORE than any other demographic). We talk about how our Irish immigrant forefathers "pulled themselves up by the bootstraps" in the face of adversity, while black Americans have not done the same (ignoring the fact that those black Americans who did exactly that were lynched, beaten, and threatened with no legal recourse up to a couple decades back****). We talk about McCain being a "true patriot" because he was tortured at the hands of Vietnamese savages (while we torture and hold "terrorists" without trial or direct evidence to this very day). We pillory black athletes who screw up, chiding them for not being role models (then go out to see another movie that only casts black males as thugs and convicts).

We tell our kids to value their educations - then pump lies down their throats.

Progress is NOT inevitable. It has to be fought for, tooth and nail. Because racism has been the most successful, enduring invention of the last thousand years, and I'm tired of paying for it.


* At least what we would now call "one race."

** Which implies "more intelligent" versus "less intelligent," of course.

*** I could do a very similar post about the invention of homophobia (and will at some point).

**** And it's arguable whether or not equivalents are truly a thing of the past.

On the Invention of Racism, Part I

So, before I get into this post, I want to note that uglyblackjohn secretly (not really, but the announcement was embedded in the comments of my first post, so I just found it) bestowed a blogging award on me last week. Just found it, so I shall let that marinate for a minute before I more competently address that. However, I wanted to thank uglyblackjohn for the acknowledgment and invite you all to click on his name above to check out his blog.

Now, on to the racism!!!



The above image is a depiction of a schematic drawing from one of Leonardo da Vinci's many inventions. Da Vinci, of course, is now (and was during his time) acknowledged as one of the foremost geniuses of his time - and maybe beyond. A true representative of a "Renaissance Man," he flourished as Europe came out of the throes of the Dark Ages.

But the question is: how did Europe come out of the Dark Ages? And what were other people doing during that time? Did the Dark Ages span the entire world?

To answer the last question first - of course not. While Europe was battling through plague and squalor and the lack of any semblance of what modern folks call "civilization" (i.e. literacy, academia, peaceful co-existence, medicine, hygiene, etc.) the rest of the world was - gasp - doing pretty much fine. China was pushing along, celebrating over two thousand years straight of scholastic aptitude and written language. In Western Africa, Timbuktu boasted a library of 1600 volumes, as well as a university rivaled only by another advanced university in the Sudan (Eastern Africa). Arab Muslims (the Moors) were in a period of scientific and academic achievement perhaps unrivaled in all of the world. Across the Pacific, the Mayan, Incan, and Aztec Empires were building cities of hundreds of thousands with irrigated farmlands and sewage systems.

In Europe, backwards tribes were fighting over nomadic lands and wallowing in their own filth.

So how did white Europeans stop acting like savages and get a little bit of civilization? By getting help from all the non-white civilizations, of course. Mostly, it was the Moors who were able to pass on their knowledge to the primitive Europeans. Their extensive academic and scientific knowledge - preserved in libraries - was the backbone of European "genius" as it blossomed during the Renaissance. But the Europeans were smart - they knew that they had much to learn from all the other more advanced civilizations, so they built on what they learned from interactions with the Chinese and Africans that they traded with. End result? Europe stopped being a cesspool.

Or did it? At the time of the white "discovery" of the Americas, London was still a city swarming with filth and excrement and disease (while the Mexican city of Tenochtitlan harbored hundreds of thousands - perhaps more - in perfectly-ordered streets). Scotland was a hinterland full of feuding tribes. The indigenous Americans commented on the incoming Europeans' filth (as it was against custom for white folks to bathe at the time, while the Natives upheld customs of cleanliness and hygiene).

So how did these backwards people take over the world? Was it because they were more "advanced"? Somewhat. They surely had more firepower in most cases. But it really came down to savagery. Because the conquering Europeans were more ruthless in their desire to kill all who stood in their way, they were able to succeed. Oh, and not to mention the fact that over 70% of the original inhabitants of the Americas died of disease before even having a chance to fight back.

Because the fact of the matter is that the indigenous Americans taught the Europeans how to farm, so they could survive in the "New World." Most of the original colonial towns were built on Native city-plans (complete with sectioned-off farm-plots) that had been abandoned as Natives died of plague (probably smallpox).

So where does the racism come in? Well, somewhere along the line, white Europeans became the "inevitable" conquerors of the world. Somewhere along the line, we stopped thinking of the different "races" (which didn't really exist in the way they do now) as equals. We stopped thinking of the various non-white civilizations of the world as on par with (or more advanced than) white European culture. Somewhere, somehow, we started ranking races against each other. Instead of where we had been - where different ethnicities were acknowledged to be different (because, even then, there was no "color-blind") and unusual, but NOT inferior - we came to a world where people started thinking of different "races" as more or less human than others.

So how did that happen? By design, pure and simple. Racism was intentionally constructed to serve very specific purposes. Racism is not - and has never been - a natural result of physical differences between people. I'm tired of hearing that claim. Noticing difference and grouping people IS natural. But those are two very different things - with very different possible results.

And so, if you tune in for my next installment, I will break down the true history of racism, why it was invented, the results, and (hopefully) what we can do about it.

The suspense must be killing you . . .