Column: Lessons of the audio leak: Solidarity is dead. Let’s ditch the label ‘people of color’ altogether.
It has become something of a common refrain among my generation to talk about solidarity and then immediately move on to a new topic.
All of the various forms of solidarity that we have been taught have been cast aside as the left has moved to the point of abandoning the label of people of color and reclaiming the term for its anti-racist meaning as a tool of oppression.
In the 1970s, solidarity with people of color was used as a way of delegitimizing white people, and it still is today in the progressive left.
So what’s gone wrong with solidarity? It’s an easy and popular answer: white supremacy.
Yet, despite white supremacy being a pillar of oppression on a number of levels, solidarity has proven to be an effective way of empowering marginalized and vulnerable groups.
A recent piece in the Guardian by Michael Whiteley, which I wrote last month, pointed out that while solidarity with people of color has been widely abused as a tactic, there was also something to be gained from it as well.
White activists in the US have developed an alliance with people of color that has been incredibly effective in fighting against white supremacy, and Whiteley points to its potential in the current political crisis.
However, these gains are unlikely to emerge as long as people of color are still often framed as the cause of many problems affecting white people. The majority of white people in the US don’t have people of color among them in terms of their economic, political and social status. Yet, people of color have often been made to take the blame for the problems of white people.
A recent article by the Nation magazine argued that “people of color” should “stop being the cause of everyone else’s problems, stop saying they are victims” and be left to solve their own problems.
The idea that white people should “have people of color” to solve problems for them is a problematic one. Instead, white people should take responsibility for the problems of white people.
People of color aren’t “the cause” of the problems of white people, many of which have been created by the system that’s been in place for centuries from the start.
In this sense
