January 31, 2006

Pacific News Service: "Tired of the White Left"

It takes the Pacific News Service to feature a column called "Tired of the White Left":

Editor's Note: NAM contributor Roberto Lovato is attending the World Social Forum in Caracas, where more than 60,000 people, half of them from outside Venezuela, have gathered for the annual event. His impressions will be posted throughout the week.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Standing proudly beneath the statue of Latin American liberator, Simon Bolivar, located at the center of a Caracas plaza, World Social Forum delegate Dorothea Manuela says she feels more at home here than she does standing near the statues of dead white revolutionary men dotting parks back home in Boston.

"It's inspiring to come here and see people from all over the world leading their own struggles," she says. I ask her about the leadership of struggles in the United States and the beaming smile of the self-described "black woman who is ethnically Puerto Rican" disappears.

"Being here reminds me how very important it is for all of us to change the U.S. But we can't change the U.S. unless we all deal with the white left's racism and privilege" says the statuesque "fifty plus" Manuela. Along with members of her Boston-based Rosa Parks Coalition, Manuela and many of the World Social Forum delegation from the U.S. are delivering a strong message to the thousands attending the global gathering: We (nonwhites/people of color) can lead ourselves. Whites do not speak for all of us...

...The racial dynamics at the Foro seem more like the dynamics on the field of the World Cup, where the non-white majority exercise leadership concomitant with their numbers, while whites have their place too. The tenor here touches on a shift in the way movements have historically been carried out in the U.S. "Why don't they come here to Latin America to lead struggles here?" asks Dorothea Manuela. "Because they know they can't. Why do they lead struggles in places where they are now a minority? Because we let them – and that has to change. That will change."

Another World Is Possible.

How sad. But, I guess if the white left revolutionary vanguard is of the wrong color than new leaders of the proper color must be found. It's time they knew their place. I guess Katrina vanden Heuvel will have to find a new proletariat to champion.

In other sad news, we learn that, supposedly, no one talked to Cindy Sheehan at an event at which she had supposedly received top billing.

Posted to MultiCultiCult at January 31, 2006 04:41 AM

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