linkyness

That Noel Ignatiev is one smart cookie. If you check out that Race Traitor website, don't miss the back issues of the New Abolitionist journal:

We also believe that the abolition of the "white race" is central to any struggle against capitalism, patriarchy, ecological degradation, homophobia, etc. Any movement that claims to be doing the "Lord's work" but fails to highlight the need for the abolition of the white race may win some temporary victories, but in the long term is it is doomed. Some might protest that there are certainly people who identify as anti-racist who understand that race is a social construct. True enough. But to see race as a social construct while continuing to use the language of anti-racism is confusing, not to mention unnecessary. For example, the other day a friend of mine who is sympathetic to abolitionism called Jefferson a "fucking racist." I objected to her characterization of "our" third president and pointed out that "Jefferson was not a fucking racist but a fucking white man." Indeed, in many of his writings, Jefferson waxed eloquent about how wonderful it was to be a member of the superior white race. He was not a racist but a white romantic, and, of course, an unabashed white supremacist. By calling Jefferson a racist, my friend both naturalized Jefferson's white racial identity and called Jefferson out of his name, so to speak. She asked for more examples of what I meant so I gave them: American slavery was maintained in the interests of white people, not racists; Andrew Jackson did not break 132 treaties with various Native American tribes to advance the interests of racists but those of white people; President McKinley did not conquer the Philippines for the greater glory of the racists but for the white race; agents of the British Empire saw themselves acting in the interests of the queen and the white race, not the racists; the signs in the segregated South did not read "Racists Only," they read, "Whites Only"; when a neighborhood is gentrified, white people move in, not racists; Trent Lott, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and Jerry Brown are not racists but self-identified white men, each who, in a more or less conscious way, are working for the interests of white people.

wow.