White Liberals: Wolves in Democratic Party Clothing
By Solomon Comissiong
“The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox.”
“One is the wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you.”
Malcolm X’s quote above should have long served as an important piece of advice from our late great brother. White liberals have never been anything more than a fork tongued and mythological friend of African/black people. They are no more committed to ending white supremacy and institutional racism, than are their right wing conservative cousins. After all, white supremacy and institutional racism allow both to maintain a significant level of economic and political power.
White liberals are a potent and destructive weapon frequently used to pacify African/black people’s struggle to gain greater human rights and real political power. For a long time, white liberals (and their status quo based politics) have been an effective weapon used to efficiently stifle African/black people’s ultimate struggle to shed all forms of oppression that are anchored to white supremacy and institutional racism. Their success is rooted in their chameleon-like ability to appear as something they are not—-progressive or allies to the masses of African/black people. They come in all shapes and sizes, however the one thing that remains consistent is their politics.
The “white liberal”, in and of itself, could serve as a worthy subject for a graduate school dissertation. Deconstructing their ability to appear harmless to the African and their community, would be a most intriguing aspect of that research. The white liberal has convinced far too many people of color that they are actually their “friends”, and are aimed at ultimately helping them achieve “equality” or greater “civil rights” (their term, not this author’s). They tend to stand clear of the phrase, “human rights”. The white liberal adores phrases like, “civil rights” and “equal rights”, even though they are not fully committed to them either. This is why they never utter terms like, “white supremacy”, “white privilege” or “an end to institutional racism”. They are not committed to ending what ultimately keeps them in power—-white supremacy, capitalism, institutional racism, neo-colonization, and white privilege. They are not willing to entrench themselves within a struggle that takes them away from their comfort zone or their “comfort home”. They do not want to address the root of what really keeps masses of African/black people within the bowels of poverty, the prison industry complex, or a perpetual police state. Rather than working within their own communities and spheres of political and social influence, to destroy institutional racism and white supremacy, they methodically choose to masquerade around within communities of color as if they are helping. They are not unlike the Christian missionaries that infected themselves throughout the Global South, spreading lies in an effort to control the land and the people.
The white liberal damn well knows that institutional racism and white supremacy within the United States emanates from their very own communities, just as the use of excessive force and violence derives from state sponsored police and military organs. White liberals strategically do their best not to raise these issues, while concentrating on superficial acts (and temporary) of charity and philanthropy. These magicians create the illusion that if they simply go in to impoverished African/black communities, and work with youth there, to help them “see the beauty within themselves” and “push them to work harder”, the impoverished youth can/will rise above the “squalor,” and get out of their “hoods”—-thus leaving them far, far behind, while achieving the capitalist dream. The white liberal does not want African/black youth (or adults) to know that in 2013 for every dollar of income that the average white household pulls in, the average black household pulls in approximately 58 cents. They certainly don’t want them to know that for every dollar of household wealth that a white family controls, a black family controls around a dime. These are inconvenient facts that white liberals wish to keep far, far away from the radar of African/black America.
The white liberal is none too interested in addressing the fact that, capitalism itself, is part of the evil that keeps those communities of color in perpetual abject poverty. They don’t encourage the same youth of color, that they like to cosmetically befriend, to go back and build up their communities, while maintaining complete community control of their neighborhoods. They avoid this approach due in large part that, capitalism itself, is a most individualistic apparatus of oppression. It is ultimately the white liberal who has their sights set on gentrifying those same economically and governmentally neglected communities that they pretended to give a damn about in the first place. It would be a nightmare of theirs if poor people of color actually determined their own destines, which includes maintaining complete control of their communities. The US continues to function like a white settler colony, dating back to when Europeans stole this land from Indigenous people. In 2013 gentrification is simply a contemporary version of internal neo-colonization. The white liberal is now teaming up with the white conservative to completely privatize and corporatize black and brown schools, by way of the charter school scheme/scam.
The white liberal becomes quite uneasy when African/black people initiate discussions regarding white supremacy or institutional racism. They want no part of those discussions because they hit too close to home regarding their political power. Instead of addressing these real societal scourges, they pretend that they do not exist. It is more important for them to perpetuate the lie of a universal “American Dream” rather than confronting and eradicating systematic race based injustices.
In general, white liberals don’t give a damn about the deadly impact of institutional racism, such as police brutality/terror. These people see the police exclusively from their Euro-American lenses; therefore they see the institution of policing as something completely good. It was not 313 Euro-Americans who were murdered by the police in 2012, it was African/black people that were. When is the last time the so-called white liberal media did any exclusive story on this issue of police brutality in communities of color? Please don’t hold your breath attempting to conjure an answer, for there is only one answer—-“never!”
The white liberal does not see police brutality as an issue anchored to institutional racism or white supremacy simply because they do not see those issues in the first place. Their predominate view regarding most acts of police brutality in communities of color, is that the victims (people of color) had to be doing something that required the heavy and deadly hand of the law to send them on a stairway to heaven.
White liberals are not a part of the solution when it comes to ending race-based oppression; they are a purposeful part of the problem. Far too many people of color have allowed themselves to be used and abused by the white liberal, not recognizing that they are also actively collaborating in people of color’s collective oppression. Many of us have been programmed (even by disingenuous black people within our own communities) to believe that white liberals are the antithesis to white conservatives. The truth of the matter is white liberals share some essential core values with white conservatives. They want to maintain their disproportionate stranglehold on political and economic power in the US, as well as throughout the globe. That hold ensures that their progeny (for generations) will maintain the same grasp on “power” that they currently do. White liberals are not socially progressive; they are custodians in the maintenance of the status quo. Malcolm X was right when said, “The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox.”
African/black people have, far too many times, sprinted in to the willing jaws of people who care very little about our ultimate and comprehensive liberation as a collective of people. White liberals and conservatives, alike, work hard to prevent that day from ever coming, due in large part that it would eliminate their monopoly on power. Sharing power is something they don’t do well. These things should be of no surprise to any African/black person within the US, however it is a shock for far too many. White liberals continue to mask their true identity within the cloak of the Democratic Party. This white controlled, and dominated, political party has been extremely cleaver in positioning African/black people as candidates, to give the illusion that they, yet again, are “progressive”. It matters little that many of the Africans/black people who accept alignment within the Democratic Party, in order to advance their political careers, come with the white liberal “safe Negro” stamp of approval. This stamp essentially means you are safe enough to trust, and that once you get in to office you wont “rock the boat” enough to tangibly shift the political paradigm to one that is free of any vestiges of white supremacy or institutional racism. This scheme has worked like the proverbial charm in garnering tens of millions of African/black votes to ultimately assist in what is a tug of war between white liberals and conservatives, with the end result situated on maintaining the status of a white power structure. When the white liberal goes in to the African/black community with their orchestrated “get out the vote drives”, these are essentially ploys to get votes for whatever Democratic Party candidate they position for office. If they knew African/black people would vote independent (or even Republican), these two-bit frauds would never go there in the first places. Their motives are completely self-serving.
Barack Obama has been the perfect weapon for not only disingenuous white liberals; he has been a godsend for maintaining Euro-American hegemony over the world. Barack Obama is, in essence, white power in a brown face. He is one of the duplicitous people of color who have no qualms serving the interests of Euro-America, finance capital as well as the military industry complex. Barack Obama is exceptionally good at this, lacking a conscience helps greatly in developing his talent. White liberals saw him as a non-threat, to their power structure and socially comfortable way of life. If white conservatives were not so wretchedly racist, they, too, would see Obama for what he is—-one hell of a champion for the interests of the white power structure and Euro-American global hegemony.
“You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you’re making progress … No matter how much respect, no matter how much recognition, whites show towards me, as far as I am concerned, as long as it is not shown to everyone of our people in this country, it doesn’t exist for me.”—Malcolm X
The white liberal media know Obama comes with the “safe Negro” stamp, which is why they defend him and his murderous global actions every chance they get. White liberal media frauds include (but are not limited to) the likes of: Rachel “the war monger” Maddow, Chris “the blowhard” Matthews, Ed “ the company man” Schultz and Bill “I use comedy to mask my white supremacist and imperialist views” Maher. MSNBC is particularly skilled at recruiting and honing the skills of white liberals. They are like the New York Yankees of white liberal media.
All of the aforementioned white liberal media talking heads are certified warmongers who have no qualms lying to advance the machinations of empire. They all banged long and hard on the drums of war to champion the US’s bombing and support of terrorist rebels inside of the North African nation of Libya. The US imperialist campaign was just as riddled with lies as that of Iraq in 2003. In 2011 Libya had the highest living standards of any country within the African continent, even higher than some eastern and central European countries. Muammar Gaddafi was not mass killing his own people as they lied and said he was. And to this day they have yet to prove it. However, why would they—-facts don’t matter when it comes to Euro-American hegemony. Propaganda is the name of the life altering game. Gaddafi was a threat to their end game of exploiting Libya’s vast oil reserves as well as the expansion of the US’s Africa Command (AFRICOM). The US’s white liberal media are mouthpieces for the Pentagon and empire just as Fox News is. They simply use different language to get to the same points. And like fools, many misguided African/black people ate their rhetorical excrement, thus cheerleading the demise of their own ancestral homeland—-Africa.
It is long past time that African/black people within the US woke up in an effort to clearly recognize who are our allies, who are our foes and who are those who smile in our face yet could give a damn about our systematic social plight. White liberals are not social progressives in any shape, form or fashion. A real white progressive does not scurry away from substantive discussion around the destructive nature of white supremacy, privilege, and/or institutional racism. A real white progressive is fully aware of the destructive nature of these social maladies. They also understand that you cannot separate capitalism from racism. They understand these things just as a progressive anti-sexist male should understand the destructive nature of male supremacy and why it is incumbent upon them (men) to go in to their circles of men and do all they can to destroy the plague of institutional sexism, domestic abuse and rape. Truly sincere and progressive whites need to occupy their own communities in a mass effort to end white supremacy and institutional racism, as we know it. These societal diseases (institutional racism, white supremacy, white privilege) start within white communities, however they are most destructive within communities of color. These social ills need to be stamped out before they metastasize. They need to be ended where they begin. A more social justice oriented, peace based, egalitarian and humane society depends on it.
Malcolm X wisely stated,
“I tell sincere white people, ‘Work in conjunction with us- each of us working among our own kind.’ Let sincere white individuals find all other white people they can who feel as they do- and let them form their own all-white groups, to work trying to convert other white people who are thinking and acting so racist. Let sincere whites go and teach non-violence to white people!
Solomon Comissiong is an educator, community activist, author, and the host of the Your World News media collective (www.yourworldnews.org). Mr. Comissiong is also a founding member of the Pan-African collective for Advocacy & Action. Solomon is the author of A Hip Hop Activist Speaks Out on Social Issues. He can be reached at: solo@yourworldnews.org
