I think the idea of seeing a situation and replacing the races with white people works for me. I’m not sure the actual scene, but if there were a group of white people dressed in hip-hop clothes with open drinks standing in my driveway after dark I would be both scared and pissed.
It’s quite ok to be classist. Honestly, I think you have to remember that the people in the all white neighborhoods don’t ever have to worry about this kind of guilt, and you do, so cut yourself some slack.

— sully75 commenting on How do I combat my knee-jerk racist responses?

The blunt reality is that for the last five hundred years on this continent, white working class people have been used by mostly white rich people to colonize for, kill for, work for, and then better the living standards of those same white rich people, all the while sacrificing our own needs, wants, aspirations, and even lives. It really is as simple as that. No one denies the history of what has happened at working people’s expenses. Wars, poverty, homelessness, wage slavery… these are all ills created by someone, and perpetuated by us… the same workers who suffer these ills.
For some five centuries we’ve been used by the rich among our own race to promote their agenda and suffered because of it. Yet, somehow, we’ve still been convinced that it is in our interests to protect the rights of the rich to own as much property as they can, to protect the right of the rich to even exist, to protect these same rich people who would just as soon see us die for their benefit.
The heart of the matter is that for these five centuries, we’ve been too busy fighting the people who should naturally be our allies against these injustices. The rich whites have used our skin color against us, have used our human nature of fearing living beings different than us against us… they’ve used us against us. They’ve blinded us with these racialist ideas of “white supremacy” and “white pride” and “white nationalism” into fighting other working people of other races, while they sit on the sideline and laugh.

— Of Tea-Parties and Patriots: Liberty for Who?

One of the strangest political processses of my lifetime is that when I was young, it was widely agreed that rich people had too much money and that something should be done about it. Now, it’s widely agreed that poor people have too much money and that something should be done about it. And this has taken place, not - as one might expect - while the poor have been increasing their share of income at the expense of the rich, but while the opposite process has been going on. So there’s an unending appetite for hate-the-poor stories, hate-the-public-sector stories as well as the hate-the-unions and hate-the-immigrants stories. Hate-the-banks didn’t last very long though.

— Best comment ever. [via]

That said, class isn’t just about struggles in workplaces between workers and bosses. The power of the dominating classes spreads outward throughout society, in their control over the state and media. Class struggles occur at the point of consumption, among tenants and public transit riders for example. Environmental justice struggles over pollution in communities of color or working class neighborhoods are also class struggles.

— What in the hell … is class struggle anarchism?

Anarchism with a class-struggle perspective” doesn’t mean it is “class reductionist” but that it disagrees with Bookchin and others who fail to see the continued reality and importance of the class structure that is at the heart of capitalism and the struggle that grows out of this. To change society, it’s not adequate to appeal to “humanity” or “citizens” in general, as Bookchin proposed. The capitalist and coordinator classes are also part of humanity but they are entrenched in maintaining their power and privilege. At the same time, the division of society along the various lines of oppression generates movements and struggles in opposition.
At its heart capitalism is a system of exploitation of people who are subordinated in the work process, and a continual resistance or tug of war ensues because of this… sometimes on a small scale, sometimes breaking out in large social events such as general strikes. Ultimately there is no liberatory replacement for capitalism unless workers are able to gain control over their own productive activities and potentials. If we take seriously the principle that “the emancipation of the working class is the work of the workers themselves,” it’s hard to see how this emancipatory result is going to happen without a movement actively developed by workers themselves.

— Anarchism, Class Struggle and Political Organization

It’s in the context of welfare rights movements that anarchists and other revolutionaries need to enter the discussion more forcefully. We should step up our efforts to help build movements fighting for programs of mutual aid, and to put forward the general vision of a society with free education, free health care, and enough food to go around. But we should never forget as we defend a communal value system that it is capitalism itself and the greed at its core that stands in the way of realizing values of mutual aid. We need to keep movement towards long-term solutions in mind, even while working with groups focused on short-term measures
The problem with welfare isn’t just the belief in the family wage, but the notion that wage-slavery is a natural and irresistable state of affairs. Capitalism creates its own surplus labor pool (the unemployed) in order to keep wages low…Welfare struggles are important to support because they assert a person’s right to decent food and shelter, as well as our responsibility towards one another as human beings. But the kind of ‘mutual aid’ where the well-off give to the poor isn’t enough; the real struggle is against class division itself. But keeping this larger goal in mind doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work with welfare groups or argue for the value of “giving to strangers” while we live in a class society. It is up to us as anarchists and revolutionaries to think and act in a way that doesn’t count on an increase in poverty and despair as the spur of potentially revolutionary social collapse. In this age of anti-social individualism, welfare rights struggles, which shore up values of mutual aid and community, are an important part of the battle against right-wing revolution.

— First Pity Then Punishment: The History of Women and Welfare

These people are from privileged households, have left home to play the big bad revolutionary and fake being poor. The truth is a pair of combat boots, ripped jeans, and a dirty t-shirt does not make one a poor person or an expert on American racial politics. This is nothing but missionary work to these people. They may have changed attitudes; they are arrogant, doctrinaire and condescending to the max. They feel they have the answer, and that everyone, especially Blacks, should follow them to the Promised Land. Only they are qualified to speak on questions of race and class. They know everything!

— Anarchism and Racism [via ]