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  Sunday, December 6, 2009Asian is the New Black"White folks ain't trying to keep you down. White folks just don't like to be pushed into a corner. They'll come around. You just got to make it look like it was their idea, like they're the ones that thought of it. They need to feel like they're the great emancipators. Like it was theirs to give in the first place. Let them have it. I mean, if that's all it takes, let them have it." - Laurence Fishburne as Edward Robinson, to a Mexican in the movie Bobby. Is there a racial hierarchy? The African-Americans have seemingly always suffered racism, a part of U.S. society unchanged by the token election of a right-wing capitalist President who just happens to be black. Then - as if nothing had been learned from Ireland or Palestine - Barack Obama's predecessors began the building of a wall to prevent more Mexicans crossing the border. "Now," I heard one African-American tell a Mexican, "you are the niggers." It was a concept represented by that character, Edward Robinson, in Emilio Estevez's film about Robert Kennedy's last hours. There always has to be an "enemy within" for our true enemies to thrive on. It's nothing new. Immigration controls are barely more than a hundred years old, conceived initially with the motivation of restricting movement of the Jews; creating the ability to open and close borders at will, as though part of some kind of Social Darwinist selection. But due to the shortage in workforce in 1950s Britain, the "colonials" were suddenly welcomed into the country over from the Caribbean to fill the void. Later, they were met with disdain, but it soon passed as society progressed and people became enlightened. Soon enough, the soccer hooligans were fighting, but the whites and blacks were joining together in chasing Indians and Pakistanis through the streets; it was their turn, and the blacks were just glad to be able to save their asses and be on the winning team. The Southern Asians in Britain were left to endure the National Front marching through their slums...until the Anti-Nazi League came along, and - taking direct action to another level - ran into those streets and gave the fascist racists a good beating, kicking their cause to the curb. More recently, we've seen South Asia bombed repeatedly and starved through sanctions, killing millions of children and many more adults. The CIA created the Ba'ath Party led by Saddam Hussein, as well as Osama bin Laden's Taliban, all as part of its effort to control the region, resulting in reactionary terrorist attacks from extremists - among them, ironically, Osama bin Laden himself. But the bombings in London, England, on July 7th, 2005, were by lads from West Yorkshire, where racism had risen and the British National Party had gained ground. Asians in Britain are trying to counter Islamophobia rife in the mainstream media through groups like MPACUK, and the rich and powerful are galvanising the issue of immigration that only boosts the single-issue politics of the BNP when there is in fact no issue there at all. As a result, while I was making Escape from Doncatraz on this subject, I even heard British-born Asians talk about the supposed threat of refugees and those who seek asylum. Yep: they're the ones now sitting at the bottom of the barrel in a capitalist system that crushes us from the very top, and depends on divisive distraction to get away with it over and over again. You see, when you've scratched and clawed your way from the bottom of the barrel you, too, fear ever going back there. You'll stand on whoever you can through fear of losing the few things you've gained. Those at the top are so far away, so impossible to reach or even see, it's your only hope of leverage, the only way you feel you can survive. That's capitalism. And until it's gone, the elite will always keep distracting us to "kick the dog" while they continue to enjoy their power, their riches, and that very system that keep them on top at our expense. - Jay Baker; South Yorkshire. Jay Baker's brand-new book is Pissing in the Mainstream. You can read a compilation of his best blogs from the past several years, and a few exclusives, in the book Soon To Be Banned: Musings of a Media Activist, available here. Labels: Barack Obama, Escape from Doncatraz, Immigration, racism, refugees
posted by Jay Baker at
1:41 PM
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