White supremacy has not gone away. It is a system of institutionalized racism that suppresses the self-government of people of color.
It exists right here at Brown. In March 2002, President Ruth Simmons hired notorious ex-NYPD chief William Bratton to advise her on whether or not to arm the Brown police. Bratton instituted random friskings of pedestrians in New York communities of color, leading to the murder of Amadou Diallo, an innocent, unarmed West African man. After Diallo's slaughter, many students of color on campus were not so quick to trust Bratton, but apparently Ruth Simmons was: She took his advice and armed the Brown police.
Simmons made a further mockery of the idea of "public safety" when she let the perpetrators of a hate crime against two queer students of color on campus off the hook. As often happens at Brown, where there is no consistent hate crime protocol, the Simmons administration swept the incident under the rug because one perpetrator's father was a prominent politician.
Perhaps to smooth over tension around these events, Simmons recently hired Mark Porter to preside over Brown's arming process. The Herald identifies Porter as a good choice by suggesting that his African-American heritage will appease minorities on campus and give "credibility" to arming the police ("Porter will be the first black chief in RI," March 22).
This year, Anti-Racist Action has attempted to link struggles against such racism in the United States to international struggles against white supremacy as an empire. We are pressuring the Simmons administration to withdraw any investments it may have in the colonial settler state of Israel. In a highly undemocratic response, Simmons refuses to even disclose Brown's investments.
Meanwhile, students tell us not to worry about such things because Condoleezza Rice is taking care of the problem through the much-vaunted "peace process." Closer observation shows, however, that Rice presides over the diplomatic wing of the U.S. empire, and this sham "peace process" serves to pacify Palestinian self-defense while the Israeli military continues to murder civilians.
Here we see Simmons, Porter and Rice all deeply implicated in the system of white supremacy. And yet there seems to be confusion on this campus, where some have identified these very leaders as "anti-racists." Simmons, Porter and Rice are all black, right? Isn't the presence of black people in the bureaucracy "progressive?"
ARA refuses to wallow in this confusion. We assert that a racist bureaucracy is still racist even if it is lead by people of color. We find ourselves living in the era of what we call the Rainbow Coalition, a form of white supremacy run by a "progressive" ruling class including people of color. After the national liberation era, the "white man" cannot govern by his own cultural justifications alone; white supremacy can only survive with a veneer of phony multiculturalism and "diversity" from above. When DPS racially profiled two Brown students on the Main Green while looking out for "vandals" from Hope High School, many antiracists on campus mobilized against the arming process. Simmons, a master of public relations, pacified them by showing up at an organizing meeting to convince students of color that she "understood" their frustration because of her own identity. After this show of sympathy, she proceeded to arm DPS anyway.
Now her politically correct supporters on this campus tell ARA that we should not fight Simmons because she is a black woman and she is doing the best she can. This is why while white men like Harvard president Lawrence Summers actually come under fire when they support racist policies, the ruling class can rest assured that at Brown, Simmons will keep some students of color satisfied and can expect the support of a fan club of white liberals who, regardless of what she does, will defend her as their only black friend.
The Rainbow Coalition was created at the expense of heroic anti-racist struggles. Our forebears made many gains, but now their histories are being appropriated and co-opted as the cultural justifications for the existence of our new rulers. The strength of these justifications places Simmons, Rice and Porter as the vanguard of institutionalized racism in our day.
In response, we are striving for the rise of new anti-racist movements. In this, movements for the autonomy of people of color and a genuine multiracialism are the same struggle. Whether we organize in people-of-color only communities or whether we organize in multiracial groups, it is time to take on the Rainbow Coalition. The time has come for a new assault on white supremacy and empire, to organize in response to how history has moved and how our overseers' methods have changed, to sweep aside all aspiring rulers, regardless of their color, to embrace all sincere and committed people in a non-sectarian, but uncompromising path to self-government.
Anti-Racist Action has made some humble steps in this direction this year, standing up to Simmons and calling for divestment from apartheid in Israel. Please join us in the continuation of this struggle at a rally Wednesday, 1 p.m. at University Hall, where we will hold the Simmons administration accountable for its support for white supremacy.
Dara Bayer '08 and Yesenia Barragan '08 are members of ARA.
