What do you call this phenomenon? I think of the kulaks burning their harvest and I think of schools shutting down during desegregation in the US rather than integrate. Are there any other good examples? Why do people do this?
They’ve had it so good for so long that they actually don’t know just how good they have it. It’s that comic where the top panel is “sowing the seeds - haha this is awesome!” and the bottom panel is “reaping what I sow - wtf this is bullshit!”
Bourgeois ideology
Public pools after segregation also, there used to be soooo many public pools and so many closed because they would rather take it away than share with black people
Kulaks burned their harvest in order to protect their class interests. It was very easy for them to perceive those class interests. They were basically petty bourgeois.
Segregationsists turned to destruction out of deeply-lodged race hate. Racism among the working class is actually against class interests, so this is the opposite phenomenon. A false consciousness supported by the ruling class created an entire system of settler white supremacy to the point that members thinking of themselves as the privileged race would turn to violence rather than see that order of privilege challenged.
Some recent examples include the exodus of South African white people, how quickly many settlers flee when their position in the Zionist apartheid system wavers, and, to see how similar this setup truly is, the white South Africans that moved to Israel and converted to “Judaism” (I don’t think cynical Zionism is really Judaism) because they prize being the oppressor in an apartheis state over all else.
I have to disagree.
Segregationists were acting out their class consciousness as white settlers, which are a distinct class from colonized peoples. They’re settlers first, workers second. That’s the principal contradiction, as it always in the settler-colonial situation. Also see: Israel
I disagree that settlers are a distinct class. Being a settler applies across various class boundaries and has a different nature depending on class. Workers and petty bourgeoisie are bought off through a very limited form of societally (and state-sanctioned) supremacy over the colonized, with the society and state following ruling class interests. It is a force against class consciousness among the lower classes that are bought off by the propaganda and qualified benefits to the settlers.
I can see why it looks different. Settlers are often so thoroughly bought off by the racist domination propaganda that they will even demand settlerism in much more extreme forms, and with more immediacy, than their rulers would ever come up with. Settlers in the future United States were champing at the bit to dispossess indigenous people and were ousted enough at the British for holding them back that they joined the “revolution” in droves and then fought for and received their demands afterwards. One can also make arguments that settlers’ relationships to production are altered by the constant disposession of the colonized, that they become addicted to a level of compensation that is disproportionate relative to what their class would otherwise receive. These are true points and good arguments for ssttlers having fucked class interests. But I think it is more usefully and accurately understood as an expression of the ruling class’ ideology as a way to buy off the lower classes and prevent the development of class consciousness. It is of the sane vein as marginalization wrt preventing class consciousness. Tell the workers that “Mexicans are stealing your jobs” and with a bit of hegemonic propaganda they will become even more racist than the ruling class that is distrsctina them from their own role. So racist that it blows back on ruling class interests that want to rebrand as pro-brown, etc. They are still workers but this does not mean they are easily-reachable allies. They have been distracted and bought off.
Sorry if this is making less sense over time. I’ve gotta take a nap lol
The settler-colonial situation is still ultimately a material relation to the means of production. A settler-worker either filters up into the professional-managerial cohort and, those who don’t, still find highly valued work at the higher ends of production. They also get to have investments, private property, retirement savings, and access to other such bourgeois financial instruments.
Palestinians (or Black people in the segregated US or in apartheid South Africa) can never have that relationship with productive forces, they can only perform work on the lower end of production - usually at the very bottom. They also, obviously, are not permitted access to bourgeoisifying financial services. That’s the distinct class division that separates a colonized worker from a settler-worker.
It is necessary to identify the principal contradiction in order to struggle against it.
