So there was a bit of a heated discussion recently on the topic of "anti-white" or "reverse" racism and we (some of the mods) figured we would clarify some rules for this community:
- "White people" is a very vague term. Having low expectations of people in the imperial core is understandable for someone in the Global South, but it's better to be specific. Saying "I'm racist against white people" when you mean "I don't trust the average person in <insert imperialist country>" is going to cause misunderstandings
- People who were racist in the past are not necessarily racist in the present. Many of us were liberals before becoming Marxists, and there's a significant overlap between liberals and racists
- No matter your ethnicity, don't use terms like "subhuman" or "orc" to describe yourself and your group; it may make others uncomfortable
- Don't call for violence (particularly against ethnic groups, but it's best to avoid it in general so the instance doesn't get in trouble)
- Stick to Lemmygrad's rules of good-faith discussion
that's all, folks
So the "white" thing is interesting. White supremacists like to talk about "white culture" and "white identity," but in practice being "white" means having no culture and having no identity; whatever culture you originally possessed has been assimilated to the general American anti-culture of mass consumerism and social climbing. You have become the atomized individual, without family or communal ties, which is required by the capitalist machine. This evident in the way European immigrant to the US have historically not been considered "white" until their original culture is entirely lost; even the Germans, who are about European as European can be, were for a long time somewhat stigmatized as "Dutchmen."
In other words: people who are proud to be "white" are fighting for a cipher, something which, as you said doesn't really exist. Maybe in remote parts of Appalachia, say, there is something approaching a "white culture;" but even that is more a regional Southern thing than it is a "white" thing. White persons in (say) Washington or Seattle have little in common with it, and it seems to them quite foreign and "exotic."
My conclusion is that communists should stop using specifically usian terminology.