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Treason to Whiteness Is Loyalty to Humanity
How can we drive back the forces of racism today and build new human community?
For sixty years, Noel Ignatiev provided an unflinching account of “whiteness” — a social fiction and an unmitigated disaster for all working-class people. This new essay collection from the late firebrand covers the breadth of his life and insights as an autodidact steel worker, a groundbreaking theoretician, and a bitter enemy of racists everywhere.
In these essays, Ignatiev confronts the Weather Underground and recounts which strategies proved most effective to winning white workers in Gary, Indiana, to black liberation. He discovers the prescient political insights of the nineteenth-century abolition movement, surveys the wreckage of the revolutionary twentieth century with C.L.R. James, and attends to the thorny and contradictory nature of working-class consciousness. Through it all, our attentions are turned to the everyday life of “ordinary” people, whose actions anticipate a wholly new society they have not yet recognized or named.
In short, Ignatiev reflects on the incisive questions of his time and ours: How can we drive back the forces of racism in society? How can the so-called “white” working class be won over to emancipatory politics? How can we build a new human community?
For sixty years, Noel Ignatiev provided an unflinching account of “whiteness” — a social fiction and an unmitigated disaster for all working-class people. This new essay collection from the late firebrand covers the breadth of his life and insights as an autodidact steel worker, a groundbreaking theoretician, and a bitter enemy of racists everywhere.
In these essays, Ignatiev confronts the Weather Underground and recounts which strategies proved most effective to winning white workers in Gary, Indiana, to black liberation. He discovers the prescient political insights of the nineteenth-century abolition movement, surveys the wreckage of the revolutionary twentieth century with C.L.R. James, and attends to the thorny and contradictory nature of working-class consciousness. Through it all, our attentions are turned to the everyday life of “ordinary” people, whose actions anticipate a wholly new society they have not yet recognized or named.
In short, Ignatiev reflects on the incisive questions of his time and ours: How can we drive back the forces of racism in society? How can the so-called “white” working class be won over to emancipatory politics? How can we build a new human community?
416 pages, Paperback
First published April 26, 2022
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About the author
Noel Ignatiev
30 books75 followersNoel Ignatiev was an American history professor who earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1995. As part of a group of social scientists and geneticists that views race distinctions and race itself as a social construct, he is best known for his call to abolish the "white race" (meaning "white privilege and race identity") while being the co-founder of the New Abolitionist Society and co-editor of the journal Race Traitor. His position is positively stated in his website's motto: "Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity."
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August 21, 2022
An incredibly impressive collection of essays/extracts written by Noel Ignatiev. Over the past year or so, I've found Ignatiev's work guiding, particularly in his affirmation and understanding of autonomous class struggle as a mover of history (in both progressive, regressive, reformist and revolutionary ways). It is here that Ignatiev focuses this analysis on the question of race - or more accurately, whiteness. For Ignatiev, fighting whiteness is clearly presented in these texts, as well as his seminal 1995 book 'How the Irish Became White', as being not a struggle for equality, for multiculturalism, or for moralistic self-flagellation, but rather is a struggle for abolition. By understanding how whiteness came to be, and how it has been not solely imposed on part of the working-class but rather defended and expanded by those 'white' elements, Ignatiev makes an extremely compelling case against a transhistorical understanding of race. For him, this critique is a matter exceedingly important for the advancement of revolutionary class struggle, as such action can only occur (and is given the opportunity to occur) in situations where whiteness is abolished by the proletariat themselves. Here Ignatiev has, correctly in my opinion, reversed the classic leftist motto that working-class struggle creates unity; rather, the struggle against whiteness must occur for working-class struggle to be successful in revolutionary aims, otherwise it risks reaffirming whiteness and the continued rule of capital.
This anthology continues in chronological fashion through the development of Ignatiev's thought and stages of his life as a revolutionary (although, this does not mean these texts are presented in chronological order of when they were written). It starts with his time in the Provisional Organizing Committee to Reconstitute the Marxist–Leninist Communist Party (POC if you prefer not to lose your breathe), all the way through his times as integral parts of the RYM II, Sojourner Truth Organisation, Race Traitor, and finishing with his final project, which continues to this day past his passing, Hard Crackers. Throughout the text, whether he is discussing his time working in the largest steel works in the world, or colonial violence in Palestine, an emphasis on the intersection of working-class self-organisation and revolutionary abolitionism is the common thread that ties these extracts, and his thought in total, together. W.E.B. Du Bois' pioneering study, 'Black Reconstruction in America', serves as a central reference point in this regard for Ignatiev throughout. So much so is this the case, that one has to consider placing the same seriousness and importance on this text that myself and other communists currently place upon Marx's Capital as a continued reference point for helping us understand the world (although, I will have to read Black Reconstruction fully before making this claim for myself!).
When reading this, you will find much of the words repeated chapter to chapter (in some instances, the same paragraphs being copied and pasted in three or four different texts published at various different times). However, far from this limiting this anthology, I found it very useful in helping me cement my understanding of the common analysis being presented by Ignatiev throughout this collection.
There were occasions reading this collection where I felt myself disagreeing with Ignatiev, or rather feeling as if I needed more of my own independent study to buy into his argument. The most poignant example for me being his argument that the Reconstruction governments of the South constituted a dictatorship of the proletariat - something which I could not affirm nor deny with my current knowledge, but was sufficiently sceptical of with the evidence Ignatiev provided me. There were also moments reading this where I felt like a greater explanation of his analysis was needed; for example, in the essay 'Beyond the Spectacle: New Abolitionists Speak Out', where he states: "We especially need to be alert of the ways in which struggles presenting themselves as being for the benefit of all, such as the 2015 Chicago teachers' Union strike, obscure the damage that is inflicted by teachers and others in the schools, in pursuit of their desire to address legitimate grievances regarding wages and benefits, on the black children enrolled in the nation's public schools" (pg. 314-315). This passage is one example where I feel like greater elaboration was required - is Ignatiev stating that school strikes negatively affect black children because they take away part of the education system? Because as a former worker in a school made of majority black students (albeit in a different, British context), I would say that every moment spent outside of the classroom would have brought greater joy and education to those students than the brutal reality of modern education, and if we wish to abolish capitalist, white supremacist schooling, that requires an unequivocal refutation of their benefits within current society.
Overall, despite any minor critiques in the final paragraph of this review, this collection is essential reading, and probably one of the most solidifying and enheartening books I have read so far this year. Thank you to all the editors who helped put it together, and Noel for his dedication to writing throughout his life.
This anthology continues in chronological fashion through the development of Ignatiev's thought and stages of his life as a revolutionary (although, this does not mean these texts are presented in chronological order of when they were written). It starts with his time in the Provisional Organizing Committee to Reconstitute the Marxist–Leninist Communist Party (POC if you prefer not to lose your breathe), all the way through his times as integral parts of the RYM II, Sojourner Truth Organisation, Race Traitor, and finishing with his final project, which continues to this day past his passing, Hard Crackers. Throughout the text, whether he is discussing his time working in the largest steel works in the world, or colonial violence in Palestine, an emphasis on the intersection of working-class self-organisation and revolutionary abolitionism is the common thread that ties these extracts, and his thought in total, together. W.E.B. Du Bois' pioneering study, 'Black Reconstruction in America', serves as a central reference point in this regard for Ignatiev throughout. So much so is this the case, that one has to consider placing the same seriousness and importance on this text that myself and other communists currently place upon Marx's Capital as a continued reference point for helping us understand the world (although, I will have to read Black Reconstruction fully before making this claim for myself!).
When reading this, you will find much of the words repeated chapter to chapter (in some instances, the same paragraphs being copied and pasted in three or four different texts published at various different times). However, far from this limiting this anthology, I found it very useful in helping me cement my understanding of the common analysis being presented by Ignatiev throughout this collection.
There were occasions reading this collection where I felt myself disagreeing with Ignatiev, or rather feeling as if I needed more of my own independent study to buy into his argument. The most poignant example for me being his argument that the Reconstruction governments of the South constituted a dictatorship of the proletariat - something which I could not affirm nor deny with my current knowledge, but was sufficiently sceptical of with the evidence Ignatiev provided me. There were also moments reading this where I felt like a greater explanation of his analysis was needed; for example, in the essay 'Beyond the Spectacle: New Abolitionists Speak Out', where he states: "We especially need to be alert of the ways in which struggles presenting themselves as being for the benefit of all, such as the 2015 Chicago teachers' Union strike, obscure the damage that is inflicted by teachers and others in the schools, in pursuit of their desire to address legitimate grievances regarding wages and benefits, on the black children enrolled in the nation's public schools" (pg. 314-315). This passage is one example where I feel like greater elaboration was required - is Ignatiev stating that school strikes negatively affect black children because they take away part of the education system? Because as a former worker in a school made of majority black students (albeit in a different, British context), I would say that every moment spent outside of the classroom would have brought greater joy and education to those students than the brutal reality of modern education, and if we wish to abolish capitalist, white supremacist schooling, that requires an unequivocal refutation of their benefits within current society.
Overall, despite any minor critiques in the final paragraph of this review, this collection is essential reading, and probably one of the most solidifying and enheartening books I have read so far this year. Thank you to all the editors who helped put it together, and Noel for his dedication to writing throughout his life.
June 18, 2023
Because it's a collection of essays written over a period of decades it can get repetitive sometimes. Sometimes you will read a paragraph that it feels like you just read a few minutes ago.
The first 25% of the book in the last 25% of the book were the best. The middle was pretty tough to get through.
That being said I learned a lot and gained some important perspective. The analysis of American history was sharp. I liked the chapters on israel too.
I liked the author's personal stories about working in the factories the best.
The author dips their toes into antisoviet sentiment from time to time, but it's not too strong or distracting from the main message of the book. I appreciate that they steer clear of identity politics.
My big takeaway from this book is that anti-racism is weaksauce. and that as a white person my goal should be to betray the white race or 'commit treason to the whiteness.' Still not totally sure how to do this on a day-to-day basis but I think I have gleaned a few ideas.
The first 25% of the book in the last 25% of the book were the best. The middle was pretty tough to get through.
That being said I learned a lot and gained some important perspective. The analysis of American history was sharp. I liked the chapters on israel too.
I liked the author's personal stories about working in the factories the best.
The author dips their toes into antisoviet sentiment from time to time, but it's not too strong or distracting from the main message of the book. I appreciate that they steer clear of identity politics.
My big takeaway from this book is that anti-racism is weaksauce. and that as a white person my goal should be to betray the white race or 'commit treason to the whiteness.' Still not totally sure how to do this on a day-to-day basis but I think I have gleaned a few ideas.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews