Whiteness and Trust

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Macon D. blogs:

Unlike a lot of non-white people, most white folks think that the world sees them as trustworthy, reliable, and honest, unless they do something to prove themselves otherwise. White people can dress in a variety of ways or wear a variety of adornments or tattoos that will lower the level of trust other people are likely to place in them. What they rarely realize, though, is that their whiteness itself often provokes mistrust. And that it does so for some good reasons.

[Hat Tip: Not Like Crazy...]

Thoughts on Class and Academia

From a longer post on my blog The Mustard Seed on the inauguration of the Palestinian Cultural Mural at SF State.  These are some of my thoughts on class and race and on how college can be a tool for working class people in the United States to help better society or a tool of the state to further enrich the elite and impoverish working class people and people of color:

My view is that if you really want to make a difference teaching than community college is where to teach. This is where the proletariat goes to learn as State and Universities and private colleges are too expensive. This is also maybe their last chance at receiving a higher education and degree. If it’s wasted than they are spit back out into society as, what Marx calls, the “reserve army of labor” and as low skilled workers devoid of any “class” and “racial consciousness.” Yet if some good professors are able to reach out to this kids in the community college and teach them to be aware of themselves, their backgrounds, history, this exploitative society, to be critically aware of class and racial issues, than you’ve created a weapon far more powerful than you could of by “educating” privileged students at an ivory tower university for real change will come from the underclass and not from the top.

One Happy Under Paid Slave (UPS)

It’s shit like this that gets to me. Not the bullshit that spews from the mouths of management or the supervisors who try and curtail the shop stewards and union reps. It’s my fellow workers who don’t know when they’re being exploited or who say things like. “I don’t bite the hand that feeds me.” When it comes to standing up against management and fighting for our rights.

I was loading irregs [1] at the end of the night with one of my co-workers in Building C and since it was the end of the night many peopled get RTOed[2] and she was mentioning how she wanted to get to go home. I told her since she has the highest seniority on the belt she could RTO and probably get it, or, if someone a supervisor was going to RTO someone she could get it because of her seniority since RTO goes by seniority and not just by asking random people.

She turned to me and said. “Oh! I thought you were all mister anti-UPS and now you’re all for it now with the RTO huh?”

Confused I asked her. “What are you talking about seniority is a union thing?”

“Hey, whatever Jack.” She quipped as she was loading another irreg. “You say it’s the union that pays us but it’s UPS.”

Upset I tell her. “Uh no. I’ve never said that I said that you get paid because of the union contract with UPS. We get paid because of the contract not because of UPS. They just pay us because they have to.”

“Hey, I’m just happy I have a job OK. UPS are the one’s the write my check.”

“Oh!” I stated loudly enough for others to hear. “You mean UPS who fucked up your God damn check for four straight weeks in a row and still owe you eight hours!”

“Yeah, well, you know. I’m just happy to have a job. You have your opinion and I have mine.”

Except it’s not the simple. It’s not a matter of differing opinions. What matters is class and worker consciousness. As workers we must realize the main key of UPS management is to use any means necessary to gain as much surplus value as they can and (if they can) not pay us in the process. This is the type of shit that gets me pissed. It’s not the supervisors and management trying to wrangle me in and yell at me and intimidate me. It’s my fellow workers who don’t realize the reality of the situation and who don’t care that they are being exploited. That’s the type of shit that discourages me. But hey, there’s still some conscious people at my job and a few great shop stewards whom together we can make a difference, however slight or large.

But, a little latter when I was on the pre-load shift (preload shift is from 4:15 a.m to 8:10 a.m.) a fellow coworker (who is also a driver) told me. “Hey man. We need you to transfer to preload so you can shake shit up. You and ‘J. H.’ [another shop steward] can make some changes and do some good. Unlike ‘J. D.’ [a corrupt shop steward on preload].”

And that’s the type of shit that makes me want to keep fighting.

Notes

1. Irregular packages, or irregs, are packages that are (1) over 70 lbs, (2) irregularly shaped or to large for the belt system, or (3) both.

2. RTO is an acronym for “request time off.” We are guaranteed at least 3 1/2 hours a night at our job and management can’t send us home. But what management can do is ask us if we want to go home and a worker can comply with the request or not. It’s not until we get our 3 1/2 hours that they can order us to go home.

Image From:
Racialicious