JWSR Volume 10, Number 1, Winter 2004


119

How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be 
Anti-Racist?The North American Anti-
Globalization Movement

journal of world-systems research, x, 1, winter 2004, 119–151
Special Issue: Global Social Movements Before and After 9-11
http://jwsr.ucr.edu/
issn 1076–156x 
© 2004 Amory Starr

Shortly after the November 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, that mobilization and the larger anti-globalization movement were criticized by anti-racists. 
Subsequently, a discourse appeared around issues of whiteness and anti-racism 
in the movement. Th is paper describes and analyzes that discourse in the interest 
of helping activists move forward. Scholars of social movements may also fi nd 
the analysis useful. 

Th e object of study and source of the data is the discourse of anti-racism/
anti-oppression¹ within and addressed to the North American² anti-globaliza-
tion movement. Th e Colours of Resistance Network has gathered much of this 
discourse. Th e statements in this discourse are made by a variety of actors, some 
of whom position themselves clearly within the movement, others of whom feel 
drawn to it but also alienated from it, and voices who do not identify with, but 
lend their criticism to or whose views are adopted for inclusion in the collec-
tion of articles posted by the Colours network. It is important to note that the 

Amory Starr 

Th e anti-globalization movement is reso-
lutely anti-imperialist, and increasingly says so. 
It works on issues of economic, political, and 
cultural justice and autonomy of indigenous 
people and the Global South, as well as workers 
and oppressed people in the Global North. 
Despite this good work, the North American 
segment of the movement has been harshly 
criticized by anti-racists within and outside the 
movement. Th is paper examines the anti-racist 
discourse about the movement. It begins with a 
comprehensive survey of the data available on 
these issues. Th e following analysis pursues a 
number of dimensions, fi nding that movement 
“framing” by activists as well as outsiders has 
played a powerful role in alienating anti-racists 
from the anti-globalization movement, that 

anti-racists are not satisfi ed by the way in which 
the anti-globalization movement connects the 
global and the local, that it is organizing strategy 
(neither goals nor tactics) that is often a source 
of confl ict, that this strategic diff erence refl ects 
assumptions of how empowerment happens 
and of subjectivities of proto-activists, that the 
anti-globalization movement’s assumptions 
are rooted in a white cultural individualism, 
and that this individualism also explains why 
countercultural politics are often experienced 
as exclusionary by activists of colour. Th e paper 
concludes by suggesting the use of Massimo 
deAngelis’ re-articulation of the meanings and 
practices of responsibility and solidarity in the 
anti-globalization movement.

abstract Amory Starr
Department of Sociology
Chapman University
starr@chapman.edu
http://www.chapman.edu/~starr

¹.  Genealogically, anti-oppression is a recent iteration of anti-racist work which adopts a per-
spective of multiple and intersecting oppressions. Although activists with this view sometimes see 
themselves as entirely distinct from anti-racist perspectives, for the purposes of this paper anti-
oppression is treated within the larger landscape of anti-racism. 

². Th e Canadian and US anti-globalization movements share practices but are distinct, 
as are the two nations’ histories of and discourses on racism. Specifi c forms of anti-racism have 
traveled between the US, Britain, and Canada.

http://jwsr.ucr.edu/
http://www.chapman.edu/~starr


Amory Starr 120 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 121

discourse under study is not a dialogue. While the anti-racist critiques are easy-
to-fi nd and textual, there has been very little response from the rest of the anti-
globalization movement, and none of that response has taken the form of public 
texts. To the extent that any response has been documented, it has been captured 
anecdotally by the anti-racist discourse’s texts. In addition to Colours and other 
public texts, the paper also draws on participant observation at local actions, 
mass mobilizations, and national-profi le trainings.³ 

THE DISCOUR SE : CHRONOLOGY A ND CLA IMS

Th is section fi rst presents a chronology of the discourse and then summarizes 
the claims made within the discourse. 

Immediately after 30 November 1999 Seattle WTO protests (n30), concerns 
with neo-fascism were raised. A widely-circulated article by J. Sakai made some 
outstanding claims: the fascist Far Right went to Seattle to recruit, the anti-
WTO movement is nationalist, the anti-WTO movement is composed of the 
“old middle classes,” and the ILWU and other labor unions are “actually fi ghting 
the working class.”⁴ Th ese concerns have largely died out from the discourse the 
movement has gained legitimacy with the established New Left. 

Th e fi rst important public text was an article by Elizabeth Martinez on  n30, 
which is constantly cited by observers as well as by anti-globalization activists 
ourselves. It began circulation in December 1999 or January 2000 and a shorter 
version was eventually published in the Spring 2000 issue of Colorlines Magazine.⁵ 
While both versions of the article were far more carefully documented than most 

essays on this issue, the print version was edited in such a way as to eliminate a 
lot of the more nuanced data. 

In both versions, Martinez claims that 5 of the n30 protesters were people 
of colour. She explores a number of reasons: activists of colour were “unfamiliar” 
with the WTO and feared being accused of abandoning community issues to 
protest WTO. Th e spokespeople included in media coverage leading up to the 
event were all white. Th ose activists of colour who did go to the protests were 
alienated by the culture at the activists’ Convergence Center.

Th e original version contained fi ve paragraphs describing groups of color 
which did participate, including the Southwest Network for Environmental and 
Economic Justice (SNEEJ) “which embraces 84 organizations primarily of color 
in the US and Mexico.” Had this data been more widely read it would have dis-
rupted the ossifi cation of what is described below as the “Seattle origins” narra-
tive. Also removed from the published version were: a quote from an activist of 
colour who “originally thought ‘the whites will take care of the WTO, I don’t need 
to go’”; a longer discussion of activists’ of color refl ecting on their experiences of 
the Convergence, including the quote “It was limiting for people of color to let 
that one experience aff ect their whole picture of white activists”; the Coordinator 
of SNEEJ, Richard Moore’s statement that “the white activists were very dis-
ciplined”; and the ending quote “’We have to work with people who may not 
know the word ‘globalization’ but they live globalization.” A report from Th ird 
Eye Movement was only partly retained in the published version, losing much 
complexity. In the original version, Th ird Eye Movement called the experience of 
the Convergence “culture shock” but also acknowledged they should have spent 
more time there, and criticized the failure of organizers to fund more people 
of color to come to the actions but also described gaining new allies and being 
inspired by the shutdown to use new tactics. Th e report also gave insight into the 
specifi c issues that should have been addressed by anti-WTO activists in order 
to make more sense to people of color: the prison-industrial complex, conditions 
of immigrants, and militarization which accompanies globalization projects in 
the third world.⁶ While the original article read as a guideline for improvement, 
the streamlined version reads simply as documentation that the movement is 
both all-white and irrelevant to people of color (and indeed it is often cited as 
evidence of the latter). 

³. Actions: Seattle/World Trade Organization (WTO), November 1999; Washington, 
D.C./IMF-World Bank, April 2000; Los Angeles/Democratic National Convention (DNC), 
August 2000; Cincinnati/Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), November 2000; Québec 
City/Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), April 2001; Washington, D.C./anti-war, 
September 2001; New York City/World Economic Forum (WEF), February 2002; Cancún 
Mexico/WTO, September 2003; Miami FL/FTAA, November 2003; and Transform Columbus 
Day 2000, 2001, and 2002 in Denver. Th e participant-observer’s perspective is from what could 
be called a “rank and fi le” affi  nity group which is not privy to the internal workings of the Direct 
Action Network (DAN), the Colours of Resistance network, or of the host city coordinating 
committees (with the exception of Denver). Trainings: Ruckus Society 2003, Anti-Racism for 
Global Justice 2003.

⁴. J. Sakai, “Aryan Politics & Fighting the W.T.O.,” Anti-Fascist Forum n.d.
⁵. Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez, ‘Where was the Color in Seattle?: Looking for reasons why 

the Great Battle was so white’, circulated on the internet shortly after n30 (original version at 
http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Globalism/seattlkecolor.htm); shorter version published 
in Colorlines, 3.1, Spring 2000. 

⁶. Saga, for Th ird Eye Movement, “Rap-tivists Storm Seattle: Hip-Hop Youth Battle Th e 
World Trade Organization.” Resist Newsletter. v9 n3, April 2000. http://www.resistinc.org/
newsletter/

http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Globalism/seattlkecolor.htm
http://www.resistinc.org/newsletter/


Amory Starr 122 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 123

Convergence Center for the Los Angeles Direct Action Network (DAN-LA) 
posters on the wall announced “principles of anti-oppression organizing”¹¹ as 
well as “mandatory anti-oppression trainings for white folks.” Inquiring repeat-
edly into the context for the posters, I was only informed of two precipitating 
incidents. (Th ese were: In Seattle some activists had made comments such as 
“Black people just want to shop” and “people of color aren’t interested in direct 
action.” In New York, the Direct Action Network (DAN-NY) had “refused 
to translate materials into Spanish.”¹²) Th e Friday 18 August debriefi ng at the 
Convergence Center captured the divergence between people who felt the action 
was a success because there were “no major incidents,” the protest was mindful of 
community vulnerabilities , and “kept people safe” and those who felt the actions 
were “scripted,” “elite,” that “spontaneous action” was discouraged, that “peaceful” 
tactics were enforced, and that it resulted in an “internal step backwards.” 

Colours of Resistance (hereafter ‘Colours’) was founded around November 
2000¹³ and has become the most prominent vehicle for anti-racism/anti-oppres-
sion organizing in the North American movement. Colours is a grassroots net-
work of people who actively work to develop multiracial, anti-racist politics in 

Th e hour-long IndyMedia fi lm on Seattle, Showdown in Seattle: Five Days 
that Shook the WTO, released in December 1999, already responded to these 
concerns. In it the vast majority of the talking heads were people of colour and 
the explanation of the WTO focused on the impacts for third world peoples 
(rather than on deregulation, environment, or sovereignty issues). Th e fi lm 
included segments on the prison industrial complex and on media portrayals of 
youth of colour which went beyond the immediate project of portraying what 
happened in Seattle. Th is emphasis was consistent in the second, September 
2000, edition of the fi lm, Th is is What Democracy Looks Like.⁷ One of the clos-
ing statements in the second fi lm was Vandana Shiva’s prediction: “Th ere will be 
attacks from Democrats and Republicans to ensure that the anti-globalization 
movement ends up looking like and being a xenophobic movement.” 

Colin Rajah’s article on the Washington D.C. 16 April 2000 mobilizations 
(a16) became the sister piece to Martinez’ Seattle analysis. He quoted activ-
ists complaining of “a sea of white” and that “Black and Latino leaders were not 
even asked to speak at the main events, let alone to really help lead the actions.”⁸ 
Another, far less circulated, report on the same event by Robin Hahnel claimed 
that those involved in a16 organizing made connections with local communi-
ties of colour not only by creating “special materials linking corporate sponsored 
globalization and IMF and World Bank policies to local economic problems like 
gentrifi cation, job loss, and bank redlining” but also by working in solidarity on 
a tenants’ rights campaign.⁹ A key event in the chronology not documented by 
these writers was the creation of a squat by a16 activists in an African American 
neighbourhood. Folks from the neighbourhood were angry about the squat 
because of the increased police presence it brought. Fellow activists critiqued the 
squatters for setting up a squat without being well-informed about the commu-
nity. Whether the squat folks were typically or peculiarly clueless was debated. 

A few months later, in preparation for protesting the August 2000 Democratic 
National Convention in Los Angeles, the Ruckus Society held a training camp 
near LA. Participants at this camp broke into caucuses in response to challenges 
from youth of colour, leading to an ongoing crisis within the Ruckus Society 
about how to address issues of race and oppression in organizing.¹⁰ At the 

⁷.  Independent Media Center Seattle and Big Noise Films, Th is Is What Democracy Looks 
Like, September 2000, http://www.thisisdemocracy.org.

⁸.  Colin Rajah, ‘Globalization and Race at a16 in D.C.’, Colorlines, 3.3, Fall 2000.
⁹.  Robin Hahnel, ‘Speaking Truth to Power: Speaking Truth to Ourselves’, Z Magazine, 

June 2000.
¹⁰.  Th e Ruckus Society refuses to provide documentation or interviews about this process. 

However, at a 2003 training they mentioned a policy shift from doing week-long action camps held 

in rural areas and emphasizing technical skills (climbing, etc.) to doing weekend sessions in urban 
areas focused on direct action planning and strategy. 

¹¹.  (1) Power and privilege play out in our group dynamics and we must continually struggle 
with how we challenge power and privilege in our practice. (2) We can only identify how power 
and privilege play out when we are conscious and committed to understanding how racism, 
sexism, homophobia, and all other forms of oppression aff ect each one of us. (3) Until we are 
clearly committed to anti-oppression practice all forms of oppression will continue to divide our 
movements and weaken our power. (4) Developing an anti-oppression practice is life long work 
and requires a life long commitment. No single workshop is suffi  cient for learning to change one’s 
behavior. We are all vulnerable to being oppressive and we need to continuously struggle with 
these issues. (5) Dialogue and discussion are necessary and we need to learn how to listen non-
defensively and communicate respectfully if we are going to have eff ective anti-oppression practice. 
Challenge yourself to be honest and open and take risks to address oppression head on.” 

¹².  While it is unreasonable to expect activists to compile comprehensive, systematic 
empirical studies, the many articles written on the topic provide little documentation of the 
nature and extent of racist events. Two articles provide some compilation of data.  Gabriel Sayegh, 
‘Redefi ning Success: White Contradictions in the Anti-Globalization Movement’, posted on 
Colours of Resistance website http://colours.mahost.org/, n.d. Sonja Sivesind, ‘Combating white 
supremacy in the anti-globalization movement’, posted on Colours of Resistance website http://
colours.mahost.org/, n.d. Also see Aziz Choudry “Bringing It All Back Home: Anti-globalisation 
Activism Cannot Ignore Colonial Realities.” ZNet 3 August, 2001. http://www.zmag.org/
Sustainers/content/2001-08/03choudry.htm 

¹³.  Colours’ website does not provide a founding date. Infoshop.org lists the Colours website 
as “new on the web” in November 2000. Colours is housed in Montréal.

http://www.thisisdemocracy.org
http://colours.mahost.org/
http://colours.mahost.org/
http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/content/2001-08/03choudry.htm


Amory Starr 124 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 125

the movement against global capitalism. Th eir website gathers documents writ-
ten from the anti-racism/anti-oppression perspective, some of which are pub-
lished only on the internet but many of which were circulated prior to Colours 
posting.¹⁴ A conference called “Colours of Resistance,” but not affi  liated with the 
network, was held in Montréal in March 2001 in preparation for the Québec City 
protests. 

Also in 2000, young white anti-racist organizers founded Anti-Racism for 
Global Justice (ARGJ). Th ey identifi ed with the anti-globalization movement 
and embraced the Challenging White Supremacy¹⁵ concepts that “the most 
eff ective way to create fundamental social change in the U.S. is by building mass-
based, multi-racial grassroots movements led by radical activists of color. We 
also believe that the major barrier to creating these movements is racism or white 
supremacy. One way to challenge white supremacy is to do anti-racist train-
ing workshops in our own communities.” Challenging White Supremacy was 
founded in 1993 and both organizations are based in the San Francisco Bay Area 
in California, U.S. CWS workshops were “designed by a group of white anti-
racist organizers” who “believe our special responsibility is to help white social 
justice activists become principled and eff ective anti-racist organizers—both to 
challenge our white privilege and to work for racial justice in all our social justice 
work.” By 2002, ARGJ had run over 50 four and fi ve hour workshops for over 
1600 primarily white social justice activists around the country.¹⁶ ARGJ is part 
of the Colours network. 

At the Québec City FTAA protests in April 2001, elaborate systems of gender 
and ethnic equity were used at the bilingual spokescouncils and the protests were 
trilingual. Issues of class came to the forefront as neighbourhood residents who 
had not agreed to any “action guidelines”¹⁷ joined the protest, some throwing 
beer and wine bottles across the fence at the occupying forces. Th e same kinds of 
issues were raised by Canadian activists of colour as had been raised with regard 
to Seattle. 

In the Summer of 2001, Some Colours affi  liates were involved in “Strategic 
Resistance,” an invitation-only conference for anarchist and anti-authoritarian 

organizers which focused on anti-oppression organizing. It was held in Los 
Angeles in August. Two reports on this conference explained that it was useful 
in helping activists to think about the issues, but neither conveyed specifi c new 
concepts or organizing procedures.¹⁸ 

After 911, the North American movement, with impressive plans for the Fall 
IMF/World Bank meetings scheduled for end of September, was bewildered. 
NGOs which had seemed radical in Seattle suddenly fell silent save liberal pro-
Arab American statements, isolating the direct action components of the move-
ment which braced for increasing surveillance and harassment under the new 
anti-terrorism laws. Th e movement foundered, shrunk, retrenched, and emerged 
as two embattled and battling movements appearing side by side in New York in 
February and DC in September 2002. Th e anti-war/“global justice” mainstream, 
recommitted to permits and pacifi sm and an increasingly isolated, paranoid, and 
ideologically elitist Black Bloc, whose survival (and attempt to keep the idea of 
direct action alive in the movement while also supporting its own diversity and 
suff ering intense police harassment) was no mean feat. 

Approaching the June 2002 g8 meetings in Kananaskis, some anti-oppres-
sion organizers were writing “[t]his time we should encourage people NOT to 
come at all, unless they are from the region’ and instead ‘make principled connec-
tions with those people and movements who are already fi ghting against their 
oppression, in our own communities.”¹⁹ Interestingly, the Convergence des Luttes 
Anti-Capitalistes (CLAC, Anti-Capitalist Convergence from Montréal—one of 
the important groups in the Québec City mobilization) did not provide clear 
leadership or discussion of these issues in their g8 preparation caravan.²⁰

By early 2003, however, the growing legitimacy of the anti-war movement 
(and the unity between anti-globalization and anti-war forces in Europe and 
Latin America) enabled North American anti-globalization NGOs to join in 

¹⁴.  http://colours.mahost.org/
¹⁵.  http://www.prisonactivist.org/cws/
¹⁶.  http://cwsworkshop.org/ 
¹⁷.  Typical “action guidelines” read as follows, from the a16 2000 Washington DC protests: 

“1. We will use no violence, physical or verbal, towards any person. 2. We will carry no weapons. 
3. We will not bring or use any alcohol or illegal drugs. 4. We will not destroy property (excepting 
barricades erected to prevent us from exercising our First Amendment Rights).” 

¹⁸. Rahula Janowski & Chris Crass, “Strategic Resistance Against Global Capitalism: 
lessons from a conference on strategy and anti-racism.” Larry George, “Strategic Resistance 
Organizing Conference – a look back,” Los Angeles Indymedia, August 21, 2001.
http://www.la.indymedia.org 

¹⁹.  Yutaka Dirks, ‘Doing things diff erently this time: Kananaskis g8 meeting and movement 
building’, posted on Colours of Resistance website http://colours.mahost.org/, n.d..

²⁰. When the CLAC caravan came to New York City in April as part of their Anti-g8 
Roadshow and Caravan, I was late to the meeting. Concerned by the call “NOT to come,” I asked 
a number of people who had been present during the day what the caravan’s message was about 
the Kananaskis meetings. Oddly, no one seemed to have an answer. People directed me to CLAC’s 
booklet http://www.tao.ca/~takethecapital/pamphlet.html, but it also did not present arguments 
about whether people should attend the protest or not.

http://colours.mahost.org/
http://www.prisonactivist.org/cws/
http://cwsworkshop.org/
http://www.la.indymedia.org
http://colours.mahost.org/
http://www.tao.ca/~takethecapital/pamphlet.html


Amory Starr 126 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 127

wholeheartedly. Th e combination of anti-war and anti-globalization analysis 
led to various forms of anti-imperialist analysis throughout the year at the mas-
sive February 15 and March 15 anti-war actions, the DC IMF/WB actions in 
April, the Cancún WTO actions in September, and the Miami FTAA actions 
in November. Th e North American anti-globalization movement’s frame has 
developed since 911 to become wholeheartedly anti-imperialist, constantly con-
necting racist militarism with processes of globalization. Th e anti-globalization 
movement has a much more coherent analysis of issues, strategy, and tactics than 
the anti-war movement, and there are many attempts to educate, as well as con-
tinuing to move together. Extensive direct action was organized by anti-global-
ization activists in opposition to the war on Iraq in early 2003; this struggle was 
particularly rich in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Th e direct action sectors of the anti-globalization movement have also made 
national calls for participation in a number of actions since Seattle which make 
connections between domestic and international manifestations of imperial-
ism. Th ese include: the June 2, 2001 protests of police brutality in Cincinnati, 
annual Transform Columbus Day protests in Denver, annual November protests 
intending to shut down the School of the Americas, anti-war protests in DC in 
September 2001 and October 2002, poverty-alleviation actions of the Ontario 
Coalition Against Poverty,²¹ the Latin American Solidarity Coalition actions in 
DC in April 2003, and the joint calls against the FTAA and the School of the 
Americas for November 2003.²² 

In the interests of a comprehensive summary of the concerns expressed by 
the anti-racist discourse on the anti-globalization movement, this section pres-
ents each of the distinct claims found in the discourse:²³

• The movement is inadequately diverse. 
• When confronted with the lack of diversity in the movement, whites 

tend to claim that their groups are already open and accessible, or 
propose to solve the problem by doing “outreach.” 

• White-dominated organizations have exclusionary practices and 
when challenged refuse to respond, calling concerns about racism, 
sexism, etc., “distractions” from more “urgent” work. 

• They see race as “subsumed under the ‘ big tent’ of globalization” 
and not needing to be addressed independently or directly.²⁴ 

• White activists speak, meet, plan, strategize, and organize in 
culturally-specific ways and are often not open to feedback about 
how their methods make people of color unwelcome, uncomfortable, 
or disinterested.²⁵ 

• White activists “fetishize” tactics and ignore strategy, because they 
don’t care about building a long-term grassroots movement.²⁶ 

• Activists who can afford time and money to travel to mass events 
must be aff luent and they protest at low risk because they know that 
their “white skin privilege” will protect them from police brutality. 

• White activists position themselves as the experts and are the visible 
spokespeople and de facto leadership. 

• Cultural styles preferred by anti-globalization activists are alienating 
to people of colour. These include lifestyles, food preferences, 
intellectual styles, meeting styles, and protest tactics. 

• Local communities of colour are put at risk by mass protests 
operating out of their neighbourhoods. 

• Anti-globalization activists do not seem to care about domestic 
problems faced by people of colour within the US and Canada, 
continuing a tradition of organizing which ultimately perpetuates 
white supremacy. 

²¹.  “In the autumn of 1990, the founding conference of OCAP took place. After some debate, 
it set a course for the organization that committed it to mobilizing poor and homeless people 
to fi ght back through militant, direct action and rejected notions of basing the organization on 
methods of consultation and compromise with those in power…As a militant, anti capitalist 
organization, we reject the notion that we have any common set of interests with those who hold 
economic and political power. We also reject the rituals of token protest that confi ne movements to 
the level of futile moral arguments. We fi ght to win and are part of a growing force in society that 
is ready to organize on just that basis.” see http://www.ocap.ca 

²².  Th e perspectives and experiences of diff erent communities of color are not identical, and 
may be becoming more uneven. Th e recent Cancún WTO protests caused Chicano activists to 
recognize this struggle as their own and as a not-very-white struggle, but did not impact other 
communities similarly. 

²³.  Individual citations are not provided for these claims because they have been repeated in 
many discourse texts and it is diffi  cult to assess the fi rst appearances of each. 

²⁴.  Daraka Larimore-Hall & Tracie McMillan, “growing pains,” the activist (Young Democratic 
Socialists), xxix.1 (Summer 2002): 7–10. 

²⁵.  Similar and related criticisms appear around issues of middle-class culture, male 
domination, and culture of the intelligentsia. 

²⁶.  Daraka Larimore-Hall & Tracie McMillan, “growing pains,” the activist(Young Democratic 
Socialists), xxix.1 (Summer 2002): 7–10. 

http://www.ocap.ca


Amory Starr 128 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 129

As mentioned in the introduction, responses from the anti-globalization 
movement have not taken the textual form that the critique itself has taken. 
Th erefore we only know about the responses that the anti-racist critique itself has 
documented, and we know little to nothing about the extent of these responses. 
Some of the documented responses are: 

• There isn’t time to address issues of racism and sexism.
• Discussion of racism, sexism, etc. is a “distraction” from the work 

that needs to be done.
• Addressing these issues is simply not necessary or relevant to the 

larger project of fighting globalization. 
• Many people have issues of intense concern but no one has the right 

to demand that the whole movement stop and do a training in their 
favorite “single issue.”

• People are whining and should just get to work. 
• People concerned with domestic issues of gender and racial equity 

are reformist or missing the point about a larger threat. 

A NA LYSIS

Th e goal driving this analysis is to enable anti-racist and anti-globalization 
activists to understand one another’s perspectives. It is critical that anti-global-
ization activists understand why their anti-imperialist work often fails on anti-
racist grounds. At the same time, anti-racist activists may fi nd it useful to re-read 
some aspects of anti-globalization activism in ways that will aid in communica-
tion and collaboration.²⁹ 

Framed! Conceptualizing Anti-globalization

Many of the anti-racist critiques of the anti-globalization movement hinge 
on a particular conceptualization of it. Th is conceptualization (or what in social 
movements literature is called a “frame”³⁰) defi nes the historical narrative of the 

• Anti-globalization activists “ignore” and “appropriate” the historic 
struggles of communities of color and “people in the South.”²⁷ 

• Activism around issues in third world countries is psychologically 
remote and therefore easier than activism around issues of race at 
home. 

• Privileged activism on behalf of oppressed others is paternalistic and 
salvific.

Activists with these concerns have also developed proposals for addressing 
the problems. Th e following is an attempt at a comprehensive list of each distinct 
proposal made: 

• Anti-globalization organizations should prioritize “anti-oppression” 
training and organizing techniques. 

• “Challenging white supremacy” must be the primary work of 
movements which seek to challenge globalization. 

• Instead of ‘outreach’ and ‘recruiting’ people of colour, activists 
should question their own organizations, asking “Whose voices are 
heard? Whose priorities are adopted? Whose knowledge is 
valued? ”²⁸ 

• Rather than creating new projects, anti-globalization activists 
should go support what people of colour in their town are already 
working on. 

• Activists should be equally or more committed to working on local 
struggles being waged by people of colour as to international actions. 

• People of colour have been fighting globalization for 511 years and 
therefore are experts who should be looked to for leadership in 
fighting the current phase of globalization. 

• Privileged activists should yield to marginal voices, diverse 
definitions of radicalism, and alternative ways of organizing. 

• More privileged groups in the anti-globalization movement should 
use their resources to send third and fourth world representatives to 
international conferences and on speaking tours and to fund local 
campaigns in communities of colour. 

²⁷. Pari Zutshi in Daraka Larimore-Hall & Tracie McMillan, “growing pains,” the activist 
(Young Democratic Socialists), xxix.1 (Summer 2002): 7–10.

²⁸. Chris Dixon, “ Ten Th ings to Remember: Anti-Racist Strategies for White Student 
Radicals.” n.d. 

²⁹.  Much of the analysis that follows was performed jointly by Amory Starr and Rachel Luft. 
Th e method of analysis used was an intense distillation of perspectives. Th e version of anti-racism 
which was used to perform this distillation was not the anti-racism articulated from within the 
anti-globalization movement, but instead one from outside it, best represented by the infl uential 
People’s Institute http://www.thepeoplesinstitute.org/ , whose analyses were often present in (but 
not at all completely encompassing of ) the anti-racist-anti-globalization discourse. Readers should 
be aware that references to “anti-racist perspective” below are not descriptive of anti-racist-anti-
globalization practice. 

³⁰.  Snow, David and Robert Benford. 1988. “Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant 
Mobilization.” In Klandermas, Kriesi and Tarrow, eds. International Social Movement Research: 
From Structure to Action Vol. 1 pp.197–217. 

http://www.thepeoplesinstitute.org/


Amory Starr 130 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 131

movement, the key actors, logics, and themes. Frames shape how movements are 
understood by activists themselves as well as observers. Frames are often con-
tested, and this is certainly the case in the anti-globalization movement. 

512 Year Struggle: From indigenous and other Global South perspectives 
globalization is the latest form of colonialism. Vandana Shiva says “Th e fi rst colo-
nialism lasted 500 years. Th e second, so-called ‘development’, lasted 50 years. And 
this one, ‘free trade’, lasted only 5 years!”³¹ For indigenous people, the anti-global-
ization struggle has been continuous and virtually uninterrupted.³² For postco-
lonial peoples, this latest form originates with the implementation of structural 
adjustment programmes in the 1980s. Th e World Development Movement’s 
“States of Unrest” reports trace the anti-globalization movement to the surge of 
IMF Riots in the Global South: “protests against these institutions and their poli-
cies were not limited to privileged ‘students and anarchists’ from rich countries, as 
some politicians would like us to believe. Th e report set the European and North 
American demonstrations into their wider context, showing that they were only 
one element of a much larger movement rooted in developing countries…³³ A 
variety of US groups take this perspective. Peter Hardie of TransAfrica Forum 
argues that this perspective is particularly relevant to African Americans. 

Understanding the political arena as a global one is the best solution to the 
ongoing plight of African Americans today. We will not solve our employ-
ment problem until we understand labor as a global phenomenon, employers 
as global actors, and much of the wealth in our country (and the world) as the 
plunder of corporate thieves, rinsed in the blood of Africans and other indige-
nous peoples…Depressed wages, the increased gap between rich and poor, the 
sale of the public domain (schools, water and utilities, roads, prisons) to priva-
teers…As corporate wealth and power grow unfettered, Africans throughout 
the world share a special place of exploitation, regardless of their nationality.…
We need better and deeper connections to popular movements and organiza-
tions in other countries. And there are many such opportunities.³⁴

“Globalization from below”³⁵ is the convergence of peoples’ movements in 
attempts to forge a new hyper-democratic, participatory, and people-centered 
world system. Its most prominent form is the World Social Forum, which invites 
all of “civil society” to assert that “Another World Is Possible” and to develop 
visions for it.³⁶ Other manifestations are the international organization ATTAC, 
founded in France, which aims “to put the brakes on most of these machines for 
creating inequalities between North and South as well as in the heart of the 
developed countries themselves…[and] to create a democratic space at the global 
level. It is simply a question of taking back, together, the future of our world”³⁷ 
Jubilee and other international movements to repudiate third world debts also 
represent this perspective. They collectively assert that “Countries of the North 
owe Third World countries, particularly Africa, a manifold debt: blood debt with 
slavery; economic debt with colonization, and the looting of human and mineral 
resources and unequal exchange; ecological debt with the destruction and the 
looting of its natural resources; social debt (unemployment; mass poverty) and 
cultural debt (debasing of African civilizations to justify colonization)… Our 
struggle is similar to those of Seattle, Washington, Prague and Nice.”³⁸ 

Peoples Global Action (PGA) is a sector of “globalization from below,” a 
“non-organization”³⁹ that emerged from Encuentros hosted by the Zapatistas. 
PGA’s fi ve hallmarks include “A call to direct action and civil disobedience, sup-
port for social movements’ struggles, advocating forms of resistance which maxi-
mize respect for life and oppressed peoples’ rights, as well as the construction of 

³¹.  IFG, International Forum on Globalisation. 1999 (Nov 26 & 27). Teach In on Economic 
Globalisation and the Role of the World Trade Organization. Benaroya Symphony Hall, Seattle 
Washington.

³².  see Bill Weinberg, War on the Land: Ecology and Politics in Central America. 1991: Zed 
Books, London. Al Gedicks, Th e New Resource Wars: Native and Environmental Struggles Against 
Multinational Corporations 1998: South End Press, Boston and Resource Rebels: Native Challenges 
to Mining and Oil Corporations. 2001: South End Press, Boston. 

³³.  Jessica Woodroff e and Mark Ellis-Jones, “States of unrest: Resistance to IMF policies in 
poor countries.” World Development Movement Report, September 2000. and “States of unrest 
II” at http://www.wdm.org.uk/cambriefs/debt/Unrest2.pdf.

³⁴.  Peter Hardie, “Apartheid Still Matters: Framing an African-American Internationalism,” 
Th e Black Commentator September 25, 2003 http://www.blackcommentator.com/

³⁵.  Falk, Richard. 1993. “Th e Making of Global Citizenship,” pp. 39–50 in Global Visions: 
Beyond the New World Order, edited by J. Brecher, J. B. Childs, and J. Cutler. Boston: South End 
Press. 

³⁶.  Th e fi rst World Social Forum was held in Porto Alegre, Rio Grade do Sul State, 
Brazil, simultaneous with the meetings of the World Economic Forum in late January, 2001. 
Approximately 20,000 people participated, including 4,702 delegates representing 117 countries, 
2,000 participants in the Youth Camp, and 700 participants in the Indigenous Nations Camp. Th e 
second World Social Forum, held again in Porto Alegre in early February, 2002, attracted over 
50,000 participants. Its theme, “Another World Is Possible,” has since been taken up in a variety of 
fora. Th e third forum doubled in size yet again and fomented regional fora all over the world. Th e 
fourth forum was moved to Mumbai, India in 2004. 

³⁷.  International ATTAC Platform, adopted December 11–12, 1998, Paris. see
 http://www.attac.org 

³⁸.  “Th e Dakar Declaration for the Total and Unconditional Cancellation of African and 
Th ird World Debt” “Dakar 2000: From Resistance to Alternatives” conference that was held 
in Dakar, Senegal from December 11–17, 2000. at http://www.50years.org/updates/dakar1.
html#MANIFESTO. 

³⁹.  Midnight Notes, Auroras of the Zapatistas: Local and Global Struggles of the Fourth World 
War (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2001), p. 105.

http://www.wdm.org.uk/cambriefs/debt/Unrest2.pdf
http://www.blackcommentator.com/
http://www.attac.org
http://www.50years.org/updates/dakar1.html#MANIFESTO


Amory Starr 132 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 133

nation-state.”⁴⁴ Th e convergence of movements around generalized anti-corpo-
rate perspectives and opposition to Free Trade Agreements has expanded their 
frameworks to multi-issue analyses, new alliances, international solidarity, and 
more comprehensive perspectives on the meaning of corporate globalization. 

Seattle Origins Narrative: A popular North American conception of the 
anti-globalization movement is that it began on November 30, 1999 when a brand 
new movement coalesced in the streets of Seattle. Th ose who found themselves 
joining up had previously only poorly articulated grievances with some aspects 
of Free Trade Agreements and had hardly expected to fi nd themselves arm in 
arm, Teamster and Turtle, anarchist and anti-debt campaigner, family farmer 
and product safety campaigner. Th rough the cathartic eff ects of this euphoric 
experience a new movement was born, which had little conception of the his-
torical struggles underlying it, and credited itself with “giving birth to a new 
global movement” as it pocketed the greetings and congratulations coming from 
people around the world. After Seattle, the new North American movement 
remained obsessed with mass mobilizations and quickly settled down to bicker-
ing about property crime, permits for marches, “reformism,” unions, 911, and war. 
Meanwhile the movement learned that Europeans had been having impressive 
mass mobilizations for several years before Seattle and that there were “mobes” 
to attend in exciting places like Cancún. Young white hippies and punks quickly 
turned their backs on unions and NGOs, adopted “protest hopping” as a lifestyle 
and began to glorify their time in jail, their radical “direct action” tactics, their 
culture of selfl ess fi lth and urban gleaning. Th ey traveled to Prague in September 
2000, Québec City in April 2001, Genoa in July 2001, and some even went to the 
World Social Fora in Porto Alegre. 

It’s just imperialist protectionism: Since Seattle, while some communist 
and socialist groups have embraced the anti-globalization movement as a step in 
the right direction, more rigid fi rst world communist groups have insisted that 
the North American anti-globalization movement is ultimately a protectionist 
and nationalist attempt to keep jobs, comparative advantage, and third world 
resources in fi rst world control. Th ese groups propose that organized fi rst world 
workers will always take nationalist positions so as to protect the unequal ben-
efi ts of the world system to which they have grown accustomed. Th ey will defend 
their high-paid jobs from third world competition and from domestic minorities 

local alternatives to global capitalism.”⁴⁰ Active in the network are the aggressive 
land occupation movements emerging all over Latin America and also in South 
Africa, in which urban and rural working classes are together asserting land 
rights by direct action.⁴¹ Livelihood movements by fi sherfolk, forest gatherers, 
and farmers are asserting Farmers Rights, Rights to Food Sovereignty, Rights to 
Livelihood through new international alliances and are also taking direct action to 
protect their economies from corporate predations. Th e Th ird PGA Conference 
was held September 2001, at which more than 150 delegates from organisations 
of all the continents met in Cochabamba, Bolivia hosted by a federations of 
peasants and domestic workers. Th e network has been instrumental in recent 
“Global Days of Action” such as j18, n30 and has been credited with conceptual-
izing both the Seattle protests and the international Independent Media Centers 
http://www.indymedia.org.⁴² Anarchists who participate in anti-globalization 
are best be characterized by the PGA frame. 

Northern Convergence: Anti-globalization is also understood as a re-artic-
ulation and new collaboration of existing movements (some decades old) in the 
Global North such as the anti-roads movements, movements connected with the 
concepts of “small is beautiful,” “voluntary simplicity,” bioregionalism,⁴³ the anti-
genetic engineering movements, grassroots organic food struggles, movements 
concerned with child labour, movements against privatization, anti-corporate 
movements concerned with issues of cultural homogenization (anti-McDonalds, 
AdBusters, etc.), Central American Solidarity movements, Fair Trade move-
ments, the European and U.S. Jubilee 2000 movement to forgive third world 
nations’ debts, anti-consumption movements such as Buy Nothing Day, anarchist 
and other youth movements, and the whole variety of New Social Movements 
which in Europe have taken the form of Autonomen, Social Centers, and antifa 
(antifascism). According to George Katsiafi cas, not only class is abandoned, but 
also nationalism: “ To the extent they become revolutionary, their international 
commitment will be to ecology, feminism, racial solidarity, and peace, not to any 

⁴⁰.  http://www.agp.org 
⁴¹.  James Petras, “Th e Rural Landless Workers Movement,” Z Magazine. March 2000: 32-36. 
⁴².  Notes from Nowhere, ed., We Are Everywhere: Th e Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism. 

2003: Verso, London. 
⁴³.  E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (New York Harper 

& Row, 1973). New York. Wendell Berry, Th e Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture (San 
Francisco: Sierra Club, 1977). Duane Elgin, Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life that is 
Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich (New York: Morrow, 1981). Peter Berg, “Bioregion and Human 
Location” All Area #2, Spring 1983.

⁴⁴.  George Katsiafi cas, Th e Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movemetns and 
the Decolonization of Everyday Life. 1997: Humanities Press, New Jersey: 265. 

http://www.indymedia.org
http://www.agp.org


Amory Starr 134 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 135

and immigrants while also defending the favorable terms of trade which increase 
their global buying power. Th is frame interprets fi rst world movements against 
third world child labor as attempts to unfairly police and punish third world 
countries. And they see the overall movement against Free Trade as a chauvinist 
attempt to protect fi rst world standard of living, domestic regulations, and global 
power. 

Th e anti-racist/anti-oppression critique relies heavily on the “Seattle Origins 
Narrative, with occasional references to “It’s Just Imperialist Protectionism.” 
Anti-racist critics position themselves in the “512 Year Struggle” frame and over-
look entirely that many of the movements and activists who they purport to 
critique are also in that frame, or in one of the similar frames—Globalization 
from Below, PGA, or Northern Convergence.

Making the Connections

When fi rst confronted by diverse, non-working class movements for lib-
eration, Marxists saw an overemphasis on race and gender as incorrect politi-
cal theory—what they called “superstructural epiphenomenon.” Since the 1970s, 
however, race and gender have been well integrated into many schools of radical 
political theory. While sometimes falling into debates about whether it is capital-
ism or white supremacy that runs the world, such hierarchies are becoming less 
legitimate with the rise of “anti-oppression” theory which acknowledges “inter-
sectionality.” Within activist globalization scholarship, issues of cultural imperi-
alism and gender are at the center of the analysis. Anti-imperialist analysis links 
domestic troubles of racial and economic injustice to international processes of 
conquest and economic empire, which have always used racism, sexism, and other 
assertions of cultural superiority as tactics. For anti-racists, however, no theoreti-
cal defi nition or ideological commitment in and of itself can be antiracist 

Many sectors of what became the North American anti-globalization move-
ment developed from internationalist work (such as Central American solidar-
ity work) which already recognized in practice the essential racism of empire 
throughout its many forms. Brian Dominick states how the Zapatistas requested 
a new form of international solidarity work that echoed Black Power exhorta-
tions to white allies. Whereas before, solidarity meant sending off  the fruits of 
our privilege (including people to do “protective accompaniment”) to try to “off set 
the horrible things that our military and our economic system were doing,” the 
Zapatistas challenged allies to take on the harder task of intervening in US for-
eign aff airs. “Solidarity for the Zapatistas meant, fi rst and foremost, that we’re 
kicking ass here at home. Th ey said ‘We can hold these folks for a little while 
longer, but if you can remove the boot from our neck by stopping your society 
from funding our government who is doing it directly to us…’”⁴⁵

As a result of this movement foundation, in contrast with the perception 
that “September 11 threw many young white activists…into a tailspin,”⁴⁶ what 
actually happened was that two of the major US student activist groups, the 180˚ 
Movement for Democracy and Education and STARC (Students Transforming 
and Resisting Corporations) promptly took anti-imperialist positions after 911. 
Meanwhile, non-campus white-led organizations, such as ANSWER,⁴⁷ orga-
nized massive anti-imperialist responses to the so-called “wars on terrorism.” Also 
responding immediately was the American Friends Service Committee, which 
has been “bringing a critique of global capital into peace work” for decades.

Nevertheless, anti-racist activists repeatedly argue that “[w]hether it’s global 
capitalism…or state authority…connections to everyday lives are frequently lost. 
What about privatization of city services as neoliberalism on the home front?…
Th e connections are all there…yet many white, middle-class radicals simply 
aren’t seeing them.”⁴⁸ Despite some clear cases of white activists failing to make 
connections,⁴⁹ for the most part, an identity-based critique does not hold up. 

Take on what they see as the daunting task of confronting international 
racism, the youth sector of the North American anti-globalization movement 
may be more familiar with Zapatismo than Chicanismo, the U’wa than the Black 
Panthers, and debt slavery than cultural appropriation. But the biggest move-
ments on US campuses in the years preceding Seattle were a mix of domestic and 
international campaigns. Th e largest were Free Mumia, the defense of affi  rmative 
action and ethnic studies programmes, anti-sweatshop campaigns, World Bank 
Bonds boycotts, and student worker organizing (many campaigning jointly with 
service-sector workers). 

⁴⁵.  Brian Dominick, “Anti-Capitalist Globalization Organizing.” Arise! Journal, June 2001.
⁴⁶.  the claim continues: “Meanwhile, young activists of color jumped into action and 

created mass antiwar-antiracist movements protesting the bombing of Afghanistan, supporting 
Muslims against racist attacks, and bringing a critique of global capital into peace work.” Mike 
Prokosch, United for a Fair Economy, ‘Th ree Tasks for the US globalization movement’, 
http://globalroots.net/themoment/2002. [URL Inactive as of 2/24/04]

⁴⁷.  Which had already been struggling for some time on the international anti-racist project of 
ending the sanctions against Iraq as well as the domestic anti-racist Mumia Abu-Jamal campaign

⁴⁸.  Chris Dixon, ‘Finding Hope After Seattle: Rethinking Radical Activism and Building a 
Movement’, posted on Colours of Resistance website http://colours.mahost.org/, n.d.

⁴⁹.  Pauline Hwang, while organizing for Québec City, reports being told, presumably by a 
white anti-globalization activist, that “the off -campus issues I was working on [including the Shakti 
Women of Colour Collective, Immigrant Workers Center] were not ‘directly related to globalization’.” 
She concludes that “in other words, ‘globalization’ means white college students protesting, not the 
issues of working class people of colour.” Pauline Hwang, “Anti-Racist Organizing: Refl ecting on 
Lessons from Québec City,” May 2001, Colours.

http://globalroots.net/themoment/2002
http://colours.mahost.org/


Amory Starr 136 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 137

Th e issue is not whether white activists do long-term anti-imperialist 
work because even when they do it’s not enough to qualify as antiracist. 

What’s wrong? Th e Citigroup campaign is an excellent example; for anti-
globalization activists it seemed the perfect anti-racist project. Here was a cor-
poration which built prisons in the US, dams in the third world, and was deeply 
involved in predatory and discriminatory residential lending in communities of 
color, deceptive loan schemes for trade school students, and manipulative credit 
card promotions particularly aff ecting young college students. Here was a cam-
paign that was “local” for a variety of domestic constituencies through which 
they could experience their co-victimization with one another as well as with 
indigenous and third world peoples. But the campaign fell fl at. Similarly, early 
protests of NikeTown stores were oddly white and thoroughly opaque to people 
of color.⁵⁰ 

Th e problem is that many campaigns that are about people of color, locally 
as well as globally, that do indeed “make the connections,” are still primarily gen-
erated from ideological analysis, not from the immediacy of a particular com-
munity need. While anti-globalization activists base their assessment of a “good” 
campaign on how clearly and compellingly it makes the intellectual connections, 
antiracist organizers are far more concerned about the intensity with which the 
issue is aff ecting the local community. Put another way, for anti-globalization 
activists “making the connections” is using the local to help people understand 
the global, while for anti-racist activists, “making connections” is talking about 
the global to help people understand the local. 

Fair Trade is another example of this tendency. It is a very analytic, intel-
lectual campaign through which people act in support of working class people 
of color. Although this campaign is long-term and practiced locally (meeting 
two criteria for anti-racism), its practice is not driven by an immediate, personal 
grievance. It is a mobilization developed through an abstract intellectual process 
of compassion. In communities of colour, there are enough immediate crises! 
Moreover, agendas that emerge beyond the boundaries of the local community 
are frequently seen as suspect to communities who have learned historically not 
to trust the strangers or any “fi x” from somewhere else. 

The Difference is Strategy

In activist action and campaign planning, groups start by clearly identifying 
their goals. Th ey then formulate a strategy for achieving those goals. Th e strategy 

brings together an analysis of power relations with the resources and context of 
struggle which will shape tactics. In the end, the strategy is the logic that explains 
how the chosen tactic will achieve the action’s goal. “ Tactical fetishism,” a prefer-
ence for or tendency toward the use of the same tactic for dealing with diff erent 
goals is widely repudiated (even by Black Bloc activists⁵¹). Th e disagreements 
between anti-racist and anti-globalization activists are primarily at the level of 
strategy—not goals or tactics. 

Th e long-term goal of the North American anti-globalization movement 
is structural change, described variously as “revolution” and “democratization.” 
Some sectors aim to restore the viability of democratic structures linked to the 
state and some seek to establish independent institutions which reappropri-
ate and reembed aspects of the market. Many sectors work to develop forms of 
internationalism to replace elite ones; these vary from simple networks of soli-
darity with no legislative authority to authoritative treaty-type negotiations such 
as protocols against biopatenting. Short-term (or what are sometimes called 
“process goals”) include empowering people to believe they can make a change 
and demonstrating that ordinary people around the world already have the tech-
nologies, expertise, materials, and skills both to meet basic needs and to achieve 
higher aspirations such as art, science, and participatory democracy (without 
“expert” advice and oversight). 

Anti-globalization goals are not signifi cantly diff erent from anti-racist/anti-
oppression goals. Ending oppression, community self-determination, democ-
ratization, and empowerment are the goals of both movements. Since 911, 
increasingly North American anti-racist and anti-globalization movements have 
been using the concept of anti-imperialism to defi ne and link their domestic and 
international goals. 

Th ese similarities often go unnoticed as activists become polarized around 
issues of tactics. Tricksters and militants are perceived by anti-racists as not being 
interested in “organizing” and anti-racists are perceived as infl exible, controlling, 
or not appreciative of “diversity of tactics.”⁵² Th e concept of “direct action” has 

⁵⁰.  Zak Sinclair, “Don’t Th ink. Just Do It. Tripping in Niketown USA.” Th ird Force, July/
August 1997.

⁵¹.  Th e Black Bloc Papers, compiled by David and X. 2002: Black Clover Press, printed 
by Insubordinate Editions, a project of the Claustrophobia Collective, Baltimore MD. available 
through AK Press.

⁵².  Diversity of tactics is a strategy intended to facilitate the solidarity of many social sectors 
without imposing uniformity, univocality, or identity. “Diversity of tactics” demands equal respect 
to candlelight vigils, property crime, permitted marches, mass actions, lobbying and everything in 
between. “It is mirrored in a rejection of ideology, an emphasis on materiality, and an assertion of 
the possibility of local self-determination and global justice at once. It asserts the mutual benefi t of 
collaboration without agreement and rejects all tactical and ideological fetishes and eff orts by any 



Amory Starr 138 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 139
the g8 or the WTO or the IMF/World Bank… big summit meetings are 
elaborate rituals, ostentatious shows of power that reinforce the entitlement 
and authority of the bodies they represent….Our purpose is to undercut 
their legitimacy, to point a spotlight at their programs and policies, and to 
raise the social costs of their existence until they become insupportable…We 
can’t and won’t abandon the local, and in fact never have: many of us work on 
both scales…But many of us have come to the larger, global actions because 
we understand that the trade agreements and institutions we contest are 
designed to undo all of our local work and override the decisions and aspira-
tions of local communities.”⁵⁴ 

In beginning to put some of their energy toward “mass actions” (in parallel with 
ongoing local campaigns), North American activist groups⁵⁵ have adopted a strat-
egy of Global South and European movements, which have long been converging 
on elite global governance meetings in order to strategically disrupt, discomfort, 
sunshine, and delegitimize elite and secretive affairs, while sending the “informa-
tion…out to millions of people in this country and across the world—there is an 
alternative to this shit, there is something that is anti-capitalist.”⁵⁶

“Mass actions” turn out to be convergences at each of which hundreds of 
diff erent tactics are enacted by wildly diverse groups over the space of about a 
week within a strategic framework of “diversity of tactics.” Each convergence has 
several centers of organizing which provide collective infrastructure and where 
people coordinate events and actions, often experiencing new levels of coopera-
tion and community. Th e tactics themselves include permitted candlelight vigils, 
media stunts, meetings of international solidarity working groups, permitted 
marches and rallies, building community gardens, educational events in rented 
halls, militant unpermitted marches, and a few skirmishes with the police and 
acts of property crime.⁵⁷ Many of the tactics used at mass actions and in other 

been widely and variously misinterpreted (as a specifi c tactic, as a synonym for 
mass actions or protests, as militance, as property crime, and as short-term high-
risk dramatic actions preferred by anarchists). Unfortunately, some groups such 
as Ruckus Society have tried to ease the resulting tension by dissociating the 
term from any meaning at all, redefi ning it as “any action that makes space for 
change.” Th is move tries to dissolve the tension by undermining the possibility 
for debate rather than furthering knowledge of history⁵³ and precise distinctions 
between tactics and strategy (distinctions which Ruckus otherwise does a good 
job of promoting). 

A second purportedly tactical debate is over mass actions, to which the anti-
globalization movement is often reduced, which are contradictorily portrayed 
as: excessively militant, symbolic acts irrelevant to local organizing, and “summit 
hopping”/“protest tourism.” Typically, advocates of mass actions are portrayed in 
anti-racist discourse as not being engaged in local action, which is, quite simply, 
an empirically false dichotomy. Th is accusation implies as well a mis-diagnosis 
of the local. 

groups to impose on others. Th is framework has been one of the hallmarks of the international 
movement, articulated alternately by the Zapatistas as ‘one no, many yeses’ and by Uruguayan 
anarchists as ‘specifi smo’, which encourages fl uid shifting of tactics appropriate to the situation.” 
[ Jason Adams, ‘Jornadas Anarquistas: Anarchist Convergence in Porto Alegre, Brazil’ Black Bridge 
International February 12, 2002 http://blackbridge.freehosting.net/brazil.html .

⁵³. Voltairine De Cleyre wrote in 1912 that “[e]very person who ever had a plan to do 
anything, and went and did it, or who laid his plan before others, and won their co-operation to 
do it with him, without going to external authorities to please do the thing for them, was a direct 
actionist. All co-operative experiments are essentially direct action…Every person who ever in 
his life had a diff erence with anyone to settle, and went straight to the other persons involved 
to settle it, either by a peaceable plan or otherwise, was a direct actionist.” [Direct Action. 1986: 
Mother Earth, New York.] MC Lynx, a contemporary theorist defi nes it as “the act of taking direct 
control over one’s own life and destiny and doing what needs to be done without taking orders 
from anyone or attempting to infl uence anyone.” Martha Ackelsberg defi nes it as: “ways for people 
to get in touch with their own powers and capacities, to take back the power of naming themselves 
and their lives.” [Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the struggle for the Emancipation of Women. 
1991: Indiana University Press, Bloomington.] Black Panther experiments with community self-
provisioning and self-determination are some of the best-known US direct action movements. 
Handing out leafl ets, holding press conferences, and petitioning politicians to build aff ordable 
housing is not direct action because these actions appeal to others to solve the problem. Taking 
over an abandoned building, fi xing it up, moving in, refusing to pay rent, and resisting eviction is 
direct action. Among those who prefer direct action, anarchists embrace it in part because they 
believe that the state is incapable of enacting justice.

⁵⁴. Starhawk, “After Genoa: Why We Need to Stay in the Streets” August, 2001. at 
http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activism-writings/aftergenoa.html

⁵⁵. Long-term movements such as the Greens and School of the Americas (SOA) Watch 
had been paying increasing attention to globalization and international economics during the 
1980s and 1990s and converged in Seattle with young environmentalists, anarchists, and student 
organizers. 

⁵⁶. Jazz, “the tracks of our tears” 80–99 in On Fire: Th e battle of Genoa and the anti-capitalist 
movement. September 2001: One Off  Press.

⁵⁷. Rough quantitative analysis of Seattle n30 schedules reveals that educational events and 
conferences outnumbered street actions by a factor of ten. In late 2003 and early 2004 (Cancún 
and Miami) that ratio had increased in favor of rich, multi-lingual conferences on an array of 
issues. 

http://blackbridge.freehosting.net/brazil.html
http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activism-writings/aftergenoa.html


Amory Starr 140 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 141

manifestations of the anti-globalization movement are not diff erent than those 
used by anti-racist movements. It is the strategy that is diff erent. 

Anti-racist/anti-oppression campaigners see long-term, local organizing on 
issues organically relevant to a community as the strategy for simultaneously 
addressing institutional and personal manifestations of oppression. Organizers 
distinguish between “product”-oriented organizing, in which the most experi-
enced people make sure to get all the work done in the way most likely to “win” the 
material/political struggle at hand, and “process”-oriented organizing, in which 
the maximum number of laypeople are involved at every stage. When engaged in 
specifi c actions, the external win is considered a bonus; the real accomplishment 
is the strategic reconstitution of community, and with it the autonomy, justice, 
and empowerment of people remaking the conditions of their daily lives.

While many anti-globalization activists have process-oriented organizing 
perspectives, most anti-globalization groups do local actions, many anti-global-
ization groups are involved in long-term campaigns, and building community is 
a common concern, these pieces of anti-racist strategy do not appear all at once 
in the anti-globalization movement. For example: North Americans working on 
mining and oil exploitation of indigenous lands use the 512 Year Struggle frame, 
have a sense of the long-term, and take leadership from people of color around 
the world,—but these campaigns often have very little connection to local com-
munity-building processes. Similarly, many sectors in the Northern Convergence 
perspective, such as Fair Trade and SOA Watch are involved in long-term strug-
gles—but these often do not include the community-building process orientation 
which anti-racists value. Th e “communities” built at mass actions are temporary, 
intense, communal experiences, resulting in personal transformations, new skills, 
and new relationships, all of which may reappear later in another place and 
which may contribute to local activism when people go home—but these skills 
and relationships are not embedded in ongoing local campaigns. Frequently the 
mass actions leave in place new networks (such as a strengthened coalition for 
police accountability) and new long-term infrastructure (such as community 
media centers and community vegetable gardens) in the locality—but these have 
not been built through long term processes of community development. 

While anti-racist strategy can be found in the anti-globalization movement, 
those elements are not at its core, which is more focused on the mechanics of 
disrupting power through diversity of tactics than on the mechanics of building 
community—to disrupt power later. 

Now we are in a better position to understand what happened at the pro-
tests of the 2000 Democratic National Convention in LA. DAN-LA organizers 
organized 5 permitted marches, intended to be “safe” for “unarrestable” undoc-
umented people, already over-arrested people of colour, people who could be 

facing “three strikes” life sentences, and transgender people who face unique risks 
in incarceration. Th ey used the term ‘direct action’ even though they organized 
only permitted marches.⁵⁸ For some, this strategy produced what was the most 
inclusive and antiracist mass action yet. For anti-globalization activists, however, 
the actions were disappointingly ineff ective at disrupting the smooth operation 
and media coverage of the convention, getting dissenting messages to national 
and international audiences, pressuring delegates and politicians for account-
ability, or manipulating media into communicating critiques and alternative. For 
them, only such successes which would bring new people into the movement and 
lift the spirits of current activists. 

Although the long-term goals of anti-racist and anti-globalization activists 
are not signifi cantly diff erent, their strategies are—and at the DNC these dif-
ferences were each described as the correct expression of radicalism. (“White 
radicals who don’t challenge their white privilege will not be able to see what is 
profoundly radical about communities of color mobilized, regardless of whether 
or not the march is legal.”⁵⁹) For the anti-globalization movement, the orga-
nizing strategy was to disrupt the Party’s legitimacy at its Convention in order 
bring maximum public attention to dissent and alternative ideas. For anti-racist 
organizers, the strategy was to “bringing a diverse and radical movement to the 
street.”⁶⁰ Th is strategic diff erence depended on a diff erent analysis of eff ective 
organizing. 

Organizing and Empowerment

Th e mechanics of “organizing” are central to both strategies. Both seek to 
empower people—encourage them to believe that their grievances are legitimate, 
that collective action will be meaningful and eff ective, and that their individual 
contributions will matter. Key to understanding diff erent strategies are the 
assumptions about power and constituencies. 

Anti-racists develop empowerment through the community organizing 
“process” tradition of organizers slowly encouraging activists to take on bigger 
and bigger projects. By working together with neighbors to solve local problems, 

⁵⁸. According to MC Lynx, “permitted marches and rallies are never direct action and —
unless the purpose of the march is to assert the right to gather and march without a permit— 
unpermitted marches are not either.” Th e D2KLA coalition was already advertising 33 other 
“safe”/legal/permitted events. 

⁵⁹. Chris Crass, “Th oughts and refl ections on Los Angeles and taking on global capitalism’, 
circulated in 2000, published as “Confronting the Democratic National Convention and Working 
to Build a People’s Movement for Justice,” Socialist Review, 28(3+4), 2001.

⁶⁰.  ibid. 



Amory Starr 142 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 143

people discover their power. Anti-globalization activists see that strategy as 
limited in its appeal and encourage a “diversity of tactics,” including “fun” (party 
in the middle of a roadway), cultural rupture (costumes, spontaneous theater, 
adbusting), and militancy. From this perspective, spontaneously taking and hold-
ing space, witnessing the cops back down, building a barricade with strangers 
who speak diff erent languages, creatively disrupting elite procedures or messages, 
or even breaking corporate retail stores’ windows is empowerment comparable to 
what community organizers call a “small winnable issue.”

But this diff erence in preference only begins to unravel a set of much deeper 
issues. When anti-globalization activists focus energy on clever communications 
and/or disruptions which even the mainstream media will cover, they imagine 
that the cleverness and surprising courage of these actions will excite people to 
participate in various capacities or, if they missed out, hearing about these actions 
or seeing them on TV will inspire people to participate in the next one. Anti-
globalization activists assume that planning and executing a good action is an 
organizing tool. Radical antiglobalization activists put energy into these actions 
rather than intensive, personal “outreach” because in their experience joining a 
movement is primarily an intellectual, not a social act. Individualism pre-dates 
politics, community follows them. 

Such assumptions are fundamental aspects of how people organize. Since 
white organizers assume that activists arrive at meetings having decided already 
to be committed and to do inconvenient, uncomfortable things in service of their 
convictions, they make little eff ort to make meetings themselves comfortable, 
empowering, or inclusive. Th e burden is on committed participants to overcome 
a whole slew of barriers. If people aren’t willing to be uncomfortable, they’re not 
ready for activism. In contrast, anti-racists endeavor to establish legitimacy, com-
fort, and confi dence by affi  rming values, traditions, culture, ideas, and leadership 
of people of color and ensuring that the space is not dominated by white culture, 
procedures, and ideas (although white people and ideas may be present).

Since for many white activists becoming radical and active is often solitary 
and accompanied by being marginalized from family and friends, the experience 
of critical mass is crucial. Th e Seattle Origins narrative does get right that Seattle 
gave meaning, strength, and courage to many activists. As Bill Fletcher, President 
of TransAfrica Forum, argues, “we need 1, 2, 3, many Seattles, because they help 
people to know they are not alone.”⁶¹ Paul Rosenberg says “Big mass actions are 

a necessity…Th ey’re exhilarating and they expand people’s sense of the possible.” 
And Evan Henshaw-Plath (founder of protest.net) explains “the biggest benefi t 
is that all the people who are doing local actions are given a chance to connect and 
network. Whereas before, I think there was a pretty severe case of isolation.”⁶² 

In this context, “diversity of tactics” is vital to ensure there is something for 
everyone—including militance⁶³. But the “diversity of tactics” approach doesn’t 
do it for anti-racists because an “empowering space” is not one with “something 
for everyone” (diverse individuals) but a space that is dignifi ed and welcoming for 
oppressed people and safe from daily experiences of racism and violence (com-
mitted to transforming the experience of the group).⁶⁴ 

Individualism & Culture

A thread underlying the discussions of anti-imperialism, strategy, and 
empowerment is that anti-globalization activists have a more individualistic per-
spective than makes sense to anti-racist critics. Th is section examines some of 
the cultural aspects of anti-globalization which reinforce an individualistic per-
spective and shows how they are linked with whiteness. 

Social movement organizing involves movement building and day-to-day 
organizational operations. Decisions about how to do both are made in a matrix 
of ideology and culture. Th ere are hegemonic forms of movement building and 
operations, some of which are conscious decisions linked with particular ideolo-
gies (door-to-door outreach, hyper-democratic processes) and others which are 

⁶¹.  Bill Fletcher, “Globalization and the African World: Global Economic Justice and the 
Struggle Against Racism” CU-Boulder, 15 November 2002. 

⁶².  in John Tarleton, “After Québec, What Next?” New York Independent. May 2001. 
⁶³.  Brian Dominick argues that the Zapatistas inspired North American resistance because 

“they managed to organize not just some demonstrations, but an army.” ibid.
⁶⁴. Th is fundamental diff erence leads anti-racist organizers to say “If we’re going to keep 

escalating the tactics, we’re going to keep turning people off  to them.” [Dominick, ibid.] But 
this interpretation of anti-racism is not without its critics. Ward Churchill argues that pacifi sm 
sometimes indicates a pathological commitment to pacifi sm rather than justice. [Pacifi sm as 
Pathology 1986 (1998): Arbeiter Ring, Winnipeg.] As noted by a recent collective commentary, 
tactical moderacy may actually normalize white middle class perspectives. “But to realize our 
potential for building a mass movement requires, fi rst and foremost, clarity as to who actually 
constitutes the “mainstream” and why. Th e right, the corporate media and elite policy makers persist 
in painting “mainstream America” as white and middle class. Even many white liberals cling to the 
notion that building a mass movement against war necessitates the use of techniques and rhetoric 
that “don’t scare away” middle class whites.⁶⁴ [Numerous Authors, “Open Letter On Movement 
Building” http://www.Znet.org February 21, 2003] One might observe that a sector of those most 
intensely victimized by globalization are young men of color for whom militance (sometimes even 
masked, and often armed) is already a familiar form of social insurrection. Would these folks feel 
“safe” or absurd out in the open in a permitted march down to a cage encircled by riot cops?

http://www.Znet.org


Amory Starr 144 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 145

unconscious cultural practices (bureaucratic tendencies, leadership styles, pref-
erence for concise speeches). One of the ways that racism is institutionalized is 
the normalization and deracialization of white culture. Th e result of this process 
is that many aspects of white culture which are peculiarly white or even racist 
become invisible to white people yet are painfully visible, and often damaging, to 
people of color.⁶⁵ One of the politically salient aspects of white culture is indi-
vidualism.

Cultural whiteness is particularly interesting and problematic in the case of 
“alternative” subcultures which experience themselves as countercultural. While 
these alternatives do, in many ways, explicitly counteract and displace oppres-
sive hierarchies, including racism, they also often carry aspects of white culture 
as assumptions which are reproduced unquestioned and even invisible to the 
cultural frontiersmen. Insistent blindness to the whiteness often undermines the 
subculture’s language of outreach and inclusion.

A common aspect of white countercultures is the tradition of individualistic 
self-creation in which one’s family, church, and history are cast off  in an exuberant 
personal embrace of a highly ideological, self-defi ned individualism which has no 
accountability to an inherited communal culture or history.⁶⁶ Politicization often 
involves quite abstract compassion for what might best be theorized as “imagined 
community”⁶⁷ with oppressed people.

In contrast with countercultural politicization, activists of color often become 
politicized through their families and immediate communities. Th eir developing 
political principles and work need to make sense in the context of their histories, 
their families, and the spiritual/religious traditions of their communities. Even 
though communities of color maintain some hurtful values (such as homopho-
bia), radicals of color do not want to turn their backs on the institutions and 
values of their communities. If a radical of color is attracted to punk culture, 
embracing it would come at a signifi cant cost for being able to continue to relate 
well with their community. While this cost also exists for white people, overcom-

ing it is made possible by traditions valorizing defi ant and expressive individual-
ism.⁶⁸ Individualism in white culture enables white radicals to reject their birth 
families, their churches, their home towns, and the values they were raised with 
and to defi ne themselves anew. Radicals of color cannot relate to this behavior, 
the lack of love it indicates for family, and its lack of respect for history and com-
munity. Whites who have apparently abandoned their families are unaccountable 
free agents who seem untrustworthy to radicals of color.

Two countercultures common in activist circles are punk and hippie cultures. 
Interestingly, these cultures have a great deal in common. Both resist what they 
understand to be capitalist interpellations of the body, including grooming, fash-
ion, acceptable body types, and behavior. Both resist middle class concerns with 
privacy, individualism, consumption, status, and professionalism. Both envision 
their respective cultures as as models for the future. Art, self-expression, and 
manifestations of community are prioritized while status, middle-class concep-
tions of dignity, and “legitimacy” are eschewed as relics of the old liberal order. 
Th ese cultures as cultures assert systemic critiques, alternatives, and collective 
values and each has explicit political sectors, with activist commitments, frames, 
and institutions. 

Some white activists, and some activists of colour, are attracted to hippie and 
punk cultures. At mass actions, more people appear to be part of these cultures 
simply because circumstances demand low-maintenance grooming and sturdy 
clothing, long car trips, and living in public spaces for days on end. Interestingly, 
however, non-punk/non-hippie whites easily assimilate temporarily to the sub-
culture for logistical reasons. Radicals of color may feel less able to go unkempt 
or unclean and do not necessarily accept the logistical necessity.⁶⁹ 

Just as Free Trade Agreements fail to acknowledge corporate subsidies, white 
visions of a “free market” of cultural choices fail to acknowledge privileges and 
entitlement, claiming that a level playing fi eld for cultural diversity already exists. 
While white subcultures may be alienating to many whites, they are actually 
experienced as exclusionary and painful by people of color. Expressive culture, 
even when countercultural, can be a manifestation of power. 

⁶⁵.  Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming 
To See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies.” 1988: Wellesley Collage Center for 
Research on Women Working Paper 189.

⁶⁶.  Th e lack of accountability often includes a claim to “exceptionalism” in which white 
people argue that they are diff erent from other white people, a peculiar practice of ahistoricism 
fundamental to the construction of whiteness in American culture.

⁶⁷.  Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Refl ections on the Origin and Spread of 
Nationalism. 1991: Verso, London. 

⁶⁸.  Robert Bellah, et. al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. 
1985: University of California Press. 

⁶⁹.  Commenting on Seattle, members of Th ird Eye Movement did not accept the logistical 
limitations at all, asserting that more money should have been provided to fl y in activists of color. 



Amory Starr 146 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 147

…i’m going to stink, i’m going in there even though i’m contagious, i’m going to 
bring my barking dog, i have the right to do whatever the fuck i want and people just 
have to deal with it and i’m going to call this “cultural diversity” or “class issues” or 
“activist dogs.” meanwhile other folks around are feeling like another white guy is doing 
whatever the fuck he wants, which is [again] downright unpleasant for [us folks] who 
seem to be always subject to some white guy [cop, schoolteacher, boss, landlord...] doing 
whatever the fuck he wants at our expense even though it’s obviously no way to treat 
other human beings and we don’t know anyone in [our group] who would treat people 
that way nor would [people in our group] let people be treated that way if we had any 
infl uence over the situation, which must mean that all these other people in here think 
that what he’s doing is a perfectly fi ne way to mis/treat (inconvenience/off end) other 
people…

Individualistic rebellion against oppressive youth and class socialization feels 
precious. But this part of liberation doesn’t put people in a very good position for 
participating in more collective aspects of struggle. Cultural relativism enables all 
sorts of hierarchial, oppressive, and selfi sh (or just self-absorbed) behavior to be 
dismissed as part of cultural expression. “Culture” is really what is being done and 
how it’s being done. 

Prefigurative Cultural Politics

Activist countercultures often emphasize “prefi gurative” actions. Such 
practices embody the movement’s vision as if it were already achieved, thereby 
calling it into being. None of the diverse movements which participate in anti-
globalization can be reduced to or represented by their prefi gurative tendencies. 
Prefi guration is more of an ethic than a manifesto, meaning that those who value 
prefi guration often, but not always attempt to practice it, while also doing exten-
sive direct political work. But some who hold prefi guration dear use it as a litmus 
test when interacting with other activists. 

George Katsiafi cas describes the power of prefi gurative projects when he 
defends “identity construction” as “enacting the freedom to determine one’s con-
ditions of existence, to create new categories within which to live.” Th is is a “radi-
cally new concrete universal—a reworking of the meaning of human being” in 
response to the recognition (not only by Habermas) that the entire “life-world” 
was being “colonized.”⁷⁰ 

One of several ways that anti-globalization activists do prefi gurative poli-
tics is responsible consumption. Many activists make an eff ort to be aware of 

how much they depend on third world resources and to reduce that dependency. 
Hence some spend their leisure time re-learning how to grow and preserve food 
and to make basic items like soap, candles, and clothes. Some people have worked 
on creating alternative forms of identity and celebration (‘Look what I found in 
the dumpster!’) to go along with their attempt to take responsibility for the racist 
eff ects of fi rst world consumption. Encouraging a “subsistence perspective” in the 
Global North Maria Mies & Veronica Bennholdt-Th omsen challenge feminists 
and other activists within the Global North not to base their liberation on “loot” 
and their identity on “disgust…degradation and contempt” for peasants.⁷¹ 

Th e amelioration of race and class inequality in the Global North through 
widening the base of mass consumption relies considerably on the resources of 
the Global South. Reducing Northern consumption is certainly not a suffi  cient 
strategy for confronting globalization, but it will be part of any plan for global 
justice, the real cost of which is not the risks we take in the streets but allowing 
the peoples of the Global South to keep their resources for their own use. Even 
activists who understand that consumption politics are inadequate in themselves 
often practice responsible consumption as a spiritual and emotional commit-
ment to global justice.

Th ese practices are often quite alienating to anti-racist activists. Even though 
these activities are intensely local (unlike mass actions and international cam-
paigns), this doesn’t make them anti-racist. When anti-racist activists talk about 
“making the connections” they don’t mean fi guring out on an intellectual level 
how its eff ects are personal in some local way. What they mean is showing the 
concern with globalization by working on alleviating its immediate damage to 
people in the neighborhood. (Of course, the best neighborhood work relies heav-
ily on fi rst world global privileges—too often, and perhaps unavoidably, global 
and local activism operate at one another’s expense.) 

Prefi gurative politics don’t only make for bad anti-racist campaigns, they 
have another set of eff ects. Young anti-globalization activists’ willingness to go 
without creature comforts can be strangely intimidating to other activists who 
can’t imagine going a day without a shower or their favorite products. A set of 
familiar ways of achieving low-consumption (clothing, hairstyles, and accoutre-
ments) have appeared as signs of youth protest culture and defi ne insiders. People 
of color frequently fi nd these choices to be downright distasteful and experience 
them more as (white) culture (to which they, once again, don’t measure up), than 
as political acts. One letter to the editor in Colorlines contended: 

⁷⁰. Jürgen Habermas, “New Social Movements.” Telos 49 (1981): 33. Katsiafi cas, ibid. 
⁷¹. Veronika Bennholdt-Th omsen & Maria Mies, Th e Subsistence Perspective: Beyond the 

Globalised Economy. 1999: Zed Books, London.



Amory Starr 148 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 149
Seattle DAN folks romanticize the wholesale abandonment of mainstream 
culture. They boast of dumpster-diving and television-smashing, dream of 
self-sufficiency … But of course, dropping out of society has a different appeal 
for those who have always-already been invited to participate fully than it 
does for those whose invitation is eternally lost in the mail.⁷²

Standard organizing culture for anti-globalization activists is prefigurative par-
ticipatory democracy in a space that functions much like a squat (meaning that 
people can meet their [minimalist] daily needs there). For anti-racist organizers, 
meetings need to be controlled by familiar local activists of color in a dignified, 
tidy space to which people can feel comfortable “bringing their parents.” 

At the DNC in Los Angeles, these cultural confl icts obscured a joint con-
cern. Both activists of colour in DAN-LA and anarchists alienated from it were 
struggling for democracy against what they perceived to be a covert vanguard 
operating within DAN-LA.⁷³ If they had recognized one another as allies they 
might have also discovered many similarities between self-determination tradi-
tions in communities of color and goals and practices of anarchism.

CONCLUSION

Th is paper has distilled a number of deep issues from the apparent confl ict 
between anti-globalization and anti-racist perspectives. Th ese issues result in the 
anti-globalization movement’s anti-imperialism not being recognized to be anti-
racist. 

• Movement and activist stereotypes (including the “frames” described 
above, but also extending to issues of age) are being used as the basis 
of debates which require considerably more precision if they are to 
be constructive. 

• The anti-globalization emphasis on correct anti-imperialist analysis 
as the key to anti-racist campaigns is totally inadequate from the 
anti-racist perspective which sees anti-racism as a specific 
kind of process of local organizing. 

• The movements have, at times, severe differences in what they 
understand to be “empowering” for strangers (and how differential 
empowerment is racialized). These differences are rooted in 
whether proto-actiivsts are conceptualized as isolated individuals or 
people embedded in oppressed communities.

• The anti-globalization movement assumes (perhaps incorrectly) that 
diversity of tactics successfully provides space for ideological and 
tactical expressions of anti-racism (and any other liberatory politics) 
while the most important aspect of anti-racist organizing is safe, 
dignified, non-white-dominated organizing culture. 

• Both movements “make connections” to the “local,” but they do so 
differently. 

• The concept of cultural diversity does not effectively manage the 
conf licts between different styles, particularly when some of those 
styles are practiced in an entitled manner. 

Discussing another set of tactical issues, Massimo De Angelis provides a 
framework which may be useful for activists seeking to develop accountability 
while also respecting our diversity. Arguing that the core values and aspirations 
of the anti-globalization movement are rejection of the forced choice between the 
market and the state, instead embracing “respect, dignity, grassroots democracy 
and exercise of real power,” he urges activists to move from debates over the “ethi-
cal correctness” of particular acts to an evaluation of “whether that action was a 
responsible action in that context.” What is transformative about his framework 
is his defi nition of “responsibility”:

Responsibility is above all a relationship to the other, one that presupposes 
the belonging in a community…Irresponsibility is not a light criticism, pre-
cisely because it presupposes their inclusion in our struggle. You can be 
(ir)responsible only towards your community, not towards some outside force 
or some grand ethical concept…And if you are irresponsible towards the 
‘other’ in your community, then think twice, because the world we are fight-
ing against is based precisely on this persistent indifference to the other…

⁷².  Sage Wilson, letter to the editor, Colorlines 3.2, Summer 2000.
⁷³. At the anarchist conference held in conjunction with the DNC protests there was 

widespread portrayal of C-DAN (Contintental DAN) as “reformist” and “full of paid activists 
fl ying around the country from action to action.” [Shawn McDougal “DAN-LA, the Black Bloc, 
and Anarchism” response to David Graeber on la-anarchists@lists.tao.ca 9.4.2000, posted to 
DAN-discuss 9.12.2000.] DAN-LA activists of color interviewed during the actions for this 
project said that the organizing committee was overwhelmed by people they called “outsiders” who 
claimed to have the right to make decisions because they had so much experience. In response 
to these critiques, Elijah Saxon writes “it is true that there are individual organizers with strong 
personalities who work under the DAN banner who at times have diffi  culty sharing information or 
might be intimidating and assertive. that is a far cry from saying that DAN is controlled by a cadre 
of elitist super-organizers.” [Elijah Saxon, response to McDougal on DAN-discuss 9.12.2000]  
McDougal’s point was to portray anarchists as “stuck in an attitude of ‘tribalism’, where people fi nd 
it much easier to categorize and demonize people they don’t know than engage them…really is at 
the socio-psychological roots of nationalism” when, as it turned out, concerns about vanguardism 
both from within DAN-LA and from the anarchist conference turned out to be prescient. By the 
time of the World Economic Forum protests in February 2002, this vanguardism had turned into 
a movement coup by the so-called Pagan Cluster. 



Amory Starr 150 How Can Anti-Imperialism Not Be Anti-Racist? 151

He explains that the struggle against globalization requires both local struggles, 
where “our desires and aspirations take shape” and the increasingly global context 
of struggle, which is fundamentally the “discovery of the other.” As we become 
a global community of activists, we develop solidarity through a “creative pro-
cess of discovery, not a presumption.”⁷⁴ Hence, diversity of tactics as a policy of 
absolute tolerance is not solidarity. Solidarity requires discovering one another’s 
needs and figuring out how we can be supportive. 

In addition to the challenges and opportunities for activists explored here, 
there are several points to glean from this study of general importance to social 
movements literature. First, the persistent misnaming and mislocation of the 
problem even by activists who identify as movement insiders reveals the com-
plexity of frame mobilization within social movements. 

Second, despite the careful distinctions outlined by trainers, anti-racist dis-
course has a life of its own as a mishmash of various, sometimes contradictory, 
theories of anti-racism ranging from Black Power to anti-oppression. Activists 
and critics may create their own amalgams drawing on various trainings, reading, 
or concepts picked ideas up through activist culture. More detailed case studies 
could be revealing in how activists and organizations put theory into practice in 
“messy” ways and what this means for theorists and educators.

Th ird, the discourse of anti-racism has become hegemonic within activ-
ist circles, such that it becomes silencing. Th e absence of dialogue, dissent, and 
debate about the anti-racist critiques of the anti-globalization movement is tell-
ing—why is it not one of the issues fervently debated all over the internet by 
activists? Anti-racism is not the only critical perspective with hegemonic status 
within the anti-globalization movement. Yet other hegemonic positions (such as 
pacifi sm and reformism) do not have the silencing power that anti-racism does 
and are hotly contested. Why is its move for hegemony seemingly more eff ective? 
It would be useful to compare the process of silencing with the lively and exten-
sive dialogues regarding pacifi sm and property crime, which led within a year of 
the Seattle protests to the breakthrough development and consensual embrace of 
a new concept and movement strategy (“diversity of tactics”).

Fourth, it is interesting to note that the most vibrant,
creative, and confrontational anti-neoliberal movements in Europe are 

the anti-racist campaigns to support immigrant rights. Using concepts such as 
“no one is illegal,” “no borders,” “the world belongs to everyone,” and “everyone 

is an expert,”⁷⁵ this movement has embraced issues of structured North-South 
inequality where it hits home, at home, engaging not only the offi  cial promoters 
of free trade policies, but the psychological support for it in the racism of their 
fellow citizens. A comparative study of the European and US anti-globalization 
movements’ relationship to immigration would be an excellent addition to our 
understanding of anti-racist politics. 

⁷⁴.  Massimo de Angelis, “from movement to society” 109-124 in On Fire: Th e battle of Genoa 
and the anti-capitalist movement. 2001: One-off  Press: 118-119,124. ⁷⁵.  See http://www.no-racism.net, http://www.noborder.org, http://www.expertbase.net/ 

http://www.no-racism.net
http://www.noborder.org
http://www.expertbase.net/

	Starr