Foro Digest: Tired of the White Left

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Standing proudly beneath the statue of Latin American liberator, Simon Bolivar, located at the center of a Caracas plaza, World Social Forum delegate Dorothea Manuela says she feels more at home here than she does standing near the statues of dead white revolutionary men dotting parks back home in Boston.

“It’s inspiring to come here and see people from all over the world leading their own struggles,” she says. I ask her about the leadership of struggles in the United States and the beaming smile of the self-described “black woman who is ethnically Puerto Rican” disappears.

“Being here reminds me how very important it is for all of us to change the U.S. But we can’t change the U.S. unless we all deal with the white left’s racism and privilege” says the statuesque “fifty plus” Manuela. Along with members of her Boston-based Rosa Parks Coalition, Manuela and many of the World Social Forum delegation from the U.S. are delivering a strong message to the thousands attending the global gathering: We (nonwhites/people of color) can lead ourselves. Whites do not speak for all of us.

At a forum beneath a large tent on the Caracas air force base where immigrant leaders and activists from across the continent debate hemispheric migration, Christian Ramirez of the San Diego based American Friends Service Committee reminded the black, Mestizo, Indian and other participants about the kinds of barriers he faces in the progressive movement.

“None of the whites who spoke on behalf of the U.S. delegation at the opening ceremonies of the Foro remembered to mention the more than 35 million immigrants in the US,” he says. He later detailed how he and other Latinos in the U.S. are meeting with Senators and House members in order to have the voice of immigrants added to a debate led largely by liberal and conservative whites in the Beltway.

Hearing all this, and observing the impressive coalition of mostly non-white delegates, I’m reminded of how, despite all the sacrifices of Salvadoran exiles and refugees who built the most powerful solidarity movement of the 1980’s, most of the recognition for and credit for leadership of the movement was given in the U.S. – and in El Salvador -- to the Norteamericanos, many of whom married Salvadorans. Developments in Caracas seem to hint that another U.S. is possible.

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