Viola Gregg Liuzzo (April 11, 1925 – March 25, 1965) was a race traitor. A white civil rights activist from the U.S. state of Michigan and mother of five, she was murdered by Ku Klux Klan members after the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama. One of the Klansmen in the car from which the shots were fired was an FBI informant, and the FBI carried out a smear campaign against Liuzzo after her death. Liuzzo’s name is one of those inscribed on a civil rights memorial in the state capital.
It looks to me as though quite a few progressive, anti-racist people have never heard the term “race traitor” (other than possibly as it is used by racists). I believe the term as I used it was actually coined by Marilyn Frye in the 80s and can be found in these articles from Amy’s site:
White Woman Feminist by Marilyn Frye, from Willful Virgin: essays in feminism (Crossing Press, 1992).
On Being White: Thinking Toward a Feminist Understanding of Race and Race Supremacy by Marilyn Frye, from The Politics of Reality: essays in feminist theory (Crossing Press, 1983).
More widely known (because Marilyn Frye, being a lesbian feminist/radical feminist, would not be as widely known as, for example, white male authors) is the race traitor movement as conceived by two white guys. Their views can be found on their website , “Race Traitor: Journal of the New Abolitionism,” and in their print journal, Race Traitor. Race Traitor’s motto is, “Treason to Whiteness is Loyalty to Humanity.”
The white race is a historically constructed social formation – historically constructed because (like royalty) it is a product of some people’s responses to historical circumstances; a social formation because it is a fact of society corresponding to no classification recognized by natural science.
The white race cuts across ethnic and class lines. It is not coextensive with that portion of the population of European descent, since many of those classified as “colored” can trace some of their ancestry to Europe, while African, Asian, or American Indian blood flows through the veins of many considered white. Nor does membership in the white race imply wealth, since there are plenty of poor whites, as well as some people of wealth and comfort who are not white.
The white race consists of those who partake of the privileges of the white skin in this society. Its most wretched members share a status higher, in certain respects, than that of the most exalted persons excluded from it, in return for which they give their support to the system that degrades them.
The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race. Until that task is accomplished, even partial reform will prove elusive, because white influence permeates every issue in U.S. society, whether domestic or foreign.
Advocating the abolition of the white race is distinct from what is called “anti-racism.” The term “racism” has come to be applied to a variety of attitudes, some of which are mutually incompatible, and has been devalued to mean little more than a tendency to dislike some people for the color of their skin. Moreover, anti-racism admits the natural existence of “races” even while opposing social distinctions among them. The abolitionists maintain, on the contrary, that people were not favored socially because they were white; rather they were defined as “white” because they were favored. Race itself is a product of social discrimination; so long as the white race exists, all movements against racism are doomed to fail.The existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender or any other interests they hold. The defection of enough of its members to make it unreliable as a determinant of behavior will set off tremors that will lead to its collapse.RACE TRAITOR aims to serve as an intellectual center for those seeking to abolish the white race. It will encourage dissent from the conformity that maintains it and popularize examples of defection from its ranks, analyze the forces that hold it together and those which promise to tear it apart. Part of its task will be to promote debate among abolitionists. When possible, it will support practical measures, guided by the principle, Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity. Dissolve the clubThe white race is a club, which enrolls certain people at birth, without their consent, and brings them up according to its rules. For the most part the members go through life accepting the benefits of membership, without thinking about the costs. When individuals question the rules, the officers are quick to remind them of all they owe to the club, and warn them of the dangers they will face if they leave it.
RACE TRAITOR aims to dissolve the club, to break it apart, to explode it. …
RACE TRAITOR exists, not to make converts, but to reach out to those who are dissatisfied with the terms of membership in the white club. Its primary intended audience will be those people commonly called whites who, in one way or another, understand whiteness to be a problem that perpetuates injustice and prevents even the well-disposed among them from joining unequivocally in the struggle for human freedom. By engaging these dissidents in a journey of discovery into whiteness and its discontents, we hope to take part, together with others, in the process of defining a new human community. We wish neither to minimize the complicity of even the most downtrodden of whites with the system of white supremacy nor to exaggerate the significance of momentary departures from white rules.
….In the original film version of ROBIN HOOD (starring Errol Flynn), the Sheriff of Nottingham says to Robin, “You speak treason.” Robin replies, “Fluently.” We hope to do the same.
From a 1993 issue of Race Traitor.
There are many more articles on the Race Traitor site. It’s also been written up on Z Net, Salon, and some other places.
There’s a book which was recently published which I intend to read, Memoir of a Race Traitor, by Mab Segrest, which is a coming together, in some ways, of Frye’s work and the work of the Race Traitor guys:
“I had become a woman haunted by the dead….” Against a backdrop of nine generations of her family’s history, Mab Segrest explores her experience as a white lesbian organizing against a virulant Far Right movement in North Carolina. Juxtoposing childhood memories with contemporary events, Segrest describes her journey into the heart of her culture, finally veering from its trajectory of violence towards hope and renewal.
“Courageous and daring, this work testifies/documents the reality that political solidarity, forged in struggle, can exist across differences.” —bell hooks
“None of this book is predictable. Mab Segrest’s book gives human faces to political behavior, and some fresh meanings to the term ‘family values.’ It’s a unique document and thoroughly fascinating.” —Adrienne Rich
“Mab Segrest’s book is extraordinary. It has enormous political power even while it tells the intimate, poignant story of a white southern girl as she discovers her lesbianism, becomes a radical activist against the murderous Klan and deals with her family’s deep conservatism in ways that instruct all of us. It is a ‘political memoir’ but its language is poetic and its tone passionate. I started it with caution and finished it with awe and pleasure.” —Howard Zinn
There is a big difference between doing anti-racism work and being a race traitor. I’m the latter. I think chaskingmoksha might be, too. I think the different approaches and perspectives around anti-racists and race traitors might be a partial reason for some (by far not all) of the acrimony around these issues.