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I think part of it also is that communities of color do things every day that should be considered revolutionary. They just aren’t huge spectacles. One of the most lasting legacies of the Black Panther Party, for example, was the free breakfast programs—but that’s not flashy so it’s not what people think of. I have had to point this out to white anarchists/radicals many times, that in whatever work they’re doing, if people of color are at all a part of the equation, they’ve probably been laying the groundwork for years, or doing that exact work but maybe in subtle ways, or it’s just been totally overlooked.

I tend to be more interested in day to day work that builds strong foundations for a better world, so I’m pretty wary of getting excited over big actions that seem to be lacking roots. A lot of the things I’m hearing as small victories out of Occupy Wall Street are things that happen all the time. Like that now people are talking about the economy and the power rich people have—that ain’t new! I have those conversations with people of color I meet in the park or on the bus or wherever.

Some of the work that goes on in my city that is really amazing and powerful is behind the scenes work—gang mediation, creating black history projects, cross-border multi-lingual radical women’s theater (!!! srsly), immigrant workers organizing against their bosses without a union. None of it’s flashy, and if white people don’t notice…oh well. We’re getting our shit done anyway.

So I think what we should be asking isn’t just why aren’t people of color joining a mostly white protest movement (I mean, I think we can come up with some easy answers to start with, and then some more complicated ones), but also what work are people of color already doing? And who controls what we are collectively paying attention to, and whose interest does that serve? And how long will each type of work last, and who will it benefit? And if people of color do want to join this movement, what needs to be done for us to trust that movement?

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