Finkelstein comments:
I’ve been at the anti-police brutality protest rallies every day. There’s a lot to say, but the most striking thing is, at least one half, and often more, of the protesters are White. (see the picture below) In my youth, only a scattering of White folks showed up at militant demonstrations in support of Blacks. It was always a bit awkward. A speaker would invariably thank the “White brothers (and sisters)” for coming. Now, no one thanks Whites for being there, not least because, significantly, they are the demonstration, while relations between Blacks and Whites in the younger generations (alas, you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people over 40 at the demonstrations) seem more at ease, normal. I suspect this has a lot to do with the disappearance of the white middle-class, the proletarianization/marginalization of White youth (no jobs, no future, four young people across ethnic lines sharing apartments, etc.). Even after curfew when arrest looms, Whites march in the streets in equal numbers with Blacks. It isn’t White liberal noblesse oblige, it isn’t even solidarity; it’s “This is OUR struggle.”
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