Around the world and across the Canadian State a vibrant, new anti-war movement is emerging in opposition to Bush's and Blair's plan to attack Iraq. This movement is broad ranging and diverse but if it is to be able to challenge the root cause of this war mobilisation it must centrally challenge racism and imperialism.

The war mobilisation is being used to foment hatred and discrimination against people of Muslim and Arab backgrounds and other people of colour around the world. The “enemy" is characterised as people of Arab and Muslim descent, whose lives are being devalued in order to justify killing them in the impending war. On the domestic front the tightening up of border restrictions for people of colour and the mobilisation of "national security" concerns against people of colour are central aspects of the "war on terrorism." Effective anti-war organising must be solidly based on anti-racist principles and practice. These are questions that cannot be avoided.

Racism is not simply sustained by a "system" out there but also through the daily social practices many white people engage in. For people who identify as or are identified as being white, anti-racism cannot simply mean opposing racial discrimination and prejudice against "others" or doing "good deeds" for people of colour.

An anti-racist politics of responsibility must be based on white people taking responsibility for addressing the personal and broader social practices of white privilege ranging from challenging racist jokes and remarks to challenging the racist practices of the police and immigration officers.

The social making of whiteness gives those who can successfully claim to be white real social, material, psychological and political privileges over people of colour and First Nations people. These privileges are not rooted in the biology of the colour of white people's skin but in the social and historical practices of white privilege. For instance, the racial division of labour within the Canadian State has been created through racist immigration and social policies as well as through the definition of Canada as a “white” country. “White” jobs generally are paid better and are more socially privileged than the types of work reserved for people of colour and First Nations people. Furthermore, the very definition of Canada as a "white" country rests on a history of colonial violence directed against the First Nations. This is central to the making of the Canadian State and to the very self-definition of "Canadianness." An anti-racist politics of responsibility, therefore, means that white people must challenge the very understanding of "race", including most centrally the ways in which “whiteness” is constructed as the "norm" in Canadian society. A familiarity with the ways in which "race" has been socially and historically constructed will be a crucial tool in anti-racist and anti-war activism.

The editors of New Socialist are not trying to encourage white guilt since this leads to immobilisation instead of to critical consciousness and action. Rather, we point to the impossibility of being "non-racist" in a racist and white-dominated country and world. White people need to recognise how they participate in reinforcing and producing racism and white supremacy. Racism is as much about white people as it is about people of colour. As such, white people need not only to support the anti-racist struggles of people of colour and the First Nations but also to work with other white people to dismantle our own individual and collective white privilege.

This is often difficult for white activists to see, since white domination fosters the view that whiteness is the norm while "race" is taken to refer only to "others". The social making of whiteness becomes so taken-for granted and "common-sense" that it becomes hard to see "whiteness" existing at all let alone as a socially constructed identity and concept much as blackness," "brownness" and so on. It is the social making of whiteness in the centre that sets these other racialising categories in motion. Whiteness is defined against notions of blackness and each exists in a historical and social relation to each other. Importantly, this relation intersects with and is organised through relations of class, gender, sexuality, and ability as well. The struggle against "race" and racism will thus succeed only by tackling all of these relations simultaneously.

To challenge white domination and the construction of whiteness reframes the anti-racist agenda for the radical left in profound ways. In trying to deepen discussion on the left about white supremacy and fighting racism, New Socialist is initiating an ongoing discussion and debate on these crucial issues. We want to clarify how central these questions are to remaking a socialism from below that challenges all forms of exploitation and oppression in the social and historical conditions we face. In this issue, we begin the discussion with a piece by Tom Keefer on the historical connection and interdependency between the development of capitalism and white domination during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. We invite contributions from readers--from individuals and groups--in subsequent issues. We hope this discussion will be thorough and wide-ranging--so please join in!

This discussion is not only about developing a better analysis of white supremacy and racism, which is badly needed on the radical left. It is also about developing a better practice for changing the world as we build movements against war, racism, and imperialism as part of the struggle for socialism from below.