<HTML><HTML>I want very much to sign this statement but, in the "usforallofus" web site, the preface to the words  quoted include, twice, a limiting phrase, which contradicts the broad invitation to signatures at the end of the web site.  It asserts, "We are white people..."  That affirmation would make it difficult to sign, with conviction, for anyone not defined as white.  It's also a challenge for those of us who are asked by US culture to accept "White or Caucasian" identity but who understand that the very concept of "white," as a racial definition, is at the root of our continuing racial crisis and divisions.  Europeans and Euroamericans claimed that shade for its relative value supremacy among color definitions, in spite of their own pinkish, yellowish and tannish hues, contrasting it deliberately with the blackness of those they enslaved.  It was a strategy to justify their oppression of others, and was reinforced by promoting cultural, legal and scientific belief in the mythological concept of "race."  As James Baldwin wrote in 1984, "It is not merely that whiteness is oppressive and false; it is that whiteness is nothing but oppressive and false." ("On Being 'White' and Other Lies," Essence Magazine.) It would be healthy for all "white" anti-racists to study carefully and discuss the recent book by Zeus Leonardo, Race, Whiteness and Education.  He builds upon David Roediger's 1992 work, Towards the Abolition of Whiteness, exploring the process of transformation and ultimately abolition of the great lie that we are forced to live as the price for the racially shaped privileges we enjoy.  Our struggle for transformation demands more from us than collective statements of principle decrying the bigotry around us. Lou Schoen Minneapolis In a message dated 12/26/09 5:16:36 PM, email@massslaveryapology.org writes: <BLOCKQUOTE CITE STYLE="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px" TYPE="CITE">Hi Friends, You might be interested in a statement from http://www.usforallofus.org. Their website says: "We long for a country that lifts all of us up, dares to care, offers love, generosity, and justice. We reject the racism that keeps us divided. We celebrate our interdependence and our capacity to love our neighbors as ourselves...The first step is to say together: "There is no room for racism in a U.S. for all of us." Their statement has been signed by 65 organizations and almost 600 individuals. </BLOCKQUOTE> </HTML>