by Noel Ignatiev, interviewed by ¡The Blast!

About the author: Noel Ignatiev is coeditor of the quarterly periodical Race Traitor: A Journal of the New Abolitionism, PO Box 603, Cambridge, MA 021400005. ¡The Blast! is an anarchist tabloid published in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

¡The Blast!: What is a race traitor anyway?

Noel Ignatiev: A traitor to the white race is someone who is nominally classified as white, but who defies the rules of whiteness so flagrantly as to jeopardize his or her ability to draw upon the privileges of the white skin.

“Race” has meant various things in history. We use the term to mean a group that includes all social classes, in a situation where the most degraded member of a dominant group is exalted over any member of a subordinate group. That formation...