<<Aren't many of the debates/dialogues going back and forth recently ... really about the failure of the left to see white skin privilege as the achilles heel of the labor movement as a whole?>>
This seems to me practically axiomatic. It is devishly difficult to keep a discussion of race going on these lists. That is not necessarily only because the subscribers are mostly white (and male); the practice of the u.s. left in the last 35 years has established the basic point, but has not progressed far enough (or is not so progressing now) as to offer a basis in practice for further elaboration of thought on the question. This is also what ticked me off so at Alterman in the nation: to oppose "anti-racism" to "class struggle" in the U.S. is simply politically and intellectually suicidal. The struggle against racism must (and does) constitute the core of any working-class struggle. By the parenthetical insertion of "does" I mean to say that the absence of anti-racist struggle is a nearly infallible symptom of futility in the class struggle.
Carrol