> This discussion of the BRC is providing more heat than light, since no
> one's really reported what went on there. Does anyone know what was
> discussed and by whom, and what, if any, post-conference organizational
> plans were made?
I too wish for a good deal more information than is yet available on the Black Radical Congress, but the debate on the question of the Congress has really been over fundamental understanding of principle in respect to the concrete conditions of the U.S., now and historically. More information on the Congress, in this context, is more apt to blur than clarify those more fundamental issues, as disputants emphasize (or obscure) their positions by reference to specific details of the conference.
My argument, and I think the core argument of most who posted defending the validity of such a conference existing, was that the calling of the Congress represented, *in principle*, the route to the unification of the U.S. working class, EVEN IF THIS PARTICULAR CONGRESS TURNED OUT TO BE A COMPLETE DISASTER. Even in that case, the really serious barriers to achieving "cross-'racial'" unity of the u.s. working class were those marxists who denied the *duty* of blacks, of women, of other "marginal" working class groups, to organize themselves.
I myself see no way to *ever* organize a (marxist) working-class party in the United States unless the vast majority of white marxists/radicals come to understand AND ACCEPT unconditionally not just the right but the duty of blacks, women, etc. to organize themselves *separately* AS WELL AS to participate in the struggle to unify the class. The u.s. working class will remain *permanently* divided by race and by gender until unity across those lines is forced by efforts such as that which the BRC is attempting to generate. One could only wish that in the near future a WRC should be called.
I shall use my third post for the day to repost Charles Brown's June 23 post responding to Rakesh. That post seems to me to be the most comprehensive statement made on this issue, its only major weakness being its formatting. I hope I've kept accurate count. :)
Carrol