For once I have major disagreements with Rakesh and I rather feel invigorated by that!
(1) I think that the problems of whiteness and class are both real and _mutually reinforcing_, not the matter of either or. If we had a working class unsegmented, unsegregated, + unhierarchized by race in the USA today, what you said would be correct: 'the real problem is not whiteness but class.' But that's not the case here, historically and in the present. As you noted in another post:
'Where I do agree with Charles though is the primary responsibility of non black racism; it's that which ultimately makes blacks turn only to themselves, which then leads to nihilism or reformism. I think that racism is very virulent. Indeed, I am surprised how easily racism can electrify a population simply by a official flicking the switch on by supporting some racist proposition or making some obsence comment--Pete Wilson: welfare reform means one six pack less a week for those single mothers.'
In fact, it shouldn't be at all surprising to us that racism can 'electrify a population,' always pushing enough whites into supporting not simply anti-black but also _anti-working class_ positions. ('Welfare reform' illustrates this problem of whiteness _for white workers_ very well.) Whiteness is not merely white folks' (often unacknowledged) racial consciousness; it's a means by which the ruling class organizes _consent_ of whites to not only subordination of other races but to intensification of _their own exploitation_. The same can be said about sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. Whiteness fosters cross-class identification and solidarity of whites, thus undermining the development of class consciousness for whites. Without conscious anti-racism, white workers can probably only develop job consciousness ('this is _my job_ and I fight for it as _my property_') and trade union consciousness ('my union protects my job'). (And even at the level of trade union consciousness, whites are very much behind blacks, as has been empirically demonstrated.) It is very unlikely that the interlocking problems of whiteness and lack of class consciousness get resolved without strong black left _organizations_. A minority presence of _individual (unorganized)_ black leftists within predominantly white organizations just wouldn't do.
(2) Would the presence of whites or the lack thereof at the Black Radical Congress have made any difference AT ALL as to whether the BRC would be reformist or revolutionary? I doubt it. A conference is merely one short moment for the lives of the BRC participants, who must interact with whites in any other context, mostly from the position of relative weakness. Whether the BRC participants feel they are 'only an isolated minority' whose only hope is begging for more state interventions and social reforms depends on the overall ideological climate of the entire country, which cannot be changed by the participation of some white leftists at the BRC alone.
(3) Imagine for a moment that the conference had been organized with an appeal for a multi-racial unity. The conference most probably would have been _dominated_ by white leftists, who might or might not be against 'Stalinism, social democracy, the Dems, etc.,' as you would like. Some of the whites who would show up at the conference might not have anything constructive to say about anti-racism and working-class unity beyond dismissing questions of race, gender, etc. as merely matters of 'identity politics,' 'cultural politics,' etc. And such behavior, _even_ coming from only a tiny minority of white leftists, would surely distract many black participants from doing anything other than responding to such comments + going over the basics of race & class being interlocking oppressions, etc. And arguing with left conservative whites over the relative importance (or lack thereof) of anti-racism to working-class unity, to the exclusion or subordination of any other discussion, would have been debilitating indeed, especially for black revolutionaries like Adolph Reed, Jr. whom we would like to support. This is of course the worst case scenario, which doesn't always have to be the case, but such things indeed happen, as can be seen on this list, whenever questions of race, gender, sexuality, etc. come up.
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