On Tue, 19 May 1998, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Doug replies to me:
> >>One of the sources of the weaknesses of the working
> >>class has been and still is precisely the fact that it's been divided and
> >>stratified by race and gender.
> >
> >Maybe I've been reading too much decadent literature lately, but I have a
> >problem with a formulation like this. Doesn't it assume some kind of
> >originally "pure" working class, undivided and unstratified, that was
> >somehow busted up by some combination of conspiracy and circumstance? But
> >hasn't the working class been formed inseparably from race and gender?
> >Haven't some forms of work been defined as women's work or black work?
> >Hasn't the consciousness of white American workers been shaped for
> >centuries by race and ethnicity? Of course, we want the races and sexes to
> >see their commonalities, but it's not a matter of recovering some lost
> >unity that never was, is it?
>
> I don't posit any unity at the origin. Unity is _to be achieved_, not
> recovered. Needless to say, it has never been achieved anywhere in history.
> Moreover, as long as self-identified 'leftists' are saying things like that
> gender + race are 'surface' issues, matters of 'culture' alone, etc., we
> are _very far_ from achieving it.
>
> Yoshie
>
I'm never sure who people are describing when they refer to
self-identified leftists who would say that gender and race are surface
issues. Maybe the Sparts, but they're hardly representative of a leftist
position. I hear this argument quite frequently and am just curious as
to who would identify with it. I would certainly argue for the necessity
of an analysis of class _and_ race (as well as gender), but that's far
from arguing that any of these terms are superficial.
carol stabile>