Invention of the white race

Louis Proyect lnp3 at panix.com
Thu May 28 12:10:11 PDT 1998


At 02:48 PM 5/28/98 -0400, you wrote:
>
>How can such a brilliant historical analysis be deployed in favor of a
>reactionary position? Well, the anti-affirmative action conclusion doesn't
>follow from the premises. Incidentally the US ruling class is probably
>split on AA; businesses like it, to a point, because it reduces their
>exposure to costly antidiscrimination lawsuits and improves their profile
>with the minority communities. On the other hand the Fortune 500 have not
>exactly welcomed minoritie and women into the executive suite. But I don't
>see how the qualified support some of the US ruling class has for AA bears
>on whether the left should support or oppose it.
>
>--jks

Justin, do you really agree with James's statement that, "Rather, the history of race and racism is more discontinuous that continuous, and the white/black counterposition that seems today to be the exemplar of race, did not feature prominently in the politics of race in the Northern states in the early part of the century." This does not seem "brilliant" to me. It rather seems a falsification. The Ku Klux Klan was active throughout the North, including Indiana. When I visited Portland, Oregon a couple of years ago, I discovered why there were so few blacks living in the city. During the early part of the century, the Klan took hold in the city and there is a famous picture of the Mayor in his office with a robed klansman. The Northern cities were becoming more and more polarized as Southern blacks emigrated to cities like Detroit and Chicago in search of employment. Immediately after WWI, there was a huge riot in Detroit as returned black veterans refused to accept racial attacks from white thugs peacefully. Marcus Garvey articulated the nationalist rage of northern blacks in his Back to Africa movement. He claimed 6 million adherents in 1919. Jesus fucking christ, don't people know the first thing about American history.

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)



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