Cockburn on Slavery. Freedom !

Charles Brown CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us
Tue Nov 17 09:34:21 PST 1998


Yes, to continue below


>>> "K" <d-m-c at worldnet.att.net> 11/16 6:05 PM >>>
Charles wrote:


>Something is wrong with your theory that
>you would jump to the conclusion that
>a pro-Black position has any conflict
>with a pro-Mexican/Chicana, pro-world
>wide national liberation perspective
>against especially Gringoism.

Firstly, you keep throwing out the bait and I'm not biting.

That is, I'm not particularly interested in a game of I've got a bigger hard on for Marx than you. Smile Charles. _________

Charles: Well, I guess you are joking some here since you say smile.

On Marxism, I think of it as a theoretical discipline. Most people are like you and are not Marxists. However, I like to feature it in my discussions , because so many people not "getting a hard on for Marx" is one of the big problems with the Left and liberation politics.

In other words, I am very non-plussed by non-Marxism. _____________

As for the quoted from you above: Well Charles, why would I know? I'd think that you might want to clarify things a bit. Saying only that whites ought to become Black is to turn the whole issue into a Black/white issue, as if there is nothing else. Should Mexicanos become Black? How about Chinese? ____________

Charles: I responded to this in the abbreviated post I sent earlier. Every e-mail does not discuss everything. There is a historical basis for some focus on Black/White in the U.S. Such a focus in one part of the analysis by no way leaves out the other specific forms of white supremacy toward other oppressed national groups in the U.S. Conscious Mexicanos and Chinese understand there is no contradiction between Black liberation and Brown, Yellow and Red liberation ___________

Chinese folks can be pretty racist at times, no?

__________

Charles: I am mainly concerned about white racism.

_________

BTW, I've lost the originals, was it you that said DuBois reminded us that Blacks have two souls. Wasn't it that they had one but it was divided against itself. HE was drawing on his Hegelian/Germanic phd training, no? _________

Charles: Yes, that's right. I have taken it a few steps further than Dubois ( you know non-dogmatic approach, like I do with Marx, Engels and Lenin). There is a positive side to Black folks two souls. Yes, Dubois had that training from what I have studied of him.

___________

Accusing me being unfairly presumption by assuming that you were speaking only of Black Culture and History and not of the Culture and History of any other ethnic group/nationality, when in fact you did not speak of anything else but Black Culture and History is ummm weird. ______________

Charles: This sentence is unclear, so I can't tell what is weird. As I recall , I said something to someone else , and you commented that what I said was dangerous and uncritical. I responded to what you said demonstrating that some of the liberation theoretical basis for what I said. So how is that weird ?

_________

I don't know what your problem with the word dangerous is. Perhaps you're investing it with some meaning that I'm unaware of. _________

Charles: What did you mean by dangerous ? We probably mean the same thing. It is a well known word.

In this context, it means that what I said would cause someone some harm. What did you mean ? _________

__________

Yeah, I think if academics sit around teaching about Black Culture and History in superficial ways, that's different and much more dangerous than what you're advocating. I believe I said that already. Theirs is white guilt. Thheirs is lip service. That's dangerous. Pretending as if it doesn't exist can be a problem. No you aren't dangerous, but I don't think you won't disagree that the mix and stir approach--multiculturalism--is dangerous: it lets people think they've accomplished something when they haven't accomplished a thing. _______

Charles: I have "mixed" feelings about multiculturalism. On the one hand , it is sort left liberalism in the middle of Reaganism, and that way it's ok. But it is liberalism,. sort of warmed over melting pot theory.


>As a matter a fact, my grandfather
>told me I am at least one/sixteenth
>Indian.

But what has this to do with anything? Why is this important? _________

Charles: It lets you know that I am intimately familiar with the relationship between the Black liberation struggle and the struggle of other oppressed national groups. Your posts sort of imply that I my approach is dangerous to Mexicans Chinese and maybe indigenous Americans. My approach is long aware of all of these other struggles and the relationships among them.

_____

Charles Brown

Detroit



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