Cockburn on slavery

Brett Knowlton brettk at unica-usa.com
Wed Nov 18 11:07:18 PST 1998


Niles,


>"Racial" oppression in the US is not a matter of happenstance.

I didn't mean to imply that it was.


>This nation is structurally anti-Black.

I agree.


>It is certainly true that there are a few callous ass wealthy
>or powerful Black folks out there. But this nation is a very, very long
>way from "wealthy Blacks oppressing poor whites." Are you making a
>round-a-bout argument for "reverse-racism," a silly concept built on top
>of a useless one? If you are, show me some evidence.

No, not at all. I think all the talk of reverse discrimination is crap. In fact its actively destructive since its proponents usually take the view that everyone is pretty much on an equal footing so lets base everything on merit, which completely ignores a lot of racial (and class) preferences and priviledges imbedded in the system.


>You don't like the terms "black" and "white," huh?

No, I don't.


>If you want people to be liberated from the absurdities of racial identity
and >racial discourses, then do everything you can to encourage "racial suicide"
>among whites.

This is precisely the kind of language I'd like to avoid. "Racial suicide" is a loaded term - I understand what you mean by it, but I still have a negative emotional reaction. This emotionalism is brought into the discussion by such terminology, and it distracts people from the real topics of economic exploitation and racial prejudice.

Besides, people are naturally (i.e. genetically) programmed to categorize, and skin color is a natural form of categorization. People will always be identified as either white or black (or asian or latino, etc.). So I don't want to eliminate racial identity, I merely want to eliminate oppression based on race (and of course based on anything else too). This is really the core of why I object to this kind of language - since people will probably always identify with others of the same skin color, such that there will always be a component of identity based on skin color, associating bad things with "whiteness" or "blackness" implicitly say those type of people are bad, an undercurrent which everyone picks up on at an emotional level.


>Calling "racial hatred" by its name means calling "white" folks out

I respectfully disagree.

Brett



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