<< one wonders where
people think anti-racist movements and concepts emerge from if not from
capitalism;
In part they do emerge from capitalism, as do all countersystemic movements in capitalist society, including socialism. I agree that the formal equality capitalism imposes on all workers is a source of anti-racism. But it is not the only source. Historically, antiracism in America was tied in the early decades of this century to Communism--through the 1940s, the CPUSA was almost the only political force not rooted in the Black community to put antiracism front and center, and Hoover was quite right that even the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s have a Commie coloration in its white components.
>which also suggests that there are real limits to how we might
conceive of racism (and how to fight it) in the first place, whether it be
the principle of equality itself, since all notions of equality presuppose
a table of comparability, a universal standard, and in the more common ways
of trying to avoid this problem still repeat that universal standard, but
relegate it to form rather than content (ie, pluralism). >>
I presume this means that we shouldn't think of antiracism in term sof equality or pluralism, because these are bourgeoius notions that presuppose a universal standard, which must be somehow bourgeois at the core. To which one can only say, fooey. The civil rights movement always saw itself as a _freedom_ movement, not an equality movement. To the extent that it advocated equality, which was considerable, that was because equality was seen as a condition of emancipation.
--Justin