>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 01/05 12:00 PM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:
>The failure to see any content
>to a concept of Black
>community seems an
>intellectual reflection of
>the politics of dividing
>the Black community. By
>this standard of unity, no
>community has ever existed.
>For that matter no person
>has ever existed given
>the contradictions within
>individuals. THE Black
>community's unity ebbs and
>flows, but the extreme that
>there is never any unity sufficient
>to designate it as a community
>is a form of nihilism.
Oh come on now - this sounds like some bourgeois objecting to the divisiveness of class analysis. Is there a white community? An American community? A community of Detroit? A world commuinity? In some banal sense these things probably exist, but what Marxist could ever endorse the use of such empty and mystifying phrases? They obscure more than they reveal, either unconsciously or consciously (in the hands of propagandists).
Doug ________
Charles: I thought I was a Marxist and I used those phrases. You know, COMMUNity, COMMUNism. :>)
I'd say the reverse of what you say about class analysis. Bourgeois class analysis seeks to aggrievate the divisions in the Black community deriving from class. Marxist class analysis of the Black community would seek to unite that community. I think you are leaving out the national liberation dimension in a Marxist analysis of the Black community. After Lenin this takes account of the contradictory progessive /backward role of the Black bourgeoisie ( who are never more than petit bourgeoisie in the larger U.S. system).
Maybe use of "people" , or "oppressed national or racial group" instead of "community" will clarify this for you. But these are "technical" terms, like "exploitation" , so it is good to have popular terms in that we want to speak to millions. "Community" is a popular term for these.
What are the specifics of your Marxist analysis of this contra above ? What are the specifics of your claim that these phrases obscure more than reveal , etc. ? I am not familiar with the critique of the concept of "community".
On the other list, Doug, you seemed skeptical that there is "the Marxist view. " Here you seem to be saying that "the Marxist view " is that the concept of community is vacuous for Marxists. Does this mean we have a part of what "the Marxist view " is , in your opinion ? Are you saying I am not a Marxist or am expressing a false idea of Marxism.
Is there a Black community ? yes. It is defined by its objective interests in ending racism and capitalism. It's objective interests are substantially the same as those of the white community, both being overwhelminingly working class. There are contradictions in these communities, but this fact is not a legitimate basis for denying the objective bases for their unity within and with each other.
On another post, how is it that the new lefties have a better approach to what they term race identity issues than the old lefties ? The current new lefties have not demonstrated this superiority over the old lefties.
Charles Brown
Detroit