Oakland highlights

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Jan 9 18:27:02 PST 1999


Carrol Cox wrote:


>If this debate between Lou and Rakesh were proceeding on Lou's marxism
>list, at
>about this point Lou would say Enough!

Well it ain't his list.


>I would like to attempt a shift in the
>focus of the debate, which probably won't work.
>
>The core defect in Rakesh's posts is their utter irrelevance to anything. He
>writes as though the existence of black nationalism was a topic of debate when
>it is a simple fact, and nothing he or I or Lou or Doug or anyone else on this
>list can say will make the slightest difference.

Let me see if I can put what I think is the essential political matter in a sentence or two. If race is a social construct, not a biological one, and a construct we'd like to destabilize or undo, then doesn't racial nationalism contribute to the reification of race? I really don't know the answer to that, which is why I'm not ready to say "enough" to the discussion itself, but only to the personal insults.

Of course nothing we say on this list about this "will make the slightest difference," but that's probably true of everything we say on this list.

Doug



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