ken writes:
> [race] cannot be "unreified" short of white supremacy's destruction, which
> is its aim, but one hopes it can be transcended in the Marxist-Hegelian
> meaning.
well, it may be the case that 'race' cannot be willed away, but... here's what might work for you as an analogy: labour as it exists in/under capitalism is too a social/historical construction, a reification, if you like.. and, there have been a range of politics which have flowed from this as a fact. in australia, we have what goes by the name of labourism, which founds itself as a recognition of the distinctiveness of labour, the working class, and yet proceeds to do so as an implicit (now, at the end of the twentieth century, quite explicit) support for the sovereignty of capital. it amy well have had its progressive features in a very brief moment - but before you yanks get all teary from not having a labour party yourselves, let me say that progressive period lasted all of about fifteen years, when they were in opposition, and even then it was progressive in the sense of being a modernizing capitalist party. i think a similar thing goes for 'black nationalism' - though i wish someone who actually likes it would explain it rather than ritualistically saying it has good and bad bits... of course it has good and bad bits, doesn't everything? isn't this dialectics? isn't it also a marxist dialectics to not pretend to be able to distinguish the good bits from the bad?
> I'm aware that academic Marxists pursue some bizarre theoretical schemes.
such as?
> In
> my day of jousting with them,
was it fun? did it make you feel like a giant killer? seriously though, i'm a bit bored with this kind of positioning that people do which has fuck all to do with what is being debated/discussed...
> the worst was Eugene Genovese, who has since
> abandoned Marxism. I'll try to address that in a future thread, because I
> believe it has useful lessons for today and tomorrow.
please ken, no lessons. i'm getting heartily sick of people wanting to lecture and admonishing others for being 'unscholastic' and too academic all in the same breath... these are not contradictions that provide anyone with any dialectical movement....
> This list has several
> contributors who seem as out of touch with mass realities
gee, and you are in touch? with reality generally or just the bits you see? do you see how homophobic and sexist some of these 'black nationalist' movements have been? have you ever been subjected to the policing of 'what it means to be a real black person' in these groups? what then do you know about how this stuff works on people like rakesh? you can sit back and cite lenin's theory of imperialism all you like but this doesn't substitute for the 'experience' you claim you're asserting against 'academicism'.
> as Gene was in the
> 1970s (his tranparent purpose was to be the academic establishment's tame and
> loyal Marxist, which became the key to his soaring fame and fortune).
giant, huh? never heard of him.
> The one
> whose postings here have provoked my shock, anger, and dismay the most is
> Rakesh, whose methods of obscurantism coupled with hollow bombast are pages
> from the Genovese guidebook, which has brought us to this point.
you have shock, horror and dismay... rakesh has bombast, hollow bombast and obscurantism... i think rakesh has anger and dismay. i think you do as well. but is rakesh voided of sincere emotion and considered positions because you don't agree with him?
> In the epoch of imperialism, Marxists who are engaged in mass work generally
> follow the Leninist strategy of organizing to unify the proletariat AND
> oppressed people.
i'm not going to quibble with you about your formulas here, but i would suggest that you take another look at the division, serious divisions, that exist in 'the black community'. there are some high profile indigenous 'leaders' here who have regularly announced that gays and lesbians should be 'smothered at birth' because they threaten the 'black community'. the 'white' left says absolutely nothing about this whilst lauding them for their actions against various mining companies. is this 'practical engagement'? the only other time i've heard 'practical engagement' used is when the aust govt wants to justify its close military links with the indonesian govt.
> Avoiding involvement in the internal debates of oppressed people and their
> leaders (such as, for example, between La Raza Unida in Zavala County, Texas;
> the [Mexican nationalist] MLN in Tierra Amarilla, Colorado; and self-
> identified Chicano leaders such as Kiko Martinez) does not equal abstention
> from solidarity with their struggles, which have engaged me often.
you haven't avoided 'internal debates'. you've taken a position and denounced someone for not agreeing with you. you've played the role of cop, but in the name of what?
> In
> contrast, Rakesh's formula leaves no option for engagement except along the
> lines of pre-imperialism Marxism.
is nationalism an unequivocally progressive force today? is it even progressive in a context of 'globalisation'?
> ...actual radical insurgents.
ken, this kind of tossing is pretty foolish.
> However, the concept of community is not simply a construct to mark off the
> boundaries of oppression.
the problem with a rhetorical/political commitment to community is this: it excludes and it includes. and, when you get round to working through who it excludes, it excludes on the basis of a politics (all well and good, who would care if this is all that was happening), but it does so ostensibly through asserting a privileged link b/n politics and (in this instance) 'race', so that now - rakesh for instance - is being accused implicitly - of not being truly black because he does not have a certain politics. that this manoeuvre is being enacted mostly by 'white folk' seems like a nasty little bit of work to me.
>
> We really don't need to reinvent the experience from scratch...
is it too much to ask that rakesh's experience be taken seriously? if you can't quite bring yourself to assume sincerity on the part of those who might disagree with you, to assume that they enter these discussions with 'good faith', then maybe you should take a look at why you want to debate at all.
angela