rc&am wrote:
> i can smell bridges burning as i'm about to post....
Nope, no bridges built, but I'm gonna jump on you a little.
>
>
> ... the extent to which anything outside established orthodoxy
If there is any "established orthodoxy" on the u.s. left, rakesh is the one expressing it. As earlier debates, going back two or three years, on these lists showed, the position being held (variously: we don't completely agree at all) by Ken, Lou, and me is definitely a minority position. The emphasis we put on it (as perhaps my other posts to you have suggested) reflects our conviction that thee future of the american left depends on its *becoming* the "orthodox" position.
My first jump, as promised above, is in response to your use of the phrase "established orthodoxy": that is (a) a cheap trick rhetorically (b) empirically false, and (c) irrelevant -- you don't believe, do you, that a truth's being "established" untrues it????
> on anti-racism gets so gleefully jumped on as (this is the implication -
> how can anyone really doubt what is being implied...) racism itself.
No, it isn't being "implied": it is being stated. I don't give a fuck about the racism of the Klan, or even of the u.s. ruling class. I care about the racism of the working class (white and black) -- and by black racism I mean black acceptance of the ideology of white supremacy. Many blacks have their minds twisted, their effectiveness damaged, by a sort of racialism -- but that is a trivial problem, as I hope my earlier posts have at least suggested.
There will be no effective class struggle in the u.s. except in terms of large sectors of the working class being moved to fight against the oppression of black americans -- and rakesh and co. are a bigger barrier to that than is the klan.
> what the fuck
> is going on?
THe most important battle within the u.s. working class is going on. That is what the fuck is going on.What happens on this list may be empty, but the battle itself is almost the only battle really worth fighting at the present time (because all other battles -- including those against male supremacy, u.s. imperialist aggression, homophobia, etc. etc. flourish or dry up according as this battle is successfully or unsuccessfully waged.
> there have been anti-semitic statements i've seen passed
> by with very little mention,
You missed the battles over this on leninlist and on the old old marxism lists. This battle led to about 14 people being kicked off leninlist by mark jones and a number of others quitting. It even led to a split in a newly formed british communist party which was sponsoring the list.
> and some notable apologetics, there's
> even been some good old homophobia and sexism that i've seen defended
The first battle over what we might call rakesh-politics *also* involved (same sides) homophobia and sexism...this list did not start yesterday, and it has a pre-history in the old marxism lists.
>
> as if it wasn't what was happening at all; including some pretty
> machismo 'polemics' that goes largely unnoticed because it is regarded
> as somehow standard marxist fare. this on the various left/marxist
> lists i've been on.
Perhaps, but these polemics have been going on among non-marxists as well as marxists for 35 years. I decided back in 1968 that there was no better battle to lose than a battle over implicit racism within the left -- it was part of my becoming a marxist rather than, in the first instance, an expression of my marxism.
>
>
> what is really incredible though, is that none of these things gets
> discussed at length. i'm not suggesting that they necessarily should,
> but the comparison is pretty interesting.
THEY HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED AT LENGTH, DAMN IT. Just not recently. And usually they have been discussed along with this issue.
>
>
> on the contrary, when particular anti-racist strategies are critiqued
> - FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF WHAT ARE VIABLE OR EFFECTIVE ANTI-RACIST
> POLITICS - all hell breaks loose. what the fuck is going on?
There is a great deal of room for real differences about how to fight racism in the u.s. -- but not infinite room and rakesh is on the outside. Ken and I differ (I think) on the relative importance of Ted Allen. He is a crucial figure, and 90% correct, but his 10% error is I think of some importance, while Ken probably agrees more fully with him.
>
> aint it also a tad strange that those who have been most vehement in
> their defence of established orthodoxies
They are not "established" damn it. They just need to be.
> claim a special insight into
> 'what the true interests/politics of black people are
Now you are being stupid -- or at least reading badly. We all have our opinion about what anyone's politics "should be," but that is not the issue here: the issue is that for historical and absolute political reasons the politics of black people MUST BE ESTABLISHED BY BLACK PEOPLE; I'm not arguing what blacks should do (though I have my opinions, perhaps correct, perhaps not): I'm arguing that white interference at this point is disastrous. Rakesh is a fool.
> - or at least
> should be', since these statements are really so much prescription?
>
Nonsense. Re-read.
> and, i am somewhat surprised that those who usually have quite a
> critical attitude, like carrol, would now sit back and assert that the
> facticity of 'black nationalism' is akin to the facticity of
> mountains.
Given the structure of u.s. history (and considering the present as history), black nationalism does have the facticity of mountains, and it remains to be seen how the battle over *what kind of nationalism* will turn out in the black community. Rakesh is giving aid and comfort to Farrakhans etc., the mere "white-haters," by confirming their belief that whites ("white" is a political construction, and Rakesh, black in complexion is politically white) distrust of whites. He is racist in the same way that Siddarth is Zionist.
> isn't it more apt to compare this facticity with that of,
> say, capital or wage labour or femininity or masculinity or any other
> historical fact? sure, it exist, and sure, what do we actually do
> about it other than ruminate on these lists,
I've been doing all I fucking can about it for over 30 years, and at every point almost the chief brakes have come from the likes of Rakesh.
> but since when did this
> entail casting them as being off limits for critique?
I've answered this a number of times. Historical reality has determined that the critique of black nationalism must come from within the black community -- and Lou and Ken are both good (and Doug is in this instance wrong) about that word "community." Critique from outside is spitting against the wind. It exhibits the very worst features of academicism, the belief that one need only be abstractly right, have the right "belief," and all will be well.
I more or less threw away my academic "career" fighting over this issue, and I take it ill that someone 12,000 miles away should see it as mere ruminating on a list.
>
> aint it also a tad unsettling that those who are accused of 'not
> having a clue' what these 'interests' might be are themselves
> subjected to racism?
Nonsense. What are you talking about. Racism is the ideology of the oppression and exploitation of African Americans in the United States.
> what is going on here? what exactly are the
> stakes involved that such maliciousness
Wrong word. You don't know what you are talking about. Deliberation and the fruits of bitter and protracted struggle in the world. Maliciousness is an ignorant charge here.
> would be brought to bear on
> what should/could be a fairly interesting discussion and debate over
> what the most effective strategies might be? are there lives at stake
> from this email discussion such that this insistence on holding fast
> to a particular line is warranted?
If e-mail discussion has even the remotest relationship to the "real" world, then yes lives are at stake, and millions of lives around the world have been lost because of the failure of the u.s. left to confront this issue correctly.
> i doubt it. does some 'white
> folk's' self-image as anti-racist get a boost when they can imply a
> more intimate (or the correct) understanding of what is best for the
> anti-racist struggle?
It is worth noting that the three who are most adamant on this -- Ken, Lou, and I -- were all involved in actual anti-racist struggles in the 60s and 70s (and Ken in the 50s). And I need to keep pulling you back to the core here, the *only* issue on which we have been so nasty: some issues have tobe debated out *within* the black community. That is not just best for the anti-racist struggle, it is the sine qua non of even minimally effective anti-racist struggle in the u.s.
I have split before on this issue. Many of us will undoubtedly split in the future over it. It is the issue in the u.s.
The remainder of your post, by ignoring the narrowness of the point at issue, is simply irrelevant.
The aim is black and white together. The route is black separatism. (But not white separatism. We need two kinds of groups and organizations. One kind all or mostly black, the other kind black and white--and within the latter it is crucial to have black caucuses, but not white caucuses. Just as it is crucial to have female caucuses, but not male caucuses.)
Carrol
>
>
> the only possible explanation i can come up with for such crappy stuff
> is that anti-racism has become so instrumentalised within the left -
> something that some people feel accords them with a moralizing
> capacity they would not otherwise have - that it is no longer really a
> question of what the most effective anti-racist strategies might be,
> but rather how anti-racism can be mobilized in the service of various
> doctrines about the world. one of those doctrines is clearly about
> the need for icons. so: iconisation is to be protected over and above
> any serious discussion of anti-racism, because anti-racism is now
> reduced to, or made synonymous with, iconisation. now, i reckon no
> one who takes themselves seriously as a marxist would shy away from
> the ambiguities involved in anti-racism, nor indeed from the specific
> case of the problems associated with nationalism or malcolm x, but
> this to some extent has been what is happening here. i do think loius
> is a serious marxist. but i think he's being peculiarly cynical. i
> don't reckon he actually believes in malcolm x in the unequivocal way
> that you would assume from reading his defense/attack posture. but,
> he does think it - iconisation - is an important INSTRUMENT of left
> organisation - something for all those less-than-theorised masses who
> couldn't possibly understand a complex argument - they need icons and
> simple phrases or else confusion threatens. somehow, to critique the
> icons would be to put at risk the possibility of anti-racism? i doubt
> this too, since no one has really set forth a defense of 'balck
> nationalism' - whatever that is - as an effective anti-racism. all
> i've seen is an at-distance discussion about why the 'white left'
> should meet up with black nationalist movements and try to recruit
> (potential marxists) from them. and isn't the swp's malcolm x just
> such a handy instrument in this? you can forget about anti-racism
> here.
>
> rakesh may have been wrong in not emphasizing 'the break' as loius
> contends, but that does not fully explain for me why his statements
> have been met with such hostility, since as far as i can read them,
> they were critical remarks on a specific politics. if they haven't
> been sufficiently elaborated, and i for one would like to see them
> argued through a bit more so i do get an idea of the fullness of such
> a critique, it's perhaps because the discussion has instead become one
> in which rakesh feels he has to defend himself from some pretty
> vicious insults. in any case, this talk of 'breaks', where it has
> been entertained, has only been invoked as a way of refusing a
> critique of this 'earlier period' and the politics therein, which may
> well be enjoying a resurgence. i'm wondering also that it may well be
> easier for the 'white' left to pass over in silence the policing of
> the acceptable boundaries of subjectivity/politics by 'black
> nationalist' groups, to think that the only real issue at hand is
> whether or not use them as a potential site for recruiting and little
> else.
>
> looking forward to actually debating racism and strategies for dealing
> with it at some stage,
>
> } or is it not allowed?
>
> angela