Bawanas Comparing Mao to Hitler

[Henry C.K. Liu]

I do not have any quarels with Rob.  I generally find what he has to say reasonable and progressive.  But Rob lives in Australia where racism has a relatively more specific meaning.
As CB said, and I may add he eminently qualifies as a firsthand expert on this issue, having been a genetic victim, racism is both rampant and structural in America.  And it is a myth that racism is a thing of the past or that it does not exist in progressive or even revolutionary circles.  Racism has so thoroughly permeated American culture that constant and relentless vigilance against it is necessary.
In America, we all have the potential to be racists because everyone is bombarded daily with racist messages that pass as natural or normal.  To categoricall deny one's systemic potential for being a racist is to invite slippage of mral standards.  The denial must come from conscious acts.  Since racism is like the plague, it is not enough to go around declarin that one is not infected, it is necessary to actively disinfect the entire environemnt.
Comparing Mao to Hitler is a racist act.  Mao, for all his alleged excesses of revolutionary zeal, never targeted any one minority group for persecution.  And this observation is an obvious contribution to understanding racism and not mindless name-calling.
Racism surpasses capitalism in it repugnace as as social systems.

Henry C.K. Liu

Charles Brown wrote:


> >>> Rob Schaap <rws at comserver.canberra.edu.au> 06/07/99 02:42AM >>
>
>  Accusations of 'liar' and 'racist' never serve a purpose
> down the pub (other than to spill a little blood), and I can't see how
> they're supposed to substantiate or enhance anything here, either.
>
> (((((((((((
>
> Charles: The trouble with trying to categorize the use of the term "racist" as out of bounds or unfair in debate is that it overgenerally relieves whites of the critique of racism. White people cannot absolve themselves of racism to such a general degree as to silence people of color from criticism racism. Racism is rampant in the U.S., and what is needed is not less use of the terms "racism" and "racist" , but more. This silencing of the criticism "racist" is one of the pernicious effects of Reaganism, and the doctrine or lie of plausible denial of racism.
>
> "Racism" cannot be equated with the term "liar" as an unusable, unthinking insult, in left terminology. The criticism of racist is as important to left speech as the criticisms sexist or capitalist or imperialist. The terms  "racism" and "racist" should be rolling off left tongues like "exploitative" and "oppressive".
>
> In other words, the political rhetoric of the left has gone backwards from the 60's and 70's on these issues.
>
> Charles Brown
>
> End Racism