Doug Henwood wrote:
> Jordan Hayes wrote:
>
> >No, Doug, I'm saying I'm sick of Henry's casual use of the term
> >"Whites" as though there's some cohesive group called "Whites" -- >
Personalized abuse not welcome - moderator.
>
> >Or do you think it's kewl to characterize "Whites" based on the actions of
> the railroad barrons?
Yes. It was not deviant behavior. All the white workers thought it was normal practice. White society condoned it. There was no moral indignation. Such practice was not illegal. The white churches did not condemn it. The white population benefited from it. Jokes were made of it. Folklore expressions were coined from it. It became part of the culture.
> Let's not forget: the exercise of power over any group to exploit their labor
> is yucky, and it has been practiced by each and every racial group in the
> history of this planet.
>
That's mighty white of you. A line exists between exploitation and institutionalized murder.
>
> For sure, Jordan, which is why I think class is important, and why I object
> to a lot of uses of "race" as misleading substitutes for class.
Only a whiteman will say this.
> And a lot of exploitative social relationships are racialized after the fact
> - like Barbara Fields's argument that racialization followed enslavement.
What does this mean? We have nothing against blacks, its just that we needed slaves and only blacks were available?
> But it's still hard to doubt that "white" Brits see Nepalese as somehow more
> expendable than they are, or the Chinese tunnel workers in Henry's example.
> So this race-class thing is pretty damn complicated, and I think both of you
> are treating it too simply.
Tell it to the dead Napalese Gurkhas. There is nothing complicated about race. You look at a person's physical characteristics and you categorize and behave accordingly. The rest is intellectual rationalization. If a white person targets nonwhites for abuse, but he also abuses his own white wife, does that make it complicated to judge whether he is a racist?
Henry C.K. Liu