>>> kelley <digloria at mindspring.com> 05/19/99 10:22AM >>>
At 09:42 AM 5/19/99 -0400, you wrote:
>What about all of those people who have an interpretation of Hitler and
Nazism as not necessarily racist, as claimed by several posters on the
Littleton thread ?
>
>Charles Brown
Kelley: charles, i swear, you are a pipsqueak. you know that i pointed out to you that the early roots of nazism/fascism were NOT racist in the sense you think, that the move toward racism was clearly a response to the need to gear up and mobilize stronger political support.
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Charles: You said it, but you were and are wrong. The "early roots of Nazism " were racist in the way I when we discussed this before. Mussolini did not have as much emphasis on racism as the Nazis, but that's not the same as not racist at all. For example, Mussolini and the Fascists attacked Ethiopia eventually. Colonialism is racist. Italian Fascism was extreme national , especially European, chauvinism. That's white supremacy.
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Kelley:
when they first started herding people into the camps, those people were GERMANS: classified as mentally insane, degenerates, communists, and hardcore criminals. and fascism as you've already admitted does NOT have to be racist. italy's fasism was not racist.
Charles: The anti-Semitic "Crystal nacht" (spelling) was before the camps.
Your list of targets differs from the famous quote: First they came for the Communists and I wasn't a Communist, so I did nothing. Then they came for the trade unionists... Then they came for me, and no one was left.
You give too much credit to the Nazis with your "degenerates" and "hardcore criminals". Your use of the term "degenerates" sounds like you agree they should be imprisoned.
Your whole approach on this and the related threads is way off in that you don't understand that the racism of fascism coexists with brutality that is not based on racism. The fact that the Nazis committed crimes that were not racist does not at all mean that they were not simultaneously committing racist crimes. By the way , the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union and eastern Europe was also racist in that they considered Slavs as racially inferior to Germans.
That the Italian Fascists had less emphasis on racism than the Nazis does not mean ,as you say, that they were "not racist". As I pointed out, the attack on Ethiopia was racist. It was white supremacy. ((((((((((((((((
nazism, a type of fascism, was indeed racist as it turned out. but it did not necessarily have to be so. the basic underlying move of fascism is to create a highly solidaristic *nationalism* by defining the nation, the people, the soil *against* some Other. that other can be anything. it easier to create an Other(s), as ange has noted, by attaching Otherness to some physical marker of identity. but as you *must* know that wasn't especially easy to do with jewish people was it? hence the need for the star of david, the id's, the inquisition about names, blood lines, the scrutiny of noses, hair color and texture.
Charles: You don't have the correct definition and analysis of fascism. Fascism is the open terrorist rule of the most reactionary, most chauvinist, most militarist sector of finance capital in the imperialist phase of capitalism. Fascism is a form of rule that capitalism took in a desparate crisis in its struggle with the rise of the working class and socialism. The racism is inherent to reaction , European chauvinism or ultra-nationalism and white supremacy. Racism is integral to capitalism and in its fascist form, the racism is in an aggravated form. Your analysis lacks reference to the class nature of fascism, its critical dimension.
The other thing is you argue as if the Nazis had a postmodern understanding of racism. Their version of what they were doing was explicitly racist. They were not ashamed to announce it to the world. This was not the era of racism as denial of racism as today.
Kelley: this is why your insistence on marking this as racist in such an ahistorical fashion scares the living daylights out of me sometimes. you are recycling something that is the *particular* result of a particular set of historical circumstances and universalizing it. we have to recognize that fascism isn't fundamentally about race as a biological, genetic, physical category but that the Other it seeks out can be defined in terms of a set of naturalized and demonized set of behaviors too.
Charles: Wrong. My analysis is MORE historically concrete than yours. I don't use an abstract "anti-Otherness" as you do.
You also misrepresent my understanding of race, as posted to the list a number of times. Race is a false biological category , as I always say. It is a true political, social and economic category , which misuses physical characterisitcs, especially skin color, hair texture and facial features. Race and racism (or white supremacy) are integral to capitalism, as a way of rationalizing colonialism and slavery, and of dividing the working class. (See about 5 of my previous posts).
Every time you "critique"my understanding of race, you ignore what I say above and foist upon "me" your strawperson above so you can remake your favorite argument above. But your argument has nothing to do with my argument.
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Kelley: racism has NOT been around forever, not the racism that we know today.
Charles: That is correct. It originates approximately simultaneously with capitalism as rationalization of colonialism and slavery by white supremacy. It eventually is specifically a false biological "theory".
There were "nationalisms" and "imperialisms" previous to the capitalist era, but they weren't based on the modern doctrine of race.
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Kelley:
what some of the people on this list have used to exemplify racism as existing throughout history is actually a fundamental fact of the human condition. defining a group, a community, a polity, a nation-state, etc is always always about defining identity against Others. it's a fucking fundamental fact of social life. that is what makes us human, among other things. and yes, it is the source of misery and, yet, is also (perversely?) the source of solidarity.
Charles: I don't agree that it is a fundamental fact of social life or the human condition. Pre-class socieities did not necessarily define "others" as inferior or "enemies". Also, it is possible to abolish racism and nationalism or "anti-otherism". If it were fundamental to social life or the human condition, it would not be possible to abolish it, but it is possible. Therefore, you are very importantly wrong on this aspect. This is related to the fact that Selfishness is not fundamental to the human condition.
Kelley: happens on this damn list all the time. you're doing it right now. i'm doing it.
Charles: Speak for yourself.
Kelley: the deal is this: we need to figure out to deal with this condition in just ways.
Charles: Pretty much.
Charles Brown