>Charles: No, it is you who keep attributing to me the idea that race IS a
valid biological category; or else why do you keep telling me that it is
socially constructed ?
i'm afraid that i'm not saying and have never said that this is your position. i include a gesture in that direction whenever i type about race issues b/c some folks still haven't heard of the concept. there is an audience for these discussions. it is a way of deflecting the inevitable sniping from those looking for a place to latch on so they can hone the weapon of their choice. i know where you stand and am not painting you as saying anything different. indeed, in my initial response to doug, i typed:
"exactly where in either of my posts to charles did i say that ethnicities exist in nature? that's precisely what i was arguing against. i know charles doesn't agree with this either." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(trans: chas doesn't agree w/ naturalizing race)
when i brought up the issue recently it was also to point out that it is quite possible for a fascist regime to Other a group not 'typically' considered a race, that's the only reason i did so. i do so, again, because i think we need to be careful not to reduce the form of "racism" it might take to specific kinds of racism built around *naturalized* bio/phys/genetic characteristics. and i'm especially troubled by the tendency to reduce racism to the US history of this word, where race always seems to mean blacks and racism always seems to be about the oppression and superexploitation of blacks. i think this is dangerous. the racial composition of this country is shifting quickly with more and more people of mixed ethnic heritage. racialization will need to reconfigure itself under those circumstances
>The unique character of fascistic racism is the degree of terrorism and
genocidalism
well call me a dim bulb but how do you explain the existence of genocide and terrorism in non-capitalist countries. the slaughter of jews in the soviet union under stalin? the slaughter of over a million under pol pot/khmer rouge? the missing girl babies in china? indigenous people in the americas? Peru? etc
see, this is what i just don't get about the capitalism>>fascism as degenerate form of capitalism>>necessarily entails racism
not only is it simply wrong, historically (italy is a case in point.), it is dangerous because, by focusing simply on race=black/white, such a claim keeps from attending to potentially new forms of racialization/marking that might be going on.
furthermore, your explanation for the question "why do fascist regimes emerge" should also entail an explanation for your claim that fascist regimes are necessarily violently racist and genocidal. do you have one? i only ever read you as simply asserting. i never read an explanation backing your claim.
>What is the difference between racializing Jews and racializing Blacks, if
all race is >racializing groups that aren't really races ? What does it
matter that "we" still >consider Blacks a race today, but don't consider
Jews a race ?
of course it matters because it's an example that quickly demonstrates that race is a shifting category. just as its useful to show how there were ostensibly 6 races a century ago or that poor whites were once racialized and the target of eugenics. some of my students still call men and women two different races. dunno, maybe they've been reading men are from mars, women are from venus.
finally, i related that story of my more than intellectual investment so that you would understand where i'm coming from, in terms of personal intellectual history in particular. you seem to think i pull stuff out of my hat. i hardly consider myself jewish. being jewish is about a lot more than blood. your assumption that this is what i meant is telling. i can't be jewish, in my mind, because i never experienced the bigotry, was never socialized with a consciousness of the horrors of the holocaust as intimately assoc w/ my identity, never experienced discrimination or ethnic slurs, nor did i experience what is, for some, the solidaristic bonding associated with a shared identity. the only thing i ever exp'd was people asking me if i were jewish b/c of my last name and telling me i looked like a polish jew, but that never seemed to be negative mostly b/c, at the time, i didn't think so at all. the story was more about the fact that a relative of mine would be so scared that he'd hide his identity--not unlike the way in which some light skinned blacks tried to pass to take advantage of white skin privilege. that piece of info is relatively new for me and has only served to heighten my interest in this topic that was already crystallizing when i was a teenager, and that was an interest that was sparked mostly coz i had jewish friends and saw them ridiculed and stereotyped mercilessly by others.
kelley
kelley