Who pulled my bloody chain? (re: oppression and food stamps)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Maureen wrote to Brett:
>"Interesting" is a detached choice of words, as if these interchanges
>haven't occassioned reflection on your own (past or future) behavior here.
>I don't mean you personally, just mean to echo Angela's point of a few days
>ago that it's ridiculous to presume that because this is a list where
>racist and sexist discourses are not privileged that the list isn't
>pervaded by forms of racism and sexism from which any of us are immune.
>These recent interchanges bring home once again just how differently sexism
>and racism play themselves out, reflecting where/how very different kinds
>of buttons get pushed for those on the receiving ends of each.  Yes I know
>we all already know this in the abstract, but it's when these differences
>are played out in the particular, above all between voices you've come to
>know and respect and whose behavior you can't therefore easily dismiss,
>where the reality of those truisms we all know so well generate things to
>ponder more.

To me, the dynamics of lbo 'discussion' on race & racism is in part shaped
by the dearth of regular posters who are African-American.  Isn't Charles
Brown the only black man who posts here regularly?  And in this regard, the
following comment by Kelley was certainly unhelpful:
>kelley wrote:
>
>thanks for proving what a big huge dick you have, charles.  hope it's not
>like john holmes's

I'd think that black men might have second thoughts about posting on a list
where they may receive comments like the one above.

Also, isn't the way in which some react to Charles 'overdetermined' by the
fact that he's the only avowed Leninist?  Kelley complained:
>futhermore, it is not that i think charles was acting
>like  a he-man, but that he was acting like a know-it-all.  this is not the
>first time this concern has been raised.  indeed, angela referenced the
>incident of a month or so ago when charles declared that he was
>self-assured of his correctness

I don't know if 'acting like a know-it-all' is a cyber-crime that deserves
to be equated with acting like a big swinging dick, but if the main
complaint is indeed that and that only, I can think of many others who
deserve this charge, instead of Charles who, in my view, is one of the
least guilty on this score (and hardly anyone is 'innocent' of this)
because of his honesty.

Isn't it because Charles is a Leninist that some think that he's guilty of
'correctness' or believing in such?  As if anyone could write about
anything without believing in the truth or correctness or whatever of
his/her writing, however 'modestly' may a given writing be qualified with
protestations of uncertainty, scepticsim, ambiguity, ambivalence, etc.,
which are all merely rhetorical gestures.

So, supposing that anyone besides Maureen is interested in thinking about
this question, I'd argue that, besides racism & sexism, we ought to discuss
the effects of 'common-sense' post-Leninist rhetorical gestures, which
probably serve to marginalize someone like Charles.

Yoshie