Regarding the type of argument below - racially oppressed groups targetted as "racists" under anti-racist laws - this issue arises under the New Racism in the U.S. in the form of the doctrine of reverse discrimination. The current U.S. Supreme Court argument against affirmative action is based on the fundamental anti-racist law of the land , the 14th Amendment to the Constitution passed after the Civil War. The 14th Amendment was the basis for the legal aspects of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950's. Then , when the Reaganite Supreme Court came in, it used the same 14th Amendment to find affirmative action is illegal as reverse discrimination against whites by blacks .
In other words, the main anti-racist law was used against black people.
However, this is not an argument for not passing the 14th Amendment in the first place. All laws can be perverted by the bourgeoisie, but that doesn't mean the working class struggle does not take the form of trying to pass progressive laws, such as anti-racist laws. Similarly with anti-hate speech laws.
CB
>>> Jim heartfield <jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk> 10/15/99 08:25PM >>>
I was talking to my niece who has just started at Secondary School at age 11, and she showed me her exercise books which have an advertisement from the Commission for Racial Equality on them. Intrigued I asked her whether racism was a problem at her school. Oh yes, she said solemnly, we have had an assembly all about it. And are there many racists there, I pressed. Well she said, there is this one boy, who was singled out in the assembly. He mutters racist epithets under his breath in the classroom and shouts them at people in the playground.
Really? I said. Yes, she replied. His father is black, and left his mother - he blames black people. Maybe you would be a bit disturbed if you were in his position, I suggested. Oh, no, she said, all proper, I would not mind at all if my father was black.
My stomach turned at the thought of the headmaster lecturing his pupils about the problem of racism by singling out one mixed race child, who is plainly disturbed. But of course, this is how anti-racism works in Britain. A couple of months ago, Greenwich police inaugurated a big anti-racist initiative. Amongst the dangerous race criminals arrested a black schoolgirl who, with her friends had been bothering an elderly neighbour. Because the neighbour is of a different race (ie white) the police noted the 'crime' as a race crime. Embarrassed to be caught leading away a dangerous criminal in a school uniform, the police protested that they had decided against a dawn raid and waited till she got up.
-- Jim heartfield