At 01:33 AM 12/3/00 +0200, Christopher B. Hajib-Niles wrote:
>but i do! maybe that's why you ignored my question. listen, if you don't
>think it matters then try the following expirement with a friend. give
>your friend a bumper sticker that reads "end racism now!" and have him put
>it on the back of his car. you take a bumper sticker that reads "abolish
>the white race by any means necessary!" and do the same. then both of you
>should drive around--let's say downtown boston. who do you think is more
>likely to get stopped by the police? who is more likely to get their car
>firembombed by some charlestown thugs?
i answered your question. i disagree because i'm a woman and a feminist and if i followed your demands regarding another struggle that's important to me, i'd call that struggle anti-masculinism. but masculinism isn't really capturing, for me, the complexity of women's experiences of oppression. i don't think getting rid of masculinity will get rid of sexism or gendered institutions and practices.
yes, putting an "abolish the white race" bumper sticker on our cars (and an abolish masculinity bumper sticker and/or abolish capitalists, too) would mean we'd get stopped by cops, etc. but that is precisely because i think that the use of "white" or "masculinity" or "capitalists" is perceived by others as an individualizing approach--an attack on persons. i know you don't mean this, but that's what we're up against here.
in the same way, we're up against ignorant notions in general that oppression is all about individual level beliefs and actions. so, when i say something is racist or sexist, most people don't understand.
here's a story. i had a friend in grad school, R. she and i used to talk about our experiences as "outsiders" to white, upper middle class academia. she black, from well-to-do family, from historically black college; me from poor white background, went to nontrad state uni. R used to call it all racism, what she experienced. for example, the lack of cooperation among her colleagues, their extreme individualistic competitiveness, etc were, she said, about being white. but i wasn't so sure about that b/c i experienced the same, found their world alien as well. we both could turn to emerging literatures exploring what it was like to be black in white academia and to be working class in middle class academia. we both found that others said the same, experienced the same outsider on the inside, etc experience. so, was it "whiteness" or "classness" (some would have actually reduced it all to "maleness" identifying hyper-individualism and hyper-competitiveness a "male" characteristic) in academia that made for that sort of culture--a culture that labeled both of us outsiders, that marked our behavior as wrong and in need of correction, that meant that we saw things that seemed wrong to us and our backgrounds but were really normal for everyone else who had the cultural capital to negotiate grad school/academic culture.
again, i'm not making an equivalence, because there were ways in which our experiences weren't the same at all. but in some instances they were very similar and i'm having a hard time figuring out how you can call the institution of academia "white" and part of what should be destroyed when we destroy white, without also seeing how some of what is called white can be conceived of as the norms and characteristics associated with upper middle class and male.
so, when i've tried to teach people what i mean by structural racism i might use my and R's experiences like so:
their response is often, "but that's just academia." "Yes, That's Right!" i answer, "that's structural racism!" they sometimes say, "But doesn't that stink for everyone? How can it be racist if it doesn't have origins in an attempt to keep blacks out? doesn't this also keep women and poor people out? Don't these assumptions about social life harm people who aren't black?" "Yes, that's right!" "So, how is it racist?" "Because it has the effect of keeping blacks out, making them feel uncomfortable, making them drop out, get poorer grads." (sometimes i have extremely individualist students who say, "tough luck; they should buck up and get with the program and quit whining" (then i show stats on numbers in college, on attrition rates, on extremely low numbers in grad school, etc) "But it keeps others out, too, right" they ask. "Yep, see, here are the numbers on women and poor, working class whites" "So, how is it racist?" "Well, it's not just racist, but also sexist and classist" "Why call it racist then?" (and if you were talking to them, they'd say, so why be in favor of getting rid of whiteness, when there are also problems with maleness and classness (for lack of better word there)
they think for awhile. invariably someone pipes up:
"wait a minute, it's good to encourage competitiveness -- and what's wrong with individualism, anyway? are you a commie?"
:) ad nauseum.
>one can't prove these things but it seems obvious to me that the vast
>majority of everyday folks, particularly whites, don't think there is any
>thing particularly bizarre about the notion of a white race. do you really
>believe that you could make a casual comment at a dinner table with
>everyday white folk about how strange the notion of a white race is and
>have everybody around you saying, "well, that's obvious" or elaborating on
>your comment. you would more likely get stoney silence or somebody might
>ask you what you meant by that.
agree wholeheartedly. i meant that i didn't think folks here thought like typical USers about nazism. So, i guess i thought the charge at dennis for using the language he used was misplaced--looking for a perspective on the topic typic of most USers, when you know that the list is leftist and not particularly inclined to buy that bit about hitler, etc. granted his language was poorly chosen, but don't think it warranted the accusations.
btw, elswhere you characterize me as thinking you are aggressive. i don't. being aggressive is a good thing. i was suggesting that you are expecting the worst of folks here and i'm not sure that's warranted. i do know it's typical for folks to do that and, from what you've said, you feel you have good reasons to be cautious. i was pointing out my frustration at being read as hostile to your ideas when i wasn't and didn't think i'd indicated that i was.
> frankly, i am more convinced that the
> > particular brand of racialization in the US is one in which whiteness is
> > erased while others come to have race.
>
>again, i'm a bit confused. you say "frankly" as if i implied otherwise
>somewhere or as if this was not a primary concern of mine.
no, not saying you don't agree. i was just articulating what i thought in order to see what you thought about that idea.
but more than that, i think i was trying to get at why i think is problematic here: first you have to get people to see whiteness, to see how whiteness is socially constituted, etc.
justin pointed out what i've been pointing out and what i asked you earlier: racialization operates above and beyond the actions of individuals. it is embedded in our social institutions and practices. it is "objective" in that sense, and in other sense, of course.
now, the examples i typically use in class are about US sports. in this instance, i use stacking (where certain positions were thought white and others thought black) i give them stats showing how black players were historically consigned to the "non-thinking" positions, while whites were given the "thinking positions" -- at one time, these were, in baseball, for ex, positions like pitcher and catcher. i show them how what was a formerly purposeful practice based on notions of biological ability remains structurally embedded in the institution of sports, even, how it has become a form of structural race oppression when folks no longer universally agree that there is a bio basis for these skills (although there are some oinky studies that purport to show this)
however, as i expect them to, some students will point out that sports has become much more of a business and those positions aren't "thinking" positions much anymore. aha! so, who does the thinking? i ask. management! who are in management? ahhhhhh (for some). many others say, oh but that's because players don't want to be in management. and they rattle off a slew of reasons why people choose to be players, rather than managers. and they say, besides, sports is dominated by blacks, so how can you say its racist. they also say, btw, blacks are better at playing certain positions than whites; it's natural. so none of it's racist.
well, you know the rave. i have to spend a good long semester handing out studies on stacking, research undermining the "natural" hypothesis, showing films like hoop dreams, and working with research on how blacks and poor and working class whites go into sports in high school, for it seen as one of the few ways "out" of poverty, while middle and upper middle class whites can choose between many alternatives. i try to get them to ask themselves, after reading ethnographic accounts of men reflecting on why they did or didn't choose to pursue sports, why it is that middle and upper middle class whites rarely choose to become players. i also get them to see how even being poor and white means that, typically, you have many more opportunities than a black kid has.
then i talk about my son who is quite talented at baseball and b-ball. he wants very much to go into sports. i tell my students how i deal with that, share my honest feelings about what i think about my son's desires (i'm proud of him, think he's good,but not that good and i really don't want to subject him to the meat market called collegial/pro sports...) i talk about how being white, even though coming from working class bkgrd and living on working classwages, means that we are privileged in the sense that i can point my son to role models of people doing jobs that make them happy and in which they seem successful --measured by the cars they drive, of course|! :) (hey, i can only work on a few things at a time with the kid. i also confess to telling him regularly that he'll never be let onto a college team if he gets bad grades :)
now, when you say "white" this is what you mean, yes? how what others call 'white privilege" works, yes? see, for me, i didn't hear that in your discussions of why anti-white would be a better strategy than anti-racism. i suspected, and that's why i asked for some elaboration when i said, and i still believe i'm right, that it's difficult to demonstrate structural racism or white privilege without also finding that its integrally bound up with gender and class, at least.
> very few people think of the "white
> > race" as a race,
>
>i would say that white people don't of themselves as members of race
>simply because they don't have to think about race like black folks do.
>but when the topic comes up, yes, i think that most white folks think and
>talk as if they are members of a racial group. most everyday black folk,
>you can be sure, think of white people as a race.
i'm not sure about that. i really thin it's erased in their minds because they don't see how racialization requires, at its core, the creation of a normalized race but, unlike the nazi situation where there was a good deal of effort put to upholding the aryan race, what was accomplished in the US, for ex, was the erasure of whiteness. put it this way: i think that whenever you're a member of a dominant group, you can see all the differences that divide you among yourselves and tend to focus on them. much like people who identify with the left, see a myriad of subtle differences among us, but someone who isn't a lefty thinks were all the same.
i'm trying to think of ways in which i or others talk as if i'm a member of a white race. i'm sure it's there and i can't see it b/c it's so normal i haven't yet learned to see it.
>yes, this has been my point...(that the left doesn't think about the
>social const of whiteness)
well, i'm not too sure that the entirety of the left rejects the deconstruction of whiteness,(for lack of firing synapses this a.m. that might help me think of better word). at least i've spent much of my time reading and thinking and writing about the issue and run into many others who are doing similar things. i do agree with you that it's a difficult task, but i'm not sure that folks reject it out of hand.
> >
> > chris, can you see how this question is unnecessarily seeking out some
> sort
> > of argument when there is none?
>
>ok, kelly. first of all i am not seeking any arguments.
are you sure? :Þ
>second of all, i was a little frustrated because neither you or dennis
>answered my very basic question about whether oppressed goups in japan,
>etc., were members of different racial groups than their oppressors.
ahhh. well i didn't know you wanted *me* to answer that question. i know very little about japan, so i couldn't answer you. i jumped into the convo for a different reason altogether.
>but frankly, kelly, you are gonna put the heat on me for a pretty mild
>question asking for clarity after all the very obvious, very white
>shuckin' and jivin' that's been going on here by some other folks?
wasn't putting the heat on you. just trying to finesse the dynamics... i confess to not paying attn to lbo much, which is unusual for me, but i've been busy.
now! this "very white shuckin' and jivin'" from others i've not paid attention to. i may be doing it, but you know what i'd call it? academic training. :)
>yeah, that's right. i remember some of the unnecessary nastines with which
>my commentary was greeted and bolted after just a couple months on the
>list-serve. way too much ego and cult-of-brutal-critique shit and too
>little constructive discourse. very, very white. i joined the list because
>i've long been a reader and admire of lbo and thought that i would find a
>community of serious thinkers really committed to creative thought and
>principled struggle. oops. i am making a second attempt because i still
>think there are a lot of smart, well meaning people on this list-serve
>fromwhom i can learn a great deal, or so i hope.
i just recall chuckling because you were getting in folks face and they were getting nasty-- i think the list was born in a whirl of anti-identity politics frothing--and i wrote you offlist to encourage you to keep it up!
>frankly, i'm having a hard time pinning down y'alls analysis...you've said
>some interesting things but i am not at all sure what they have to do with
>a discussion about racial discourse itself.
are you referring to my use of the analogy with feminism. or my discussion of my identity as a white working class woman? or my discussion of white trash earlier?
> >
> > in sociology, we try to deal with the same phenom, by talking about
> > structural racism and individual level racism, disentangling them for the
> > purposes of analysis, but also examining them as they work in tandem,
> > though sometimes even at odds with one another.
> >
>again, the conversation has largely been about language but you write here
>as if i have not indicated several times that i have serious problems with
>this term. do you see how this could be frustrating for me?
i know you do. but you have, i thought, serious problems with *how* people typically understand race in the US--how they perceive it as an individual level problem of behavior or bad beliefs--rather than as a structurally embedded system of oppression. you are right to be concerned about how we've come to view race and racism in these ways and this stops us from coming up with political strategies and thinking through policy debates in the most constructive ways.
> > i don't think, say, my use of the concept of racialization is somehow
> > expressing my desire to evade the analysis you ask of others, nor do i
> > think it is because i am afraid of destroying whiteness.
>
>kelly, i LIKE the term racialism! i think it is a very useful term. i
>thought i made that clear. i think you are referring to my comments about
>"racism." you see how things have gotten a little screwy...
actually, i didn't know you liked it. if you said it elsewhere i missed it b/c i didn't read all of the threads.
but, more importantly, i DO think that the use of the term racialization does elide the experience of being thought a little crazy by my colleagues, etc. "Abolish Racialization" on my bumber sticker wouldn't get me firebombed, yes? so, i think the use of the term is or, at least, can be accused of avoiding the more difficult issue of coming to terms with what others class "white privilege" (sorry, i'm using short hand knowing the words are inadequate, but hoping you'll bear with me)
kelley
>chris niles
>
> >
> >