>8. sleeper's a dick for not getting a klew about the already entrenched
>racism that has shaped the stats.
Kelley, again don't have a klew as to what you are trying to say here. That the stats should not be kept by race? Which stats? The ones on perps or victims? Or both? Never any stats by race? How then measure effects of racism? Or is it assumed that any black disadvantage is simply an artefact of black over-representation in the working class? Proof? That official racialized stats only reify racial categories and overall contribute to the very racism that they are trying to eradicate--that is, whatever contribution they make to the eradication of racism cannot be segregated from the more important contribution they make to the reification of race without which racism would be impossible?
> however, what he said in closing is worth
>considering:
Sure all the rest is worth considering (and most of the protestors whom Sleeper castigates would probably agree) but so is a rethinking of police tactics (including profiling) and freedom from civilian scrutiny (it shouldn't have just been up to Safir whether procedure was rethought after Diallo was killed and sorry impotent police watches won't suffice). Which is what people are demanding, not 'racial justice' for Diallo. This is a silly (if not vicious) caricature.
Nobody raises questions about profiling and police training and protocol because they think it's going to make much of a dent in ongoing problems of daily living as an oppressed member of society. There is outrage, concern and demands because people want to live...and they want their children to live. Yes, people are more likely to come to a violent death in the cross fire of lumpen punks, though they tend to kill each other, which doesn't make it any less of a tragedy.
But this is no reason not to make demands on above issues. Sleeper's analysis seems to be one non sequitur after another. Just like the argument that because black cops may kill black people proportionately more than white cops do there is no real problem of racism in police departments (as if black cops may not be patrolling black neighborhoods disproportionately); for Sleeper it's all discrimination in a statistically rational way. Perhaps it slipped his mind to ask black cops many of whom are 'mistakenly' killed every year by white cops in undercover work whether they agree with him. And no mention of the revelation of the corruption and racism in the LAPD? How convenient.
Or is this just one more of the problems we simply can't recognize because it gets in the way of some pale reformist vision of class politics? I have heard it from Gitlin, Alterman, and now Sleeper. It doesn't get much more persuasive through repetition, especially in the weak, illogical, insensitive form in which Sleeper presents it. Of course, if he wants to say Sharpton is a demagogue whom white liberals should feel free to criticize, fine, I agree.
i just
>fail to understand what exactly is so ridiculous about sleeper's commetns
>above as a preference for how struggle might best proceed.
Kelley, I offered criticism of a specific claim of his; you can respond to that post (written around 3:30 am Sun)--which seemed to me the most important claim of his in the present context. I did not dismiss as ridiculous the entire article different versions of which seem to be at salon (or perhaps only the updated one?), though the argument as a whole seems to me quite beside the point. There are more important things to be concernd about than police abuse. So what? It's illogical to conclude that this is not therefore a problem that must be contended with.
Yours, Rakesh