>CB: You still don't understand racism. With respect to the phenomenon you
are discussing, it is the DIFFERENCE between white rates of criminality and
black rates of criminality is explained by racism, past and present. In
society , such as it is, a certain percentage of people are going to be
criminals. But the social mechanisms that create criminals impact the black
population more than the white population BECAUSE OF RACISM. Black
unemployment , poverty, homelessness, broken families, lost opportunities ,
etc. are higher because of racism. These are the root causes of criminality.<
Charles, I have a rather thorough training in social science - far too thorough not just to dismiss the importance of social conditions in explaining human behavior, but also to fall for mono-causal explanations, especially ones that ignore human agency. In plain English - the playing field in the US is far from being level, and many groups face numerous institutional obstacles in many aspects of their lives. Only an ideologically blinded conservative can deny that. But these institutional obstacles are not sufficient to explain why some people become drug dealers or junkies, whereas other - supreme court justices, or leading intellectuals or political activists. Only an ideologically blined knee-jerk liberal can deny the role of human agency in shaping our lives.
Just look at yourself - you most likely faced the same instituional obstacles as most blacks in this country, but nonetheless you became a lawyer and an intellectual - and you are not alone. Now, is it a result of a "historical accident" or "affirmative action" as Repugs maintain, or your persoanl determination not to give the power to your enemies to stop you from achieving a success? I would like to think it is the latter - or at least such is the case of the people I personally know.
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>How do YOU explain the higher rate of Black crime in the U.S. ? Certainly
not because of "Black culture" hip hop etc. That would be a symbolic
explanation. It is the racist socio-economic structure, the racist
division of labor and relations of production that cause higher Black
crime. Gangster hip hop/rap was not the only or main rap created by Black
youth. It was the white music company moguls who chose "gangster rap" to
promote. They suppressed the politically progressive and radical rap, for
they didn't want Black anger against racism to be directed against the
racist system. It was capitalist music industry decisions that polluted the
minds of millions of Black youth with "gangster rap".<
Precisely my point. I read somewhere (forgot the source) that rap was initially rejected by most black stations because it was seen as a form of bastardized fad that misrepresented black culture (I would certainly think so, just by juxtaposing rap with anyone from Bob Marley to Miles Davies - but hey, I am just an ageing hippie :). It was white stations that promoted it as a counter-cultural fad, cultural commodity sold to middle class teens.
But it is more than just hip-hop - it is the whole ghetto culture of self-destruction anad "race to the bottom" that ensnarls many poor kids who have nothing else to fall on. Just to illustrate that: my son was a part of the anti-establishment crowd in the high school - the save Mumia, graffiti, hip-hop etc. crowd - but today he is in a private college, while some of his buddies - push dope or languish in jail. He could afford 'counter-culture' - his buddies could not. You will probably say it is structural, and I agree. But I will also say that you have to have a self-preservation instinct and think to better yourself and your people, not self-destruct. It's not rocket science, it's common sense.
A broader point I want to make is that exceptionalism may be good legitimating ideology, but it is usually bad social science. The reason I compared US blacks to Poles is not to delegitimize claims for social justice, but to use comparisons to understand the nature of the underclass marginalization and the role culture plays in that process.
Just consider what the sociological classic by Thomas & Znaniecki (written ca. 1920) say about Polish peasant immigrants in Europe and the US - they faced double obstacles, systemic ineqalities of the system, and limitations imposed onthem by their own culture. Moreover, the bastardized version of their own culture was often a self-defeating, self-destructing response to institutional obstacles encountered in the new society. That fact that such subculture was rooted in unsuccesful adaptation of these imigrants to a new society does not change the basic fact that it was also self defeting , creating firther obstacles, and making the people who esposed even more worse off thatn they initially had been.
Pointing to these self-destructive mechanisms is far from "blamig the victim" or similar bullshit from liberal pop-psychology - it can help us understand the complicated nature of interaction between individuals and various social institutions.
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>Race and analysis of racism is not analysis of irrelevant symbolism.
Racism is material condition (infrastructural, not superstructural ) as
much as class oppression is. Your claim that it is "symbolism" gives you a
distorted, not clearer , understanding of race and racism in the U.S.<
I think you misread my postings. I am not saying that racism is just symbolism, I'm saying it can be both - meaningless symbolism AND material condition. The devil is how you operationalize & measure it. I've seen a lot of good studies e.g. in the segmented labor market tradition (in fact I am using them in my methods calss) demonstrating the measurable effects of race or gender on employment. But I've also seen racism being used as a bullshit expostfacto justification of "anything goes" attitude or a sham to muster support for a politician or self-appointed leader. As I said before, I've gon enough training in social science to tell one from the other.
wojtek
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