>>> Gordon Fitch <gcf at panix.com> 03/18/00 12:11AM >>>
Gordon Fitch:
> So one might construct a similar argument for laws against
> racist speech. However, as with pornography, one runs into
> the problem of definition: the democratic government will
> probably be required to define not only racism but race and
> to assign individuals to races and prescribe rules for behaviors
> across racial boundaries. This would negate the possibility
> of nonracism, perhaps permanently. At the same time, there
> does not seem to be any guarantee that such a policy would
> actually reduce or inhibit racist ideas and practices, which
> can easily be concealed in codes or performed out of sight.
> Nor would it touch "objective racism", for instance the
> difference in net worth of families per racial category recently
> noted here. In fact, it could be used to obstruct public
> consciousness of such facts, as in "There ain't no racism
> here, we outlawed it."
Charles Brown:
| Definitions for tough cases is what lawyers do all the time.
| We cannot make the defintional problems the reason for not
| fighting for the substantive power to the people, as a whole
| and as individuals. That the law won't be perfect cannot be
| an excuse. All laws are imperfect, like mathematics.
**********
Gordon: If "we" are going to call the cops, we'd better know _exactly_ what we're calling them for, or they may get ideas and do a lot of things we didn't expect them to do. It's not the kind of thing I'd want to leave up to lawyers. (Of course as an anarchist I don't even want there to _be_ cops, much less call them, but I'm going along with the scenario for the moment.)
********** Charles: Why are you putting "we" in quotes ? You say "one", which is the equivalent, without quotes.
"Lawyers: is a generic term for those who write the laws. We are discussing a law here. I say "we" , because you are discussing how the law should be as much as I am.
************
What I'm trying to get at here is not the trickiness of drawing statutes but the difficulty of knowing what we're doing when we outlaw racism (or pornography) -- if indeed we're really doing anything.
It seems to me that as long as the social system is as it is, the basic theme of class conflict is going to constantly resonate in other relations and categorizations. So insofar as ethnic difference can be detected, like other differences (sex, age, region, cultural style, and so on), it is likely to pick up the fundamental beat and become another edge or term or tool of oppression. And of course this includes artificial ethnicities, such as "The White Race". But the bourgeois answer, soc-dem or soft cop variety anyway, is not to abolish these edges and terms and tools but to regulate them by incorporating them into statutes and institutions, without dealing with the class system which energizes them (of course). I don't find this to be a satisfactory solution.
************
CB: Perhaps you are new to the list. I am one of the resident Marxist and Leninists. So, every thing I am saying here about racism is from an militant and focussed anti-capitalist, working class conscious perspective. The socialist countries had laws against fascist and racist speech. I propose what I am proposing as a part of a communist workers' program.
**********
To jump over several steps -- ever read the Race Traitor stuff? The reason I ask is that it seems to me that the people connected with that appear to be headed toward the more radical idea that the racial system has to be demolished, not regulated or contained, which is what I think legal suppression suggests.
*************
CB: There is reform and there is revolution. Revolutionaries struggle for reforms in a revolutionary manner, but with demolishing the system as the ultimate goal. In other words, what I am proposing IS part of a larger plan to abolish capitalism. The struggle against racism is critical to getting the working class united to throw out capitalism.
Revolutionaries must have both legal and illegal formations and proposals.
*************
| Outlawing fascistic racist speech is not the only anti-racist
| proposal of the Left. It also, supports affirmative action,
| and all of the civil rights laws as interpreted pre- the
| Rehnquist and Reagan court. We are for returning to those
| anti-racist measures and advancing them further. So there
| should not be a problem with the obstruction you mention when
| the entire anti-racist program is broadcast.
Well, we had the entire anti-racist program and the bourgeoisie reversed it, or sold it out -- something happened to it. Doesn't this suggest that something more fundamental than prohibiting certain kinds of expression is required? The government can restrain people from doing things but it can't provide what we might call "unracism" -- the freedom to live without reference to race oppression and conflict -- because that's actually a positive, constructive process.
************
CB: Yes, we do need something more fundamental than prohibiting certain kinds of expression. "We" ( "one" ) need socialism. But it would be ultraleftist to only propose revolutionary measures.
Also, in general, I actually presume that a measure like outlawing fascistic racist speech and organization can only be won when we are close to socialist revolution. It will take a fully anti-racist conscious, i.e. revolutionary conscious working class to achieve anti-fascistic racist speech and organization laws, and such a socialist conscious working class will be pretty much ready for the rev.
CB