>You can see where I would agree with Yoshie that racist
>practice -- in the case of the U.S., the creation of
>Whiteness -- was the result of police and judicial action.
>However, there are also private enforcers besides the
>police -- employers, bankers, landlords, local politicians,
>godfathers, gang leaders, and people who work for them --
>who may also do the same thing for the similar reasons.
>These would produce alternative forms of racist practice
>not directly connected, necessarily, to police actions.
Bosses, bankers, landlords, etc. cannot enforce anything without the police. No police, no contract. No Leviathan, no "bellum omnium contra omnes." No Panopticon, no "Freedom, Equality, Property, & Bentham." Langston Hughes' "Ballad of the Landlord" illustrates this point beautifully:
***** Ballad of the Landlord
Landlord, landlord, My roof has sprung a leak. Don't you 'member I told you about it Way last week?
Landlord, landlord, These steps is broken down. When you come up yourself It's a wonder you don't fall down.
Ten Bucks you say I owe you? Ten Bucks you say is due? Well, that's Ten Bucks more'n I'll pay you Till you fix this house up new.
What? You gonna get eviction orders? You gonna cut off my heat? You gonna take my furniture and Throw it in the street?
Um-huh! You talking high and mighty. Talk on -- till you get through. You ain't gonna be able to say a word If I land my fist on you.
_Police! Police! Come and get this man! He's trying to ruin the government And overturn the land!_
Copper's whistle! Patrol bell! Arrest.
Precinct Station. Iron cell. Headlines in press:
MAN THREATENS LANDLORD
TENANT HELD NO BAIL
JUDGE GIVES NEGRO 90 DAYS IN COUNTY JAIL *****
And it doesn't take a Marxist to understand it. Here's J. S. Mill, _Considerations of Representative Government_:
***** Nothing but foreign force would induce a tribe of North American Indians to submit to the restraints of a regular and civilized government....Again, a people must be considered unfit for more than a limited and qualified freedom, who will not cooperate actively with the law and the public authorities, in the repression of evil-doers. A people who are more disposed to shelter a criminal than to apprehend him; who, like the Hindoos, will perjure themselves to screen the man who has robbed them, rather than take trouble or expose themselves to vindictiveness by giving evidence against him;...a people who are revolted by an execution, but not shocked at an assassination -- require that the public authorities should be armed with much sterner powers of repression than elsewhere, since the first indispensable requisites of civilized life have nothing else to rest on. *****
Yoshie