>Messsage du 29/11/2000 02:55
>De : <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>A : <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Copie à :
>Objet : The Color of Money
>
> On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Christopher B. Hajib-Niles wrote:
>
> > struggle are changed, critically for the better, i think. i think we can
> > be sure that the day significant number of white radicals go from being
> > "anti-racist" to "anti-white" is the day white radicals will find the
> > allies that they always wish they had and vice-versa.
>
> We've had that since Melville, who had a whole deconstruction of whiteness
> in the latter pages of "Moby Dick". But racism, like sexism, gay-bashing
> and other social ills, isn't about classes of bodies, but bodies of class:
> who gets to appropriate, how, where and with what means.
again, i'm not talking about racism...
Even a
> relatively egalitarian society like Japan has the most ferocious racism
i don't think it is very helpful to call what happens in japan "racism" unless you believe that the victims of social discrimination in japan constitute a different race from the larger japanese population. it is important to note than the black rebellion of the 60's and 70's affected, for better and for worse, how people conceived, characterized and executed their struggles. one of the less fortunate effects is the now much more common use of the term "racism" by different repressed or oppressed parties around the world when asked to explain the whys and hows of their condition. even croats were accusing serbs or racism during the yuugoslavian war. analytical mush has a tendency to breed analytical mush, thereby undermining the development of a transformative, revolutionary consciousness.
> against specific groups of Japanese citizens, even though their ruling
> class isn't "white"
i hope that you did not get the idea that i think "white" is necessary for oppresion...
in that sense (and even tries to compensate by
> aggressively over-identifying with US culture).
yes, but i think we need to be more precise: they identity with u.s. culture as processed through filter of whiteness, which, of course, is not u.s. culture at all but the more commodified version. just as the outsiders noted above have picked up some habits from black folks (jazz, demonstration structure,etc.) the insiders have picked up some habits from white folks.
Identity-politics are
> ultimately about class politics;
anti-whiteism is not about identity politics.
which isn't to say that we can simply
> toss out identity altogether (I'd argue we need *more* identity politics,
> not less),
i would simply argue that we need identities that are not based on alienating, destructive concepts of personhood, like being white.
but just to note that the nascent global Left doesn't have
> effective ways of talking, thinking or politicking about multinational
> identity just yet.
>
and it never will as long as it clings equivocally to racial identities. racialized identities mitigate against any meaningful evolution of culture and identity because they reinforce all forms of privilige, "white" and otherwise.
chris niles
chris niles
>
>