>>> cqmv at pdx.edu 08/03/01 01:33PM >>>
On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, Charles Brown wrote:
> Groups of people today who are oppressed based on racial
> categorization have no problem with you rejecting racial
> categorization, but they have no illusions that you rejecting racial
> categorization will end the police using racial profiles , for
> example. So, that when a person gets stopped by a police officer
> based on a racial profile, the person stopped would be in a weaker
> position to know what is going on and fight it if they refused to
> think in the same racial categories as the police officer. This can
> be generalized to dealing with all the forms of racist oppression.
>
I think you're missing the point here. If we really did let go of racial categorization, how could a police officer engage in racial profiling?
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CB: The police officer could do it by simply not going along with your proposal to let go of racial categorization.
The problem is among the "we" you refer to, the police officer is not going to let go of racial categorization. So, all of "us" ( we) are not going to go along with you and Doug's proposal.
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Without the social differentiation of people on the basis of race, they wouldn't know who to stop!
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CB: "They" , without any cooperation from "us" can make a social differentiation of people based on race, on their own.
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I agree that individualistic, pious calls for the oppressed groups to be "colorblind" are not going to solve anything. However, if in fact racial categories are not socially produced and sustained in a given society, prejudice and discrimination based on race is impossible.
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CB: This is correct. It is just that I don't think you quite give an accurate picture of who has the power to socially produce racial and other categories. Racially oppressed groups and their allies , such as Doug, do not have the power to stop the social production of racial categories.
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I think the same argument applies in analyzing sexual orientation too: the existence of these social categories make possible the oppression, they are the necessary precondition of the oppression.
Miles