>No, our argument should be that race and gender are like witches and
>phlogiston
>and angels and bigfoot and that racism and sexism are inexcusable
>behaviors and
>are obstacles to focusing on the capital-labor power relation and it's
>abolition.
If your argument is that race and gender as categories have the same status socially as "witches and phlogiston and angels and bigfoot" & should be treated as such, what's your argument for affirmative action, for instance? Should we exercise affirmative action for witches and angels as well as for women, blacks, etc., since they are all biologically meaningless categories? If so, why? If not, why not? What's your argument for reproductive rights & liberties? Should men as well as women have a say in women's decision as to whether to give birth or terminate pregnancy? Should wives get husbands' permissions before getting abortion? If so, why? If not, why not?
You rightly wrote earlier: "'group', 'class,' 'gender,' and 'race' interpenetrate in so many ways"; does _phlogiston_, however, today interpenetrate class?
It is correct to argue that racial, gender, and other oppressions are _caused socially, not biologically_; that doesn't mean, though, that it makes sense to argue that race, gender, sexuality, disability, etc. are "like witches and phlogiston and angels and bigfoot" -- you can tell that, I suppose, to whites, blacks, & others, men & women, straights & queers, able-bodied & disabled, etc. all day long, but at the end of the day nothing will change, for your argument doesn't touch the material conditions that produce such ideological categories as race and gender. To take just one example, as long as women don't have complete reproductive rights & freedoms, as long as reproductive labor is not socialized, etc., there will be a category called women.
>> There is an important difference between pre-capitalist slavery,
>> serfdom, etc. and modern capitalist slavery! Always historicize!
>
>I did! "It seems that they can't be separated from SE even though
>the forms of SE are different in antiquity, fuedalism...."
Unfortunately, you didn't, for you wrote: "Doesn't the co-production of slavery/race antedate the US by a few centuries--Slavs etc.?" Slavery in ancient Athens, etc. was not based upon race. Race was created by capitalism & modern capitalist slavery. Pre-modern peoples had no belief that humanity should be divided into such categories as "blacks," "whites," "Orientals," "Indians (= indigenous peoples of the New World)," etc., though they did have contempt for outsiders, serfs, slaves, etc., regardless of colors of those outsiders, serfs, slaves, etc.
Yoshie