The Confederacy

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Wed Jan 10 13:34:14 PST 2001


Chris Kromm wrote:


>
> God, what is it with the Southern-bashing on this list?

I think the following excerpt from a recent post on Pen-L illuminates this question:

*** Keynes, CW, vol 9, p. 259: "I do not mean that Russian Communism alters, or even seeks to alter, human nature, that it makes Jews less avaricious or Russians less extravagant than they were before." Doug ****

If racism can be firmly linked to the overt and unapologetic vulgarity of the "traditional" south one avoids having to analyze the depth of its permeation into the warp and woof as it were of imperialist social relations. I would understand this remark of Keynes not so much as an illustration that Keynes was a bad man (though he was) as that a serious and complex historical analysis of racism is needed. And while I'm not prepared to develop this argument at the present time, I believe the analysis of racism that goes by the heading of "White Privilege" is as superficial and as obstructive of the fight against racism as is the vulgarity of southern-bashing.

Carrol



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list