So, for example, "guilt-ridden white liberal intellectuals" was aimed at a certain school of commentary on this issue as indicated by Yoshie. I don't assume that occasional listserv posts that appear to argue their case qualifies the poster as a target of characterizations such as the above. For that, more evidence is required that exhibits a consistent trend over a body of work. Then the author is fair game.
What would I have done? Probably what Manhattans' Kleine Deutschland community (another important sector of NYCs' white immigrant working class at that time) did: barricade the approaches to their neighborhood to keep both the soldiers and the copperheads out. But none of this has anything to do (is illustrative of) a 'refusal to share'. The concept has no application because "sharing" is utterly alien to capitalist values. Moreover, working class "society" under capitalism is subject to the same compulsion to compete as is every other sector of capitalist society. The working class is not inherently "sharing" in its "internal" relations. The working class under capitalism is not the seed, embryo or model of the future post-capitalist society. It is not incipiently "socialist" - its socialization under capitalism is only necessarily objective.
It is precisely because relations between workers have the same egoistic, competitive character as the rest of capitalist society, that the devaluation of one part along racial lines drags down the whole class by intensifying competition. An injury to one really is an injury to all, as the saying goes.
>Brad Mayer wrote:
> > Apparently the notion that white workers gain from the oppression
> > of nonwhites is promoted these days by guilt-ridden white liberal
> > intellectuals rather than by open racists. Or at least these are the
> > imperial procounsuls of choice...for the historical moment.
> >
>Am not! Are too! Am not! Are too! On the other hand I was raised
>Catholic so I can entertain guilt for an eternity. But no, not of
>choice. On the third hand, rather than dissing poiny, what else
>was behind those copperhead riots? An unfounded fear? Sure. But
>wasn't there also a refusal to share? If you take this thread as
>an apology for racism, then you're missing the point. What would
>you do in that riot? Get up on a soapbox and say "Now look here,
>we're all in this together?" That strategy can only go so far.
>Methinks the charge boings back.
Although meant in irony, I appear to have met with some success today.
> > Enganing in an autonomist refusal to work by posting to this list ;-)
>Now there's a something I'll endorse!