Muppets (was Re: BK on Identity)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>  > >>I treat nameless characters in anecdotes exchanged on e-lists as
>>  >>"muppets."  I'm not against muppets, however, if they are used well.
>>  >>
>>  >>Yoshie
>>  >
>>  >i fail to understand what it has to do with what i typed?
>>  >
>>  >kelley
>>
>>  Discussion on race & class tends to deteriorate when anecdotal
>>  muppets (my black neighbor, my black friend, etc.) appear.  Let's
>>  stick to exploitation & other structural oppressions instead as you
>>  argued yourself.
>>
>>  Yoshie
>*******
>
>What, let's understand structure without agency and if we admit 
>agency let's not
>construct structur[ation] out of a rich phenomenology of individual's
>experiences? Big tales anti-racits learning and action will do a lot more for
>our side than Marxian inspired econometrics, even though we need that too even
>if it doesn't give some the knockdown argument they dream of in 
>their quest for
>certainty.
>
>Ian

Anecdotes -- especially un-representative anecdotes -- allow you to 
grasp neither structure nor agency, much less agency rooted in 
structure.  Everyone has anecdotes -- including neo-conservatives who 
can also trot out black muppets (my black neighbor, my black friend, 
etc.) in their anecdotes.

Yoshie