I think these questions are absolutely crucial - my view is that
1) Race is not some abstract oppression, but rather a historic discourse. As a typical universal, it is an idea which has forgotten its own history - yet a close analysis shows the imposition of race (i.e. the imposition of whiteness, Blackness, etc.) to be a historical process which is not 100% successful - cracks remain.
2) 'Race' - rather more accurately in my mind, 'whiteness' - is a trace which is intimately connected with the establishment of capitalism. In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that to some extent capital (the social relation) was established through race - or, at least, race has been functional in maintaining capital for centuries. The discourse on private property in the US, and in South Africa, cannot be seperated from the complex whiteness, civilisation, progress. (In South Africa, one should really go and read the books of the Apartheid apologists of the 1960s to understand that.) Something similar can be said for gender (I've often wondered about the relationship between various gendered 'scares' and the establishment of capitalism - for instance, the 'infanticide panic' of early 18th C. Germany: there was a sudden panic about infanticide cases, involving women who worked as servants on farms, and often their mothers - what was going on, how did it relate to changes in social organisation?).
3) As such the imposition of whiteness continues to retard the re-composition of the working class. If 'class composition' is understood as the set of social relations through which 'working class' as a historical reality, rather than analytical catagory, arises, whiteness, which operates as an aspect of alienation, and links sections of the working class to capital (capital as a non-living, yet moving thing). This is abundantly clear when individualism, initiative, hard-work, personal opinions are associated with whiteness (as has historically been the case in SA) and collectivity ('mob mentality'), laziness, lack of initiative are associated with Blackness (and the largely Black working class movement in South Africa).
4) Finally, a conclusion - those in favour of 're-composition' of the working class need to study race / gender / etc. not merely as things which divide the working class and should be opposed, but also we should engage these discourses, examine their content, and examine them as traces of the establishment / suppression of social relations.
Peter P.S. Chris Wright, a frequent contributor to the aut-op-sy mailing list, has written an interesting critique of Race Traitor which touches on these topics. -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844 OpenPGP: 1024D/0517502B : DE5B 6EAA 28AC 57F7 58EF 9295 6A26 6A92 0517 502B