It appears that Art agrees with me, since there would be no point in speaking of ignorance, backwardness, treachery, and reaction if one were to believe that "racism was in the interest of white workers" & that there was no material ground of class solidarity:
At 12:27 PM -0800 3/7/01, Art McGee commented on my take on reparations:
> > According to my understanding of slavery, racism, &
>> their injuries, non-black American workers are also
>> entitled to reparations for slavery and its legacy, but
>> most of them have yet to become hip to their own
>> injuries.... :-)
>
>Part of that's the same old story: the ignorance, backwardness,
>treachery, and reactionary nature of the white working-class.
I think that for white workers _not_ to be hip to their own injuries from slavery & racism is for them to ideologically buy into the racist & anti-working class abstraction called "the white working class." I'm afraid a good number of white workers have yet to extricate themselves from the boondoggle -- hence "ignorance, backwardness, treachery, & reaction" as Art puts it. Ignorance of real interests of their own class makes them traitors to the class. Well-meaning leftists who tell them that racism is in their interest are basically helping them to remain ignorant of working-class interests.
To paraphrase Art, the _nature_ of the _idea_ of "the white working class" (with its own "group interests" to be protected from black & other discriminated-against workers) _is_ ignorance, backwardness, treachery, and reaction. In contrast, the black working-class do have an objective shared interest that is anti-racist: to abolish exploitation & racial oppression.
Yoshie