Horowitz/Reparations for slavery

kelley kwalker2 at gte.net
Thu Mar 8 22:22:29 PST 2001


At 07:39 PM 3/8/01 -0500, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>Kelley says:
>
>>>Well-meaning leftists who tell them that racism is in their interest are
>>>basically helping them to remain ignorant of working-class interests.
>>
>>here's where you need to understand what substantive empirical theory is
>>--as opposed to normative social theory. no one here is saying anyone
>>"ought" to be racist or that the interests of a working class movement is
>>to reinscribe racism. they are doing empirical research to examine why
>>racism is so persistent.
>
>(1) Why do empirically-minded leftists not rest content with an
>empirically observable & theoretically unobjectionable proposition that a
>good number of white workers _think_ anti-racism is _not_ in their
>interest? Why refuse to make a distinction between real interests of the
>working class and ideological beliefs held by some workers?

because most people think that racism and sexism are about prejudice, bigotry and discrimination. most americans think this is wrong.

recently i had a discussion with someone about housework/the second shift. i was complaining about how the research is handled in this field. she talked about how men think it's perfectly okay to slough off the dirty work on women. i start yammering about how i was a discussant at a conference and i was chomping at the bit to nail a presenter on his claim that discordant gender relations in the home had been dealt with because in his research he found that couples resolved their second shift struggles by purchasing the labor and commodities that lightened the burden of the second shift. in turn, they divided up more equitably what was left over.

at the conference, i told her, i lambasted him for not recognizing that "discordant" gender relations had simply been shifted onto the labor market where there is a sexist and racist division of labor. you know the rave.

she replied: not me! my housekeeper gets paid quite well.

i replied: well, no, your housekeeper probably doesn't get paid quite well since i doubt s/he is paid enough to afford her or his own housekeeper is s/he?

that's institutionalized sexism and racism no? the woman i was speaking to wouldn't think of it that way at all.

she benefits because she thinks that paying someone a "decent" wage is enough without ever asking how that person she hires would ever be able to live in the same way. if that other person were able to afford the daycare and hired household help that this woman did, this same woman wouldn't be able to afford it! she benefits by imagining that the wages she pays are good wages without ever recognizing that they aren't.

that's how i'd talk to someone about structural racism and sexism.

so, then you'd ask her how we could ALL have what she thinks people ought to have: less of a burdensome second shift, affordable daycare, etc. the empirical analysis will get her to that point, as will pointing out how she manages to a live a decent life that other people simply cannot given our political economy.

kelley



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