>At 10:36 AM 3/8/01 -0800, Brad Mayer wrote:
> >So Art, what is your job? Or, put another way, why are you wasting your
> >valuable time on this list?
>
>he already explained that he's engaged in anti-racist organizing and only
>rarely delurks to point out what is deeply problematic about what we
>whities say here every fucking time we open our mouths to talk about
>racism, how to fight it, etc. spending a few moments here and there to
>point out that our job is to figure out how whiteness works and to end
>racist and racializing practices on OUR part is a part time job as far as i
>could see.
Well, I had addressed myself to Art, but there's nothing to lose in assuming you can legitimately speak for him. That also is really none of my business.
First the subjective: I'm racist and sexist. We're all racist and sexist. Anyone who claims otherwise is engaged in self-deception. How else could it be in a racist, sexist society? But whose racism has _political_ import, that is the only meaningful question.
How would I feel if a feminist woman or anti-racist person of color were to call me on my views (theoretical or practical) on subjectivites I know nothing about, should I had been foolish enough to think that I had something insightful to say? Pretty stupid, I would guess.
>i'd like to know if you'd feel the same if a feminist woman stepped in to
>tell the so-called feminist men here that 1]. they'd gotten some of the
>feminist theory and practice they're complaining about wrong and 2]. that
>maybe instead of telling feminist women how to overcome sexist bigotry and
>sexist oppression they might spend more time confronting the sexism of
>their institutions within which they work, live, love, play every day.
I actually went through just such a situation here in my workplace this past month. Antagonists were: a group of white women and a black man 'with an attitude'. The black guy lost (his job, that is). The white man 'was nowhere to be found', but of course he was there in the (structural) background all the while, chuckling at the show. It was a crystal-clear example of how the structure works to produce these outcomes, subjectively and objectively.
Are we to confine ourselves to individual, or local, interventions in confronting racism and sexism? Or is there some (particular) basis for _united_ action (not 'united theorizing', which I don't pretend is possible) at some broader social level? The theoretical flipside to this is: what is the endpoint of the dominance of subjectivity in the social structure? My view is that there _is_ such an endpoint where subjectivity, if not absent, is not dominant, a social objectivity that therefore lives and acts independently of the wills (conscious or unconscious) of particular subjects. Beyond that point is the theoretical space where _anyone_, regardless of subjectivity, can address certain questions of racism, sexism and just about anything else as well. Without idealistically presupposing 'theoretical unity'. It is also the terrain of possibility of united action, limited, of course, (as it limits the questions we can address) by our differing and - most important of all - _politically unequal_ subjectivities.
Where that limit is, that's the devil in the details, of course - example below.
>something's wrong with thinking, as men, that you can tell feminist women
>how to run the show and, similarly, there's something wrong with white men
>and women doing the same to black men and women.
>kelley
Example: It's is not wrong to criticize NOW, or Jesse Jackson, or Barbara Lee, for their support for the Democratic Party, regardless of the subjectivities they represent. It's is not simply that the Democratic Party is, historically, the white racist - and, particularly white worker racist - party par excellence. A more strategic issue of principle and practice is involved here: this Party is a prime prop for an empire and system of exploitation that benefits, and in benefiting perpetuates, racism and sexism. Anything that works toward the overthrow of this empire and its system - locally, nationally or globally - I will work with - but only with this field of action. Anything that props it up, I will oppose - but again, only within that field of action.
One could go further, under the same general criterion, and question whether these organizations are "really" a legitimate expression of the subjectivities they proport to represent, regardless of one's own subjective position. The issue of _representation_ allows for that. Do these representatives help or hurt the system? Are they reformist, radical or revolutionary?
So it is easy to see that a white man like me has nothing to say about the strategy, tactics, goals or financial calculations of the reparations movement, or worry about whether it will all "backfire" or some such nonsense. And I hope it comes as no surprise if I say that _I don't care_ what those are. I am not a liberal in search of salve for my guilt (while secretly calculating the cheapest salve I can buy). I only really care if reparations cause the maximum damage to Washington's treasury - it is in this light irrelevant, even, if US (and European) workers chip in. I am only interested, only really care about bringing down this system and replacing with the appropriate form of working class rule.
-Brad Mayer Oakland, CA