Historical materialism is not crude economic determinism. It does not trace everything back to the bottom line. As I understand it, HM says the economy provides a structural framework that explains why causes of social phenomena, which may not be economic at all, have the effects they do. In the present context, there is a lot of psychosexual charge to racism (would you want one to marry your daughter, etc.) Winthrop Jordan is the best on this as far as I know.
But those impulses, which could go in lots of directions, gety channelled into a racialized class subordination: they are used to keep Blacks as cheap labor. Capitalists benefit if workers are divided and Blacks acn be used to threaten white workers. I don't mean that this is necessarily conscious and deliberate, though sometimes it is, but generally speaking it doesn't have to be.
It's rather than attitudes, activities, and organizatiobs that are consilient with the needs of capital are find less resistance than those that oppose such needs. In that way, functionally useful ideologies are selected for, and functionally harmful ideologiesa re selected against. Marx discusses this clearly in his treatment of anti-Rish racism among 19th century English workers.
--jks
>
>Justin:
> > I am still a historical materialist. You are a postmodern radical
> > democrat. That's a gap I don't think we will bridge. --jks
> >
>
>Perhaps, but let's try this.
>
>Without accepting as accurate your account of the particulars of my
>position,
>let us see how far apart we actually are. [I have no problem with the
>general
>description of radical democrat, although I am not so sure what post-modern
>means in that context; post-Marxist, yes; post-modernist, ?]
>
>Is there an historical materialist explanation for the racist discourse of
>sexuality which characterizes people of African descent as
>hyper-sexualized,
>with men possessing larger than life glans and women extraordinary
>genitalia?
>Is there an historical materialist explanation for the incredible
>fascination
>with the policing of racial-sexual transgression, and its macabre
>manifestation in the gruesome torture and disfigurement of African-American
>bodies in lynching? Or is there simply a functionalist account masquerading
>in the name of historical materialism, of how such racism divides the
>working
>masses? For, if it is to be a truly historical materialist account, must it
>not be able explain such phenomenon in terms of class struggle, at least --
>to use that old Althusserian phrase -- in the 'last instance'? Can you
>supply
>that explanation?
>
>Leo Casey
>United Federation of Teachers
>260 Park Avenue South
>New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
>
>Power concedes nothing without a demand.
>It never has, and it never will.
>If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
>Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
>want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
>lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
>-- Frederick Douglass --
>
>
>
>
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