AN ESSAY ON THE ORIGINS OF RACISM
Mathew Forstater
Draft-Comments Welcome
I would like to argue for a synthesis of two (sets of) theories of the origins of racism. On the one hand, there are theories of the origins of race antagonism and exploitation and racism (and in this approach these two phenomena--racism and race antagonism--are carefully distinguished) that look to the origins of colonial capitalism for their basis. On the other hand are theories that investigate the role of European discourse, mythology, and ethos in the formation of racism. While certain formulations of these two approaches may be incompatible with one another, I want to argue that a rigorous and comprehensive development of a theory of the origins of racism demands a carefully constructed synthesis of the two.
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The implication is that not only is the identification a common project, but since there also exists important and convincing work on the relation of capitalism and patriarchy and capitalism and environmental destruction, that the articulation of a theory of capitalist social relations with the theory of the structure of modern discourse and science may be a crucial emancipatory project of anti-racists, feminists, and radical environmentalists, as well as Marxists, socialists and others employing a radical analysis of class. In the course of the work that this project entails, it is important to adequately incorporate both the discursive and "non-discursive" factors-and use of the term "non-discursive" should not blind us to the fact that what we are talking about are, after all, real material social relations of the capitalist mode of production. It may be that a capitalism could exist that is not racist or sexist or that doesn't destroy the environment: but we have historically never known any other than the one that has been both racist and sexist and does destroy the environment, the white racist capitalist patriarchy that has resulted in unprecedented environmental destruction. We mustn't reduce everything to class, just as we shouldn't reduce everything to race or sex or [fill in the blank]. Neither should we treat these different forms of oppression as, in Harding's words, "parallel social structures"; each has its own logic and history and their articulation has taken on different forms in different historical circumstances. We should not make the mistake of employing a dichotomous treatment of the "real world" and the "world of ideas"-ideas are real, the idea as material force. But neither should we make the mistake of disregarding real injustice and human suffering by explaining it away as all just "text." Both mistakes will be obstacles to the ultimate goals of human emancipation from all forms of oppression, exploitation, and domination, and the ending of ecological destruction.