Leftists (white) and Black Liberation, was Re: Civil Rights

Hakki Alacakaptan nucleus at superonline.com
Tue Nov 6 09:03:50 PST 2001


|| -----Original Message-----

|| From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com

|| [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Nathan Newman

|| ----- Original Message -----

|| From: "Hakki Alacakaptan" <nucleus at superonline.com>

||

|| >I buy Art's story that blacks feel like the rest of the worlds'

|| dispossessed

|| >about S11, which can't be said about any other group. As

|| blacks seem to be

|| >the only radical force left at a time when the US is in danger

|| of turning

|| >fascist - for real, this time - is anyone in the left doing anything to

|| >awaken the political consciousness that is buried under their

|| nihilistic

|| >hatred?

||

|| Respectfully, there are so many wrong-headed things packed into that

|| paragraph, from the homogenization of blacks into a monolithic "force"

|| (undivided by class or gender), the assumption that other people need to

|| "awaken" their consciousness (when it's pretty clear folks know what's

|| wrong, if not as clear what to do about it), the stereotype of

|| "nihilistic"

|| hatred (as opposed to a quite wide range of approaches to being pissed

|| off), and the idea that no other group in the US (say Arab Americans for

|| example and even some poor whites) has any identify with the world's

|| dispossed against global corporate power.

As I said at the outset, what I say about race in the US may very well be heavily infected with foot-in-mouth. I'm no expert. But the depth and duration of blacks' grievances - an of course I mean "bad" blacks, those who didn't "be all that they could be" (intended) - surely puts them apart as a radical force. I just wanted to express my puzzlement that this whole question is never mentioned like it's a shameful family secret or something.

||

|| And describing the US turning towards fascism (without going

|| into another

|| LBO round of definitions) in the present circumstances is

|| pushing the term

|| pretty hard.

I know what I'm talking about there, Nathan. We can discuss definitions till hell freezes over but as a working concept, fascism fits the current social syndrome.

Hakki



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