<HTML>Justin: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">I am still a historical materialist. You are a postmodern radical democrat. That's a gap I don't think we will bridge. --jks </BLOCKQUOTE> 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 -- </HTML>