> You can't discuss racism (an ideology characterizing individuals in
> various ways and degrees) at all sensibly until you have first focused
> sharply and ambitiously on the objective condition of black people in
> the u.s., _independently_ of what anyone (black or white) "thinks" of
> blacks.
Well, gee, maybe "the objective condition of black people in the US" actually _isn't_ independent "of what anyone (black or white) 'thinks' of blacks." I believe KM himself acknowledged that ideology can be a material force in social relations. (I'll leave the question of whether such an acknowledgement leaves historical materialism indistinct from any other plausible theory of history to others.)
-- Luke