the "neanderthals" in the black community ARE our messes. to suggest that they are the sole property of blacks and to expect them to have a plan when they are daily struggling to survive under conditions of racist oppression .... it just boggles my mind! and it doesn't just boggle my mind that somehow these folk are supposed to be assigned to certain groups to deal with. it also boggles my mind that dealing with them even matters. we aren't going to educate them out of their 'neanderthalism'? it's not a problem of 'bad thinking'. it's a problem of social structure: institutions, practices, norms, ideologies, etc.
you started out this conversation on a very bad foot: you wagged your finger at everyone and told us that we were all racist because no one ever discussed racism. you set yourself up as superior. then you went on to take the position of interrogator. "How do you think we're doing on the racism issue, Charles?" (to paraphrase)
huh? His and other black people's job is to give us a report card and tell us where we are going right and wrong? I dont think so.
WE are perfectly capable of knowing whether we are doing well or not and i doubt there is one white person on this list that thinks that we do ok in the antiracism department, whether on this list or in as a nation.
> since whites are the ones benefiting from racism, and always
>have been, we're the ones that bear the responsibility to do something
>about it. do you expect black FBI officers to infiltrated KKK meetings? how
>about some black CIA guys checking out the russian mafia? sure i'm
>stretching a point. shrub is 100 percent white america; your fellow yalie.
>he and his pals are our doo doo and we need to clean it up. you expect the
>blacks to do it for us?
>
>since this is purportedly a discussion of racism, i put the matter in racial
>terms. is this something you've never heard before?
well, I certainly have never heard that "neanderthals" in the black community are a problem that can be assigned to blacks and blacks alone. they are a product of a capitalist society that operates in and through interlinking systems of oppression. Thus, they are _our_ problem. But our job isn't to educate the Clarence Thomases of the world. It's to change the conditions in which Clarence Thomas thrives. That doesn't mean we have to wait for revolution. Rather, it means we have to create and constantly widen the spaces within which alternative ways of understanding and dealing with capitalist society are cultivated and flourish. It is those spaces that will give birth to that revolution and they will be the institutions and practices upon which we erect a non-racist, socialist future, together.
it's a false dichotomy. it's not either whites take care of them or blacks take care of them. It's about the quality of an analysis as to why they exist in the first place.
I'm absolutely certain you know all this and are just having a hard time articulating it. I hope this helps.
Kelley
>you keep doing your bit, a white guy policing the white economic power
>elite. you're very good at it.
>
>R
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
>Sent: Monday, June 28, 2004 7:34 PM
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Comment on F-9/11
>
>
>: R wrote:
>:
>: >these names aren't my rogues gallery. they're the black community's
>rogues
>: >gallery. they are the black community's ronald reagans, jesse helms,
>strom
>: >thurmonds, madelline albrights, et al. perhaps, all the analysis that's
>: >necessary has been written. since us white folks have to deal with our
>: >neaderthals, what's the plan in the black community to deal with yours?
>:
>: Why the fuck is it their racial duty? Am I supposed to do my bit for
>: the downfall of W as a white guy policing my race? That's nutty.
>:
>: Doug
>: ___________________________________
>: http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>:
>
>
>___________________________________
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"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'