From: "R" <rhisiart at charter.net> "
:
: are the white folks
: moving fast enough for you, and in the right direction?
:
: ^^^^
: CB: No, and starting with Reaganism, they started moving backward from
where
: they had got through the civil rights movement success, et seq.
:
since the white folks benefit from racism, charles, i doubt you're going to see the mass of whites move to eradicate racism in the near future. while you're waiting on us, what do you plan to do?
^^^^^ CB: Eradication of racism _is_ white people acting differently, in the main. All I can to about racism is try to get white people to change. My plan for a number of years has been to try to get white people to change. So, for example, I am on this list to try to get white people here to change. So, this thread is part of my plan as to what to do about racism. I'm glad you started this thread, as it helps me carry out my plan.
^^^^^
: ^^^^
:
: i'd say our record hasn't been so good since the neodixiecrat carter
: administration. that's going on thirty years. remember how jesus ... i
mean
: "jimmy" carter's church didn't allow black members? (that rabbit who
chased
: him had the right idea.) what i've been seeing these past 30 years
reminds
: me so much of a latter day replay of Reconstruction, with a few new
twists.
:
: ^^^^
:
: CB: Yes, there is a certain spiral of history effect, seemingly.
how you react to this? as an intellectualized abstract "spiral of history"? or as a more serious problem?
^^^^^ CB: The comparison to Reconstruction is already an intellectualized , abstraction and observation, so my reaction to it reflects what it is. I'm not sure what about the current era that is similar to the previous historical period of Reconstruction helps us in doing something about it. Do you have some thought on how the comparison to Reconstruction helps our current practice against racism, since you made the comparison ?...
...again , with an emphasis on what _white_ people can do to eradicate themselves of their racism...
:
: ^^^
: CB: Sure, there is a certain "knot" of reciprocal determinations here
where
: self-help for Black people is very necessary, however, fundamentally,
: anti-Black (colored people in general) racism is the priority problem to
be
: solved.
i'd agree to a degree. how far do you think you'll get convincing whites in general -- since it's the white race that benefits -- of your position? maybe that's a rhetorical question. are you counting on whites to do the convincing?
^^^^^ CB: Yes. White leftists, like you. Don't you think white people are more likely to listen to white people than Black people on this ?
^^^^
we find it just as difficult convincing our neaderthals as you'd find it hard to convince condi rice or clarence thomas that they should change their ways.
^^^^ CB: Rice and Thomas have basically become official white people. As individuals with great power, they perpetrate more racism than most white people. Rice, Thomas, Powell are basically lost. Black people in general can't and don't have a need to do anything about them. Black people have no special responsibility or ability to do anything about these monstrosities.
^^^^^
overall, my point is that as the whites have been moving backward, so have the blacks. that's my greatest concern. that's what i mean when i raise the issue of a parallel with the destruction of the progressive era. you appear to be looking toward the white community. i believe both black and white communities have our work cut out for us. and we'd better come up with some approaches.
^^^^ CB: Yes, there is a certain tie between Black and white such that Black people do not have the power or inclination to deviate from the general direction of "America" . Black people are Americans. I'd say a main right wing elements in the Black community that must be addressed are not so much the Rices and Powells, but the gangster rappers culture, which is very fundamentally capitalist in ideology, and corrupts youth :>). Otherwise, the political issues that must be addressed in the Black community are similar to those in the white community. Unemployment, poverty, trade union diminution, war, male supremacy, philosophical idealism, etc.
: CB: Yes, I see what you mean. It is a very difficult riddle to solve,
: getting white people to see through these illusions. It is especially
: difficult when the racism is the main weapon of the capitalist ruling
class
: against the working class, and therefore all the main institutions of
: indoctrination still inculcate it in mass, white thinking.
it's difficult, indeed. you're expecting whites -- the people who benefit from racism -- to see through their illusions? illusions that are now being supported by the names on my laundry list of reprobates above. it appears that blacks have joined the "capitalist ruling class," at least in their dreams. that makes the concept of using race rather ironic, wouldn't you say?
^^^^^^ CB: This issue of whites benefitting from racism has been discussed here before. Doug and others have introduced some empirical analyses of the issue, I can't recall all those, but the argument in part has to do whether the loses that most whites workers suffer because of the division of the working class by race, losses in the over class struggle to the bosses, are greater or lesser than the advantages of white skin color privilege.
In other words, you might want to try arguing that the advantages to most whites of skincolor privilege are illusory. This takes a fully Marxist conception of whats going on.
So, yes, you have put your finger on the most difficult aspect of your task of convincing other whites against racism. Why should we whites give up these apparent privileges and advantages ? And you are not allowed to say " and I have got Blacks working on their righwingers too ". Pretty hard assignment, no ?
:
: ^^^^^^
: ^^^^^
: CB: Yes, although the Black church was also a root of organized resistance
: at some points.
yes indeed. things are never black and white, are they charles. ;-)
^^^^
CB: Well, at certain moments of our analysis we do make hard and fast
distinctions, but eventually everything turns into its opposite. And then
theory is gray, concrete reality is multicolored.
:>)
:
: ^^^
:
:
: at this point, i'm wondering if it's at all possible to have a fully
candid
: discussion of racism on this list. or if that's even the purpose of the
: list. doug will have to weigh in on the latter if he chooses.
:
: R
:
: ^^^^^^
:
: CB: I think you are doing the right thing in urging a discussion and
trying
: to have one.
thank you charles. that's very kind of you. i appreciate that very much.
:There have been many discussions of race through the history of
: the list, arguments and debates , too. So, Doug has by implication ( if
not
: specific statement in the "prelim") included it as a list topic.
by default, doug? thanks to doug, too. as usual, the best moderator on the net.
^^^^ CB: Yes, when I read what I wrote, I didn't mean to say by default.
^^
:
: I think a good issue for white people to discuss is the _material_ ( not
: moral) basis for reparations and affirmative action.
i'm a firm believer in reparations. i hope shrub doesn't bankrupt the country before that issue is settled, especially since it's hard enough going as it is. there's absolutely no reason considering the immense contribution the afro-americans made and continue making to this country that reparations not be a high priority. what was accomplished for free over decades deserves to be repaid.
and affirmative action. i believe affirmative action was undermined because it was race based. i know, on the surface, that statement sounds racist. but hear me out. i'd like to see an affirmative action that's based on need. one that includes all races. why? because it would, of course, include blacks in need. but it would also include the whites that are being used by the white power elite to destroy affirmative action. it undermines completely the "before i was born" argument. i'd love to see the white power elite deal with whites and blacks in concern demanding affirmative action, equal opportunity, and etc. i know this is far from perfect. but it would create a real challenge to the status quo and put affirmative action back on the menu.
now go ahead and take me on, list members. ;-)
^^^^^
CB: Yes, in the University of Michigan Black Action Movement strike in 1970, we argued that affirmative action should be extended to class and poverty, and I reiterated this in a recent talk at a retrospective on the strike. This is a way that anti-racist struggle can be a wedge for working class struggle. Black and White , Unite and fight to end capitalism and racism.
By the way, the Supreme Court decision to strike down the undergrad affirmative action program at University of Michigan is a direct repudiation 30 some years later of us in BAM. U of Mich never reached to goals it promised to meet with BAM. Also, there was a recent headline story that U of Mich Black undergrad applications and enrollment are down at U of Mich. Tuition in general has been going through the roof at U of Mich, which , of course, undermines working class attendance.
The ruling class is very conscious of the interdependency of race and class in the U.S., and they have carried out their counterreforms in the last 30 years.
^^^^
:How do wealth and
: class/status advantages get inherited, such that white people can't say
"all
: that was before I was born " ?
that's true; it did happen before they were born. a lot of things happened before they were born. shrub's family got enormously wealthy -- do they think that's a good thing? the point isn't who's responsible but what can we do to fix it. nobody's responsible for what happened 200 years ago. but we are responsible for what happens today, in our lifetimes. and where we see inequity and unfairness, that is our responsibility as members of society. that "before i was born" stuff is sucker bait.
^^^^^ CB: I don't know if I can avoid some "moral" or at least legal argumentation in making this myself, but think of it this way. Take the land people own or at least the U.S. nation state claims for its people. How do people trace their right to this property ? Through inheritance. I mean not only individuals, but the whole national territory. Let me say it this way. Any white American who is patriotic claims some special relationship to this "Land" through dead ancestors (collectively). Well, that's a doubleedged sword. Because the sins of the forefathers run with the land just like the rights and privileges. The sins included racist usurpation of the territory from the Indians and theft of labor power from African slaves. The current wealth (GDP) is built on that wealth ( this is the argument that has to be fleshed out). But for these, America wouldn't be the greatest country in the world, as many are want to say. The current wealth is based on a ( forced) loan for which there is a debt. I guess this does become moral/legal , but there is a material underpinning, in the sense it is not just a payback for lynching and murder, but for wealth produced or had by where Indians lived.
^^^^^^
it's difficult getting the "average" white person to understand the advantages many are born with. many aren't born with advantages. this becomes a social class issue, which americans tend to shy away from. and which the power elite definitely don't want us to consider. as the economy continues to droop, the new jobs, as kerry said, are at lower salaries, no benefits, etc., i sincerely hope more people will begin to realize they're playing against a stacked deck.
:Furthermore, what _about_ the Black middle
: class ,
you'll have to help me out with this one.
: and even more, what about Black drug dealers and others who harm the
: Black community? How is it that Black people are not "doing it to
: themselves" at this stage in the history of American racism ?
this concerns me. i remember when the san jose, calif, mercury ran articles about the CIA/drug trafficing connection in Los Angeles a few years back. this involved congresswoman maxine water's district. maxine, who my wife went to college with, said that if it was the last thing she ever did she would get to the bottom of this. well, she never did get to the bottom of it and she's still alive and kicking. i was a big maxine waters fan until that time. this happened during the clinton era -- you guessed it, the "black" president. rumors are she was bought off by a big donation and her husband's ambassadorship. and other things -- insider democratic party stuff. i've no idea.
there's no doubt what the drug traffic has done to black communities, to black youth. we read all the time about the jail population.
^^^^^^
CB: Yea, I think the C.I.A. might have got pretty heavy handed in shutting down that drug sales probe. The San Jose paper just capitulated. What does that tell you ? Maxine Waters does not have the power to get to the bottom of a C.I.A. crime.
^^^^
:
: I'm willing to discuss these with you, but I stand by my main assertion
that
: the solution to racism in America is not in the hands of Blacks , but in
the
: hands of whites.
:
i have to disagree with you there, charles. it's in all of our hands. it's in the hands of the human race. as i said above, you can't put the responsibility in the hands of those who benefit from this terrible condition. the reason the black revolution of the 1960s was successful was that you had MLK, jr, and malcolm X coming at the problem from both directions, and the black people were mobilized. they wouldn't back down and they wouldn't take no for an answer. i don't see that spirit any more. i see glimmers of it here and there. but nothing like i saw in the 1960s. it saddens me deeply to write that.
^^^^^^ CB: Yea, but all the achievements in the 60's were to get white people to change what they were doing, to moderate their racism. What Black people did was not changing of Black people's conduct but rather getting white people to change their conduct. Racism is not something Black people do. It is something white people do. The end of racism will be the end of white people doing something or the end of white people preventing Black people doing certain things. Black people's role in the end of racism is to just to do things they weren't allowed to do before.
Of course, Black people have things to change in what they do , but that is not ending _racism_. That's ending some problems among Black people.
^^^^^^
in 2000, i heard blacks say that the jim crow felon list problem in florida wouldn't have happened if they'd had the old civil rights workers around. those civil rights workers, they said, would have anticipated the problem and been ready for it. i don't see that level of preparation or fight anywhere today. i sure hope i'm wrong. not only because it effects my immediate family but because it effects us all as human beings.
thanks for writing, charles,
R
^^^^^^ CB: Yes, the civil rights activists did a better job of changing white's behavior than the current generation of Black activists are. There is a racist counterreform that is predominant now, and , in general, whites are not responding to Black demands as in the 60's. The racist forces learned from their defeats in the 50's and 60's and have organized a counterreform movement that is very strong. All we can do is try to build to win the next period.