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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dwane Monroe changed the subject to "discussion on
racism," and that's fine. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I speak as an Anglo (Southwest usage) man who has
earned some of his living at places like the Commission on Human Relations
(Pittsburgh mayor's office), Institute of Race Relations (London, Eng.) and
Center for Black Studies (Wayne State U.). In the Civil Rights days I
marched with the others and did things like interracial testing of public
accommodations to determine if they discriminated. As a professor of
sociology I taught a lot of "race relations" courses. This is only to say
that I've been 'exposed' to the idea of race/ethnicity/nationality from the
concrete perspective of establishment liberalism. And what did I
learn?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I learned that affirmative action, civil rights
laws, and 'race education' work in an historical period that's politically
liberal, relatively affluent, with a militant integration/desegregation
movement. I learned that the 'talented tenth' can be integrated into
good jobs and executive positions and, with a strong labor movement, people of
color can be organized. But I think much of this ended with the 60s.
Civil rights liberalism had achieved its limited goals as more
opportunities opened in nearly all institutions for the aggressive and/or lucky
few. However, there's the objective fact that only so many can move up the
class pyramid, regardless of 'good' times, leaving the rest at the
varying-size bottom.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Along the way, I learned (mostly from
activists and scholars of color)about capitalist-imperialist systems, and
how racism is embedded in their very nature because they are
economically stratified, often (usually) along lines of color, ethnicity,
etc. that emerged historically, and are almost set in stone until resistance and
uprisings occur from within. That's not very complicated conceptually; nor
is a conceptual solution embracing some version of socialism. But
there is a risk that an LBO thread on the topic of racism will explode into so
many 'cultural-psychological-spiritual' offshoots that soon we'll start calling
each other names because we'll never get to the nub of the problem or a hint of
the solution. Saw that happen before various times. I vote that we
talk radical economics and politics as applied to race, etc. (as well as women),
and get back to some earlier analytical roots that too often are
forgotten.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Bob Mast</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>