[lbo-talk] Fight the taboo on the use of the word "racist"

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Tue Mar 14 15:05:50 PST 2006


Jim Devine wrote:
>
> I think Doug's formulation is better. The problem with the word
> "racism" is not that it's been over-used as much as it's been
> mis-used. For example, I've seen advocates of the W.J. Wilson
> "declining significance of race" theory being described as "racist"
> even though Wilson doesn't deny the existence of institutional racism.

There is a real present (and not merely future) danger in any language which "individualizes" racial oppression, thereby negating one of the great (but only temporary) ideological gains of the '60s, the concept of _structural racism_. Hence the WSJ (as well as some courts and government agencies) now condemn all affirmative action as "racist."

And the enemy is not, really, racist prejudice by individuals, which will never be overcome as long as structural racism reproduces the material basis for racist ideology.

My uncle's deep racist attitudes (he was a southwestern michigan fruit farmer) once and once only were really shaken -- and what did it were the riots of the '60s. He really respected that very dramatic resistance, and it allowed him to identify with blacks. (Like many small farmers, he had been fucked over all his life by various events.)

Carrol



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