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

[Jim Devine]

On 3/14/06, Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
> Like almost everything in a hyperindividualist society, it must be
> construed and described as a psychological trait.  Think Maggie's
> "there's no such thing as society, only individual men and women".
> Remapping all social phenomena as individual traits is a crucial
> ideological bulwark for capitalism; thus the ubiquity of the
> "racism-as-psychological-aberration" silliness.

there's also the left-wing version: racism is a psychological norm in
our society. Or a more general view, that racism is a psychological
phenomenon.

What these miss is that racism is a structural/institutional
phenomenon. These institutions -- e.g. capitalist divide-and-rule --
encourage racist psychological attitudes. In turn, such attitudes help
to reproduce racist institutions over time. To focus on the
psychological or linguistic side at the expense of the institutional
side is incomplete at best.
--
Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence
of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles