[lbo-talk] Misusing "Racism", was Re: Bush down to 33%; public loves posturingxenophobic congress

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Mar 16 16:52:41 PST 2006


Miles Jackson wrote:


>Look at it this way: trying to understand racism by analyzing the
>individual psychological processes of the privileged group is
>tantamount to trying to understand capitalism by analyzing the
>individual psychological processes of capitalists.

Which is itself not an uninteresting pursuit. I really don't get how you can understand a social pheneomenon without understanding how it's manifested in the thoughts and behaviors of actual human beings. Otherwise you're dealing with some kind of reified abstraction that has no material life except at some inaccessibly high level.

It's well known that having a gay friend or relative reduces homophobia. How does this happen? How about affirmative action bringing white people into contact with black people they might not otherwise have known? Might that not undermine racism at the level of daily life? How do you break down institutional racism without changing the way actual people relate to each other?

Doug



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