[lbo-talk] black class gap

[ravi]

On Nov 14, 2007, at 1:12 PM, joanna wrote:
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>> On Nov 14, 2007, at 10:30 AM, Dwayne Monroe wrote:
>>
>> We can be disturbed, but we shouldn't be surprised when African
>> Americans behave like other human beings by creating hierarchies.
>>
>> It's not news to you, or me, but it is to a lot of white people, and
>> the subset of black people who are nationalists of the WBAI sort (or,
>> what Adolph Reed recently called subscribers to the shopkeeper school
>> of race patriotism).
>>
> My ex, ex brother in law (who was black) was one of the most racist  
> men
> I've ever known. The idea that oppressed people are naturally
> compassionate and radical is one of the most mistaken notions of all
> time. Alas.
>

Its not a hard science, and has its exceptions, but depending on what  
you mean by "naturally", I believe the notion is not mistaken at all.  
For the obvious reasons. In fact, I would venture that the reverse is  
somewhat true also i.e., the oppressor people are "naturally" lacking  
in compassion (the measurement of radicalism I will leave as an  
exercise to the reader) -- they may learn to overcome this natural  
malady by walking the proverbial mile... or perhaps through the more  
common substitute: theory (unless of course the very theory is what is  
threatened by such  findings!).

Back in the last century or earlier part of this one there was one  
dude, IIRC, who would often post a warning to list readers to not push  
him to jump out of the computer and mete out a sound thrashing ;-).  
Whatever happened to that guy?

	--ravi