[lbo-talk] Allen, racism, fascism and beyond

Seth Ackerman sethackerman1 at verizon.net
Tue Jan 1 18:47:49 PST 2008


John Thornton wrote:


>Your contention conveniently ignores the racist history of this country.
>If by previous machinations New Mexico was first many years ago there is
>every reason to believe it would not remain first today so we would not
>have to find an explanation. Had NM been first many years ago that
>position would have changed to another state because NM wouldn't be
>reasoned to be American enough (read white) to hold onto that position.
>The initial reason may not have been racist but the endurance is easily
>explained by it.
>White people love to find explanations for why their institutions aren't
>really as racist as they seem.
>It's always just a happy coincidence when institutions favor whites and
>their opinions isn't it?
>
>
>

I don't know how exactly New Mexico's hypothetical position as first the primary state "would have been changed" due to its unacceptable lack of whiteness, since each state has the right to control when its primary happens. Right now NH is furious about Florida and other states' attempts to one-up it, so it's passed a law saying its primary must be held at least a week before any other primary. In principle any state can do that.

But you might well be right that if NM had ended up first, people would choose to discount its importance since it's just a bunch of spanish speakers down there. I do think, though, that this rhetoric about what is "conveniently ignored" and what "there is every reason to believe" is dangerous, since it has a tendency to substitute assumed truisms for looking at the real world. Using your logic, we would have no choice but to conclude that the electoral college could not possibly exist, since there is every reason to believe it would have been eliminated long ago due to its marginalizing of small, all-white states -- believing otherwise would conveniently ignore the racist history of this country, you know.

Seth



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