I think that if you want to make the claim that the decision makers of this society are becoming an increasingly diverse bunch, I think that is a fairly safe assumption(how far we are on this project is an empirical one that I don't have immediate access to the answers). The second claim, that this is leading to a capitalism that is 'race- and gender-neutral' doesn't. (Proyect makes this point is his fairly cogent response to WBM written about a million years ago.) At the U.S. level this is evident via both wage and value (I know this is the wrong term, but I'm referring to things like assets and property) data, and those structures of inequality only become greater when you look at the global picture.
I agree, especially with my recent experience in Orange County, both extremely 'diverse' and racist, that race, being unstable and contingent (thanks Omi and Winant), isn't the same as it was before, but I'm not sure there was a time that race wasn't an extremely complex and unstable formation.... (one that is of course, overdetermined.) robert wood
> On 11/1/09, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
>> Man, I just don't get this. Michaels' point that I think is worth
>> making over & over is that the enlightened wing of the bourgeoisie is
>> totally on board with diversity, and uses it as a prop to legitimate
>> economically. A race- and gender-neutral capitalism, with little else
>> changed, is the reigning ideal of the Ford Foundation and much of the
>> Dem Party. A lot of "left" discourse still refuses to take this on
>> board.
>
> I still don't get why you are arguing against (1) something that
> doesn't exist, and (2) the fevered fantasies of the bourgeoisie and
> its intellectual shoeshine boys (to quote Killdozer). (1) of course is
> a "race- and gender-neutral capitalism," which, as far as I can tell,
> is as close to fruition as worldwide communism. (2) is something I
> might be interested in, but right now, as I said before, I can only
> wonder what the political relevance of relieving the elites of their
> delusions has for a left political movement. That's an honest
> question. Maybe there is something I'm not getting, because all I see
> is the correcting of misperception. Pointing out the Ford Foundation's
> errors does not rank high in my list of hoped-for political
> accomplishments.
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