Eric Beck wrote:
> The Neoliberalization Of Higher Education: What’s Race Got To Do
> With It?
Well I don't know. What does it have to do with it?
California is totally broke, in a class by itself among all U.S. states, really, so there is a serious fiscal problem which this unnamed writer doesn't want to admit to. Why is it at all surprising that the bourgeois solution to it would be to cut aid to those most needing it? This piece asserts, but doesn't even try to prove, that race is a driving factor in this approach. Yes, there's no doubt that people of color are disproportionately hurt by austerity, but where's the evidence that ethnicity is what it's about? There are plenty of poor white people who are going to be hit by this too. What political purpose is served by foregrounding the racial angle? Why not pitch it in some more universal way that might win broader support?
Doug
^^^^^^^
CB: OK. I'll play devil's advocate (smile). How about poverty has something to do with it _and_ race has something to do with , both ?
To the extent that class is a universal way to pose it, the main divider of the working class in world and US history has been race/nationality. That's why Marx and Engels foregrounded "workers of all nations , unite." So, fighting the racist angle is critical in fighting at a universal angle. Brown, Red, Yellow, White and Black unite, and fight.
The first public education in the US was for the ex-slaves in the late 1800's. When public education was won for them it was extended and won for the whole working class..