On Oct 4, 2009, at 4:28 PM, wrobert at uci.edu wrote:
> My frustration with these types of comments is that the category that
> is being identified is so vague and amorphous.
Well, Michaels as been criticized - surprisingly, to me - as some sort of class-first troglodyte by Louis Proyect and Richard Seymour, who are quite sophisticated people.
And then there are the self-righteous Tim Wise types. E.g the eruption below from Wise, part of an email exchange stimulated by Adolph Reed's last appearance on my show, when he suggested that he was beginning to doubt the usefulness of race as an analytical category. My particular offense was wondering why "Black" was capitalized but not "white."
Doug
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From: timjwise at mac.com Subject: Re: Doug Henwood interviewing Adolph Reed [post-racialist] on KPFA Sat, Aug 29, 10:-11:am Date: August 31, 2009 11:46:03 AM EDT To: dhenwood at panix.com
While Joseph's "ignorance" about about Adolph Reed's racial identity may be unfortunate, it is surely no more so than Doug's rather typical (amongst us white folks) ignorance----more fitting to conservatives frankly---about why Black is often capitalized while white usually isn't. Anyone who has paid any attention to the struggle for racial equity in the past, say 30 years, would know the answer to that question that seems to confuse comrade Henwood so (I would say, Brother Henwood, but come on, who would I be kidding?)...but of course, white Marxists (or whatever term they may prefer to go by nowadays), steeped in the Eurocentric tradition, never need to pay attention to such "peripheral" struggles as the fight against white supremacy, since, to such persons, it detracts from the "real" battle (which they and they alone of course are qualified to determine) against capital. Ah yes, the voice of privileged white leftism speaks. What's next Doug? Will you begin to ask why there is no white history month, since, ya know, there's that Black history thing? (and where is WORKER'S HISTORY? right). I mean, really, who gives a crap about black bourgeois leaders like King or DuBois when there are white proles out there to prioritize?? Surely Tom Joad is a more important figure than DuBois!! And enough with that "Lift Every Voice," identity politics crap, we need more Woodie Guthrie! Because don't you know Joseph? Race is not "organic," while class status is: the latter is rooted in material reality while the latter is just a figment of our imagination...pay attention Joseph!!
Since I'm sure Doug will not care to actually investigate the answer to his own question about capitalization, here it is: Blackness is an identity forged and claimed in opposition to white supremacy. When it was claimed by the freedom struggle, capitalizing Black, though surely not required, is often seen as a way to claim an official and positive identity from Blackness, as contrasted say with "colored" or "negro" however capitalized. White, on the other hand, was a category created specifically for the purpose of dividing class coalitions (on this Doug and I would likely agree, since it comports with most left/ Marxist analysis), and as such carries NO positive connotation. It is an identity only linked to oppression. Those of us called white can of course turn against whiteness, and stand in solidarity with Blackness as a political project. So no Doug, I am not saying that whites as people are inherently oppressive. But whiteness as a political project is nothing but oppressive. By not capitalizing it, those of us who believe in justice, seek to linguistically de-emphasize its organicity (since it is wholly fake and imposed upon european peoples), while with Black, we seek to display the counter-hegemonic nature of the freedom struggle. It's really not a huge deal of course, and capitalizing Black isn't necessary by any means in order to show solidarity. I don't always capitalize it, for instance. But to not *know* this history, to not even demonstrate a passing familiarity with it, is the strongest evidence I have seen in years that some white leftists know nothing about, and appear to care little about, the fight for racial equity in this country. I suppose they have more important things to concern themselves with, as usual.
As for me, I too think the struggle against capital is critical, but I'll take my cues on that matter from black and brown Marxists who understand that with a strong class analysis must also come a strong anti-white supremacist analysis. Whiteness has, after all, long been the transmission belt of the very false consciousness about which Marx warned: the false consciousness that has divided working people. But that false consciousness is rooted in a material reality of privilege vis a vis peoples of color, which has turned whiteness into a form of alternative property for those possessing it (in Cheryl Harris's terms, whose work I am certain Doug is also unfamiliar with), and encouraged them to cleave to skin over class every time. This truth is why Doug's (and Adolph Reed's) analysis of the centrality or non- centrality of anti-racism is, I think, wrong. Anti-racism must be central to undoing not only the racial inequity before us, but even the economic inequity. Without a frontal assault on racism, white working people will NEVER work in solidarity with people of color to achieve anything.
Colorblindness means blindness to the consequences of color, and it is no more appealing when practiced by the left, than when practiced by the right.
Tim Wise