I thought Reed's comments on this question were quite interesting(on the show, it was one of the more provocative things that I have heard in a while), but in a certain sense, despite the fact that Tim's response isn't the most coherent thing that I have read, and is missing the target a bit in his critique of you, certainly doesn't fit the mold of the multi-culturalist who dismisses the need to critique capital. Rather it points to the fact that Tim's position is close to Marxists such as Roediger and others.
As a side note, I think that part of the problem is the way that the concept of intersectionality gets badly used. The concept was initially used to indicate that capitalism is an overdetermined structure of domination, rather than an expressive determination, but has been often translated into a sort of linneus chart of identity, falling into the forms of reification that Lukacs warned against. Obviously, this isn't an invention of WBM, but it also reminds me of the ways that feminists in the 60's would take boring, reductive forms of Marxism as the full potentiality of the methodology.
robert wood
> 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
>
> ----
>
> 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
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