On Oct 4, 2009, at 5:09 PM, wrobert at uci.edu wrote:
> 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.
In the latest LBO, Adolph has a piece on "anti-racism," which, as you might imagine, is rather critical of the concept. I'll be posting it to the web in a couple of weeks. But here's a relevant excerpt:
> Anti-Marx. I've been struck by the level of visceral and vitriolic
> anti-Marxism I've seen from this strain of defenders of antiracism
> as a politics. It's not clear to me what drives it because it takes
> the form of snide dismissals than direct arguments. Moreover, the
> dismissals typically include empty acknowledgment that "of course we
> should oppose capitalism," whatever that might mean. In any event,
> the tenor of this anti-Marxism is reminiscent of those right-wing
> discourses, many of which masqueraded as liberal, in which only
> invoking the word "Marxism" was sufficient to dismiss an opposing
> argument or position.
>
> This anti-Marxism has some curious effects. Leading professional
> antiracist Tim Wise came to the defense of Obama's purged green jobs
> czar Van Jones by dismissing Jones's "brief stint with a pseudo-
> Maoist group," and pointing instead to "his more recent break with
> such groups and philosophies, in favor of a commitment to eco-
> friendly, sustainable capitalism." In fact, Jones was a core member
> of a revolutionary organization, STORM, that took itself very
> seriously, almost comically so.
>
> And are we to applaud his break with radical politics in favor of a
> style of capitalism that few actual capitalists embrace? This is the
> substance of Wise's defense. This sort of thing only deepens my
> suspicions about antiracism's status within the comfort zone of
> neoliberalism's discourses of "reform." More to the point, I suspect
> as well that this vitriol toward radicalism is rooted partly in the
> conviction that a left politics based on class analysis and one
> focused on racial injustice are Manichean alternatives.