[lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity

Alan Rudy alan.rudy at gmail.com
Mon Oct 5 11:19:18 PDT 2009


He has, but for me its not a Freudian one, its a political one - can you tell me how making the argument the way he makes it - collapsing all racial politics or class-work for minority community into neoliberal diversity - which I see as different in form if not so much substance from Adolph Reed, going to bring folks over to his/our kind of class analysis?

Why not - oh, god, I'm about to get myself in trouble - do what Obama did in his Philadelphia race speech... point out that poor white people and poor black people have pretty much the same grievances but - not knowing anything but stereotypical BS about one another (as groups) - they blame each other instead of capital (yeah, sure, he didn't call it that but it is what _I_ do with Obama's speech when I teach race in my soc classes).

I can't use a Michaels-like approach to move my students or the folks I know working with the poor and I can't understand why anyone wanting to move movable people would paint them with such a condescendingly broad brush.

On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


>
> On Oct 5, 2009, at 1:33 PM, Chris Maisano wrote:
>
> Calling Michaels a "prick" or "assholic" based simply on listening to the
>> interview is total projection.
>>
>
> I'm really taken aback by the vitriol people are directing against him.
> Makes me wonder if he's struck a nerve.
>
> Doug
>
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-- ********************************************************* Alan P. Rudy Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work Central Michigan University 124 Anspach Hall Mt Pleasant, MI 48858 517-881-6319



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