On Oct 5, 2009, at 3:01 PM, Chris Maisano wrote:
> Alan says: "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..."
>
> I think you're missing WBM's point here.
Seems to be a lot of that going around.
At the risk of courting another outburst from Carrol "Fire and Brimstone" Cox, I think this sort of passage, from the LRB piece, makes people uncomfortable, so they misread the argument and self- righteously denounce its author for holding positions he doesn't hold just to make themselves feel better:
> An obvious question, then, is how we are to understand the fact that
> we’ve made so much progress in some areas while going backwards in
> others. And an almost equally obvious answer is that the areas in
> which we’ve made progress have been those which are in fundamental
> accord with the deepest values of neoliberalism, and the one where
> we haven’t isn’t. We can put the point more directly by observing
> that increasing tolerance of economic inequality and increasing
> intolerance of racism, sexism and homophobia – of discrimination as
> such – are fundamental characteristics of neoliberalism. Hence the
> extraordinary advances in the battle against discrimination, and
> hence also its limits as a contribution to any left-wing politics.
> The increased inequalities of neoliberalism were not caused by
> racism and sexism and won’t be cured by – they aren’t even addressed
> by – anti-racism or anti-sexism.
>
> My point is not that anti-racism and anti-sexism are not good
> things. It is rather that they currently have nothing to do with
> left-wing politics, and that, insofar as they function as a
> substitute for it, can be a bad thing. American universities are
> exemplary here: they are less racist and sexist than they were 40
> years ago and at the same time more elitist. The one serves as an
> alibi for the other: when you ask them for more equality, what they
> give you is more diversity. The neoliberal heart leaps up at the
> sound of glass ceilings shattering and at the sight of doctors,
> lawyers and professors of colour taking their place in the upper
> middle class. Whence the many corporations which pursue diversity
> almost as enthusiastically as they pursue profits, and proclaim over
> and over again not only that the two are compatible but that they
> have a causal connection – that diversity is good for business. But
> a diversified elite is not made any the less elite by its diversity
> and, as a response to the demand for equality, far from being left-
> wing politics, it is right-wing politics.
How this gets translated into denouncing people who work with black prisoners is beyond me.