> What I'm defending is Michaels' argument that "anti-racism" is
> entirely compatible with neoliberalism, and is even used to legitimize
> it.
you are taking any criticism of the rest of his book as, a priori, a disagreement with that part of his argument.
For example, his commentary on the sex discrimination suit against Wal-mart.
"It's ludicrous to think of their (the women at Wal-mart) problem as a problem about gender. The men can't live on their salaries either!" p 115
"Feminism is what you appeal to when you want to make it sound as if the women of Wall St and the women of Wal-mart are both victims of sexism." p 115, The Trouble with Diversity, Walter Benn Michaels
is that what the women Liza interviewed think -- that it's ludicrous that they care about sexism? is that what Liza thinks? it is, i suppose, if you hold Michaels' reductionist view: that people only thought of it solely in terms of gender.
In fact, Liza's title demonstrates that she thinks that women pursuing sex discrimination lawsuits at walmart are struggling for _workers_ rights. That there is not necessarily any contradiction -- that one doesn't necessarily come at the expense of the other.
But Michaels doesn't seem to grasp the possibility that you could hold that view, that those views are out there, and that he might not want to flush the entire enterprise -- feminism -- down the toilet because, he claims, it is exclusively with sexism and gender.
Now, maybe he does in person. But that's the problem: he's not doing this very well in writing. He maintains he doesn't object to feminism and then writes a dismissive sentence three 'graphs later.
To borrow a word: it's ludicrous that you expect people to take him seriously when he does his best to put people off, especially the people who would otherwise be on his side.
shag
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)