the point of talking about racialization (what i'm more broadly referring to as oppression) is that capitalism needs a _process_ by which it legitimates inequality by locating the cause of inequity in individuals or in the properties of the groups to which those individuals are said to belong. (this is why Michaels' claim that race is only ever about biology (a view of race and racism as a product, a static entity that inheres in bodies) and dismissal of race as something that is socially constituted (a process - racialization) is deeply problematic to a leftist politics.
long ago, on this list, during a discussion of what is called classism in the film Gumby, angela m showed how the bigoted stereotypes about the white working class are attached to their bodies and, therefore, to something they cannot rid themselves of. (these days, racial oppression attaches itself to culture -- things you supposedly *can* rid yourself of, which is what makes it even *more* pernicious.)
capitalist ideology could easily "mark" bodies in all kinds of ways, and this process can socially constitute just about any set of characteristics in order to explain why you end up in this or that place in the economic system. these characteristics don't even have to exist -- be actually existing characteristics that the individuals in said groups have. we can see this when we look at the literature on the culture of poverty, which located poverty in the pathological culture of the poor. (see the piece i just posted to lbo, by David Harvey http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2005/2005-April/008118.html
this is why, when Michaels mocks such efforts in the field of cultural studies, working class studies, white studies, etc., he is dangerous to realizing a more revolutionary leftist politics. Because he refuses to acknowledge the importance of examining things like "classist" oppression, his approach doesn't allow us to see how capitalist racialization can happen without race (as conventionally understood).
"And this is why it's important to advance a system in which, yes, we do have equal represenation of races and genders and so forth. Because under such conditions it's going to be a lot easier for people to finally see that there's more going on. Once people realize that anyone can become rich (to use eWBM's lingo) can "become rich" and that people from all kinds of backgrounds do become "rich", and yet things are STILL fucked up, then they will start getting a clue about the _real_ causes of inequality.
That's why the dramatic either/or rheotoric Michael's uses, the snidery that characterizes his discourse about things like feminism, anti-racism, disability rights struggles, etc. are damaging to a radical left politics and it is decidedly not an approach that will actually help us move forward. shag"
I don't know but it seems to me that WBM and shag have effectively the same underlying argument but just come to different conclusions. Shag is arguing that because capitalism needs to claim equality while being based in inequality it constructs racism to divide us on some other basis besides class. From this she draws the conclusion that we must first get rid of racism in order to show the 'true' class based inequality of the system.
WBM just inverts this basic, and quite old, argument by stating that the focus on race has become the actually source of the distraction from class. This leaves him to argue that we must first, and only, focus on class as a focus on race and gender only serve to distract and divide the working class, while leaving class inequality untouched.
I would argue that both are focused on the relationship between race and class that only has *one* manner of distraction/division. Rather, couldn't both things be going on (I think this might be Carrol's point). Couldn't race serve to divide workers by creating a distraction from the unequal class system and be a distraction from class by focusing progressives on race first before class? The former creates the need for the latter, but the latter serves to do the same thing for capital as the former. Obama both creates more racism and creates a group that focuses on the racism that arose (which was in part caused by the actions of Obama supporters who were acting to overcome the historical legacy of racism). What I originally took away from WBM, which may or may not be his actual point, was that any anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic activism that was not also anti-capitalist was a barrier to the goals of both anti-capitalists and the other antis. The point was to call out those who were acting in pro-capitalist ways through their anti-ism., which through the mechanisms of how capitalism creates racism, was actually not working to end the oppression that they though they were. This is a contentious point, I now know, but should it really be?
C.B.- Marx said almost the opposite as 'equal pay for equal work'. He said equal pay no matter what the work, but this also is not correct because pay is different than human needs which would be the true marxian end result.
Joanna is making the feminist argument that a person's position and actions *do* have a real political impact (I think Marx actually argues the same). However, I think there are limitations to this perspective because we do need to make generalizations and abstract form the individual in order to make sense of the world and not just be reduced to atom's bounding off of one another.
I have no idea what Alan Rudy is doing. He says that he agrees with the basic argument, just not the style or what WBM leaves out, but then attempts to carve out a group of people who agree with him v. those who don't (like competing soccer teams) . Clearly shag and Joanna do not agree with WBM's basic point so I am not sure why Alan is attempting to put them on his 'team'.
I would still argue that the very fact that WBM got this conversation going is a positive thing. I am just confused as to how to come to some basic agreement and conclusions.
Brad