On Oct 13, 2009, at 10:56 PM, Joanna wrote:
> In the interview he did with you, he argued that we are a "post-
> race" society.
I just listened to the interview again - when you're doing live radio, you're often distracted and can't follow everything - and he says no such thing. He explicitly says that racism still matters, and the society is still full of racists. He also says that victories over racism and sexism are entirely good things (though a lot of anti- racists and anti-sexists want to emphasize what remains, not what's been accomplished). He says that race, or racialization if you prefer, was crucial to the development of American capitalism in the 19th and early 20th centuries, a heritage whose effects linger today - but that people tend to reify that into a timeless affair that's inappropriate to a world where big capital places a huge emphasis on affirmative action and diversity programs. (When Liza was on her fellowship at the Columbia Business School, part of the orientation consisted of diversity workshops, including a traveling diversity theater troupe. The biz school clearly saw part of its mission as civilizing the students, who come in with rapacious attitudes.) In other words, he did not say we are in anything like a post-race society.
Michaels also says that much left-of-center politics today focuses on ethics - a desire to prove the opponent to be evil and morally inferior. As an example, he pointed to all the highly personalized critiques of Bush (which are curiously parallel to highly personalized critiques of Michaels). I've wondered why the critiques of Michaels are so intense and involve, as Adolph put it, so much ventriloquism - putting words into Michaels' mouth that he never said and attributing positions to him that he does not hold. I wonder if it's a feeling that that position of claimed moral superiority is being questioned.
Doug