CB, are you saying that some of the people on pen-l (part of the "Left") are racist? or that criticizing Obama is racist? or both?
^^^^^ CB: I don't use the formulation "you _are_ racist". I say "your position is racist on this issue". The position that racist Tea Party (verbal) "attacks" on Obama need not or should not be as vigorously and prominently criticized as criticisms of Obama ( for his right wing or centrist actions) is a left racist position today. In general, this racist conclusion is reached based on the idea that discouraging support of Democrats is more important for the left to do than oppose racism; as in the essay I clipped, the claim is made that criticism of Tea Party racism is merely a trick to get people to vote Democratic, and that supporting Democrats is the current main fallacy in working class thinking. No the most important shortcoming in working class thinking is white supremacy , not supporting Democrats. It is more important for white radicals to struggle against racism than to struggle against support for Democrats. Failure to struggle against racism is the main form of left racism ( or white chauvinism , since the criticism of "racism" connotes a very heavy burden coming out of the Civil Rights movement). White radicals,including Pen-lers, don't actively support racism.
As to whether criticizing Obama is racist, depends. The Tea Party and fellow travellers' "attacks" on Obama appeal to racism in many people to gain their support of the political bottom-line of defeating Obama and Democrats. That's racist. It has been a right wing tactic since Nixon's Southern Strategy. The left criticisms of Obama on Pen-l and otherwise are not racist in themselves. It is the failure to take on the Tea Party racism that is racist. It is racism by omission. White leftists have an affirmative political duty as leftists to be the most vigorous opponents of racism. If you want to be a leftist, this is what you sign up for. The theory of "new social movements" does not relieve leftists of that duty.
This question was thoroughly rehearsed in the "60's". The results of criticism-self-criticism of white radicals on this issue is reflected in Hayden's article. White supremacy is resurgent since Reaganism relative to the advances against it from the "60's". In that period, it was well settled among the most advanced radical thinkers that racism or white supremacy is a major US institution which is maintained through active support by only a small minority , but by passive "support" or abiding it or failing to oppose it actively by the vast majority of the population.
It is true tht the term "racist" is a very heavy criticism to make on the left. Properly so. So, "white chauvinism" may be a better term, though that is somewhat esoteric. Whatever the word, the message is that it is very much politically "not ok" for white radicals or leftists to subordinate the struggle against racism to the struggle against the Democratic Party (!)
The following is a clear articulation of a false proposition on this issue, which statement underpins straying from the priority task of opposing white supremacy. It the basis of a left version of the post-racial society concept. ( and no, Obama espousing post-racial society, a racist concept, does not become the basis for leftists not vigorously opposing racist "attacks" on Obama)
"Race is
>only one of many factors that bind the modern American conservative movement together, and not the most important such factor.
together, and not the most important such factor."
W.E.B. Dubois' idea has revived pertinence in the 21st Century; it has extended relevance to today's Europe proper with the growing anti-immigrant sentiments there. The solution of the problem of the colorline is the major premise for success of working class struggle through the logic of Marx and Engels primary warning to the working class: Workers of all countries and races , unite !
The struggle against racism is uniquely and critically intertwined with the class struggle.
Dubois: "HEREIN lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century. This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line."
http://www.bartleby.com/114/100.html