It reminds me of the proclamations that we're all capitalists now, because there's no law against being wealthy and it's your fault if you're not. Even if well-intentioned, it still comes across as an attack on class analysis. (Everyone being in the same class is the same as classlessness.)
We aren't one race. Race (in the US), as I understand, is a kooky European concept cooked up to justify political ends. If a white person thinks they're the same race as blacks, they're wearing racist blinders. Their society conditions and misinforms them, so they can't see what's in front of them.
This is an organizational problem. Leftists orgs which are regressive on gender/race will fail to attract diverse genders/races. The majority of people. (How long will women tolerate baking at a convention while men are meeting? Why fight for a future where you'll still be stepped on, especially if liberal/progressive orgs turn out to be more advanced on these issues?)
All the best,
Tj
On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 9:44 PM, // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
> I was going to go home and write a more detailed response, but I am rather posting now in hope the answers will be in my inbox when i return!
>
> I don't get the below at all. How is saying "one race" equal to denying racism? The idea is the opposite isn't it? It's prescriptive not descriptive!
>
> -- ravi
>
>
> On Oct 9, 2011, at 3:08 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "SA" <s11131978 at gmail.com>
>>
>> I'd say this essay is a pretty good example of Wise-ism. A histrionic
>> account of how personally wrenching and painful it was for this grad
>> student to have an argument in the park over how to phrase a
>> one-sentence characterization of racism with some friendly guys who
>> agreed with her approach after a few minutes of conversation. Getting
>> this poorly phrased sentence changed: a further step in the great
>> historical chain of struggles - from the abolition of slavery, to the
>> decolonization of Africa, to the smashing of Jim Crow, to the great
>> working-group victory of 2011. A luta continua.
>> ___________________________________
>>
>> I don't think so. Both Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright had problems with the CP's "we are all one race" tack. They lived long before Tim Wise. If consciousness, relationships, and communication is what is being rebuilt on OWS, then awareness of racism must be part of that. Racism is part of what we live with every bit as much as toxic chemicals in the water and air. And let me say it again: racism is not what the white man thinks about the brown man; it's what we all think about ourselves and one another after five hundred years of unrelenting horror.
>>
>> Joanna