The problem is that to accept the above, it seems to me, I need to buy into one of two ideas:
1. That *generic* “antiracism” (note he draws the distinction using the prefix “generic” i.e., he acknowledges there is a non-generic “antiracism”, which he describes in the following sentences) is the only type of antiracism (without quotes) around today. That there is no targeted antiracism today. Even if I do, it still leaves open the point that describing selecting treatment on the basis of race and attempting to correct that was a meaningful and useful process at some time.
2. That MLK and those involved in the movement never saw the problem as racism (among other things) but only as specific problems of civil rights violations. While it is certainly true that King saw (or came to see) the problems of black Americans as part of a larger class of problems, that does not at all in my mind imply that he found the concept of racial discrimination worthless - operationally/analytically, rhetorically, etc (“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin”). Further, as Joanna points out, discrimination specifically against black people is not subsumed by redefinition as discrimination based on another variable.
I believe I see your point: you/Reed have acknowledged that people get discriminated on the basis of colour. However, saying that, you contend, does not give us any political value or ability to act.
I think you are failing to see my response to your/Reed’s point: I question your notion of political category or action. I also question your idea that moralising is politically empty (and “heroic”, aimed to "feel good and tastily righteous”). I do this by differentiating between political theory and practical matters of motivation, organisation, rhetoric, measurement, redress, etc. It should be needless to add: I could be wrong in the distinctions I draw.
BTW, this part from Reed is terrible:
> Apostles of antiracism frequently can’t hear this sort of statement, because in their exceedingly simplistic version of the nexus of race and injustice there can be only the Manichean dichotomy of those who admit racism’s existence and those who deny it. There can be only Todd Gitlin (the sociologist and former SDS leader who has become, both fairly and as caricature, the symbol of a “class-first” line) and their own heroic, truth-telling selves, and whoever is not the latter must be the former. Thus the logic of straining to assign guilt by association substitutes for argument.
What Reed is doing in response to those who may wrongly accuse him of denying racism is in turn to argue against the rest of us who don’t by associating us with those who do. And worse by motive-mongering and hand-waving (“heroic, truth-telling selves”? how does he know what we think of ourselves?).
It’s a vicious circle.
—ravi