> Again, what does invoking racism get you that fighting
> against Israeli policy, for open borders, and against the
> brutalization of Indians doesn't? And what does putting
> all these different things under a single category -
> "racism" - accomplish, other than running the risk of
> turning it all into a matter of subjectivity?
I'm not sure I see what Doug's point is here.
Does racism exist or not? If it does, then it should be confronted. It oppresses, crushes people. It's a form of oppression, among others a part of a social formation that needs to be overthrown. So, if Doug doesn't deny that racism is a real form of oppression, a real set of social structures that oppresses people (non-Whites), then why shouldn't we recognize its existence and call it by its name and fight it as such? How can we fight against a real (as opposed to imaginary) form of oppression if we don't acknowledge its existence? I cannot understand why seeing what exists -- and calling it by its name -- gets in the way of fighting against it. What am I missing here? What do we need to show to prove that it is important for people to grasp the reality of racism in order to fight against it?
Everywhere I look, people tend to start fighting oppression with those who share their condition, their peer and keen. That applies to youth, women, Blacks, undocumented immigrants, queers, union workers, etc. Yes, we need to bridge and connect these different constituencies, but the fact is that if non-Whites don't fight racism -- the specific form of oppression that affects them, because they don't recognize it as such and don't name it as such -- then what is going to prepare them to join a struggle with other oppressed constituencies on an equal footing? In my book, anybody's emancipation can only result from that person standing up and fighting.