Reading through this thread, I have to say I'm starting to move toward you and Julio a bit. Is the concept "racism" politically effective? Well, that's an empirical question. Like any rallying cry, it can lead people into political cul-de-sacs (and I think Reed and Doug provide great examples). However, that does not mean that condemnations of the racism of X are always politically impotent. Sure, if it devolves into speculations about the malevolent racist motives of individuals, it's a waste of time. If we emphasize how specific social formations provide systematic advantages for some racial groups, it may spark political activity with meaningful consequences. Who knows?
> Returning to the notion of prejudice and transforming prejudiced
> minds, here is what MLK wrote in 1958:
> === quote ===
>
> “We can and must win the mind of the prejudiced person. Force doesn’t change minds. Anger reinforces fears. And that is why it is so terribly urgent to work out the techniques of changing people’s minds, of allaying their fears about integration.
>
> “CORE puts before people’s eyes a new way of acting. You say and you show that feelings about segregation are silly…"
>
> === end quote ===
>
> I would say that “social structures” in turn are products of people’s minds, inter alia.
It turns out MLK was pretty much wrong about this. Desegregation preceded changes in white Southerners' attitudes, not vice versa. The crucial political strategy that ended formal segregation was not to "win the mind of the prejudiced person"; it was to apply political pressure to national lawmakers to make segregation illegal and enforce a law that was wildly unpopular among white Southerners.
Miles