***And a great deal of attention is being devoted to debating whether George Zimmerman...is a racist.
To this question I offer the following, less-than-nuanced reply: Who cares? ***
This is superb; it catches up beautifully what I was arguing (or trying to argue) in my post. I think it could in fact be extended:
Is X a racist? Who cares.
What we (left activists) care about are the social facts that generate racist ideology (and racist behavior). Fighting to destroy those conditions is central to our concerns. A focus on the (real or alleged) racist behavior of particular individuals seldom if ever is useful. To debate on this list the question of whether or not Zimmerman is a racist would sooner or later degenerate into a debate as to whether or not whether someone in the debate was a racist or not; and that would degenerate into a series of pointless flames and equally pointless denials by the accused of his/her racism. It has happened in several threads over the past years.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Chris Sturr Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 9:02 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The new racism is denying racism
This piece supports, I think, what Carrol and others have said about race and racism and the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case:
http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-small-talk/201203/is-the-man-who-k illed-trayvon-martin-racist-who-cares
It's not about Zimmerman's racism, but it is emphatically about race and racism (understood, as Barbara Fields has argued, as continually recreated social arrangements and the ideology that helps us navigate them).
-- -- Chris Sturr Co-editor, Dollars & Sense 29 Winter St. Boston, Mass. 02108 phone: 617-447-2177, ext. 205 fax: 617-447-2179 email: sturr at dollarsandsense.org ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk