Joanna
----- Original Message ----- Doug asks what should we do about the racial disparities. Let me turn this back on you and ask what you think should be done. The essay I wrote from which the data that I gave comes offers some suggestions. Paul Le Blanc and I have a book coming out in August, titled "A Freedom Budget for All Americans Recapturing the Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in the Struggle for Economic Justice Today." In it we offer some ideas relevant to this discussion. I basically agree with Adolph Reed's take on the matter, though sometimes I think he tips the scales too far toward a strictly class analysis. The intractable racial disparities suggest more is at work here. For example, when I taught in prison and every student was black, I was struck by the fact that before class started and the men were talking among themselves, many times I could not understand what they were saying. Same thing used to happen in the gym when inner city kids came up to play. Linguists have pointed out that the growing physical isolation of poor blacks has generated a kind of special language, sort of like the Z Latin that carnival workers spoke. So while blacks and whites are mostly workers and common cause will have to be found among us all, maybe the disparities have to addressed head on at the same tim!
e that class perspectives have to be encouraged. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk