[lbo-talk] zimmerman not guilty

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Mon Jul 15 16:10:15 PDT 2013


At 12:42 PM 7/15/2013, michael yates wrote:
>Robin D.G. Kelley has a strong essay at counterpunch. He's not jumping up
>and down and screaming. Who is, in fact? In all of my life, I have never
>had anyone screaming at me that I was a racist or a white supremacist. I
>have had quite a few white people threaten me with bodily harm for calling
>them on a racist remark or action.

No one's screamed or jumped up and down, but certainly folks have pointed out when I've said or done something racist. Eg., when Charles Brown was upset with me for calling him "Chaz". Plenty of other instances of it.

I'm not clear on why it is anything to be upset about. We live in a racist society. Racism isn't this reified thing hulking around, out there, reproducing itself free of social practices and interactions. Individuals reproduce (and change) social structures. Not surprisingly, every single one of us says and does racist things.

While everyone professes that race is socially constituted, this seems to be completely undermined by a firm attachment to the notion that racism is so deeply etched into the body of someone being called racist, then they are marked forever. Talk about marking of bodies!



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