Reaganite racism or white supremacy has the signal characteristic of denial that white supremacy is a significant problem anymore. It holds we must proceed in a colorblind manner in a post-racial ( not post-racist; yes, post-modern, giggles) society. It holds that affirmative action is itself racist because to discriminate on the basis of race in anyway is "racist".
Roughly speaking, before the Civil Rights movement , in general , racist beliefs, attitudes, opinions were openly held by white people. It was ok to be racist and claim racial superiority to people of color. The Civil Rights movement made it illicit and improper, and in some cases illegal to be openly racist. So, denial of racism became the mode, such that today, as with the jury in the Martin murder case, most white people can't even "see" any significant racism anywhere, except Black against white, all kidding aside.
This creates a necessity or at least the emotional frustration that leads to so-called screaming "racism", which Michael Yates points out is not really something that happens much, and is a mischaracterization by Doug and others. But furthermore an so-called upset that Kelley refers to. "Upset" on email can be actually just calm and sharp criticism , which is what I did with Kelly, calm, not upset, but sharp criticism.
At any rate, it is not the right direction to go criticizing people being upset about white supremacy. That's a diversion from being criticizing racism. Pace Doug and Kelley, because so many white people deny its continued important existence, the first step nowadays is to just establish and persuade people of the fact that they are denying it and it is still the central social problem _for the working class_ and the "left" struggle.
It is necessary to yell "white supremacy still exists bigtime; stop denying it."
Charles
On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 4:10 PM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> 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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