[lbo-talk] zimmerman not guilty

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Tue Jul 16 21:56:02 PDT 2013


shag carpet bomb


> I'm not sure why "pace"?
>
> what I'm saying is that leftist run around saying that race is social
> constructed. everyone will agree we live in a racist society. but then
when
> a white leftist gets critcized - sharply - s/he will freak out and say,
> "Why me? me? I said something racist. Oh my god my hair is on fire. How
> could you call me racist. You jump up and down and scream racist. I'm
> racist? What about all I do that is clearly not racist. how could you call
> me of all people racist?"
>
> They have the fantasy of being outside ideology. Everyone else in society
> is racist, never the leftist speaker.
>
> Whites tend to see the word "racism" or "racist" as a personal insult.

-------

Yes. Let me see if I can suggest a possible anodyne, one that might make "racist" responses something to analyze, not to get insulted about.

Now the core of racist ideology is the belief that in either a cultural or a biological sense, Race is real. A response that, before correction, spontaneously assumes the reality of race is a racist response.dd Every single person on this list has, hundreds of times, had such a racist response. It's no crime. As shag says, _everyone_ is inside ideology.

Now there is a recent book by Ace Atkins entitled "Robert Parker's Lullaby." (In other words, a 'Spencer' novel written by someone else.) I urge everyone to at least browse through it. I predict in advance, that even after your realize what you are visualizing as you read you will continue to have to correct that spontaneous visualization. That is a racist response. No sweat. The important thing is not that one is no-racist but that one is _anti_-racist. The two things are profoundly different. The first is merely personal and therefore trivial. It has no effects. To be anti-racist you have to be engaged in direct or indirect struggle to destroy the material bases of racism. You can even be slimily racist in your personal responses, but as long as you are engaged in the struggle to destroy the social or material bases of racism you are anti-racist and that is what counts. (This is all consistent with the Theses on Feuerbach.)

Carrol



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list