Date: Thu, 02 Jul 1998 12:02:25 -0400 From: Wojtek Sokolowski Subject: Re: Magazine Feature on White Racism To: psn@csf.colorado.edu, psn-cafe@csf.colorado.edu At 10:54 PM 7/1/98 +0000, Steven Rosenthal wrote: >Woytek is right to remind Noel that it is necessary to make a class >analysis of white people and to urge Noel to analyze the linkage of >racist ideology to capitalism. But Woytek could also learn from Noel >both to recognize racism more clearly and to fight it consistently. I do recognize that racism exist. But my posting was not about recognizing it. I asked a very simple question, what are we supposed to DO to end it? I did NOT ask what are we supposed to THINK, or what ATTITUDE are we supposed to express to end it. I do not belive that thinking equals doing. I am well aware of the fact that many whites have quite negative attitudes toward blacks simply because of their skin color. I also know that many blacks have negative attitudes toward whites. I may also add that similar prejudices exist against virtually any group, Catholics, jews, Muslims, Eastern or Southern Europeans, Irish, you name it. I also think that world would be better place if people did not have such attitudes. However, I think that we have more urgent problems to solve than changing people's attitudes - like gross economic inequality. To be frank, I do not mind people cracking Polack- or Kike- jokes (although I still think cracking ethnic jokes is rude) as long as I can get employment at places like Johns Hopkins. In the same vein, sexist attitudes toward women are certainly deplorable, but instead of changing the locker-room manners, a much more fruitful strategy is to enforce the equal pay for equal work rule, or equal employment opportunity. Ditto for racist attitudes. >capitalism and racism. The fact that capitalism exploits all workers >does not make that exploitation non-racist. In fact, >super-exploitation of black workers is used by the capitalist class >to increase the exploitation of all workers, divide the working >class, and increase the profits and power of the capitalist class. I agree. But that is a very general statement difficult to translate into practical action. > >To fight racism, we should oppose KKK and police murders of black >workers, the destruction of welfare, the scapegoating of Latin and >Asian immigrants, the promotion of I.Q. ideology, sociobiology, and >culture of poverty versions of academic racism. I do not think KKK or police murders are the policy of the ruling class. They are exceses of right wing zealots and control freaks, and the ruling class would rather avoid them, because they are embarassing (Cf. the treatment of Duke by the GOP establishment). That is not to say that the right wing thugs cannot be useful when the elite interests are threatened by the working class collective action (like in Italy or Germany) - but in the US such threat is very remote. I would go as far as saying that KKK- or polcie-brutality-bashing is a convenient strategy used by elites to gain legitimacy (cf. Giuliani). The welfare system? - gimme a break! It is a sad day when Marxists start defending state charity instead of structural changes to guarantee employment and living wage for everyone. As to culture of poverty - see may comments further below. IQ and so-so biology? That's bullshit that has remarkably little support, even among convervative academics. It is visible because of the controversy it generates, but believe me, it also has a very real potential of seriously damaging the interest of knowledge producers - so I'm not concerned that this contraption will fly very far. I think that Belle Kurve now serves as a convenient lightening rod, or perhaps a straw man that allows many academicians to show that they are, after all, 'critical' of something in the mainstream culture. >fight racism and how to unify the working class. To end racism, we >must not only make the fight against racism (and nationalism) also a >fight to destroy the capitalist system. We must expect, even after >the overthrow of capitalism, to fight for a long time to eradicate >racism and nationalism from the world. I agree. However, in that fight we must focus on struggles that are winnable and that can have a matrial effect. Focusing on psychological phenomena, such as racist attitudes, appears to me like a terrible weaste of energy, almost like substituting th eideal for the real - which is how religion copes with miserable living conditions. I may also add that racism is a convenient diversion that blames individual attitudes for the structural failures of the capitalist system. Bullshit claims that Bl;acks are poor because all or most White are racists only helps to treinforce the myth that if only Whites changed their attitude, the market system would be just fine. That is bullshit. Blacks are poor not because Whites hate them, but because the market system is NOT a tidal wave, it does not lift all the boats - contrary to the official propaganda. In fact, the market system helps only those who already have something while leaving behind those who have little or nohing. Therefore, the poor (Black or otherwise) are poor not because other people hate them, but because the system by which economic decisions are made by design ignores people with little or no resources. In other words, the proit-seeking market system will fail to help the poor of any skin color, regardless of the attitudes of the rich toward them. Thus, a racist government bueraucrat administering a program designed to mend the "market failures" does more to help the poor Blacks than a pc-liberal who sends charitable donations to fight the Klan, but supports the free market system. > >The "culture of poverty" is a racist and anti-working class concept. > It does not cease to be racist because it is also applied to white >workers. The Bell Curve didn't cease to be a racist book because >Murray and Herrnstein asserted that a large population of poor >whites are genetically and culturally inferior to rich whites. It >is a victim-blaming one-sided view of poor people. According to the >culture of poverty theory, poor people perpetuate their own poverty >through their own values and behavior and are therefore unable to >take advantage of opportunities to get out of poverty that society >makes available to them. I do not think that the culture of poverty argument is inherently racist, the fact that some used to defend racist policies notwithstanding. Would you claim that Marxism is a totalitarian or imperialist ideology, because it was used by Soviet leaders to prop up their totalitarian and imperial ambitions? I think wee need to recognize human agency and micro-structural social forces acting independently of the global forces of capitalism. The fact that a worker is exploited by a capiotalist does not mean that he is incapable of exploitation of, say, his wife. That is, the fact that someone is oppressed or explited does not mean that he or she is exonerated of all wrongdoing on his/her part. In fact, the culture of poverty argument can be used to explain how exploitation can lead to adaptation to- rather than changing the status quo. Crime, drug addition, exploitation of women are ways of coping with poverty rather than changing. I may add that exonerating those petty thugs as 'victims of oppression' - perhaps a pc thing to do for limousine liberals -- is an insult to the working poor expolited not just by the forces of capitalism, but by the parasitic elements in their own communities - pimps, druggies, dealers, thieves, fencers, hooligans, vandals, etc. BTW, Michael Burawoy in his _Manufacturing Consent_ describes how the working class culture helps the workers to adapt to- and cope with- capitalist exploitation. That argument is structurally identical to the "culture of poverty" - yet it does not draw any ire for alleged "blaming the victims." I see double standards her that tell me that some criticisms of the culture of poverty arguments may be disingenuous. > >White leftists who think that ending capitalism does not require >us to fight racism encourage black reformists who think that ending >racism does not require overthrowing capitalism, and black >nationalists who think that few if any whites will ever fight racism. Let me get it staright. If racism means only economic exploitation then fighting racism is synnymous with fighting capitalism. However, racism is a very poorly defined concept. It has a host of other cultutralist and psychologiocal connotations that tend to to obscure the economic inequality. And I think that because of those connotations, the ruling class and its agents, like Clinton, use racism as a stock phrase. It is precisely because they hope to direct public iattention toward those culturalist and psychological aspects while obscuring the systemic roots of poverty in this country. On the top of it, there is a host of moral entrepreneurs, symbol manipulators, academics, reverends, politicians, literary critics etc. who see it as an opportunity to either sell their cultural commodity or to spring themsleves to leadership positions. They might not be conscious collaborators, but their talk about 'racism' dove-tails with the ruling class efforts of blaming the psychological phenomena instead of blaming the system. I end with paraphrasing Marx: religion, culture and pop-psychology are the opiates of the people. They distract our attention away from the material world, and stymie social change. Regards, WS