From: "commie00" <commie00-AT-yahoo.com> Subject: AUT: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Self-determination from waaaaayyy back Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 13:35:16 -0500 heya chris > To see racism as simply an instrument to divide workers is exactly the kind > of reductionism I think is poisonous. Racism is not simply divisive. > Racism is a power relation that flows from the interaction of two aspects of > life: the binary division of capital and labor, based on the separation of > the producer from the means of producing, involves the fragmentation of all > of social life. when i say that racism exists as a divisive thing (and is rooted in the realization and suppression of xenophobia from feudalism), i'm not reducing as you seem to think, but understanding the root. that is: why does racism exist within capitalism? why was it (for lack of a better word) created? it seems to me that the answer is: divisiveness, divide and conquer. however, that there are permutations of this (which you describe well) is true. but you still have to ask why and how those permutations exist. how does that power relation serve capital and hurt labor? that is: how does that power relation increase alienation and destroy community? "racism as a divider" and "racism as a intra-class power relation" (etc. etc.) are not two different things. and racism does not exist apart from capitalism. and if we are going to understand racism now and tomorrow, we have to understand its history. how and why it developed. and of course i disagree with john that capitalism is in total control of the capitalists. i think that's just as much of a silly reduction of complex social relations as believing that capitalists are in total control of capitalism. but that's neither here nor there. _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free -AT-yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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