File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0112, message 197


From: "cwright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: AUT: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Self-determination from waaaaayyy back
Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 21:21:21 -0600


See my post to Harald from most of this, but...

yeah, of course we have to understand these things historically as concrete,
as products of actual struggle.  Racism today is not the same as racism in
1950 as racism in 1850, as racism in 1690.  At each moment, very different
constructions of race existed.  The white race was not what it is today.
The racism of slavery necessarily differed from post-Reconstruction
sharecropping and Jim Crow to post-share cropping racism.  understanding
this gets past a lot of the liberal nonsense that treats racism as either
simply progressively disappearing or as permanent.

Cheers,
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "commie00" <commie00-AT-yahoo.com>
To: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2001 12:35 PM
Subject: AUT: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Self-determination from waaaaayyy back


> 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.
>
>
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>
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