Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 13:17:02 -0800 (PST)
From: Thomas Seay <entheogens-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Is the white working class (in the US) less racist than the middle/upper-class?


--- Michael Handelman <mhandelman1-AT-yahoo.com> wrote:
> This  started me to think about, whether or not the
> white working class, in the US was less racist than
> the white middle/upper class. 

What is the importance of trying to weigh whether the
total racism of group A (white US workers) is more,
less or equal to group B (white US middle class)?

It would be more useful, in my opinion, to interrogate
ourselves about the contemporary nature of racism,
it's "landscape" and, I am going to throw in another
topic: work-from-anywhere technologies.  I've noticed
that many Leninists still hang on to the old rhetoric
about "divide and rule".  In my opinion, speaking from
the vantage point of northern california, that seems
to be only partially true.  I am not saying that there
aren't any employers that use such a tactic, but most
big corporations seem to use quite a different
approach: "multiculturalism and diversity".  If you go
to any big corporation (in California at least) you
will find the human resource department falling all
over themselves to develop multicultural programs:
everthing from "Cuisines of the world" days to
seminars on "Feng Shui in the Office".  Obviously in
itself "mulitculturalism" is not a bad thing, and
though I am not sure of its history, it may have been
a demand of the workers.  Nonetheless, in the context
of capitalism, it becomes a tool of appeasement and
hence control.  The implicit message is: "The color of
your skin, your country of origin, your sexuality does
not matter to us, as long as you work docilely..we are
all one big family working for the common good (of the
corporation)".

>From what I can see the "anti-affirmative action"
issue is a topic taken up by politicians more than
corporations(and I am using corporations as the main
locus in discussion, since it has replaced the factory
for the most part in the US).  It is the politicians
who wish to exploit the racism that arises from
workers competing amongst themselves over a limited
number of jobs. 

An interesting-if sad- fact here in Silicon Valley,
where I work as an engineer.  I work with a lot of
Indian engineers...Now especially during the boom,
there was a dearth of engineers/programmers here. So,
you had Silicon Valley corporations pleading with the
government to allow more foreign engineers into the
country.  The newly-arrived  ones, working on
contract, were paid much less than an American
engineer with comparable experience.  At first I was
sure that the corporations were ripping these people
off.  As it turned out, that was not the case (in the
cases I know of).  There is, a whole industry of
"headhunters" from India that bring workers from India
(take care of all the paper work, etc) charge the
corporations the same amount per hour as other workers
receive and then pay the Indians very little.
The same industry exists for other nationalities (such
as Chinese).  Of course, a lot of these workers have
not been around long enough to get permanent residence
(green card) and so, now that many of them are being
laid off, it is the government that is forcing them to
return to India (in fact, they only have about two
weeks to get out of the country once they are
laid-off).  I am pretty sure that the corporations
would just as soon these people be allowed to stay (1)
to drive down costs and (2) to be available should the
economy pick up again.

Speaking of foreign workers,  I notice that a lot of
Silicon Valley companies are incorporating more and
more technologies like VPN, etc that allow workers to
work from home.  The company I work for is actually
encouraging workers to give up their office-space and
work from home.  Obviously many workers are taking up
the offer..it reduces commute time...maybe saves them
the cost of a baby-sitter, etc.  However, I can see
where this is headed.  It destroys the question of
"place", of a corporate center.  In the virtual home
workplace, an engineer in India can do my job just as
well as I can...and what's better, for the employer
(or should I say the stockholders), the Indian
engineer, in India, can be had for a reduced salary. 
This is the trend, so in as much as middle-class US
workers have been spared until now of some of the pain
caused by globalisation, that is a phenomenon that is
diminishing quickly.  If the middle-class corporate
worker has, in some ways, been less racist, due to the
fact that s/he did not have to compete in the
globalized economy (and therefore did not view the
foreign worker as a threat) that is about to change
and so we can expect more racist venom from that
sector, I am afraid.

So, it seems important to me to appreciate how racism,
even if it is not propagated per se by the capitalist
class, ARISES nonetheless from capitalist relations.
Also the onus upon us is to raise the point amongst
our colleagues that the response should not be
"protectionism" (as put forward by right-wing
populists like Pat Buchanan) but rather a globalism
free of capitalism.

-Thomas





====<<Be like me!  The Primal Mother, eternally creative, eternally impelling into life,
    eternally drawing satisfaction from the ceaseless flux of phenomena.>>
    -Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy"

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