Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 11:23:22 -0800
From: djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu (rakesh bhandari)
Subject: M-TH: RACIAL CALM


I don't disagree with James that there has been  a demonization of the
white male working class in the form of an elitist anti-racism; after all,
the most despicable blow to our civil liberties, this anti-terrorism
legislation, was done in the name of protecting us from angry white males
in the Patriots and the Militias. I think such elite anti-racism which
James calls our attention to is a great danger, a greater danger indeed
than the angry white men themselves.

I do disagree that anti-racism only provides a cover to downsize the
working class. Sometimes not. For example, I do think there should be
active efforts to downsize as many racist cops from police departments as
possible. There are times when it is a good idea to downsize racists.

And among minority proles, I wanted to suggest that white male bashing was
less because of ressentiment or the elitism to which James refers but
simple, apparently endemic cognitive illusion: to the extent that the
typical class enemy is indeed a white male, we suppose that every white
male is one. But this mistake is not made by minorities alonge. To the
extent that the typical class enemy is indeed a white male, white males may
identify with this type and make coworkers' lives miserable.

 This problem is compounded by the fact that the majority of white males
are indeed not a part of the working class which may split the identity of
those who are.

Of course the root problem here is the objective elision of "class" and the
"social relations of production" from our collective representation and of
the absurd acceptance of the existence of ethno-racial groups as real
fundamental groups with their own coherent cohesive interests (how easily
people think of Blacks as such has been revealed by Adolph Reed, Jr over
and over again): It is assumed that our identities are basically and even
naturally ethno-racial (an identification which the state now sanctions
through this natl racial dialogue and to which official, scholarly and
journalistic statisticians lend their authority through the ritualistic
racial specification of data on unemployment, income distribution, poverty
rates, academic scores, census counts).

It is thus not surprising that it is now openly suggested and implicitly
encouraged that America  will be riven by  ethno-racial controversies.

Consider Gerald Seib, "A New America Begins Its Quest for Racial Calm",
WSJ, 8/6/97 A16.

"In truth, there are three new emerging realities big enough to make
everybody, not just black leaders, uncomfortable down the line. The first
is the rise of the Hispanic population. That raises policy questions about
such emotional topics as bilingual education and immigration policy, which,
of course, will help determine the ultimate size of the Hispanic
population. The second big reality is the declining predominance of the
white majority. How will whites handle being a significantly smaller
majority? The third big change is the rise of the population of mixed race,
which affects everything from census categories to congressional
redistricting."

First the campaign against bilingual education and "Hispanic" immigration
is driven by capitalist rationalization. If there is no cost/benefit
efficiency gain for capital to be had by allowing people simply to enjoy
the worlds of two languages or to use immigration slots to bring over
family members instead of only the exact kinds of labor capital wants, then
capital will fight such "waste" and use the bilingual ed money and
immigration slots for better payoffs.

Second, why should anyone care if there are any more or less whites? As
Peter Brimelow can't help but reveal in his pornographic Alien Nation:
Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster, the attempt to preserve
America's "whiteness" is only a cover to rationalize immigration policy to
deny citzenship to  family members who would later qualify for  benefits
and who may be easier to exploit if they remained illegal anyway. Moreover,
the Hispanic population is being set up to take the blame for the jobs
capital is unable to provide. Hispanics are being scapegoated among blacks.
After the LA riots for example, there was a discussion of "brown v. black."
Instead of attempting to raise the minimum wage to, say, $10 (a key demand
of the Labor Party),  blacks will be told to protect their employment
through immigration restriction.

Third, while the attempt to create a mixed race category probably has the
base motive of reducing in size the racial minority population which can
qualify for this or that compensatory program, and is thus only another
attempt to rationalize government spending (after all, the entire minority
population could easily become mixed race overnight), the mixed race
"movement" also threatens to further reify our racial identities, to
officialize the idea that our racial background and markings--as opposed
to, say, our position in the social relations of production--influences us
as to who we are and determines what we have at stake.

Rakesh




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