Darryl Pinckney reviews Coates’ new book against the backdrop of the “opposing visions of the social destiny of black people” expressed in its rich literary tradition.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/02/11/the-anger-of-ta-nehisi-coates/ > On Jan 26, 2016, at 10:45 AM, Maxim Linchits <[email protected]> wrote: > > And Coates expects a deeply racist, fragmented and economically stagnant > society to pay meaningful reparations to one politically marginalizes group? > What do people even mean by reparations? Cutting a one-time check a la > Friedman, Murray et. al. (which is still utopian, but ideologically appealing > in some quarters)? > > I don’t see any meaningful rebuttal from Coates. Wheread Reed is blunt and to > the point – Coates twists and turns and it’s just painful to read. The > racial wealth and income gap is enormous in both Europe and America. Unless > the redistributive policies are thoroughly racialized – as they were during > the New Deal – redistributive and class-affirmative policies will be a major > boon to oppressed racial minorities. And not just Blacks – but also American > Latinos. > > Coates asserts that meaningful class-first policies are a mere “band aid” for > racial problems. Why? He cites the example of “failed policies” of European > social Democracy and Clintonism , both of which have failed to address the > plight of racial minorities. Guess what – they also SPECTACULARLY “failed” to > address the plight of working people in general, in the past decades. And > calling class-first policies a “band-aid” for anything is a truly Orwellian > turn of phrase. > > As for the Sanders campaign – what would be the point of him calling for > reparations? Just to pander to black voters, making a promise he cannot > possibly keep? To fragment his base and distract people from the problem of > wealth inequality – which hits minorities ten times as hard? > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of raghu > Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2016 7:24 PM > To: Progressive Economics <[email protected]> > Subject: [Pen-l] Coates on Sanders and Clinton > > Coates directly addresses the stupid claim that anyone criticizing Sanders is > a Clinton stooge: > http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/bernie-sanders-liberal-imagination/425022/ > -----------------------------------snip > What candidates name themselves is generally believed to be important. Many > Sanders supporters, for instance, correctly point out that Clinton handprints > are all over America’s sprawling carceral state. I agree with them and have > said so at length. Voters, and black voters particularly, should never forget > that Bill Clinton passed arguably the most immoral “anti-crime” bill in > American history, and that Hillary Clinton aided its passage through her > invocation of the super-predator myth. A defense of Clinton rooted in the > claim that “Jeb Bush held the same position” would not be exculpatory. (“Law > and order conservative embraces law and order” would surprise no one.) That > is because the anger over the Clintons’ actions isn’t simply based on their > having been wrong, but on their craven embrace of law and order Republicanism > in the Democratic Party’s name. > > One does not find anything as damaging as the carceral state in the Sanders > platform, but the dissonance between name and action is the same. Sanders’s > basic approach is to ameliorate the effects of racism through broad, mostly > class-based policies—doubling the minimum wage, offering single-payer > health-care, delivering free higher education. This is the same “A rising > tide lifts all boats” thinking that has dominated Democratic anti-racist > policy for a generation. Sanders proposes to intensify this approach. But > Sanders’s actual approach is really no different than President Obama’s. I > have repeatedly stated my problem with the “rising tide” philosophy when > embraced by Obama and liberals in general. (See here, here, here, and here.) > Again, briefly, treating a racist injury solely with class-based remedies is > like treating a gun-shot wound solely with bandages. The bandages help, but > they will not suffice. > > There is no need to be theoretical about this. Across Europe, the kind of > robust welfare state Sanders supports—higher minimum wage, single-payer > health-care, low-cost higher education—has been embraced. Have these policies > vanquished racism? Or has race become another rubric for asserting who should > benefit from the state’s largesse and who should not? And if class-based > policy alone is insufficient to banish racism in Europe, why would it prove > to be sufficient in a country founded on white supremacy? And if it is not > sufficient, what does it mean that even on the left wing of the Democratic > party, the consideration of radical, directly anti-racist solutions has > disappeared? And if radical, directly anti-racist remedies have disappeared > from the left-wing of the Democratic Party, by what right does one expect > them to appear in the platform of an avowed moderate like Clinton? > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
