[Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers | Informed Comment

2013-07-14 Thread Louis Proyect

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http://www.juancole.com/2013/07/african-americans-numbers.html


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[Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers | Informed Comment

2013-07-14 Thread michael yates
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I have been involved in discussion with some people about the inequality along 
every economic, social, and demographic outcome between whites and blacks. 
There are those who say that we shouldn't keep harping about racism and white 
privilege. What we need to do is focus on the fight for greater equality, by 
demanding full employment, universal health care, an end to the criminal 
injustice system, etc. Since black persons will benefit disproportionately, 
these efforts, which are not overtly race conscious, are our best bet for 
movement building. Others of us have said that race has an independent impact 
of the above mentioned outcomes, and therefore, race has to be addressed head 
on in any attempts to bring about radical change. In Cuba, for example, there 
has been much greater equality than in any capitalist society, more or less 
full employment, and conscious efforts to eradicate racial disparities. Yet 54 
years after the Revolution, Esteban Morales tells us that racial disparities 
 continue to exist and still greater efforts are needed to eradicate them.

What do others think? 

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Re: [Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers | Informed Comment

2013-07-14 Thread Louis Proyect

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On 7/14/13 5:20 PM, michael yates wrote:

I have been involved in discussion with some people about the
inequality along every economic, social, and demographic outcome
between whites and blacks. There are those who say that we shouldn't
keep harping about racism and white privilege. What we need to do is
focus on the fight for greater equality, by demanding full
employment, universal health care, an end to the criminal injustice
system, etc. Since black persons will benefit disproportionately,
these efforts, which are not overtly race conscious, are our best bet
for movement building.


These are essentially the arguments of Walter Benn Michaels. I do not 
agree with them: 
http://louisproyect.org/2009/09/04/a-critique-of-walter-benn-michaels/



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Re: [Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers | Informed Comment

2013-07-14 Thread Manuel Barrera
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Yates: I have been involved in discussion with some people about the 
inequality along every economic, social, and demographic outcome between whites 
and blacks. There are those who say that we shouldn't keep harping about racism 
and white privilege. What we need to do is focus on the fight for greater 
equality, by demanding full employment, universal health care, an end to the 
criminal injustice system, etc.
This post spurred a memory about one of the most influential books I ever read 
while a member of the once promising American Socialist Workers Party: George 
Brietman's How a Minority Can Change Society available free at the Marxist 
Archives: 
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/breitman/1964/xx/minority.htm
When I joined the Young Socialist Alliance, it was one of the first papers I 
ever read and it answered for me important questions why I should even be a 
part of a small organization ensconced within a larger movement like the 
anti-war movement. It was a different time and Breitman's discussion is 
situated in the context of the then vibrant civil rights movement and I read it 
in the context of early 1970's waxing and waning of the anti-Vietnam war 
movement, but I believe Breitman's work remains quite relevant today and 
especially as we see the outrage seething among people of color as well as the 
rather predictable reaction of leftists uncomfortable with that rage; afraid it 
will be ineffective and energy-sapping absent a strong leadership. Much has 
changed in this society, but I believe those changes have only reinforced 
Breitman's arguments even if in the negative with the advent of the Black 
misleadership. 

I think it is worth a read or re-read. Here are some rather interesting 
excerpts:

Referring to M.L. King's denouncing of the Freedom Now Party: King’s other 
remark was even more revealing: “One-tenth of the population will never be able 
to dominate nine-tenths.” Maybe not, although I’ve already pointed out that the 
capitalists, a minority of less than one per cent, dominate the other 99 per 
cent of us. Anyhow, that’s not the issue posed by the Freedom Now Party. It is 
not the Freedom Now Party’s goal for the Negro one-tenth to dominate the white 
nine-tenths. Just the opposite — its goal is to keep the white nine-tenths from 
dominating and oppressing the black one-tenth. How to do this — that’s the real 
difference between King and the Freedom Now Party. Must the minority adapt 
itself in its methods and tempo to the prejudiced majority, just because it is 
a majority, and not do certain things because the majority will not like it? 
Or, can the minority end the domination of the majority by acting with complete 
independence from the majority ideologically, organizationally, politically — 
and only by acting independently? King prefers not to discuss this real 
difference. That’s why he misrepresents his opponents’ position with irrelevant 
talk about the inability of one-tenth to dominate nine-tenths.

and his concluding paragraph: 
And so today many of us, I am sure, will be able to grasp and act on the 
concept of Negroes as leaders of the workers’ revolution not just as a 
possibility but as a probability. I shall not try, because that is a job for 
the whole movement, to work out or complete everything that flows from this 
concept, except to say that much does, and that all of it seems to me a cause 
for optimism. Nor shall I try here to discuss the kind of alliance I think the 
Negro vanguard of the working-class revolution will have to effect with the 
advanced section of the white workers if the revolution is to be led to 
success, except to say that I do not think it can be an alliance that will make 
concessions in principle to the white allies of the Negroes, any more than the 
revolutionary vanguard in Russia sacrificed any principles in their alliance 
with the peasants. Instead, I shall conclude, with much left hanging, by saying 
that if the ideas in this talk are correct, if the concepts about what a 
minority can do will be of practical and theoretical benefit in advancing the 
Negro struggle for freedom, then what they demonstrate is the validity and even 
the indispensability of Marxism to Negro revolutionists, whether or not they 
belong to the Socialist Workers Party. 

Or any other party or vanguard for that matter. We need to fight for Black, 
or Brown, rights because it is the only road to winning any rights; or 
defending whatever rights we may have. I particularly like the ending left 
hanging because Breitman is right, those chapters of unity in struggle must be 
written by the masses and the thoughtful revolutionary--Marxist and 
otherwise--leaders who learn how best to win.

 

Re: [Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers | Informed Comment

2013-07-14 Thread Richard Fidler
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Michael's point about Cuba is well-taken. Reducing income disparities,
introducing full or almost-full employment, and campaigning against racism
can all play a role in reducing racism. But racism is cultural, ideological,
and as Esteban Morales documents, the Cuban revolutionaries have had less
success in their sporadic attempts, for example, at affirmative action for
blacks and mestizos.

An interesting article on anti-indigenous racism in Bolivia, which I just
translated on my blog, makes the point, however, that a combination of state
action (including constitutional recognition of the plurinational
composition of the state) with concrete measures to reduce income and other
social and economic disparities (under the government of another Morales),
can alter the relationship of forces within the society, and help embolden
and empower racially oppressed sections -- especially in a society like
Bolivia's, where the indigenous are the majority of the population. See
http://lifeonleft.blogspot.ca/2013/07/why-is-evo-morales-still-popular.html
.

Excerpt:
A fundamental mechanism in this empowerment is the coming into force of a
law against racism, which has denaturalized racial discrimination,
confining it to the private sphere. ...

During the last decade Bolivia has been going through what Marxists would
characterize as a political revolution, that is, a substitution of
political elites that has been quite thoroughgoing. Groups of different
ethnic, class and political-ideological origins have replaced the dominant
political strata of the past. It has been a peaceful substitution but aimed
at the elimination and not the coexistence of the opposing side, and it has
unfolded using both political and judicial methods. The members of the old
political elite have lost the right to work in the public arena, in a sort
of symbolic banishment. Businessmen have been told not to interfere in
politics.[23] Some leaders have had to go into exile as a preventive
measure, others have ended up in jail.[24] 

-- Richard

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From: marxism-bounces+rfidler_8=sympatico...@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
[mailto:marxism-bounces+rfidler_8=sympatico...@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
] On Behalf Of michael yates
Sent: July-14-13 5:20 PM
To: rfidle...@sympatico.ca
Subject: [Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers |
Informed Comment

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I have been involved in discussion with some people about the inequality
along every economic, social, and demographic outcome between whites and
blacks. There are those who say that we shouldn't keep harping about racism
and white privilege. What we need to do is focus on the fight for greater
equality, by demanding full employment, universal health care, an end to the
criminal injustice system, etc. Since black persons will benefit
disproportionately, these efforts, which are not overtly race conscious, are
our best bet for movement building. Others of us have said that race has an
independent impact of the above mentioned outcomes, and therefore, race has
to be addressed head on in any attempts to bring about radical change. In
Cuba, for example, there has been much greater equality than in any
capitalist society, more or less full employment, and conscious efforts to
eradicate racial disparities. Yet 54 years after the Revolution, Esteban
Morales tells us that racial disparities continue to exist and still greater
efforts are needed to eradicate them.

What do others think? 

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Re: [Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers | Informed Comment

2013-07-14 Thread Mark Lause
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I'd suggest that if anyone is living in a situation where they're not
finding themselves in a continual dialogue about race they probably don't
know many black people.

The problem is a civic culture in which discussions of race in America have
become a substitute for doing something about it.  And it hasn't helped
that so many have decided to make assumptions about basic changes in the
system.

So, talk, yes . . . that's essential, particularly across that horrific
color bar that still divides the society.  But wouldn't it be refreshing to
be up and DOING!

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