[Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers | Informed Comment
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.juancole.com/2013/07/african-americans-numbers.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers | Informed Comment
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 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? Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers | Informed Comment
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 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/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers | Informed Comment
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 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
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 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 -Original Message- 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 == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 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? Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/rfidler_8%40sym patico.ca Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers | Informed Comment
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 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! Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com