Wojtek: >At 03:13 PM 6/1/99 -0500, Yoshie wrote: >>Rod Hay wrote: >>>I don't believe in racial guilt. And I don't believe that any social group >>>has a monopoly on virtue. My ancestors were poor scotish crofters. If they >>>received any benefit from slavery, it was not apparent in their income. The >>>point is that all past modes of production were based on exploitation. Are >>>all descendants of the exploited (the large majority of the population in >>>most modes of production) to be compensated. >>>A much more reasonable political goal would be to design programs that >>>create opportunities for those that don't have them now regardless of their >>>background. I think the work of William Julius Williams is instructive on >>>this question. >>>It is a class issue not a race issue. >> >>The failure of black reconstruction after the Civil War made it inevitable >>that exploitation would continue to be a racial as well as a class issue. >>The residential segregation, school funding inequity, the war on crime, the >>retreat from affirmative action, and so on have perpetuated the racial >>stratification of the working class. > > >Yoshie, I think these type of arguments can make a good AAA or >psychotherapy session, but are completely counterproductive in a political >discourse aiming at bringing a social change. Suppose that what you're >saying is 100% true and we, the white pigs, are collectively guilty as >charged. Then what? What are we supposed to DO? Colletively hang >ourselves, or go back where we came from (where is that exactly anyway?). > >Frankly, I think this is a liberal guilt trip that may create good market >for shrinks and other helping professions, but otherwise is completely >divisive esp. the working class. Can you fill me in about any progressive >course of *action* or policy direction flowing from this argument but not >from other forms of progressive discourse? How wojtek finds psychology in my comments remains a mystery. Yoshie
