Bill Mitchell wrote:
>perhaps you better consult the pen-l archives and go back to the french strike
>period before you stereotype me.
I remembered well your analysis of the role of unions in the french strike.
I wasn't trying to stereotype you, only trying to make sure you remained
consistent in your argumentation. You encouraged me to focus on the ruling
class, yet you have no compunction about a critical analysis of the unions.
Fine with me. Perhaps unions or other groupings of workers can act in an
inherently discriminatory manner, protecting themselves at the expense of
others. (True enough, as Jerry noted, the unions were formally against
Props 187 and 209, but they, like the Democratic Party, did little to
defeat them). You still want me to talk about the ruling class only?
>and you can still get the distance you want in analysing the affirmative action
>backlash without even mentioning colour. that was the point i was making.
Yes, I agree. In the previous paragraph, I make no reference to color,
only to competition among proletarians. This indeed is the way this
competition is most accurately REdescribed as some workers would understand
what they are doing as trying to keep the "niggers","wogs", "spics",
"bitches" and out. The social scientist does not have to analyze the
actions of others even those of one's own society in their own terms. I
agree with this. But note it is not I who made reference to color and sex,
and it is not I who has insisted that we deny that people do mention color
and sex and understand their own actions in such terms. This is the part
of reality we have to analyze, but we can't do it if you rule out any
mention of racial consciousness as racist.
Moreover, I was suggesting that people may actually be worried about who is
going to protect the interests of whites or white ethnics as they put it;
they may be worried about this both because the competition among
wage-laborers has increased and because they are reminded that soon they
will be pinced in between Asians, Blacks and Hispanics. They may look then
for the politician who cyncically promises to make the least concessions to
these other groups and tax them the least on the behalf of these other
groups--though of course the real business of the state has nothing to do
with protecting "whites" as such.
Are you denying that people may be color conscious in this way? I do
not deny it but I don't take it face value either. I think this form of
false consciousness needs to be explained. And I do agree that to
understand the world in terms of racial and ethnic group competition is to
fall into grave epistemological error: I did underline that racial
inequality may well be empirically correlated and logically related to
intra-white inequality, which indicates to me the absurdity of the
categories of race and ethnicity, but that doesn't mean people over here
don't mention those categories, reason in terms of them, and even act in
terms of racial categories, as a proxy for precise information about this
or that human being. Do you deny that people are color conscious in this
manner?
Rakesh
