AR: " I can imagine going to talk to a long displaced steel worker in Western Pennsylvania whose fretting now about further increase in economic insecurity around the fracking stuff. And you're going to explain to him or her that because of slavery they've got to be on the giving end of some transfer payments that will go to recompense blacks for harms done in the past."
======= I've never read or talked to advocates of Reparations, and I have no idea what kind of mass response the slogan gains. Nor do I know what the broader politics of those making the demand are. But it is clear to me that Reed's rhetoric, his choice of perspective, is political nonsense. If the tactic has only one advocate (Coates), then it's not worth talking about. If it is an embryonic movement, then focusing on any one advocate is vicious. (I know nothing of Coates. What is his first name?) Reed talks in terms of arguments -- but it's not an academic matter, and mass politics don't revolve around "arguments." (Miles, myself, others have been arguing on this list for 15 years that it is practice not persuasion that is persuasive. First you get people involved in action and in the discussing of action, and that creates the context in which "arguments" become political. (I've been rereading lately some superbly written and argued posts from Michael Pollak on the question: they are beautiful but horribly wrong.) The question about Reparations is only whether or not it can involve mases in struggle. If it can, then analysis (arguments) become relevant to give body and thrust. And that brings us back to that " long displaced steel worker" Reed invokes. IF the Reparations Movement gains traction among African American masses, then that steel worker damn well better, if he knows his own interests, throw himself into the battle for reparations. (And if Reparations doesn't gain traction, some other issue as "off-putting will.) And the choice that steel worker makes will have global importance. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
