Greetings Economists, On Feb 26, 2007, at 8:40 AM, ravi wrote:
I will provide an example: the original Brahmins (and their modern equivalents) now transplanted to the USA are, in my criticism, often seeking exactly that identity: "whiteness".
Doyle; What connects people, is a process of work. Racism arises not so much from color, in that so-called white or brown ethnics find racist excuses where 'color' is the same, as from a work process that connects people to each other. With northern Ireland for example the religious connections could be made impermeable and therefore racist connections could be established. In some ways class functions like this as well. But racism is specific to the connection process and other sorts of work processes do not have so much meaning about who connects to what. It is well known in the U.S. 'color blind' laws do not do away with racism. Integration processes founder often enough because say an African American family moving into a white neighborhood is isolated and vulnerable to 'whiteness' or a cultural loss of their roots of connection they know and understand and thrive in. Hence at least for me in order to eradicate racism one addresses the connection process. Used to be socialist would do that in the party and propagandize externally for elements of change. The defeat of various socialist experiments tells me that the theory of the work of connection is not up to current conditions. And that is the area to develop a means to unite working people. Doyle
