[Peace-discuss] Anti-racism

[C. G. Estabrook]

[I'll take the liberty of re-posting an observation on which I believe you and I 
agreed, John. --CGE]

...John is correct I think to suggest that there is a tendency in recent 
American liberalism to substitute diversity for (economic) equality as the goal 
of progressive politics.

The argument is sharply set out by Walter Benn Michaels in "The Trouble with 
Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality" (2006).  And 
it's been argued that the real story of Tom Frank's "What's the Matter With 
Kansas?" (2004) is that the working class abandoned the Democratic party when 
the Democrats abandoned economic equality (insofar as they ever embraced it) in 
favor of diversity.

Benn Michaels summarized his argument in a recent issue of the British journal, 
"New Left Review."  Here is his conclusion:

"...the answer to the question, ‘Why do American liberals carry on about racism 
and sexism when they should be carrying on about capitalism?’, is pretty 
obvious: they carry on about racism and sexism in order to avoid doing so about 
capitalism. Either because they genuinely do think that inequality is fine as 
long as it is not a function of discrimination (in which case, they are 
neoliberals of the right). Or because they think that fighting against racial 
and sexual inequality is at least a step in the direction of real equality (in 
which case, they are neoliberals of the left).  Given these options, perhaps the 
neoliberals of the right are in a stronger position -- the economic history of 
the last thirty years suggests that diversified elites do even better than 
undiversified ones. But of course, these are not the only possible choices."

<http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2731>


John W. wrote:
> Stated better than I could have stated it.  Thank you, Robert.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 9:42 AM, Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com 
> <mailto:naiman.uiuc at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
> "legal" seems too narrow. economic discrimination can persist in the absence
> of laws enforcing discrimination. in fact, discrimination can persist without
> being strongly reinforced by censorious attitudes, through customs and
> practices that may seem nominally neutral but have the effect of reproducing
> existing disparities.
> 
> for example: a legacy of British colonial policies in Northern Ireland was
> that Protestant workers disproportionately held factory jobs. a foreman comes
> before the workers and says,"we have a few openings." workers tell friends,
> neighbors, cousins. as a result, the applicant pool is all Protestants, and
> only Protestants get the jobs. no law said only Protestants would get the
> jobs. and censorious attitudes didn't have to be particularly strong for
> people to spread the news to their social circles which happened to be
> overwhelmingly Protestant. in such a situation, you would need affirmative
> action for redress. it isn't sufficient to say, there are no discriminatory
> laws, and the censorious attitudes aren't so bad.
> 
> 
> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 8:23 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu
> <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>> wrote:
> 
> 
>> [Racism refers to legal structures that penalize groups defined
> by descent.
>> Racial prejudice refers to censorious attitudes towards groups
> defined by
>> descent.  Both are present in Israel. Racism, but not racial
> prejudice, is
>> now largely absent in the US (altho' some, like native Americans,
> may justly
>> not think so).  --CGE]
>> 
>> March 4, 2009 SEGREGATION IN ISRAEL
>> 
>> Israeli Association for Civil Rights
>> 
>> Some 55 percent of Jewish Israelis say that the state should
> encourage Arab
>> emigration;
>> 
>> 78 percent of Jewish Israelis oppose including Arab parties in the 
>> government;
>> 
>> 56 percent agree with the statement that 'Arabs cannot attain the
> Jewish
>> level of cultural development'
>> 
>> 75 percent agree that Arabs are inclined to be violent. Among
> Arab-Israelis,
>> 54 percent feel the same way about Jews.
>> 
>> 75 percent of Israeli Jews say they would not live in the same
> building as
>> Arabs.
>> 
>> http://prorev.com/2009/03/segregation-in-israel.html
>