[Peace-discuss] Anti-racism

[Robert Naiman]

I think it's worthwhile to distinguish between claims based on the
fact that one's ancestor experienced discrimination and claims based
on the current effects of past discrimination. While I have nothing
against the former, it's the latter that I was addressing.

On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 5:03 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:
> I get something because my Irish great-grandfather was an exploited laborer
> in
> 19c. Pennsylvania?
>
> There is (practically) no legal discrimination or popular prejudice against
> Irish-Americans today (altho' I could tell you stories from New England...).
>
>
> Robert Naiman wrote:
>>
>> I have no problem with making a distinction between legal structures and
>> popular attitudes. I was making a different point: that the categories of
>> "legal structures" and "popular attitudes" don't cover "racism," unless one
>> expands the categories of "legal structures" and "popular attitudes" to
>> include the absence of redress, since there are tendencies for disparities
>> created in the past to be self-perpetuating, even in the absence of legal
>> discrimination and popular prejudice.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 2:53 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> It's worthwhile to distinguish between legal structures and popular
>>> attitudes, even if there are areas where they shade into one another (e.g.,
>>>  the non-enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, or prejudicial police
>>> practice). The same is true of night and day.
>>>
>>> The civil rights movement ended legal segregation and contributed to
>>> conscientization of some regarding racial prejudice. For others, it
>>> increased racial prejudice (e.g., whites who concluded "the government does
>>>  everything for black people!").
>>>
>>> The latter reaction was encouraged by the long-standing elite strategy of
>>> playing upon divisions in the working class -- and race was always a potent
>>>  division, as limited success of 20th-century union organizing in the
>>> South
>>>  shows.
>>>
>>> Jay Gould, American financier at the turn of the last century, remarked,
>>> "I
>>>  can always hire one-nalf of the American working class to kill the other
>>> half."  He was not referring specifically to race, but it helped. --CGE
>>>
>>>
>>> Robert Naiman 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>
>>>> 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
>>>>> _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list
>>>>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>>> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>>
>



-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org