[Peace-discuss] [Discuss] [sf-core] Fwd: yesterday's article on massive racial inequality in wealth

[C. G. ESTABROOK]

If the US were "still just as racist as it was 40 years ago" BHO would never 
have been elected president; if it were just as sexist, Clinton and Palin would 
never have been serious candidates.

You can't simply ignore two generations of victories by the civil rights and 
related movements.

At a time when class difference in the US is as high as it’s been in the last 
hundred years, we’re being urged not to talk about what we never talk about (the 
inequalities produced by capitalism) and to talk lots more about what we always 
talk about (the inequalities produced by racism). Why?

One answer, of course, is the absolutely central role race and racism have 
played in our history. But it’s not a very good answer. The growing (and 
accelerating) inequalities of the last 40 years were not caused by racism and 
the catastrophic consequences of the current crash will not be alleviated by 
anti-racism.

Neoliberalism has quite brilliantly encouraged the response to more inequality 
to be a call for more diversity; neoliberalism insists that the only 
inequalities we need to do anything about are the ones produced by prejudice. 
Whose purposes does that serve?


On 5/21/10 1:25 PM, Marti Wilkinson wrote:
> /Defenders of the administration (and its filthy war) are eager to brand its
> critics as racists. If they all aren't racists, then their complaints that
> Obama is working against the popular interest and for an economic elite - on
> the war, on healthcare, on the banks, etc. - might not be able to be
> dismissed so easily./
>
>
> Where did I defend the administrations involvement in the war in my previous
> statement?  What I'm SAYING is the US is still just as racist as it was 40
> years ago, but it surfaces in far more subtle ways. I haven't read the latest
> by Roediger, but there is a book called "The wages of whiteness: Race and the
> making of the American working class" which also addresses both race and
> class. There is also "Whiteness: The communication of social identity" edited
> by Thomas Nakayama and Judith Martin and that is also a good resource.
>
> FYI: Greg Brown was developmentally disabled and one of the things that does
> not get discussed is how often the mentally and developmentally disabled can
> be harassed/mistreated by police officers.  My brother is disabled and, when
> he was younger, he was targeted by a police officer until my father
> confronted the cop and put a stop to it. Mr. Brown could very well have been
> my brother.
>
>
>
> On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 11:25 AM, C. G. ESTABROOK <cge at shout.net
> <mailto:cge at shout.net>> wrote:
>
> Are you *denying* that "US society is much less racist - and much more
> unequal - than it was 40 years ago"?
>
> Defenders of the administration (and its filthy war) are eager to brand its
> critics as racists. If they all aren't racists, then their complaints that
> Obama is working against the popular interest and for an economic elite - on
> the war, on healthcare, on the banks, etc. - might not be able to be
> dismissed so easily.
>
>
>
> On 5/21/10 10:53 AM, Marti Wilkinson wrote:
>
> "US society is much less racist - and much more unequal - than it was 40
> years ago"
>
> http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/a-critique-of-walter-benn-michaels/
>
>  I really think a lot of white intellectuals like Walter Benn Michaels are
> truly out of touch with the way things are in this culture today. While we
> do have a black president, we also have a tea party and birther movement
> that reflects the ingrained racism that is still prevalent today. The problem
> with focusing on class differences alone is it gives white self-described
> liberals a free pass to avoid looking at how their own whiteness (and
> privilege), plays a role here.
>
>
>
> On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 10:36 AM, C. G. ESTABROOK <cge at shout.net
> <mailto:cge at shout.net> <mailto:cge at shout.net <mailto:cge at shout.net>>> wrote:
>
> US society is much less racist - and much more unequal - than it was 40
> years ago.
>
> In 1970 the election of a black president was unthinkable, but in that year
> the distribution of wealth (Gini index) was at its least unequal in the 20th
> century. Today it's back to where it was in the late 1920s, and the
> concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands is not only continuing but
> accelerating.
>
> "...anti-racism today performs at least one of the same functions that
> racism used to — it gives us a vision of our society as organized racially
> instead of economically — while adding another function — it insists that
> racism is the great enemy to be overcome. But all the anti-racism in the
> world won't take any money away from the rich and won't give any of it to the
> poor." [Walter Benn Michaels]
>
>
>
> On 5/21/10 9:47 AM, Ricky Baldwin wrote:
>
>
>
> Very interesting article. Good points. It's always good for Americans to see
> this kind of discussion and realize we don't do too well when it comes to
> this kind of basic economic "fairness," no matter how much the blowhards
> talk about the "land of opportunity." Our system just doesn't serve most
> people too well - but then, we know that. It's just good to have the
> numbers.
>
> On the numbers, I have to take issue with the "typical" white/black family
> stats, though - and not just to be picky with words. I think it gives a
> false impression.
>
> The article doesn't say, but if what's meant is "average" (mean) then it
> isn't "typical" at all in an economy with vast inequalities like the kind
> described in the article. We can, and do (as the article points out), have a
> small number of extremely wealthy people and a huge number of people
> essentially left out of that massive accumulation. What that amounts to is
> the "average" (mean) is skewed upwards - making it look like more people are
> better off than we are.
>
> "Typical" here could also be median, a.k.a. the middle number if you arrange
> all the wealth from highest to lowest, but I doubt it. It seems too high
> given the inequality the article describes. Even if so, I'd argue that if
> the range of wealth is very wide, then the median isn't very "typical"
> either.
>
> Maybe I'm missing something. I'm not 100% awake yet.
>
> Ricky
>
> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn

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