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

[Marti Wilkinson]

There is a distinction between stating that social constructions of race,
class, and gender have an element of intersection, and claiming that these
elements can't or perhaps shouldn't be considered individually. If criminal
law treated everyone equally there would not be the discrepancies we see in
how laws are enforce based on race, based on class, and based on gender.
When you make the argument that racism is based on legal structures the
truth is we still see racism in our society and culture. Otherwise the legal
structures we have in the United States would treat everyone equally. When
the son of actor Michael Douglas was sentenced to half of the minimum
recommended sentence, people commented that having a rich and famous daddy
made it possible for this guy to get a lighter sentence. This guy was
dealing hard drugs and got off considerably lighter than a poor white or
black person would have. Of course, the effectiveness of prohibition and
incarceration is a whole different subject altogether.
*
South Africa used to be a racist state but is no longer*

This again, goes back to the argument you have made that racism is based in
law and that racial prejudice is a separate and distinct concept. According
to Merriam-Webster below is the dictionary definition of racism:


   - A belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and
   capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a
   particular race
   - Racial prejudice or discrimination


The definition of racism is not one that is based on law, but on belief
systems and practices. Which makes the argument that racism is based on
legal structures just plain factually incorrect. It is also factually
incorrect to state that an indentured servant is the same as a slave, which
is basically what is being argued in comparing Obama's maternal and paternal
ancestry. An indentured servant was under contract for a specific length of
time, while enslavement treated human beings as chattel and private
property. While the conditions of indentured servants were often as harsh as
what slaves endured there are still some tangible and distinct differences
between the two. Referring to an indentured servant as a slave, in the sense
of how slavery functioned in the United States, is a very perverted and
really ugly way to twist history. It's pretty sad really.





On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 6:28 PM, C. G. ESTABROOK <cge at shout.net> wrote:

> It's been suggested that "racism" be distinguished from "(racial)
> prejudice" - the former referring to legal structures and the latter to
> social attitudes. Thus Israel is a racist state, in that people have
> substantial legal privileges based on descent; South Africa used to be a
> racist state but is no longer. But prejudice in both states has probably
> waxed and waned as a complex social phenomenon.  (You'd get varying answers
> over time to the questions, "Do you hate Arabs/Jews?"; "Do you hate
> blacks/whites?")
>
> The recent conflation of race, class, and gender - the suggestion that they
> "can't be separated" - has probably contributed to muddled thinking about
> all three.
>
> For example, one would think that the election of a "mixed-race" president
> (the term already has something of an archaic quality to it) would work
> against the reification of race in the US. (Is BHO black or white?)  But
> instead liberals are insisting on the essentialization of the categories -
> now capitalized Black and White - in order to have a self-protective account
> of social conflict:  it's all racism...
>
> (BTW it might be noted that, if Obama is in any way descended from slaves,
> it's not on his father's [Black] side but on his mother's [White] side. His
> father's Luo people seem never to have been slaves, but his maternal
> great-great-great-grandfather was - as an Irish indentured servant.)
>
> Neoliberalism - the ideological and political counterattack against the
> social upheaval of the third quarter of the 20th century - has been in place
> in the US for a generation, dominating "both" political parties.  It's the
> genius of neoliberalism to suppress all but incidental reference to class
> while insisting that inequalities in society - of the sort you eloquently
> describe - are owing to prejudice.
>
>
>
> On 5/22/10 12:08 AM, Marti Wilkinson wrote:
>
>> You simply can't use the very small baby steps that have been accomplished
>> by
>> the civil rights and other movements to pooh-pooh the very real social
>> constructions that class, privilege, and racism still play in society.
>> It's
>> about as ignorant as suggesting that the abolition of slavery somehow
>> magically translated into equal treatment for free blacks. It was a
>> progressive step, but the racism surfaced in other ways such as in the
>> rise
>> of the KKK. Now we have conservatives who are forming tea parties and
>> targeting organizations like ACORN. How much funding did ACORN lose as a
>> result of some selective editing of video and a full scale witch hunt by
>> the
>> GOP?  Perhaps it's easy to ignore what some conservatives are advocating
>> in
>> the form of "citizenship" tests (not unlike the old literacy tests of Jim
>> Crow) so people can earn the right to vote?
>>
>> If you really believe that we need to give class constructions more
>> consideration than issues of racism then you are fooling yourself. As
>> Roediger and others have pointed out racism and class-ism cannot be
>> separated. California's proposition 209, which was an anti-affirmative
>> action
>> measure, garnered a lot of support from white women. Proponents of
>> proposition 8 have worked hard on appealing to both Black and Hispanic
>> demographics. We can look at the lessons of history from when former
>> indentured servants were convinced that freeing blacks would threaten
>> their
>> own standing in the American colonies. How about when Native Americans
>> were
>> richly rewarded for returning runaway slaves to the plantations? What
>> policies that prevented free blacks from traveling in Native American
>> territory? It wasn't that many generations ago that it was illegal for a
>> person who had dark skin to be able to read and write, now Arizona wants
>> to
>> ban ethnic studies programs.
>>
>> Fast forward to today....how many black people have lost their homes due
>> to
>> predatory lending practices? It's just another version of the same
>> financial
>> practices from the 30's and 40's that encouraged 'white flight' and
>> resulted
>> in segregated communities. How many white kids in Champaign have been
>> issued
>> citations for public spitting or have gotten stopped for walking on the
>> street? What about the population of Blacks and Latinos in the prison
>> systems
>> instead of the justice system? A white kid attending the U of I who is
>> caught
>> with a bag of weed may be charged with a felony, while a black kid on the
>> "north end" is likely going to face felony charges. Having a female
>> representing this county as the States Attorney sure hasn't helped much in
>> that regards. The power structures in this society depend on racial
>> inequities in many ways in order to sustain itself.
>>
>> Speaking of war, African Americans are still the most heaving targeted
>> demographic for military equipment. Now, if racism really wasn't as bad as
>> it
>> used to be then AWARE (Anti War Anti Racism Effort) could just simply be
>> in
>> AWE (Anti War Effort).
>>
>> If racism really wasn't as bad as it used to be then there would be as
>> many
>> African Americans, Latinos, and Women pursuing PhD's and directing the
>> curriculum in university environments. I've heard from people who have
>> taught
>> at the U of I that the institution can be a hostile work environment for
>> minorities and it's no picnic to be a part of the system of higher
>> education
>> there. But, since black students are now allowed to live south of
>> University
>> Avenue it can be argued that racism at the U of I really isn't as bad as
>> it
>> used to be.
>>
>> I guess we can take these small baby steps as a sign that things really
>> aren't as racist or sexist as it used to be. After all, only in the United
>> States can we have a Phyllis Schlafly clone as a vice presidential
>> candidate,
>> and Hillary Clinton (who only took her spouses name /after/ he entered
>> politics) as a presidential candidate. On her own two feet I doubt that
>> Hillary would have even managed to have gotten a senate seat, or have been
>> considered as a potentially viable candidate for the democratic
>> nomination.
>> HRC's "power" comes from her association with a powerful man, but since
>> sexism really isn't as bad as it used to be then I guess we can forget
>> that
>> little fact.
>>
>> Having been brought up during the 1970's and 1980's I certainly was taught
>> that the civil rights and the feminist movements gave both people of color
>> and women an amazing range of choices that had been previously closed to
>> them. Jim Crow was just one of those chapters in the history of the USA
>> that
>> happened  before my father had lustful thoughts towards my mother.  I am
>> perhaps amongst the first generation of women who were raised to be
>> something
>> other than wives and mothers. But I also have seen my fair share of gender
>> discrimination, and sometimes I wonder if things will be much better for
>> my
>> own daughter.
>>
>> I have also seen how some of my black neighbors have been treated by
>> members
>> of the local police department, and I can't dismiss the death of a 15 year
>> old boy as being something that resulted from the 'accidental' discharge
>> of
>> an officers weapon. Why is it that when the wife of surgeon brutally
>> stabbed
>> her two boys, the police response did not involve the use of a SWAT team?
>> However, the SWAT team came out to my neighborhood and blocked off a
>> significant portion of the area, in response to a suicidal black man with
>> a
>> gun. I live one block south of where Mr. Stewart took his life. I know
>> someone, who has a daughter working in law enforcement, who noted that if
>> Ellen Feinberg had been a black woman on the North End her ass would
>> probably
>> be sitting on death row. But since things aren't as bad as they used to be
>> I
>> suppose we don't have to consider these things at all.
>>
>> The comfortable thing for me to do would be to sit on my laurels and look
>> at
>> history and contemplate how much 'better' things are today in regards to
>> gender and race. Unfortunately, some semblance of critical thinking
>> usually
>> gets the better of me.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 8:17 PM, C. G. ESTABROOK <cge at shout.net
>> <mailto:cge at shout.net>> wrote:
>>
>> 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> <mailto: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>>
>> <mailto: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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