[Peace-discuss] ...AWARE and other local activist groups

[C. G. Estabrook]

Our priorities lie in not being pro-war neocons, or pro-Wall St. neoliberals - not even left-neoliberals…

“...left neoliberals are people who don’t understand themselves as neoliberals. They think that their commitments to anti-racism, to anti-sexism, to anti-homophobia constitute a critique of neoliberalism. But if you look at the history of the idea of neoliberalism you can see fairly quickly that neoliberalism arises as a kind of commitment precisely to those things.

"One of the first major works of neoliberal economics by an American is Becker’s 'The Economics of Discrimination,' which is designed precisely to show that in competitive economies you can’t afford to discriminate. Foucault sort of marks the beginning of neoliberalism in Europe with the horror at what the Nazi state did and the recognition that you can legitimize the state in a much more satisfactory manner by making it the guardian of competitive markets rather than the guardian of the German volk. And today’s orthodoxy is the idea that social justice consists above all in defense of property and the attack of discrimination. This is at the heart of neoliberalism and right-wing neoliberals understand this and left-wing neoliberals don’t” <https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/01/let-them-eat-diversity/>.  


> On Aug 29, 2015, at 9:56 AM, Stuart Levy <stuartnlevy at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> We can look forward to a world in which wealthy white people are killed by our police at the same rate as poor black people.
> 
> And one in which a job applicant named Taneesha is as likely to get an interview as one named Sara.
> 
> We're not in that world, and despite our name, AWARE's work has not aimed toward it.   I recently told Mark Enslin, who had proposed the name, that I appreciate the continuing reminder and associated guilt.   I'm not suggesting that AWARE should change either its name or its work - only when people come with an interest in racial justice, that we be clear about where our priorities lie.

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