Re: Staggering Death rate for black pregnant women

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Thanks to Kelley for a sensible post:

Kelley wrote:
>but the racism comes into play to insofar as
>blacks are disproportionately poor, right?  that's a problem.

When Charles Brown forwarded a question of reparation for black people on
pen-l, several white guys jumpted on him, saying, "that's guilt-tripping,"
"the Irish suffered too," "there have been so many injustices in the world
that you can't begin to make any reparation for the past injuries," etc.
(It's astounding how many allegedly leftist white guys are in the grip of a
fear of and rage against the imaginary "guilt-tripping" by non-whites,
which makes it nearly impossible to talk about race on left e-lists.)

As a matter of fact, it is probably easier to achieve socialism than the
reparation for black people, and in this sense, it is not wrong to question
the wisdom of raising a demand for reparation on the ground that it is not
practical.  However, the reparation demand actually raises an important
question.  Race is in part an inherited property (not merely a 'discursive
construct'), in so far as wealth has been transmitted from parents to
children.  When you consult the race-divided data on net financial worth,
you'll see an even more striking disproportionality than the income data
suggest, I think.  And this very material, quantifiable hierarchy  -- the
very fact that blacks are disproportionately poor -- create the basis for
an ideology of race.

Yoshie