Re: Staggering Death rate for black pregnant women

[Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wojtek,

For liberals, everything is about individuals. Racism is no more about
individual attitude than class is. Both are mainly objective systems of
oppression with 500 years of historical development. Most racism is
unconscious structuring of social life.

I have a small child, and almost every time we go to see a physician I
have to remind the staff that the black family sitting beside us were
there before us (same is true in restaurants, clothing stores, etc. -- I
have also noticed that I am the only white person who is willing to point
this out). Class? My family is on foodstamps and my wife and child are on
Medicaid (the TennCare program here in Tennessee). The black families are
often more affluent than we are; many of them are university professors
and other black elite of Knoxville. When hospital staff pick white
families on welfare over black families with private insurance, then race
trumps class. This is systematic; my personal experience is not novel.
(Although it is true that white males usually never notice the way they
are selected over blacks--no whites ever complained that Denny's was
priority seating and serving them while making blacks wait to be seated
and served. Given this, it is interesting to note that all of the Denny's
are undergoing a face-lift to be remade into 1950s-style lunch counters.)

The university where I work, like the two other universities where I have
worked, have white administrators and professors, all comfortable in air
conditioned offices, and black cafeteria workers, janitors, and grounds
keepers, hot and miserable and subservient. Where there are whites in the
cafeteria, they are managers. Where there are whites on the grounds, they
are foremen. Where there are blacks in the offices, they are assistants
and go-fors. Our university just raised standards and tuition to restrict
the number of "undesirable" students. Blacks enrollment is projected to
decline over the next several years. Ideological racists here on campus
are fond of pointing out that blacks still get in on sports scholarships;
these same ideologues fail to note that (a) whites are overrepresented in
sports scholarships (especially white males) and (b) minority proportion
of sports scholars have been steadily declining with the bolder
reclamation of a fuller measure of white privilege.

I could continue all day describing the racial stratification of the
United States. That's easy.

What's not so easy is figure out why people like you, Wojtek, are bent on
denying reality. Denying a reality contributes to perpetuating that
reality--a reality that is as much about privilege as it is about
disadvantage. I used to be at a complete loss as to how you could
completely miss the racial stratification the United States. I understood
then that your extreme subjectivism served as a philosophical blinder
preventing your from seeing structure. You are, after all, a pretty clever
idealist. But then you turn around and contradict your social
constructionism by noting class stratification in terms seemingly grasping
of its proper ontological status. Now I am not so sure of your idealism.
You cherry pick your ontologies too obviously these days; the
inconsistency is revealing. Increasingly I believe you *do* see the deep
racial stratification of our society, but deny it for ideological
purposes.

So what's your game, man? What's the motive?

Andy

On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:

>kelley, i also had the dubious pleasure of using public health care system
>in this country, after all doctors (including the Rutgers clinic where i
>was eligible) I called refused to see a very sick child because he did not
>have health insurance.  although my reaction to the long waiting hours was
>my long diatribe against american capitalism directed to other patients -
>they were white, blacj and hispanic but largely unimpressed by my diatribe.
>
>you see, i'm white or rather caucasian (i'm not 'white' in the american
>meaning of the term) and i could not get health insurance for a child
>because i did not have enough money.
>
>Moreover, I had a very similar experience in austria - a country of which
>i've never been a citizen - and obtained treatement without any problems
>and without charges. that is, btw, one of the reasons why i genuinely hate
>the us and suck up to the europeans (another is the fucking us religiosity).
>
>so where does the race enter here?  all i see is class bias - the fact that
>the american ruling class and liberals want to sweep under the rug.
>'racism' seems a more plausible explanation for them because it is more of
>an individual attitude than a systemic factor.  the so-called black leaders
>and reverends like it because they can win popularity among poor blacks
>without being too radical and upsetting the ruling class. imho, it is a
>conveneient distraction from radical politics.
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>wojtek, do you teach?  have your students trek to a neighborhood you'd
>>consider poor then have them count the number of adverts for cigs and
>>booze.  have them look at the billboards.  the corner markets.  everything.
>> then have them go to a suburban neighborhood and check it out or even to a
>>wealthier city neighborhood and check it out.  also have them count the
>>number of liquor stores and look at how much shelf space is devoted to what
>>kinds of products.  yeah yeah demand and all that but the ads....  now if
>>some yuppie can be easily persuaded that s/he absolutely NEEDS that jeep
>>grand cherokee then i suspect same holds for everyone else.
>>
>
>kelley, i live in an empowerment zone in downtown baltimore and in addition
>to having a sinceure at jhu i also teach at a 'black' college (morgan
>state) - again what divides my students is not race (most of them are
>black) but class (those coming from middle class do considerbaly better
>than the other).
>
>i've also seen'em all - billboards, corner markets, liquor stores etc -
>they are all over poor sections of the city, some of them 'black' other -
>'white'.  i also ocassionally go to the burbs (to buy stuff, mostly) i do
>not stay there long because i get depressed quickly - but long enough to
>see that burbs are populated by white, black, asian etc, folks who drive
>suvs and are scared as shit each time they drive them past city limits.
>
>so again all i see is class.
>
>ah there is also 'racism' cried loud by corrupted balitmore politicians
>(who happen to be mostly black) especially when they face prosecution for
>corruption or elections which make them suddenly rember about their urban
>(mostly black) constituents -- while most of the other times they are busy
>transfering public money to corporate elites (school vouchers, stadiums,
>luxury hotels).
>
>wojtek
>
>ps. if i described to you a section of a town in my native poland occupied
>mostly by underclass, and the behavioral patterns of the inhabitants
>without mentioning their skin color (all-white) - i'm pretty sure you would
>think i am talking about mostly-minority (black or hispanic) ghetto in the us.
>
>
>
>