Re: denny's

[Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Two points.

To Yoshie's post I just want to add that liberal anti-discrimination law
is based on the principle of color-blindness, which is itself racist.
Anti-discrimination law will not and cannot be a genuine force against
racism until it restricts white and male privilege. This can only occur in
a socialist context, so we don't hold our breath. Progressive legislation
should nevertheless be protected, expanded, improved, and enforced, since
one must pursue progressive reforms on the real ground, not based on total
societal potential. This demands a complex critical stance towards
anti-discrimination law and policy on the part of Marxists, one that I see
very few Marxists embracing. CLS and CRT scholars have made important
advancements in our understanding of the situation and how to radicalize
otherwise liberal-progressive reforms.

To Kelley's last post, I just want to clarify that I did not mean to
indicate that the concepts we are using are wrong when I characterize them
as bourgeois social science. Much bourgeois social science has been very
useful. Some elements of bourgeois social science even contain the seeds
of subversion. What I was criticizing was what I perceived to be the
reification of bourgeois social scientific categories by your drawing
analytical boundaries too distinctly, or, more to the point,
undialectically.

Andy Austin