Re: denny's

[kelley <kcwalker@xxxxxxx>]

wojtek fleshes out further


>kelley, i do no think that restricted access is the most racist or sexist
>aspect of testing or higher education in general.  the most racist and
>sexist is another assumption - that you do not mention - that "academic
>worth" can be reduced to one-dimensional "intelligence" and that
>one-dimensional factor is equated with the cultural trait possessed by a
>particular group.  For example, if white males tend to do better in math,
>then "mathematical ability" becomes the standard for intellegence.  Such a
>single standard of intelligence and the exlusion of other possible
>standards (such as psychomotor coordination, or aesthetic perception) is
>pretty racist and sexist.
>

NO KIDDING?!!!!!   i am simply at a loss as to why we have to explain this
on a marxist-FEMINIST list.  this is such a standard feminist critique of
structured gender inequality that i'm just floored that anyone questioned
it.  so i have to wonder what is at stake.


>The rationing out you mention has a different function, imho.  The
>restriction of entry to a select group artificially increases the value of
>eduction, and turn the select few who possess it to an elite.  It can
>operate in such a way in an otherwise homogeneous society.  I think that
>aspect of higher education is more insidious than its racism or sexism -
>because it can sustain itself without any "external" distinctions and
>status hierarchies.

NO KIDDING!!!!!  but where i take exception with you is that we can call
these racializing systems of inequality.  {NOT stratification doug b/c that
has a structural-functionalist history bad bad bad].  in real stark terms,
then:  1 as capitalism undergoes its various permutations white bougeois
men move in response in order to pre-empt threats to their power, to adapt,
to redefine their self-understandings and identities and the institutional
norms and taken-for-granted assumptions that underpin them.  2.
concomitantly their racialized Others may shift, not only in terms of the
characteristics that are the focus of othering but also potentially in
terms of which groups are targeted.  this means, in other words, that
capitalism may well survive without racism against blacks because there
will be new racialized groups to target.   the reason why i think it's not
a good idea to dismiss the need USers have to define those who don't "make
it" as others--to racialize them iow--is because we have the language of
rights and equality that must always be addressed.  these inequalities have
to be seen as legitimate, as having authority or good reasons for existing.
 so, while the very structure of schooling is, itself, an institution
premised on the task of producing and reprducing inequality it does so
primarily by defining positions as limited.

and katha, the most lucid well written entertaining example of this
approach is none other than barbara ehrenreich's _hearts of men_.  as she
notes, she focuses on the idea producers--the professionals and mgrs who
shape our ideas of what constitutes physical health and illness,
psychological adjustment, cleanliness, proper child rearing. and so forth.
white p-m men, in HOM then, change their understandings of what constitutes
masculinity in response to the shifting imperatives of the emerging form of
consumption capitalism.  i won't belabor her thesis here but you certainly
don't have to read a lick of lacan or zizek or balibar to see a similar
approach being deployed  quite some time ago..

kelley