Re: Nationalism, African-American and Quebecois

[djones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (jones/bhandari)]

I agree with Leo's brilliantly succinct post:

> Thus,insofar as the oppression of African-Americans was to be understood as
>something more than and different from a general class exploitation,  there
>was little option but to conceptualize it as national oppression. The problem
>was once this logic was carried through to its logical conclusion, you end up
>with the lunancy of the 'black belt' nation thesis.

Of course it is no less erroneous to decouple the oppression of
African-Americans from general class exploitation. I refer Leo to Eric
Arensen's analysis quoted in my post entited "Farrakhan's activism as
poststructuralism."  Throughout the 20th century, African-American workers
have been presented with the strategy of issuing "home-based' demands in
place of the  project of multiethnic workplace organizing. In practical
terms, 'racial' community has often come before class and the gains have
been often quite limited.

It is also incorrect to ignore the real integration which has been achieved
in the working class, which the post from Journal of Armed Desire
emphasized.  Workers from various  ethnic groups (not just African- and
European-American workers!) do work side-by-side, eat the same fast-food
poison for lunch and watch the same fuckery on television at night.  We may
be two nations, etc., but we may not be as different in many everyday
practices from each other as some of us imagine. Or as the reaction to the
OJ verdict has supposedly proven.

> By contrast, I would like to expand the
>repertoire of analytical concepts so that we could understand race as a
>distinct social form not reducible to class or to nationality. I believe that
>the work of Omi and Winannt, Cornel West, Paul Gilroy and others, making use
>of discourse theory, are significant contributions in this respect.

I am in full agreement with the need to expand the repertoire of analytical
concepts. I am skpetical of the discourse theory cited by Leo, however.  I
am particularly interested in what Leo finds important about Winant and
Omi's theory (I have taken a seminar with Michael Omi here at Cal).

 I should mention that  a friend has referred me to  the new work of Lewis
Ricardo Gordon, who has delved  into the writings of Fanon and Sartre,
deriving from the latter the concept of bad faith. Hence, the title of his
first book: Bad Faith and Anti-Black Racism. (Humanities Press, 1994)

Gordon has also written a book on Fanon.  I look forward to reading these
books and having skimmed them, they seem to be offering an original
contribution.

Rakesh




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