Re: [Marxism] correction on: Did Cannon have a "liquidationist"position on the Black question in the U.S.?

[thomas muntzer <immune_from_demoralization@xxxxxxxxx>]

> I've got a few comments, in general and in
> relation to Australia, about the relation between
> national and ethnic/racial questions. Be warned
> that as this is related to my academic concerns,
> I'm interested in definitions (or rather theory),
> not just political strategy.

Nick your post is great!  Very subtle and even-handed.
 I think we met in Venezuela last summer (or it was
some other Nick from the DSP?) although I was under a
different name.  I just have a few disjointed comments
myself we'll see if anyone finds them interesting.

I think there are inherent issues with seeing the
problem of nationalism and nationally oppressed groups
within the United States through the lens of the
Russian revolution and the European nationalisms of
the late 19th/early 20th century.  Nationalisms in the
Austro-Hungarian empire, in Poland, or in any of the
subjugated territories of the "prisonhouse of
nations," were modeled on French and to a lesser
extent German bourgeois nationalisms of the "long"
19th century (1789-1914).  The two main European
empires were cobbled together by absolutist states
often over the opposition of an emerging bourgeoisie.
This all sounds pretty unfamiliar in the context of
the internal class-race struggles of contemporary
Australia or the contemporary U.S.

I argued in an earlier post that the difference is
this: whereas in Russia the oppressed nationalities
for the most part lived in separate territories on the
periphery of the revolutionary struggle (St.
Petersburg and Moscow), in the United States, workers
of color are central to the functioning of the major
cities.  It doesn't take much arguing to say that most
black workers don't see the "black belt" as home as
Joaquin argues.  Maybe the older generation to a
greater but still not very significant extent, but
certainly not the young generation that will play a
leading role in the coming movements.

In this context whether or not blacks fit Lenin or
Stalin or whoever's definition of a nation is sort of
irrelevant.  I prefer Eugene Genovese's subtle
portrayal of blacks ambivalent status - partly a
nation, partly not (not a very good summary ;).  But
certainly totally bound up with white culture in a
sick, abused kind of way.

My experience of nationalism/class-consciousness in
the U.S. has been, for example: Mexican workers look
at the current setup and see: white people run the
society.  Mexicans raise their kids, cook their food,
build their houses.  White people stole Mexico's land.
 If we had "a day without a Mexican" the system would
break down.  These are widely held opinions that
resonate deeply with most poor Mexicans in U.S.
cities, and they're a perfect example of organic,
inseparable race-class consciousness.  And these
pieces of everyday wisdom lead very easily to a more
inter-nationalist consciousness which comes to
understand that black workers, poor whites, and others
share the plight of, say Mexicans.

Blacks are a special case, I think.  More than any
other group aside from Native Americans, they have
been fucked over by U.S. capitalism and the cultural
bullshit the system has generated to sustain itself -
a cultural system that seems almost to define itself
in counterposition to everything black.  While in a
weird way projecting taboo fantasies onto blackness.
Blacks look at this situation and they see that they
are considered shit by white America.  But I still
don't think that this leads them away from class
consciousness.  As Roedigger argues in "The Wages of
Whiteness" (basically, whiteness as property) it leads
them to the conclusion that they have nothing to lose
but their chains (whereas with many whites there is a
kind of last refuge pride in being of the dominant
ethnic group-their last leg to stand on).  In the last
wave of social movements they rightly saw that most
white workers *did* have something to lose - good
union jobs, a smug sense of racial superiority, etc.
Things have changed a lot - I think in the next wave
of movements we'll see more Hosea Hudson's and less H.
Rap Brown's (nothing against H. Rap Brown).

It's not a question of liquidating one question into
the other (race versus class), which is the easiest
thing to do.  It's a question of finding a synthesis
between theories of race oppression and theories of
class oppression.  Racial oppression can't be reduced
to economic factors-it's totally interwoven with the
cultural fabric that holds the society together.  But
economic factors help explain it: look at the way the
market for labor power operates through international
and intranational immigration, the ways in which
certain racial groups are designated to act
alternately as the unemployed reserve army, as the
poor non-union subcontracted service workers, as the
better off union-wage workers, as the workers at
government jobs-and then look at the way racial and
national consciousness develops, at the racial
divisions and gradations of privilege within the
working class.

I still haven't found a very convincing synthetic
theorization of race, gender and class, but here is a
start that I found useful:

Karen Brodkin: "Toward a unified theory of class,
race, and gender". American Ethnologist 16 (3):
534-550.

I think you can get this off JSTOR if you have access
to it ...

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