[PEN-L:3765] Re: Re: Re: Race as a "construct"

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I agree with both Maggie's and Jim's analyses here. I think they capture fundamentals of the consciousness of  racism and sexism. In some senses, those of us who want to end these problems have our whole theory in the statements Maggie and Jim make here, and the complexities are in practice, in undoing these basically simple Gordian knots. Or I should say that the "complexity" is that the bourgeois want these fundamentals to stay in place as false consciousnesses of 10's of millions of people; and the bourgeoisie have millions of times more resources than anti-sexists and anti-racists to keep that false consciousness in place. Also, all the bourgeoisie have to do is spoil a critical mass of each generation with this false consciousness, and their task is accomplished for several decades. In the U.S., it seems to me that Reaganism has achieved an overall backsliding of the current generation on these issues. In other words, we current anti-racists/anti-sexists can't even build !
fully on the gains in consciousness from the last generation.  The basic structure of the false consciousness can be simple, stupid even,  with the ruling class beating us with superior resources, power and Gramscian position to shape mass consciousness. The system can keep most workers so overwhelmed that they never have time or emotional strength to look at the "long run"; and then they die.

Those guys who dragged the man to death in Texas have pretty much the same thinking as KKKers in 1899 in a lot of ways. That extreme is part of a continuum which includes the great mass of people in some less aggregious form of racism. The bourgeois system keeps turning out that mentality and it is not by accident or without the bourgeoisie knowing exactly what they are doing. The bourgeois know they need mass racism to survive and they get it done. Many progressive are unsure, and have to relearn each generation. By that time, it's too late, for as Keynes says, in the long run...



Charles Brown

Detroit

>>> Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 02/23/99 12:00PM >>>
Maggie writes: >Not to speak for Angela but to talk about false
consciousness -- i think that racist or sexist beliefs ARE a form of false
consciousness.  For example, whites who believe they are superior because
of their skin color can use this belief in superiority to justify all kinds
of self oppression -- they receive lousy wages, but they are better off
than blacks, etc.  Their own oppression looks better, they must be better
off, right?  Same thing for sexism, a man decides he is better off because
he is a man.  In the mean time, the gender rules bind him as tight or
tighter than any woman and when he can't perform (i.e. can't pay the bills,
gets laid off) as a he-man, he still believes he's better off than any
woman and goes and gets more jobs, increasing his exploitation.<

The question of the (non)existence of "false consciousness" depends on
one's definition of it. I would stick to something that Michael Reich said
around the time when I was proofreading his book on RACIAL INEQUALITY and I
think it applies to sexism as well: racism can pay for white workers in the
short run but it hurts them in the long run.

Further, because most people don't have the secure position that allows
them to look to the long-term or to act on their perspective, they get
stuck in a short-term alliance with their bosses (related to economism)
that hurts them in the long.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html