[PEN-L:8828] 'race is a stupid idea' (was Re: racism)

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Rod wrote:
>And
>I would insist that children from an earlier age be indoctrinated with idea
>that race is a stupid idea.

Since Rod says he's a Canadian, maybe he's not quite in touch with the main
ideological + practical current of American racism. Today, it is a very
small minority of white Americans who frankly say that whites are superior
to blacks (though Charles Murray has resuscitated this idea and made it
respectable as well). Most racists claim a *victim status*--a victim of
reverse discrimination, affirmative action, immigration policy, etc.
(Recently, a local young white supremacist at the Ohio State University
published a column in a conservative student paper [billed as opposition to
the official student paper the _Lantern_], arguing for the need to create a
European-American student association and/or cultural club, because
European-American culture is, get this, _underrepresented_!)

The majority of conservative efforts to advance racism is now focused upon
(1) the use of *ostensibly race-neutral* issues such as welfare, crime,
drug use, inner city, public school, public transportation, immigration,
etc. and policies on them, in such a way that both the *debates* on and
*outcome* of the policies are *racist*; (2) attacks upon affirmative action
programs; and (3) ideological campaignes (funded by conservative
foundations + orchestrated through conservative think tanks) to *deny* the
existence and/or relevance of racism. (See books such as Dinesh D'Sourza's
_The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society_.) You can make a
good living in America by saying that race is just a stupid idea, to be
relegated to the dustbin of history.

Yoshie