Dave Hartley, not surprisingly, as it seems now to me, was still missing
the point when we wrote:
>
> Hi Robert, All !
>
> It is odd, isn't it that this historical point has taken so long to come up.......
History has been at the center of it from the beginning. You have been
endeavoring to exempt yourself from it.
> Absolutes of justice are just theoretical constructs which collapse into the swirl of chaotic and often brutal human history; conquest and dominion, murder, war, mass extermination....
That's pure bourgeois mythology. Justice has never been absolute, and
therefore has never collapsed into the ruin of human depravity. Justice
in this case has been resoundingly routed, of course; but that is this
case: White racism in the US of A. Go back and read your Gunnar Myrdal.
Read WEB DuBois. Read Toni Morrison. To reach for the recesses of
history to justify current, local practice is to set up a straw herring.
> It would be good if we could all be aware of this, and cease the posturing that racism is the primal instrument or cause of such history......
That has never been the assertion. The point is that racism has been an
instrument in it, of course. Racism has always been the collective
exertion of social power--either by the deployment of bayonets or
economic barriers, to deprive a despised minority of their rightful
share in the benefits accruing from collaborative, community effort. It
just didn't have a name until 1936. That it went unnamed so long argues
potently for the sublety of the ways in which it is embedded in
cultural, discursive, and epistemic practices.
>
> Any "difference" is enough for one man's unethical rationalization of his "right" to perpetrate crimes of deed or thought against another......
>
> Including the crime of racism, and the denial of personal responsibilty for racism.... of course, I am referring to the common english language definition or racism here, not the definition invented by the wonderfully erudite John Konopak (cheery bye)
I didn't invent it. My exposition of it draws from a number of sources,
to which I have frequently adverted. Otherwise, you're just an old
flatterer, aincha?
, whose philosophy runs foundering upon the shoals of inconsistency in
claiming that racism does not exist upon an individual level.
Well, no I guess not. I claim there can be individual racists--there are
plenty--but they would only be harmless bigots and haters without social
structures--which exist independent of individual volition, at the
levels of social practice, language, muthology, and cultural
representation--that constitute and perpetuate systematic practices
called: Racism. Racism would--does--persist in the social structures
whose construction it informed: the constitution, for example. The Civil
War was inevitable--though its outcome was not--from the First
Continental Congress. Individuals enact racism in their practices--which
we may call "racist"--but they would be meaningless without the social
structures that make them effective. If the culture didn't sanction
racism, the racists would just be harmless, albeit disturbing, bigotted
assholes. Why is that so Hard?
> Racism ( which apparently stands as a dialectic incongruent to institutionalized racism ) harms every INDIVIDUAL who practices it,
See, here's another example of fuzzy thinking. Racism doesn't harm those
who practice it. How could it. It benefits them. That's the whole point.
Racism advantages people who practice it. It automatically disqualifies
a substantial portion of the population around you from any concern from
the racist.
> or has it practiced upon them. It is a dehumanizing judging of the individual according to supposed values conferred upon them by being purportedly a member of a certain race, which carries it's intrinsic stain into the hardening heart of he who practices it, as well as casting stones at those he targets.
Yeah, sure if you say so.
> If racism harms no individual, then who remains to care if racism existed or not?
I clearly didn't say that. I said it doesn't hurt those who practice it.
They wouldn't do it if it hurt them.
> The fact clearly is that racism does harm, in terms of basic humanity, in terms of individual feelings and spirit, which are of more import to people of all times than politics.
There ya' go again with that "all times" stuff. Forget all times! Focus
on now times, recent times, times when people can remember. Descendants
of slaves remember slavery, all right.
> To deny the importance of the human spirit, of the INDIVIDUAL, relegates every other part of an argument based in this type of uselessly dry theoretical exercise to the trash heap of ideas hoist upon their own petard .....
Nice mixing of metaphors: On the trashheap of broken petards. Presumably
bereft thereby of voice and wit and effort to expend.
> Politics is great fun for the power hungry, but when political argument stands founded upon such a smelly bog as the assertion that individual spirit and feeling is unimportant, then politics sinks rather quickly from view as being useful in terms of justice or equality.
Pretty good biological metaphor there. Who says you don't know your
rhetoric. But off the mark as usual. That isn't what I said. THat ISN't
WHat I SAid. Pay attention It matters. The individual may resist racism,
reprove racism, recriminate racism. Indeed, I wouldn't think highly of
any who didn't. But they may not do so in any way that matters to the
actual overthrow of what they resist, reprove or recriminate, without
recognizing the nature of what it is they must resist, reprove, or
recriminate against. (Don't ya just love all that allietration.? I know
I do!)
Cheerey bye
konopak
> Aloha, Dave. Think for Yourself. Question Authority
Know what the natives call statesiders in the Islands? Haole (sp?)!
pronounced
"Howl-ies," like what coyotes do: howl? I just love that image!
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> "Computer Dave" Hartley (808) 879-7997 email: [log in to unmask]
> Interests: Computer/Telephony Integration, Windows NT, Web Publishing,
> ~~ Alternative Medicine ~~ www.Eckankar.org ~~ www.healing-tao.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Bartlett [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 1997 3:52 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Racism: The culture of addiction
>
> Robert Goodby wrote:
> >
> >I still don't see why, if guilt is collectively heritable, racial guilt
> >should be privileged over guilt for other forms of oppression--e.g., on
> >the grounds of gender, class, religion, etc. This is a significant
> >question in the considering of any "reparations". What sort of measure do
> >we apply to the reparations due for past oppressions? Let's see, you're a
> >19 year old white female American citizen, descended from French, German,
> >Irish, and (as is not uncommon) American Indian stock. So, you get 10
> >Victim of Oppression points for being female, 3 points for your Native
> >ancestors, and 2 points because the English shat on the Irish. But, you
> >lose 10 points because you identify yourself as white, 6 points for the
> >Holocaust, and 5 points for the imperialism of the French. Leaving you
> >with a deficit of 6 points, requiring you to pay ___$ into the Fund for
> >the Redress of Legitimate Historical Grievance. I don't mean to be
> >facetious--these are serious questions--but I don't think it workable.
>
> Whoa there! If Native American ancestry gets you 3 points for dispossession
> of land rights, being from English working class stock should be worth the
> same on account of the enclosures, I'll put aside the Norman conquest for
> the moment but I want my common lands back too - or compensation at least.
>
> Bill Bartlett
> Bracknell Tas.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
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