On Mon, 11 Aug 1997, john konopak wrote:
> Robert G Goodby wrote in regard to a post by MichaelP, in which Michael
> challenged Bob's assertion that guilt--say, better responsibility--for
> past evils did not descend upon the heirs of unearned advantage, by
> inquiring why, if wealth were inheritable, should not debt also be.
One reason is that inherited wealth can be squandered, spent, or even
given away to promote the struggle for justice. People have some control
over how they spend their inheiritance. The sort of guilt by racial
association we seem to be discussing, on the other hand, isn't--regardless
of what you choose to do or how you behave.
A
> good point, which Michael himself spolied somewhat by conflating this
> issue with "rape, pillage, and plunder." Bob says quite rightly that his
> ancestors, immigrants living in poverty in new york or chicago of
> cleveland ethnic ghettos, neither robbed nor raped nor pillaged anyone.
> The problem is, for Bob, that the argument his example attacks is
> irrelevant to the issue.
> FOr one thing, as a result of racism--I shall not call it
> "institutionalized racism, for that is the only meaningful kind there
> is
This assertion needs to be supported. To me, racism is meaningful to the
extent it affects the lives of people. If some benefit at the expense of
others, that's meaningful. If some are hurt by it, that to is meaningful.
A racist insult directed at a child by any individual is hurtful,
regardless of who delivers that comment. And being hurtful, it's
meaningful.
--Bob's ancestors were spared the necessity of testing cultural
> capacities--their willingness to work or their drive for success--or the
> merit that working for success confers against "greasers, spics,
> niggers, chinks, japs, redskins, slant-eyes, gooks" etc., because those
> groups were excluded from entering into the arenas where the
> competitions between "wops, huns, micks, frogs, limeys, guinneas,
> slobovians," etc. were already occurring to the enthusiastic
> accompaniment of brutality, murder, lynching, and intimidation directed
> at discouraging and disciplining any attempts my the marginalized to
> step "above themselves."
Certainly any such exclusion benefits those not so excluded. But I still
haven't received a serious reply to the question of why we should
privilide racial oppression (and, specifically, WHITE racial oppression).
On what basis have you determined this is more "meaningful" than gender or
class oppression? Oppression cuts many ways, and a given group of people
can simultaneously benefit from and be the victims of oppression.
\Take, for instance, the Irish. Identified today as "white", and lumped
together in this White Oppressor Class, they were historically an
oppressed and colonized people. Their oppressors, the elites of England,
bolstered their system of oppression (as inevitably happens) with
elaborate ideologies: the Irish were held to be a distinct "race", with
innate proclivities (to drink, sloth, excessive fertility, etc.) which
rendered them inferior to the English and justified their exploitation.
The same general ideology, in other words, found in every system of racial
oppression. For centuries, the Irish were harmed by this particular form
of racist oppression; like any other group, their historical experience
has affected their current status. For decades in Boston, the rule was
"Irish need not apply".
Is this meaningful racism? It was certainly institutionalized. At the same
time, the Irish (no doubt in response to their own oppression) were
responsible for a century of violence directed against their
African-American neighbors in American cities. And, as you point out, they
inevitably benefitted from (and reproduced) a racist social order in
which, no matter how many indignities might be heaped on them, they could
always feel superior to blacks. This is the sort of complexity that gets
lost when we lump all "white" people together.
> Next, Bob argues that he is being made to believe, illegitimately, that
> he is hold himslef guilty by resemblance, if not by association:
> > 2. If some members of some putative racial groups committed racist
> > atrocities in the past, am I answerable for those atrocities simply
> > because some would place me in that "racial" group today?
>
> The answer is yes, to the extent that you deny your profit from those
> events, or attribute it to sources, causes, or reasons that deny the
> role that racist practices played in those profits. Answerable, in the
> form of an admission that, for all the apparent successes your
> forebearers and yourself, it was not as purely your or their own merit
> that earned them and you whasoever success they and you have enjoyed but
> by the systematic exclusion--and in many cases the elimination--of a
> significant fraction of their potential competitors.
I don't dispute this, as I tried to say in my original post. I can control
wether I benefit blithley from past injustices, wether I seek to entrench
them even more deeply, or wether I resist them. I don't mind being judged
on this basis--but I reject being pre-judged on the basis of my racial
identity.
> We may not idly dismiss Bob's good-faith in his outrage at the continued
> predations on poor,
Thanks!!
>usually minority communities by corporate intersts
> indifferent or (viz. Texaco, Avis, Denny's) actively hostile to
> equitable distributions of the goods of communal social production.
> But his assertion that, because it appears to him to be impossible to
> devise a court in which social responsibility could be litigated, no
> such effort ought to be undertaken exposes a typically narrow
> Americanness.
?!?!?!?!
> What, if anything, does he suppose the courts of national
> reconciliation in Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, South Africa, etc are
> supposed to be about, other than the public acceptance and atonement for
> barbarities inflicted upon one's fellow citizens.
There is a fundamental difference between these Truth Commissions and the
acceptance of "race guilt" you seem to propose. The former is directed at
specific individuals and institutions and specific acts for which they are
responsible (because they committed them). I'm not at all opposed to this.
> Bob may--and it
> doesn't become him, imo--scorn and reprobate the Prez for his offer to
> apologize,
Actually, he didn't make any such offer, just floated a trial balloon in
his typically craven fashion, and quickly retreated when is proved to be a
potential political liability.
> An apology and $100 per person/year levy on everyone who ever checked
> the "white/caucasian" label on any official/public document, proceeds
> deposited for per capita redistribution among those who cannot make that
> claim--that 'd do for a start and probably be cheap in the long run.
I still don't see why, if guilt is collectively heritable, racial guilt
should be privileged over guilt for other forms of oppression--e.g., on
the grounds of gender, class, religion, etc. This is a significant
question in the considering of any "reparations". What sort of measure do
we apply to the reparations due for past oppressions? Let's see, you're a
19 year old white female American citizen, descended from French, German,
Irish, and (as is not uncommon) American Indian stock. So, you get 10
Victim of Oppression points for being female, 3 points for your Native
ancestors, and 2 points because the English shat on the Irish. But, you
lose 10 points because you identify yourself as white, 6 points for the
Holocaust, and 5 points for the imperialism of the French. Leaving you
with a deficit of 6 points, requiring you to pay ___$ 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.
> Btw, does it strike anyone as strange or interesting that, the push to
> do away with "labels" accompanies so closely the burgeoning of precisely
> the sensibilities that animate and nourish this debate?
Actually, what I'd strive for is the creation of a social system in which
such labels have no utililty. Can we all agree on that?
I sit here in New Hampshire on land stolen, violently, from its Native
inhabitants 350 years ago. Asking how that historical fact obligates me to
behave in the present, if I believe in justice, decency, etc. is a serious
question. I only ask that I be judged on how I, as an individual, respond
to that and similar questions, and that I not be pre-judged on the basis
of my racial identity. I believe it is unjust to ask me to assume the
accumulated blame and liability for what was done before I had any say in
the matter. I will share responsibility for the world I live in because
that's the only one I can control.
Bob Goodby
Barrington, NH USA
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