LabourPartyPraxis discussion -
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June, 2008
Sharpening Our Swords of Words into Concepts and Class Struggle
Moving from a racialist social analysis to understanding class dynamics in the American capitalist society
By Adoama
INTRODUCTION
Dear Netters: This is my response to exchange that took place on one of the Yahoo lists in 2008 between Lil Joe and Topcrestt. It contrasts sectarianism and global citizenry.
Within this piece is a link which leads to a polemic on race vs class in 2005, which demonstrates the growth of a worker from a racialist paradigm to a worker that began to understand the dynamics of class dynamics in an the American capitalist society.
Though a great many survivors of the Katrina storm were African American, many were not. What all the survivors of the flood had in common was their inability to escape because of their dire poverty.
I want to thank Lil Joe for the exchange and for David bringing it to LaborPartyPraxis.org.
Adaoma
==============================================
Hi Topcrestt,
Adaoma here.
So..., African Americans should focus on the "innercity problems facing black america"? And, you should focus on your village, right?
No! That type of thinking is what I call a "tribalist paradigm". This is the digital age. We live in a global community and the globe should be all our concern...especially those who live in America. Barack Obama is campaigning to be CEO of the America, who will make decisions that impacts the entire globe. It behooves all critical thinking people to know what's going on in the world, not just in your "hood" or your "village". You are a global citizen whether you realize it or not, Joe.
No need to question Lil Joe's committment to the struggles in communities where he lives. His struggle to fight insecurity in the Pico District in Los Angeles was one of the most recent. Where were you when some of the details were posted on this list? Its no secret.
Lil Joe wrote about Hurricane Katrina for weeks and did a polemic/analysis. Two things surfaced in the aftermath of the storm. The entire world was exposed to the fact that many of the survivors were African American (especially in Louisiana) and secondarily that they were poors. The issue of class and race discrimination in America was hotly debated in the press and the discussion initiated by Lil Joe and me.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/panafricanistforum/message/1825
I don't remember you saying a damned thing about it. Further the question was asked, does the State have a duty to protect its citizens. Lil Joe and I showed the list how countries that have frequent hurricanes and floods "protect" their citizens. We exposed the crumbling infrastructure of American compared to cutting edge technology and orderly evacuation that nations like Britain, Italy and Cuba (which offered assistance).
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_nov2005/LeveeControl.htm
Finally, Nigeria is America's ally and you should be more "focused" on zionist aggression than you are. America's not training the Nigerian Army for nothing.
So, I understand what you were saying to Lil Joe. You were telling him to stay in the little tribal/ethnic/caste paradigm you have made in your mind of African Americans and leave Africa to Africans. Socialists have a different view of the world. Its ours.. to analyze as we see fit...from America to Zimbabwe and everything inbetween.
The saying that all politics is local, may not be necessarily true. Think global!
Adaoma
Topcrestt wrote:
Lil' Joe,
There you go. You don't hear me screaming about
"isreal's oppression of the palestinian peole" because some of us are on
the ground in Nigeria working the Nigerian issues--of which the
Nigerdelta issue is just a part, albeit a big part.
I have no skin in the game with the US or its Government
(nor that of isreal for that matter). I have a filial affiliation with
black america because I am a blackman. In the year 2008, there
are houses in the fifth ward in Houston TX without windows or doors
and guess who lives there! My black brethren. That is why it amazes
me when folks like you spend time pursuing irrelevancies when the
homestead is on fire.
I have seen you around these listserves for a while and I
have never seen you discuss how the blackman in america can overcome
his problems. This is misplaced radicalism.
stay blessed
Joe (Topcrestt)
Joe (Topcrestt)
So, you are in Nigeria. What have you done for the
people of Niger Delta,being murdered by the Nigerian army? Their
villages burned? Yes, you do need to remove the beam from your own eye,
before you advise me about innercity blacks. But, then again,
you aren't concerned with the plight of innercity
Blacks, any more than the poor in Niger Delta living like field
mice as the international oil cartels rape the countries
wealth. Your concern is the US government and the State of Israel.
Just say so openly, without your pretentious racial
rhetoric.
Lil Joe
A CLEAR ANALYSIS: RACE OR POVERTY - Reasons evacuees were left behind
by Lil Joe and Adaoma
I had to make a couple of important edits and clarifications. Sorry, my bad. I
used this opportunity to provide the latest facts and statistics available in
this re-write, to hopefully provide more objectivity.
This version is directed to the broadest possible audience, though in the form
of a one on one polemic. Thanks to Adaoma for making this possible by demanding
I engage this polemic with her. Her thinking represents the thinking of the
average American, socialized and educated into this culture. This is therefore
in a sense a polemic with this culture, against assimilation by its
socialization and education.
Lil Joe
=========================================================
-----Original Message-----
From: Lil Joe
Sent: Sep 13, 2005 1:30 AM
To: africa-politics@yahoogroups.com, laborpartypraxis@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE A Clear Analysis Race or Poverty reason evacuees left behind
Adaoma: Joe, I appreciate your responses. The issue of Racism in this case,
serves the interest of the ruling class more than issue of Poverty.
Lil Joe: The presentation of class poverty as an "issue of race" has always
served the interest of the American ruling classes, every since Africans were
brought here to chattel slavery. The exposure of poverty - which is a fact, not
an 'issue' -- has never been in the interests of the ruling classes. That is why
their spokespersons are paid to divert the discussion from poverty together and
the crumbling infrastructure, and the collapsing bureaucracy to instead a
discussion of the "issue of race".
Adaoma: Helpless Blacks were allowed to drown because they were Black.
Lil Joe: Wealthy, and well connected Blacks didn't drown. I don't recall any
reports of Blacks trying to leave the city being ordered back to drown.
Those who drowned were poor and without resources. They were trapped in poverty,
and without transportation resources such as cars and credit cards.
In America, in absolute terms, there are more White people in poverty than
Blacks and Latino/as. So, if poverty is 'racism', then you would have to
conclude that the poor whites trapped in poverty and died were victims of
racism: "Helpless Whites allowed to drown because they were White." But, to
admit this is to refute your own phantom causality of 'racism'.
The Blacks who drowned were helpless because they were trapped in poverty. It
was the rich Blacks that had the cash that enabled them to purchase the "help"
to leave town, such as the help of airline pilots. Poor Whites were refused
passage to board the planes, so that paying rich Blacks could escape.
Is that your idea of 'racism'? That Blacks could escape and Whites left behind?
The ideology of race and racism is thus illogical.
The poor and destitute were in a condition poverty which is itself helplessness.
That is why they were in places where they drowned. Those are facts. What
evidence do you have that rescue workers were ordered to allow Blacks to drown?
Are you saying that the government issued this order? The local [Black] Mayor?
The army officers? Who gave the order to save whites and "allow Blacks to
drown"? Where is your evidence that such an order was given? You cannot just
make assumptions and declare assertions as though your assertions are axiomatic
truths.
Adaoma: There were no plans to rescue them from the storm and none were carried
out. History repeated itself and bureaucratic bumbling was left to blame.
Lil Joe: There were Blacks on planes evacuating New Orleans. They were "carried
out" because they had the money and credit cards required to pay for it.
Adaoma: History repeated itself and bureaucratic bumbling was left to blame.
Lil Joe: What history is that? Are you talking about the 1927 Mississippi River
flood? This has nothing to do with what happened in 1927. But, check out what
you are doing to defend your illusory race causality theory -- you are defending
the government b bureaucracy! By claiming 'racism' was the cause, although you
present no evidence to support that assertion, in order to blame racism you have
to excused the government bureaucracy's ineptness and accuse me of making them
the government bureaucracy a escape goat as "bureaucratic bumbling was left to
blame".
But back to philosophy of history: Claiming that "history repeats itself" isn't
a scientific fact or even a theory. There is no evidence that "history repeats
itself". Were that to be the case, then the same people in the same situation as
before must be present and in that same situation today.
The people who died in 1927 are still dead. In 1927, all members of Congress,
State and city government were White racists and openly so. Today, there are
Blacks in Congress, in the Presidents Cabinet, in State and city government
including the mayor and police officer corps in New Orleans. I don't see how you
can say the same conditions which enabled racial brutality to exist in Louisiana
80 years ago are identical in present conditions.
I blame the government and its bureaucracy while you defend the government
bureaucracy as being falsely blamed. You are excusing the government you are
accusing of racism. Racism has become a bodiless phantom causality that enable
you to excuse the government.
Adaoma, in order to maintain your view of Whites as racists in the abstract, you
have become an apologist for the material bodies personifying the government
against being "left to blame". You excuse the government functionaries although
they - not an invisible god of race and racism - are the human beings
responsible for repairing the levees and vacating the city. They didn't do it.
The poverty of the people trapped, the corrupted levees and the inept government
bureaucracies are the material causes of the drowning of poor Whites as well as
poor Blacks. The media hardly mentions the 'abandoned' poor Whites equally
trapped in poverty in Alabama and Mississippi. Still less Jesse Jackson and the
Congressional Black Democrats, whose speeches about 'racism' instead divert
White workers and farmers attention from the material poverty in Mississippi,
where there were many dealths among the rural poor White communities.
The whole idea that the government 'neglected' the conditions of "Blacks in New
Orleans" out of "racism" rests upon the false premise that were these people of
this city "White" they would have been "rescued" is a false one. The fact that
it is a false premise is empirically proven by the fact that there were more
deaths in Mississippi than New Orleans, and there are more Whites in poverty in
this country than Blacks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
--------
Some Statistics from a Newsweek Article posted by Connie White:
"But after a decade of improvement in the 1990s, poverty in America is actually
getting worse. A rising tide of economic growth is no longer lifting all boats.
For the first time in half a century, the third year of a recovery (2004) also
saw an increase in poverty. In a nation of nearly 300 million people, the number
living below the poverty line ($14,680 for a family of three) recently hit 37
million, up more than a million in a year.
*****
" Who are the poor? With whites making up 72 percent of the population, the
United States contains more poor whites than poor blacks or Hispanics. In fact,
the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the increase in white
poverty in nonurban areas accounts for most of the recent uptick in the poverty
rate. …
*****
[Connie comments: The article below shows that the issue of poverty in the U.S.
is not just one of "the poor," but of class -- the working class poor!]
"The primary economic problem is not unemployment but low wages for workers of
all races. For the poor, the idea of low-wage jobs' covering the basic expenses
of living has become a cruel joke." (Alter, Newsweek, 9/19/05)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is therefore not only no empirical basis to support the charge that Blacks
died because they were Black, any more than that Whites died because they were
White. These statistics refute the racism causality theory because the fact that
Whites are in poverty in greater numbers than Blacks refutes the very premise of
some kind of mystical "White solidarity": that the "White government" supposedly
"cares" about White people.
"I hope we realize that the people of New Orleans weren't just abandoned during
the hurricane," Sen. Barack Obama said last week on the floor of the Senate.
"They were abandoned long ago—to murder and mayhem in the streets, to
substandard schools, to dilapidated housing, to inadequate health care, to a
pervasive sense of hopelessness."
To the extent that this is true of New Orleans, which is majority Black, it is
true of every inner-city in the United States, not just New Orleans. But, what
the statistics cited prove is that it is true not just in the ethnic enclaves,
but more so among poor working class whites than Black and Latino/a working
poor! I qualified this quote with "to the extent that this is true", because it
isn't just a matter of being 'abandoned', suggesting that there was an
alternative. There wasn't.
American capitalism's internal contradictions are intensified in porportion to
which external technological and economic rivals become more aggressive and
expansive on one hand, and money is required to maintain a military superiority
established since the 2nd world war on the other. There is further draining
American resources and funds by military rivalries, and its constantly fighting
of wars, in one place or another, for the past 6 decades, and proping up puppets
such as Israel.
Global technological, economic and finiancial crisis is forcing America to reassert it's global nuclear black male:
"The unclassified document was available on numerous Web sites such as
GlobalSecurity.org, a defense policy Web site. A Pentagon site, however, listed
the document as unavailable.
"Other scenarios envisioned in the draft doctrine include nuclear weapons use to
counter potentially overwhelming conventional forces, for rapid and favorable
war termination on U.S. terms, to demonstrate U.S. intent and capability to use
nuclear weapons to deter enemy use of weapons of mass destruction, and to
respond to the use of weapons of mass destruction supplied by an enemy to a
"surrogate."
Adaoma: Hurricane couldn't be stopped, the levee couldn't be fixed, but in a
week's time before the storm, residents could have been rescued and bussed,
flown, cruiseshipped, driven to safety.
Lil Joe: No, the hurricane couldn't be stopped. But, as you yourself previously
posted, the storm was predicted years ago, and thus there were years in which
the levees rotted rather than being fixed. The levees could have been fixed,
that is a physical fact - we are not talking about 'a weeks time' but years
time. It is precisely the job of government bureaucrats to make such repairs
prior to the emergency in anticipation of it.
What could have been done and wasn't done is the fixing of the levees. The other
physical fact is that the American capitalist system isn't into providing
citizens with free bus, train and cruise ship transportation. Don't you see,
Adaoma, that rather than attacking capitalism and the government as I am doing,
what your racism fantasy has done is make you a defender of capitalism with the
motivation of an illusion that American capitalism can exist without racism in
its pores of poverty and neglect.
It cannot. In fact it will take at least a generation of dictatorial proletarian
laws against racism in the transition from capitalism to communism before racism
can be completely eradicated from peoples behavior. But, with the working class
in possession of the productive forces and the government, with deliberate
policies of inclusion of minorities and women at every level, poverty can be
eradicated in a generation all over the world, and in proportion to which wage
labor and commodity production is eliminated economic competition, which is the
basis of racism and nationalism, will be eliminated by public policy.
All you are doing in your "what could have happened" illusions -- separate
from capitalism and the realities of the State (the prime function of which is
to kill) -- in order to defend your charges of 'racism' you have come up with
abstract speculations of what would have happened if capitalism were humane
(which is impossible) and the government people competent and 'nice' (which they
aren't) on the one hand, and compelled to defend this brutal economic system and
callous State on the other.
By saying we should fight racism 'first', and then we'll fight capitalism is an
inadvertent defense of capitalism, and therefore its bureaucratic-military
state, forever. How so? Because racism will not be eradicated so long as capital
is the private possession of the few as the means of exploiting the many of
necessity require discord and antagonisms among the many.
The power of capital is the productive forces in hand accumulating wealth
through commodity production by wage labor; from this is amassed wealth and
fortune:
U.S. Private Wealth In Perspective
1976 Top 1% owns 21.8% of all wealth
Top 10% owns 65.4% of all wealth
Bottom 90% owns 34.6% of all wealth
1998 Top 1% owns 38.1% of all wealth
Top 10% owns 71% of all wealth
Bottom 90% owns 29% of all wealth
Source: 1976: Edward N. Wolff, New York University. 1998: Edward N. Wolff,
"Recent Trends in Wealth Ownership, 1983-98." Jerome Levy Economics Institute,
April 2000.
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/Economic_Apartheid_Data.html#p54
Not only is the most powerful, economically dominate class the most powerful,
politically dominate:
"Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the
class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its
ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production
at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental
production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the
means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more
than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant
material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make
the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm#b3
In America, through socialization into a racist culture, in consequence of its
material history of racial slavery whh demoted Africans from humanity, and
genocidal wars of expansion which promoted "Indians" as savages, and competition
between immigrants -- but more specifically in education workers are told they
are not of a "working class" but a "middle class" based on income bracket,
feelings and prejudices rather than wage labor itself:
"The term class-consciousness is widely used in sociology, but often with a more
general meaning than that given it by Marx" (awareness of common material class
interests) . "Most often it implies little more than a feeling of identification
with others in a social class, however class is defined, and a feeling of
difference from, and perhaps opposition to, persons in other classes.
"Class consciousness in the sense of aware, unified and opposed class entities
is not common in the United states. ...
"Racial, ethnic, religious, and regional differences in culture and percieved
interests cuts accross classes and inhibit class consciousness and solidarity.
Conflict between black and white workers has prevented working-class unity in
the South. These differences, not based on class, appear to be persistent, but
if they deminish, a major obstacle to class consciousness would be removed".
(Broom and Selznick 1977 p. 189)
This kind of socialization and education of workers in the United States, and
the roles of the Democratic Party and it's Black nationalist cadres, explains
why it is that on just about every channel on television, and in just about
every article in every news paper and magizine, are stories focusing on New
Orleans and barely mentioning Mississippi, and stories about Black Democrats
diverting the discussion of class exploitation and povery in America into a
discussion of the spectre of "racism".
Adaoma: Black people could not escape because they were poor. (passive)
Lil Joe: That isn't what I said. I said that those who were in poverty could not
escape because they lack the money, recourses and connections that were required
to enable them to escape. I never wrote anything about "Black people" being
unable to escape because they were poor. Blacks did escape. I have been writing
about all people in poverty being uselessly killed, because all people are
precious, not just Black people.
Adaoma: Feds let them drown because they knew all kinds of excuses would be
made to cover up the allegations of their racism. (active)
Lil Joe: How do you know this? Where is your evidence? How do you know what the
Feds 'knew', and what they anticipated Blacks would say if they escaped
drowning? Do you have any objective documentation to support your assertions?
And how do you know what the Feds 'excuses' would be? The Feds aren't
clairvoyant, and had no way of knowing what people would think.
Besides, the Feds didn't have to worry about poor people, had they survived,
making allegations of 'racism', because from experience Jesse Jackson and the
Black Democrats would make their usual allegation of racism to get the
discussion away from issues like capitalism, money privileges, and the failures
of the state bureaucracy. This is what happened.
Adaoma: Odd, you offered no explanation for the Feds allowing those people to
drown.
Lil Joe: I have made no such arguments because I do not accept your unfounded
claim that the government "allowed 'those people' to drawn". I do not think this
was the case, and neither you, nor anyone else has presented any documentation
that there was a federal policy to "let 'those people' drown". Present the
evidence, and I'll deal with it. I do not make response to unproven assertions
that I cannot prove.
What I have argued is that the government is cash scraped and the bureaucracy
dis-functional. Those are facts. My purpose in these polemics isn't to weep for
the dead and wonder why. Let the dead bury the dead. My purpose is to defend the
living by attacking government policy.
You are apologizing for the ineptness of the government bureaucracy for being
unfairly "left to be blamed", whereas I am saying that the failures of the
bureaucracy are structural and the economic system defective, and so the entire
system needs to be overthrown and replaced.
Adaoma: Nor commented on the occurrence of the same in the Great Mississippi
Flood of 1927.
Lil Joe: I didn't say anything about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 because
it is not relevant. The conditions and personalities in play in 1927 does not
exist today, for the reasons I mentioned a few moments ago.
Adaoma: Well, I thank you for this exchange. It was insightful.
Lil Joe: Yes, and thank you for these thought provoking exchanges as well.
Adaoma: BTW: I learned in many exchanges with you that there is a relationship
between class and race. Race distorts and often hides class issue. Class issues
are real, but exposing racism where it is found dismantles it and opens up
avenues for discussions of classism.
Lil Joe: I too believe it is necessary to expose racism where it is demonstrated
to exist. Calling people racists and intimating racist motives, that cannot be
externally validated, is not the way to do it.
My objective in exposing racism is to demonstrate its basis in competitive
capitalist commodity production and competitive wage labor, not to dismantle it
because it cannot be dismantled. This mode of production and appropriation
cannot eliminate racism any more than it can eliminate poverty or protect its
impoverished citizens from natural disaster. It must all be destroyed.
Adaoma: I think the illustration of "looting" and "finding" is a good example.
Take racism out and you have two hungry people looking for food. Then the
question can be asked "Why are they not feed". But, racism had to be dismantled
first. Its real.
Lil Joe: There is no enumeration of dichotomy of first racism and then poverty
of "first racism" must be dismantled and "then" we fight hunger. To fight hunger
and poverty is to fight the basis of racism, which is capitalism. The slave
trade, chattel slavery, wage slavery are just so many historical forms of
capitalist commodity production. To consistently fight racism is to a fight
against capitalism.
Ghetto poverty is racism in all it gory details, homelessness, prostitution,
black on Black crime, drug dealing and addiction, and all those horrors that
frighten the sensibilities and drove the "Afro-centric" Black nationalists away
from the hood. These are realities of the Black's who live this violence of
poverty 24/7. This is the spiritual struggle that Trane was articulating in Kulu
Se Mama, Ascension, Offering, and Expression. This is the revolutionary content
and political music Shepp was dealing with.
The angry Black youth of the concrete jungles will not be held from rioting,
looting and killing cops in open rebellion? They will not wait until after the
Black professionals "dismantle racism" , ostensibly, by teaching "Black Studies"
to rich White kids, the sons and daughters of the bourgeoisie?
No, the personal poverty and suffering of the poor must be made objective;
hatred of one another must become hatred of the class enemy; love of money must
become contempt for bourgeois wealth; Black and White workers mobilized into
class solidarity against a system that breeds violence, poverty and racial
antagonisms and rooted from its very core.
The Jesus we preach is the Jesus who kicked over tables of money-changers and
drove them from the seat of religious authority. This man who fought the Temple
cops and Roman soldiers on the Mount of Olives, whom the Roman State had to try
and execute in one night before the masses woke up in armed rebellion to free.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1908/christ/ch10.htm#s3
What is revolution? Revolution is rebellion organized and consistent: not the
looting stores but the seizure of the productive forces, where commodities are
made. These expropriations is the only way to liberate humanity from the ugly
horrors of capitalism, which we see on display in New Orleans today. What the
impoverished masses of American citizens learned this week is that the
government will not 'save' them when tragedy strikes.
My task is to convince workers that the government cannot save them even if they
wanted to -- thus I point out the exceeding numbers of the dead in Mississippi,
and of Whites as well as Blacks. It is most important that White workers know
that.
There is no salvation other than ourselves alone. The working classes must learn
through their own bitter experiences that the emancipation of the working class
is the task of the working classes themselves -- all workers on the same side of
the barricade, without regard to gender, race, creed, ethnicity or pigmentation
-- even if that means turning every major ciity in every iindustrial capitalist
country into Fallujahs.
What New Orleans shows to the destitute and impoverished is that if they don't
fight for themselves they will die any way. The problem isn't that the News
Media called Black survivors "looters", but that they didn't loot the right
objects: they didn't need money for busses and trains, or credit cards for gas:
what they needed was the rebellious spirit that would have led them to loot gun
shops and use those guns: tare down fences of automobile dealers and take the
cars at gun point, forced busses to take them out of the city, get their
families on the trains and kill any one who tries to stop them.
Adaoma
P.S. Perhaps people can request that more states be eligible for disaster aid to
help the displaced. The states that are eligible look like a list of the Ole
Confederacy.
Lil Joe: And these are the Red State's that denounce welfare! These States are
on welfare!
Lil Joe
Adaoma, your article deserves a serious response
Thank you for the clarification.
This is a clear analysis.
1) Unlike many white poor evacuees, Blacks were labeled "looters", "rapist" and
"murders" which intimates them as criminals. Since "criminals have no rights,
harsh treatment would be more publicly palletable.
Lil Joe: This has the onus smell of the Republican Party's "Southern Strategy"
-- "Law and Order" was a coded ideological pphrase of the Nixon campaigns, which
decoded meant: "Niggers are out of hand! Elect me and I will use the full
military power of the State to break the Black resistance, end the Civil Rights
rebellion and put those Niggers in their places".
In the Reagan campaign this same racist code was evident in the fact that it was
kicked off in Philadelphia, Mississippi where the murders of three Civil Rights
voter drive activists were murdered, by the local police and Klan allies. Having
suppressed the Black rebellions of the 60s and 70s, and chilled out the White
youth rebellion against the "military-industrial complex" by withdrawing from
Vietnam, Reagan went after the trade unions (PATCO's destruction setting the
tone of the 80s).
Reagan's racist code "Welfare Queens" suggesting that Black women were
"oversexed whores", laying back having babies by shiftless Black bucks who
refused the responsibility, thus paid for by "hard working White men" in taxes.
This was joined by the Christian Right, denouncing 'immorality', 'babies having
babies', and 'welfare dependency'. And "forced busing" became racist code for
maintaining segregation in opposition to "racial integration", and "reverse
discrimination" was code for maintaining white-skin privileges in opposition to
affirmative action and integration of the work force.
Bush I revisited the racist code of the "law and order" themes, but more
sophisticatedly. The issue of crime had the racist content aggravated by the
fear that Black men were out to rape White women a la the Griffith film "Birth
of a Nation", encoded in the issue of Willie Horton. The Right-White advocacy of
returning to capital punishment was a code to returning to lynching of Black
men, such as Emit Till; legally, this round, by the State.
New Democrat of the South, DLC Clinton in his Presidential campaign picked
returned to Reagan's "Welfare Queen", joined by White Republican reactionaries
such as Republican Senator Phil Graham of Texas who said American [i.e. White]
tax payers were "pulling the wagon" crowded with [Black] unemployed men and
mothers with children being pulled by [White] workers. Clinton, campaigning for
President while remaining Governor of a racist Southern state, Arkansas,
interrupted his campaign to personally oversee the legal lynching by the State
of Arkansas of a mentally unstable Black man.
George Bush II didn't really campaign as a racist. That era was over since
Blacks had by then knocked down the walls of institutional racism and legal
racial discrimination.
Bush did give coded references to White racists, however, by speaking at the
racially hostile Bob Jone's University:
"After all, Bob Jones University is the same school that once manically declared
on its web site that the Roman Catholic Church was, among other things, a
"satanic counterfeit" of a true Christian church. Interracial dating
was forbidden on the campus until only recently. The university stands for
"old-time religion and the absolute authority of the Bible."
http://www.americanhumanist.org/humanism/bush/
I am not opposed to nailing Bush as a "racist". But, only where I can present
external evidence.
"Bob Jones University: Racism by Any Other Name...Last week, Bob Jones
University eliminated its long-standing policy against interracial dating. This
came hot on the heels of a lot of ridicule the school received after Gov. George
W. Bush visited there recently, including ridicule from Sen. John McCain. * A
lot of people were unaware that BJU had this policy. Okay, let's be honest. Most
people have never heard of this ultra-conservative school in the first place.
But the fact is, this policy has been on its books since it was founded in 1927.
* And in point of fact, BJU is not changing this policy because it feels
interracial dating is okay. The school has always maintained that it is a tool
of the antichrist. They are only buckling under pressure because they want
"everybody to understand that the liberals were all wrong when they said [the
school was] racist." * Oh, and lest anyone think this policy was just dropped
and forgotten, I'm afraid that's not quite accurate. You see, in order for
students of two different races to date, they must first obtain the permission
of their parents. The parents must send a letter to the dean of men or women
telling the school that the relationship has their blessing before the school
will allow it."
http://www.bee.net/cardigan/attic/031200.htm
White Southern Christian Private university and advocating "school vouchers" is
racist code the same as was "oppose 'forced' busing" had in its time. It is
based in Separation of State and Church, a replay on the theme of opposition to
integration ("forced busing") since schools were by then integrated. Nowadays,
the code for "White schools" is "Christian schools", which are private schools
-- or rather, with vouchers they are publiclly funded schoools that cannot be
forced to live up to public non-discrimination standards.
Also Bush defended the flying of the racist coded Confederate flag in Rebel
States.
The News Media repeated these coded ideological terms. Thus "Unlike many white
poor evacuees, Blacks were labeled "looters", "rapist" and "murders" . The
difference this time, wasn't just coded messages to White racists but a means of
manipulating Black Americans to make racism trump the issue of poverty in
intellectual and political discourse.
Racism is more abstract, after the end of legal discrimination and overt racist
policies and behavior, since it is an invisible issue of state of mind and
personal attitude. The Democrats and the News Media diverted the discussion from
the obvious problems of blatant poverty to displace issues of disaster
preparedness, crumbling infrastructure and the broken down economy. Poverty
derived from class exploitation and unemployment is the elephant in the room
that no one wants to talk about with all these psychological issues being
presented instead by the Democrats and the Media.
My fight isn't with you, Adaoma, or with Walter but with the Democrats who are
exploiting this tragedy in a cold strategy.I do not defend the Republicans.
Nevertheless, I will not allow the Democrats to manipulate my feelings as a
Black man watching Black people suffer to gain political capital against the
Republicans.
However, when you say that Blacks were trapped in certain areas that are
venerable to flooding, it intimates that they were herded there and couldn't
voluntarily leave. If they are there by choice, then where is the racism? If
they weren't able to afford to leave, then that's an economic rather than a
racial issue.
"That the costal parishes were most vulnerable to the worn levees, inhabited by
people unable to leave, they would die without help. Since they were targeted
for help. They were targeted to die."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Bifurcation
Also referred to as the "black and white" fallacy and "false dichotomy",
bifurcation occurs if someone presents a situation as having only two
alternatives, where in fact other alternatives exist or can exist. For example:
"Either man was created, as the Bible tells us, or he evolved from inanimate
chemicals by pure random chance, as scientists tell us. The latter is incredibly
unlikely, so..."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------\
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-----Original Message-----
From: laborpartypraxis@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:laborpartypraxis@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of nwaakwukwo
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 1:12 PM
To: joe_radical@...; Africa-politics@yahoogroups.com;
laborpartypraxis@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [laborpartypraxis] A Clear Analysis Race or Poverty reason evacuess
left behind
Joe, forumites please let me offer this summary, which may be more clear about
my position.
Racism, in addition to poverty played a key role in the neglect of the Katrina
evacuees. I think a racial element was necessary in this dastardly deed.
African Americans didn't need to be "herded" anywhere to be vulnerable to the
storms. They have lived in the parishes of St. Bernard, Jefferson, Orleans,
Plaquemines, St. Tammany and Washington for since slavery.
They were residents of Plaquemines and St. Bernard when it was purposely
flooded by dynamiting the levees at Caernorvonlevee for the purpose of saving
greater New Orleans from flooding.
St.Bernard and Plaquemines black parishes were completely devasted. This was the
Great Mississippi of 1927.
Forumites, the more I look into this issue, the uglier it gets. There are even
reports that like in 1927, the levees were purposely blown:
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/07/katrina_rape_murder_.html
10:57 Raw transcript of comments by NOLA evacuee Clara Barthelemy: "The
17th street levee was bombed by the Army Corps of Engineers to save the more
valuable real estate in the city... to keep the French Quarter protected,
the ninth ward was sacrificed... people are afraid to speak out...
everyone who was near there heard the bombings... they bombed seven times.
That's why they didn't fix the levees... 20 feet of water.
Gators. People dying in water. They let the parishes go, not the city center.
Tourist trap was saved over human life. A six year old girl was raped in here..
9 year old boy killed. A man in the shower beaten. No hot food. No help for
elderly."
1) Unlike many white poor evacuees, Blacks were labeled "looters", "rapist" and
"murders" which intimates them as criminals. Since "criminals have no rights,
harsh treatment would be more publicly palletable.
2) Blacks upstaged (drew the attention away from ) the poverty of whites in
Alabama and Mississippi, whose poverty may not be commonly knowledge,
internationally.
3) Racism being more clandestine than blatant poverty serves a good philbuster
to replace issues of disaster preparedness, crumbling infastructure and the
broken down economy. Its the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk
about with all these things hiding behind it.
That FEMA never included the costal Black populated parishes in rescue plans is
evidence that they didn't intend to rescue them.
That the costal parishes were most vulnerable to the worn levees, inhabited by
people unable to leave, they would die without help. Since they were targeted
for help. They were targeted to die.
That the population of people drowned in 1927 and those left ot fend for
themselves in 2005 were both African American, indeed smacks of racism!
African Americans in the Great Mississippi flood of 1927 were called "refugees"
as were victims of Katrina. Follow the link to see photos and story.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flood/timeline/timeline2.html
Conclusion:
FEMA had a historical script by which to go. They knew they could let poor Black
people drown and get away with it. I had been done before in 1927.
It saved Federal resouces and Federal money to let it happen. Much of the money
to evacuate is coming from the private sector and foreign countries.
Clean up and rebuilding means money for Halliburton and Bechtel (which goes into
private pockets of feds and their friends)
With the "unsavory population" gone, new plans for a more lucrative New Orleans
can begin.
Racism was a reason the hurricane victims were abandoned.
The stigma associated with poverty is "dependency". The stigma associated with
being poor Black is legal/social deviancy on top of dependency.
Yes, poverty, in this case, needed to wear a black mask in order to be
justified...or at least stomached.
Adaoma
Good morning Forums; Good morning, Joe,
Thank you for posting that very moving testimonial of the hurricane survivor,
which supports that the poor were victimized. I agree, and have for much of the
discussion.
There are those who have made a career around the issues of racism. I don't
support that. I do think it needs to be addressed where it exists, are are my
reasons for continuing this thread. Bear with me.
Had the levees in New Orleans held, we wouldn't be having this conversation.The
reason New Orleans vicitms are focal points is because it was there the levee
broke and there was the initial threat of loss of life. The communities closest
to the vulnerable levees wee vulnerable communities. They were the heavily black
populated parishes.
What is evident from the material I posted is that EVEN IF, FEMA had acted on
the Statement of Emergency Assistance for Louisianna, it would not have
evacuated the areas that were the most devasted, from where the Black evacuees
resided. Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Tammany, and Washington were
never targeted to be evacuated by FEMA. And they were the one's that took the
direct hit and lay underwater.
Lil Joe
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