Dr. Austin is very much in the spirit of Cultural Marxism in much of his analysis, which I regard as just another type of Identity Politics. He doesn't neglect economic analysis though.
I will just reprint the post in toto here, make some comments and then let the rest of you have at it. I'll probably respond to it at a later date:
Robert Lindsay's criticism of my arguments posted on his blog are curious because he appreciates my attack upon White Supremacy while rejecting the logic upon which my argument rests. Putting the matter another way, I can't have White Nationalism down pat, as he suggests, unless the underlying logic for my argument is valid - yet he rejects the underlying argument.
Indeed, in many places, his arguments fall in line with the logic of the White Nationalism that he decries, which is not meant at all to suggest he is a White Nationalist. As you can see in the commentary from his blog, he certainly is not. Nonetheless, the fact that he anticipated that I would find this to be the case, suggests that he already had some understanding of the problem with his point of view.
For an argument that claims that everybody can be racist to be valid, two things have to be true: (1) all racial groups must exist in a state of equality a priori and (2) racism must be reduced to (a) race prejudice and/or (b) purposeful action, the goal of which is the oppression of a racialized group.
Concerning (1), it's a empirical fact that racial groups exist in a state of inequality, and this fact will be referenced throughout my comments. Racism is a form of inequality, which bring me to the second assumption.
Concerning (2), racism is more than prejudice and purposeful action based on race (which require no inequality). Conveniently, the reduction of racism to these things is the racist's definition of racism. With such a definition in operation, it becomes impossible to fight racism because the very act of fighting racism becomes interpreted as racist in itself.
In order to end racism, we must take away White privilege (which means Whites lose stuff) and radically restructure society. With the racist's definition of racism in play, the racial consciousness and purposeful action based on race necessary to carry out this radical restructuring will be judged racist. Thus anti-racism becomes racism, which is obviously a self-sealing fallacy.
This is analogous to Ayn Rand enthusiasts arguing that all behavior, including altruism, is selfish behavior (and therefore open selfishness is virtuous). The purpose of both arguments, however fallacious, is to perpetuate an unjust state of affairs. In other words, don't so anything to end racism lest you be racist. But in reality, failing to end racism is racist.
The way out of the paradox is develop an understanding of power. Fortunately, we have the social scientific and anti-racist understanding of racism to help us with this: racism = discrimination + power + oppressive group effects. This means that racism concerns institutional and, more broadly, structural power and outcomes that systematically benefit one group to the disadvantage of another or other groups.
Now, Robert characterizes structural racism as "invisible" and therefore imaginary. It's easy to debunk this claim. I find it hard to believe that anybody who is prepared to talk about race in America could be ignorant of the reality of segregated communities and occupational segregation in the United States of America.
Every city I have called home or traveled to or through is racially segregated. And I feel certain that Robert and most of the people who read my blog have seen such things for themselves. That is racism; it's neither imagined nor invisible, but real and structural.
Thus one can hold to race prejudice - defined as antipathy towards members of a racial group based on that groups racial identify - without being a racist for the simple fact that not all groups have the same access to power.
If I am a member of a racial group that does not control the dominant social institutions - that is, I do not enjoy structural power - and that is disadvantaged by the workings of prevailing social relations, then I cannot translate my race prejudice into racism. So saying that a Black man is racist because he holds bigoted attitudes concerning White people depends on a faulty definition of racism.
Let's get more deeply into this. When we say racism is institutional, we mean that there are patterns of discrimination in which racialized groups are affected, with one group (in the present case, White people) benefiting from these patterns and other groups (in the present case, Blacks) suffering from these patterns.
By discrimination, we mean patterns of oppressive behavior - which require no prejudice; actions that suppress oppression are not discriminatory, for this would make liberation the equivalent of slavery (that self-sealing fallacy problem again).
I emphasize that institutional patterns do not depend on purposeful action (or positive racist motive, whatever you want to call it), what some people mistakenly call "intentional"; rather, these patterns are determined/identified by results, by biases inherent in there operation.
As feminist scholar Jo Freeman puts it: "institutional discrimination is built into the normal working relationships of institutions, its perpetuation requires only that people continue 'business as usual.' Its eradication requires much more than good will; it requires active review of the assumptions and practices by which the institution operates, and revision of those found to have discriminatory results."
The patterns of institutional racism clearly run in the direction of White privilege and Black disadvantage. Whites enjoy better and higher paying jobs, better educational outcomes, lower rates of unemployment, longer lives, fewer diseases and illnesses, lower rates of infant mortality, lower rates of poverty, lower rates of incarceration, greater home ownership, better homes, and so forth.
All of these are empirically rooted in patterns of institutional discrimination. Failure to act to overthrow these patterns is a manifestation of racism. This is why affirmative action is not an example of racist discrimination; the intention of the policy is to restrict White (male) privilege, privilege given by the patterns of discrimination in US institutions.
When we say racism is structural we are talking about the overall context in which these institutions function. Because of accumulated wealth in White communities, institutions systematically enrich Whites and impoverish Blacks.
Why did I a moment ago say that people mistakenly use the term "intentional" when they really mean purposeful? This is important to understand.
Intentionality is a legal concept which has four levels of legal and moral responsibility.
The first is purpose, which means that I wanted to something to happen and I acted in a positive fashion to achieve it's outcome.
The second is knowledge, which means that I knew something would happen and I did not act to prevent its occurrence.
The third is negligence, which means that I had a responsibility to know about and make sure something did not happen, but failed to meet that obligation.
The fourth is recklessness, which means that I acted in a manner that caused something ill to happen, something that I did not mean to happen, but something that happened nonetheless because of something I did.
All these things fall under the legal category of intentionality (most people don't know about this, but this is a universal assumption of Western law and most other legal systems).
Understanding intentionality is the key to understanding who is responsible for institutional racism, since White people intentionally perpetrate patterns of discrimination, even if they do not purposefully set these patterns in motion, even if they do not carry race prejudice in their thoughts.
This is why there is no such thing as non-racism. Either you are racist, which includes failing to act to end racism, or your are anti-racist.
Now, if one takes the perpetrator's perspective - the perpetrator being those who benefit from the patterns of discrimination and express reluctance to act in ways that will end the circumstances that benefit them - then one will demand that the victims of discrimination prove that the perpetrator had a racist purpose in acting.
This is Ron Paul's standard. He knows that it is virtually impossible to show somebody acted with racist purpose.
On the other hand, if one takes the victim's perspective - which rests on, as my studies of social being have led me to conclude, the basic moral position of sympathy - then what matters is what is actually happening. When a people are suffering oppression, they don't wait to find individual perpetrators (which will likely never happen); they act to change the conditions of their existence.
Because of this oversimplification, Robert misrepresent Black Nationalism and Afrocentrism. Black Nationalism and Afrocentrism are responses to White Supremacy.
Blacks in Africa developed nationalism as a form of resistance to European imperialism.
Blacks in the United States developed nationalism as a form of resistance to White Supremacy.
And Blacks around the world developed Afrocentrism as a means of understanding that their suffering has a common cause: Eurocentrism, that is an ordering of the world on the basis of the ideas, wants, and needs of White people.
In both instances, and with Afrocentrism in general, these are forms of anti-racism, not racism.
It follows from the logic of my argument that it's a basic error to treat resistance to racism as racism. It's not racist for Africans to recognize that White people invaded their continent and ruled over them, and to realize that, for freedom to be possible, the mechanisms of racial oppression must be overthrown, and that includes going after White people.
Likewise, it's not racist for Black Americans to recognize that White people kidnapped their ancestors and brought them to the Americans to toil in forced labor camps and, in response, to develop their own political identity and to organize to overthrow the conditions that result from those circumstances.
Some might find it nice that if and when White Supremacy is ever overthrown that racial consciousness will also disappear, but we exist in a reality created by hundreds of years of White Supremacy.
Black people did not choose to be Black, but they are taking control of that category to improve their lot in life. If Whites say Black is ugly, then Blacks say that Black is beautiful. Why should their children continue to believe what White people want them to believe?
This is the fundamental difference between White power and Black power: White power is used to oppress Black people; Black power is used to liberate Black people. It would be racist for me as a member of the oppressor race to tell Black people to stop being the sort of Black they want to be.
I don't believe Robert really believes that White people ought to be telling Black people how to conceptualize themselves. Isn't one of the reasons why we strive to overthrow White Supremacy so that Blacks can have self-determination?
I am a radical democrat who believes in multiculturalism. I believe people have a right to an ethnic identity. I have serious problems with assimilation thought and practice, chief among them the intersections between attempts to eradicate ethnic identity and the legal understanding of genocide. I believe in self-determination, so that when a people wish to govern themselves in a particular way, they should be able to.
But it does not follow that I believe that if a people wish to govern themselves in such a way so that members of other groups are systematically prevented from accessing resources necessary to realizing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that they should be allowed to. Indeed, this is why I oppose White Nationalism.
Black nationalists do not systematically deprive Whites of access to necessary resources. They are not in a position to do so. If ever Black Nationalism was the ruling force in this country and systematically restricted White access to necessary resources, then I would oppose Black Nationalism in the same fashion that I oppose White Nationalism.
One cannot ignore the issue of institutional and structural power. Self-determination is consistent with democracy if and only if it does not oppress other groups. I am in sympathy with Black Nationalism as an anti-racist strategy. This does not mean I support creating a society in which Blacks rule over Whites. A just society is one in which people rule themselves.
Thus I have to point out the error in this statement Robert makes: "Ethnic nationalism is either right or wrong, not only wrong when Whites do it and right when non-Whites do it. If White Nationalism is wrong then so is any kind of ethnic nationalism."
This is like saying that affirmative action is wrong because it "discriminates" against White people. Affirmative action is a policy that suppresses the discriminatory patterns of institutions that historically and presently privilege White people.
Another example of this error is seen where people complain that handicapped parking gives special privileges to the disabled. Because we are dealing with different groups, applying the same standard is discriminatory. Equal treatment is fair only if there are no group inequalities. Indeed, as Hayek took great pains to point out, classical liberals embrace strict equal treatment because it reproduces inequality.
Throughout Robert's blog entry he confuses racism with racial consciousness and action. He writes, "According to [Andrew's] thinking, Black (and Hispanic) racism only exists as a response to White racism."
There's no such thing as Black and Latino racism in the United States, if by this he means racism against Whites (Blacks can be racist against other Blacks when they defend White supremacy).
Let me reiterate the point that no minority group in American controls US institutions and that, for this reason, member of a minority group cannot be racist against members of the majority group. To believe otherwise is to argue that slave antipathy towards slave masters is no different than slave master antipathy towards slaved.
But it's fundamentally different. Why? Because of power. To be sure, Blacks can be bigoted against Whites, but they cannot be racist against Whites because they don't have the power to do to Whites what Whites do to them.
As proof of Black and Latino "racism," Robert claims that, "Blacks and Hispanics are far more ethnocentric, racially conscious and, yes, racist, than Whites."
In fact, Blacks operate with a double consciousness; they are racialized and operate in a White man's world. Because Whites rarely operate in the Black world, they are much more ethnocentric; Whites are far more White than Blacks are Black.
Moreover, it seems that, according to Robert, in order for Blacks not to be racist, they would have to think like White people. But majority group demands that minorities think like them is one of the hallmarks of racism. He has assumed the White man's point of view in all of this.
Whiteness, which is the racial consciousness associated with racism, blinds White people to the structural logic of racism. There is no effectively difference from the Whiteness embraced by White Nationalists (whom he deplores) and the Whiteness embraced by those who condemn people for thinking like non-Whites.
Robert's blog entry is wide ranging, and I should deal with his comments about my alleged bias in favor of Islam over Christianity (it isn't true) in a later blog entry, but relevant to the present discussion is Robert's attack on immigrants.
As I explained to him, I believe this stems from ignorance of structure and process of the global economy. To describe workers who come here because capitalists need cheap labor as "invaders" is, I find, as morally repugnant as the White Nationalism he loathes.
Latinos don't take jobs, fuel the crime rate, or turn city blocks into slums. Employers control who gets jobs. The state determines what a crime is. Landlords turn city blocks into slums. This is a good example of how ignorance of social structure leads a progressive person into misidentifying the crux of the problem.
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