I first ran across Walter Benn Michaels in connection with a kind of literary criticism orgy started by The Valve over his book, The Trouble With Diversity. They tossed me a bag of copies of his work , so I got a fair idea of his deal...folks think he is a progressive because he pitches his arguments using the words progressives use. But he isn't a progressive at all.
Soul Conviction linked Against Diversity, Benn Michael's latest in The New Left Review, because he argues Obama and Clinton's campaigns represented neoliberal victories. Tell you the truth, I don't even know where in the article submariner found the bit he quotes and objects to. I banged my head...hard...on the doorway.
In 1947—seven years before the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, sixteen years before the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique—the top fifth of American wage-earners made 43 per cent of the money earned in the us. Today that same quintile gets 50.5 per cent. In 1947, the bottom fifth of wage-earners got 5 per cent of total income; today it gets 3.4 per cent. After half a century of anti-racism and feminism, the us today is a less equal society than was the racist, sexist society of Jim Crow.
Far be it from me to downplay the race issues documented this election season, but that last sentence is objectively false.
Furthermore, virtually all the growth in inequality has taken place since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965—which means not only that the successes of the struggle against discrimination have failed to alleviate inequality, but that they have been compatible with a radical expansion of it. Indeed, they have helped to enable the increasing gulf between rich and poor.
To build on this is to guarantee error. The specific error is that compensating for the racial caste system is unimportant because only economic inequality is real. Fortunately, when a really skilled rhetoritician creates a story from whole cloth as Benn Michaels is trying to do, most of the counter-material you need will be at least implies in his argument. This is done so you can force them into their accounted-for, "proper" place when they are raised.
Why? Because it is exploitation, not discrimination, that is the primary producer of inequality today. It is neoliberalism, not racism or sexism (or homophobia or ageism) that creates the inequalities that matter most in American society; racism and sexism are just sorting devices. In fact, one of the great discoveries of neoliberalism is that they are not very efficient sorting devices, economically speaking.
Mr. Benn Michaels made the mistake Congress just made: economic arguments expresss bodily sentiments, not the other way around.
This was the beginning of his argument. I hope you understand why I couldn't take it seriously.
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So do you object to Michaels
So do you object to Michaels because he relegates racial inequality to cultural issues and thinks of social inequality only in economic terms?
I object because he must lie
I object because he must lie about race issues to make his point.
I can't respect anyone who can make such a statement with a straight face.
Dr. Lester Spence was
Dr. Lester Spence was telling me about his recently completed his manuscript on neoliberalism and I had it mind so much that I missed the most glaring error. It goes to something that I've read from you before about how white progressives would have us move beyond the 'parochial' isues that affect blacks to the 'really important' stuff that concern them. Micheals is a confabulator and I'll be sure to include these deficiencies when I write to New Left Review.
Equality
If the society as a whole has gotten significantly more unequal -- since 1967 every year has seen a wider gap in the distribution of wealth -- then what has anti-rascism gotten us, exactly? Certainly not less poor people. We will continue to have more poor people because rich people are concerned with keeping their cash. And how do they do that: by constantly reminding us we have a long way to go with repairing race. How about repairing low birth weight, bad health care, malnutrition, and poor education? Those are not race claims -- they are economic. The fact is: you can get rid of racism tomorrow and you will have exactly as many poor people as you have today, and a lot more tomorrow.
Oh, good. A challenge.
First, let us not lose sight of the nonsense that made me reject Benn Michael's lit-crit analysis of reality...it is a lit-crit analysis of reality. A pretense of explanation via the juxtaposition of words selected by him.
Unless you define inequality soley in economic terms, which no one who has to deal in actual, non-ivory tower reality, would do, this is palpable bullshit. Even most ivory tower type reject it.
Now, to your unrelated question.
Anti-racism has gotten a lot fewer asses kicked in this country, and it ain't all white asses that have been saved by it...far from it. Anti-racism has pretty much eliminated actual, physical (as opposed to imaginary "hi-tech") lynchings. And it has brought Black people into the pool from which the middle class grows.
I would call that progress. But then, I am Black...I could fairly be expected to approve of Black lives being saved.
As long as we have a hierarchical society...which is to say, until we evolve into something non-human (hold your breath, please...), we will have a few rich people at the top supported by broad swaths of the less well off. As the Bible says, the poor shall always be among ye. My goal is for the income distribution to be the same across all communities, and have the paths providing social mobility accessible to all. This is not the case now, but it's in the works.
Now, that's your question answered. Let me ask you (and if you want to continue the conversation, you must answer or have your future responses devowelled).
In my opinion, pursuit of racial justice does not cause economic inequality. Pursuit of economic inequality causes economic inequality. You want to to fight one...racial justice...by claiming it, rather than bald-faced selfishness, is the cause of some unrelated problem.
It's on you now, dawg.
Mystified
How is defining equality in terms of health care and education solely economic? The question is simple: how is our society more equal than it was in 1947. Surely it's not a matter of lynchings -- not too many of those between 47 and now. But in terms of pain and suffering there has been a substantial and growing increase -- there are more poor people now than then (not a mere economic category in a capitalist country). So there are more Black people into the pool of middle-class. Very true. And the middle-class is smaller every year...but more colorful. Progress, indeed. There will certainly be more black people in the middle-class and upper-classes in the future -- and a whole lot more poor people...of all colors. Black lives being saved? Clarence Thomas and Condoleezza Rice would certainly agree. And they would loudly affirm your statement: "until we evolve into something non-human we will have a few rich people at the top supported by broad swaths of the less well off." It's called the conservative principle (see Edmund Burke). And we should add: and maybe there should be a lot more poor people and lot fewer--but richer--rich people. It's just the way things are, right? (hello pre-1947 thinking!) And if you can still say things like this: economic equality "is not the case now, but it's in the works." I'm umystified (you seemed not to have read the Michaels article). It's not in the works. Every year the gap widens as we become more colorful. A rainbow coalitiion of poor people (bad education, bad health-care, shorter lives, and more time working for lower wages). Not one question is answered. And in reply to the above. 1. Capitalism (not racism, money don't care about the color of the hand that takes it and gives it). 2. It makes arguments like this necessary and makes smart, "left"-thinking people imagine Obama as on the left. When we get mystified into thinking people making 40,000 are in the same class as 250,000 we are in deep straits. Be as anti-racist as you want and watch the suffering increase day by day. The problem is distribution -- not shuffling the loaded deck. End racism tomorrow and you will have exactly the same amount of poor people. And many more after Obama.
Well, THAT too a while...
Commenting expires after 30 days...there's no way to stop that (though maybe I'll add one later), but fortunately I can override that one day at a time.
No, it's not just a matter of lynchings.
Read this, Todd: "Each time you think you know all about Black history comes another revelation."
And this: White History, Part II
Oh, and this: Yes, white people had a 200 year affirmative action plan going
Your problem, and it IS a problem, is that you only consider the inequalities that affect white men. You don't even consider those that affect women.
So I'll give you something that affects your concerns...you don't get to post a reply. I didn't devowel you because I wanted everyone to see how your first response was about post-1967
Then you shifted to different ground
Kinda weaselly, if you ask me.
Anti-racism hasn't gained YOU anything. Being born in North Carolina, it gained worlds for me...including more than a few friends. Your complaining about is says more about you than anti-racism.