A Cheney of thought

In the comments to On Cheney, in response (I believe) to:

But what's more important is that he also knows that business is bad for war. He knows, for example, there there has never been a war between two countries that harbored McDonald's franchises. I actually think it's possible that, however counter-intuitive and risky his methods for getting it, what Dick Cheney really wants is peace.

comes this conversation:

I had always heard it that countries with the same religion rarely went to war, but it is a common theme of libertarianism and Free-Market types that no one has ever had too much of a hatred for someone that could make them a buck in trade.

It is really hard to hold a deep hatred for someone who can make your life better if you would simply get along with them.

the long history of Jim Crow and segregation shows that people are often all too willing to put ideas of racial purity above what would seem to be their economic self-interest (i.e., not allowing black people in their store or restaurant even though they could make money from selling to them).

…and because this isn't about Cheney I'm responding to both with a new post.

To begin with, it's pretty easy to hate someone from whom you'd receive benefit if you could just get along, even if you're fully aware that you would benefit. It's difficult to ACT OPENLY on that hatred. Black people in the Jim Crow South made huge amounts of money for white people that hated them. And they hated those white people right back.

See, not allowing Black folks to eat in your establishment wasn't an obstacle to selling them food. Racists had a monopoly on EVERYTHING.

And let's be clear: racism is about power;specifically, it's about collective, as opposed to individual, power; precisely, it's about economic power. The base individual emotions are tools by which it is implemented. Hatred, greed, paternalism (and this one is pointed directly at folks who 'want to end affirmative action because it sends the message to black people they can't get ahead without help'…your concern for Black people is a transparently thin cover for self interest), self interest and raw, amoral profiteering are appealed to or supported by racism.

Posted by Prometheus 6 on November 10, 2003 - 6:00am :: Race and Identity
 
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