Three important notes about this file

AT Cap K

Suboordinating racism to class relations removes any possibility of reform

Martinot and Sexton 03- *prof at San Francisco State University**PhD in ethnic studies from UC Berkeley, Director, African American Studies at UC Irvine (Steve and Jared, “The Avant-garde of white supremacy,” http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~marto/avantguard.htm//MGD)

Leftist approaches that come as close to radical critique as any already fall short. The liberal ethos looks at racism as ignorance, something characteristic of the individual that can be solved at a social level through education and democratic procedure. For Marxist thought, racism is a divide-and-conquer strategy for class rule and super-exploitation. However, the idea that it is a strategy assumes that it can be counter-strategized at some kind of local or individual level rather than existing as something fundamental to class relations themselves. For anti-colonialist thinking, racism is a social ideology that can be refuted, a structure of privilege to be given up, again at the local or individual level. Where liberalism subordinates the issue of racism to the presumed potentialities of individual development, Marxism subordinates the issue of race to class relations of struggle, and anti-colonial radicalism pretends its mere existence as a "movement" is the first step toward eradicating racism. But liberalism’s social democracy pretends that state oligarchy is really interested in justice. And the more radical critiques subsume the issue of racism in promises of future transformations of the power relations to which de-racialization is deferred.
Placing other issues before racism is a failed epistemological attempt to evade guilt and responsibility for racial inequities

Martinot and Sexton 03- *prof at San Francisco State University**PhD in ethnic studies from UC Berkeley, Director, African American Studies at UC Irvine (Steve and Jared, “The Avant-garde of white supremacy,” http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~marto/avantguard.htm//MGD)

In both arenas a hidden depth, a secret drive, an unfathomed animus is postulated and a procedure derived that will plumb that depth, excavate the problem, dredge out the muck that causes these aberrant behaviors that we call racism. And in both approaches an issue is skirted. It is as if there were something at the center of white supremacy that is too adamantine, off of which the utmost of western analytic thought slides helplessly toward the simplistic, the personal or the institutional. The supposed secrets of white supremacy get sleuthed in its spectacular displays, in pathology and instrumentality, or pawned off on the figure of the "rogue cop." Each approach to race subordinates it to something that is not race, as if to continue the noble epistemological endeavor of getting to know it better. But what each ends up talking about is that other thing. In the face of this, the left’s anti-racism becomes its passion. But its passion gives it away. It signifies the passive acceptance of the idea that race, considered to be either a real property of a person or an imaginary projection, is not essential to the social structure, a system of social meanings and categorizations. It is the same passive apparatus of whiteness that in its mainstream guise actively forgets that it owes its existence to the killing and terrorizing of those it racializes for the purpose, expelling them from the human fold in the same gesture of forgetting. It is the passivity of bad faith that tacitly accepts as "what goes without saying" the postulates of white supremacy. And it must do so passionately since "what goes without saying" is empty and can be held as a "truth" only through an obsessiveness. The truth is that the truth is on the surface, flat and repetitive, just as the law is made by the uniform. Like going to the state to protect us from the police, these critiques approach a variety of white ideologies and disciplines as a means of gaining insight into white supremacy. It is a project dedicated to only looking so far at race, racism, or white supremacy so as to avoid the risk of seeing oneself there, implicated as either perpetrator or victim. In effect, all of these theories remain disguises for the role of race and racism as social categorization. Once one recognizes that the power relations that categorize as such are genocidal, as Joy James has demonstrated, then the very discriminatory hierarchy that structures them must already subsume as strategies for itself the class struggles, privileges, educational facilities and juridical operations to which the left goes. The task of the critique of white supremacy is to avoid these general theoretical pitfalls and to produce new analyses, modes of apprehension, and levels of abstraction.

Put your cap k away – this is bigger than breaking down the capitalist system, it’s a destruction of the world as we know it.

Wilderson and Howard 10 [Frank, Assoc prof of African American Studies, Percy, Psychotherapist, “Frank Wilderson, Wallowing in the Contradictions, Part 2” http://percy3.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/frank-wilderson-wallowing-in-the-contradictions-part-2/ /liam]
FW       What I’m trying to say is at the level of relations of power, what does it mean to be Black?  In the way that Marx said, at the level of the relations of power what does it mean to be a worker?  Well, what it means to be a worker is that one goes through one’s life captive to two questions; how long will I have to work and how much will I have to do?  And that the only things that change one’s life are the particulars of those questions when you change jobs, when you earn more money, etc., etc. But why he calls capitalism unethical is because those are paradigmatic questions for one class of people, and the other class of people doesn’t have those questions.

And so what I think is that there’s so much talk about hybridity, diversity, and possibility that what I want to contribute to the world is a text about impossibility, Blackness as a space of impossibility.  Now having said that, there are things I do to manage myself, to help me be okay, know what the world is saying or whatever, in a place where everyone sees me as their object, you know.  One of the things I said in psychoanalysis and another thing that I do is consult regularly with a teacher, Babalawo, who consults ancestors to help me. But I’m, I’m a little cautious and uh, uncomfortable with incorporating that into my political analysis and my political philosophy.  One, because I don’t write about, I don’t write the answer to Lenin’s question, what is to be done?  I think, I believe that the liberation of Black people is tantamount to moving into an epistemology that we cannot imagine. Once Blacks become incorporated and recognized I don’t think we have the language or the concepts to think of what that is.  It’s not like moving from Capitalism to Communism, it’s like the end of the world.

Antiracist movements are a prerequisite to capitalist struggles- k/t ensure minority participation and engage in political protest, rather than leftist theory

West 98- professor of African American studies at Princeton, Honorary Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (Cornel, “Socialism and Antiracism: Two Inseparable Yet Not Identical Goals,” http://race.eserver.org/toward-a-theory-of-racism.html)

It should be apparent that racist practices directed against black, brown, yellow, and red people are an integral element of U. S. history, including present day American culture and society. This means not simply that Americans have inherited racist attitudes and prejudices, but, more importantly, that institutional forms of racism are embedded in American society in both visible and invisible ways. These institutional forms exist not only in remnants of de jure job, housing, and educational discrimination and political gerrymandering. They also manifest themselves in a de facto labor market segmentation, produced by the exclusion of large numbers of peoples of color from the socioeconomic mainstream. (This exclusion results from limited educational opportunities, devastated families, a disproportionate presence in the prison population, and widespread police brutality. ) It also should be evident that past Marxist conceptions of racism have often prevented U. S. socialist movements from engaging in antiracist activity in a serious and consistent manner. In addition, black suspicion of white-dominated political movements (no matter how progressive) as well as the distance between these movements and the daily experiences of peoples of color have made it even more difficult to fight racism effectively. Furthermore, the disproportionate white middle-class composition of contemporary democratic socialist organizations creates cultural barriers to the participation by peoples of color. Yet this very participation is a vital precondition for greater white sensitivity to antiracist struggle and to white acknowledgment of just how crucial antiracist struggle is to the U. S. socialist movement. Progressive organizations often find themselves going around in a vicious circle. Even when they have a great interest in antiracist struggle, they are unable to attract a critical mass of people of color because of their current predominately white racial and cultural composition. These organizations are then stereotyped as lily white, and significant numbers of people of color refuse to join. The only effective way the contemporary democratic socialist movement can break out of this circle (and it is possible because the bulk of democratic socialists are among the least racist of Americans) is to be sensitized to the critical importance of antiracist struggles. This conscientization cannot take place either by reinforcing agonized white consciences by means of guilt, nor by presenting another grand theoretical analysis with no practical implications. The former breeds psychological paralysis among white progressives, which is unproductive for all of us; the latter yields important discussions but often at the expense of concrete political engagement. Rather what is needed is more widespread participation by predominantly white democratic socialist organizations in antiracist struggles--whether those struggles be for the political, economic, and cultural empowerment of Latinos, blacks, Asians, and Native Americans or antiimperialist struggles against U.S. support for oppressive regimes in South Africa, Chile, the Philippines, and the occupied West Bank. A major focus on antiracist coalition work will not only lead democratic socialists to act upon their belief in genuine individuality and radical democracy for people around the world; it also will put socialists in daily contact with peoples of color in common struggle. Bonds of trust can be created only within concrete contexts of struggle. This interracial interaction guarantees neither love nor friendship. Yet it can yield more understanding and the realization of two overlapping goals-- democratic socialism and antiracism. While engaging in antiracist struggles, democratic socialists can also enter into a dialogue on the power relationships and misconceptions that often emerge in multiracial movements for social justice in a racist society. Honest and trusting coalition work can help socialists unlearn Eurocentrism in a self-critical manner and can also demystify the motivations of white progressives in the movement for social justice. We must frankly acknowledge that a democratic socialist society will not necessarily eradicate racism. Yet a democratic socialist society is the best hope for alleviating and minimizing racism, particularly institutional forms of racism. This conclusion depends on a candid evaluation that guards against utopian self-deception. But it also acknowledges the deep moral commitment on the part of democratic socialists of all races to the dignity of all individuals and peoples--a commitment that impels us to fight for a more libertarian and egalitarian society. Therefore concrete antiracist struggle is both an ethical imperative and political necessity for democratic socialists. It is even more urgent as once again racist policies and Third World intervention become more acceptable to many Americans. A more effective democratic socialist movement engaged in antiracist and antiimperialist struggle can help turn the tide. It depends on how well we understand the past and present, how courageously we act, and how true we remain to our democratic socialist ideals of freedom, equality, and democracy.

Their cap K serves to silence the voice of racial identity politics and amounts to paternalism- becomes a middle class default

Ross 2k- Professor of English and African-American Studies at UVA (Marlon, “Pleasuring Identity, or the Delicious Politics of Belonging,” New Literary History, Vol. 31, No. 4, pp. 827-850 JSTOR)

Although in his contribution Eric Lott targets Professor Michaels's comments and his own recent feud with Timothy Brennan (who unfortunately is not included in this volume) rather than Ken's argument, what Eric says about "left and liberal fundamentalists" who "simply and somewhat penitently" urge us to "'go back to class'" could also be directed at Ken's conclusion. Ken writes, "Crafting a political left that does not merely reflect existing racial divisions starts with the relatively mundane proposition that it is possible to make a persuasive appeal to the given interests of working and unemployed women and men, regardless of race, in support of a program for economic justice." On this one, I side with Eric, rather than Tim and Ken. Standing on the left depends on whose left side we're talking about. My left might be your right and vice versa, because it depends on what direction we're facing, and what direction depends on which identities we're assuming and affirming. Eric adds, "Even in less dismissive [than Tim's] accounts of new social movements based not on class but on identities formed by histories of injustice, there is a striking a priori sense of voluntarism about the investment in this cause or that movement or the other issue as though determining the most fundamental issue were a matter of the writer's strength of feeling rather than a studied or analytical sense of the ever-unstable balance of forces in a hegemonic bloc at a given moment." I agree, but I'll risk mangling what Eric says by putting it more crassly. Touting class or "economic justice" as the fundamental stance for left identity is just another way of telling everybody else to shut up so I can be heard above the fray. Because of the force of "identity politics," a leftist white person would be leery of claiming to lead Blacks toward the promised land, a leftist straight man leery of claiming to lead women or queers, but, for a number of complex rationalizations, we in the middle class (where all of us writing here currently reside) still have few qualms about volunteering to lead, at least theoretically, the working class toward "economic justice." What Eric calls here "left fundamental ism," I'd call, at the risk of sounding harsh, left paternalism. Of the big identity groups articulated through "identity politics," economic class remains the only identity where a straight white middle-class man can still feel comfortable claiming himself a leading political voice, and thus he may sometimes overcompensate by screaming that this is the only identity that really matters which is the same as claiming that class is beyond identity. Partly this is because Marxist theory and Marx himself (a bourgeois intellectual creating the theoretical practice for the work ers' revolution) stage the model for working-class identity as a sort of trans-identification, a magical identity that is transferable to those outside the group who commit themselves to it wholeheartedly enough. If we look back, we realize even this magical quality is not special to a history of class struggle, as whites during the New Negro movements of the early twentieth century felt that they were vanguard race leaders because they had putatively imbibed some essential qualities of Negroness by cross-identifying with the folk and their culture.
Their historical analysis is incorrect- racism is the root cause of capital exploitation

Wilderson- prof of African American studies and drama at UC Irvine (Frank B. III, “The Prison Slave as Hegemony's (Silent) Scandal,” Social Justice, San Francisco: 2003. Vol. 30, Iss. 2; pg. 18)

By examining the strategy and structure of the Black subject's absence in, and incommensurability with, the key categories of Gramscian theory, we come face to face with three unsettling consequences: (1) The Black American subject imposes a radical incoherence upon the assumptive logic of Gramscian discourse and on today's coalition politics. In other words, s/he implies a scandal. (2) The Black subject reveals the inability of social movements grounded in Gramscian discourse to think of white supremacy (rather than capitalism) as the base and thereby calls into question their claim to elaborate a comprehensive and decisive antagonism. Stated another way, Gramscian discourse and coalition politics are indeed able to imagine the subject that transforms itself into a mass of antagonistic identity formations, formations that can precipitate a crisis in wage slavery, exploitation, and hegemony, but they are asleep at the wheel when asked to provide enabling antagonisms toward unwaged slavery, despotism, and terror. (3) We begin to see how Marxism suffers from a kind of conceptual anxiety. There is a desire for socialism on the other side of crisis, a society that does away not with the category of worker, but with the imposition workers suffer under the approach of variable capital. In other words, the mark of its conceptual anxiety is in its desire to democratize work and thus help to keep in place and insure the coherence of Reformation and Enlightenment foundational values of productivity and progress. This scenario crowds out other postrevolutionary possibilities, i.e., idleness. The scandal, with which the Black subject position "threatens" Gramscian and coalition discourse, is manifest in the Black subject's incommensurability with, or disarticulation of, Gramscian categories: work, progress, production, exploitation, hegemony, and historical self-awareness. Through what strategies does the Black subject destabilize - emerge as the unthought, and thus the scandal of historical materialism? How does the Black subject function within the "American desiring machine" differently than the quintessential Gramscian subaltern, the worker? Capital was kick-started by the rape of the African continent, a phenomenon that is central to neither Gramsci nor Marx. According to Barrett (2002), something about the Black body in and of itself made it the repository of the violence that was the slave trade. It would have been far easier and far more profitable to take the white underclass from along the riverbanks of England and Western Europe than to travel all the way to Africa for slaves. The theoretical importance of emphasizing this in the early 21st century is twofold. First, capital was kick-started by approaching a particular body (a black body) with direct relations of force, not by approaching a white body with variable capital. Thus, one could say that slavery is closer to capital's primal desire than is exploitation. It is a relation of terror as opposed to a relation of hegemony. Second, today, late capital is imposing a renaissance of this original desire, the direct relation of force, the despotism of the unwaged relation. This renaissance of slavery, i.e., the reconfiguration of the prison-industrial complex has, once again, as its structuring metaphor and primary target the Black body. The value of reintroducing the unthought category of the slave, by way of noting the absence of the Black subject, lies in the Black subject's potential for extending the demand placed on state/capital formations because its reintroduction into the discourse expands the intensity of the antagonism. In other words, the positionality of the slave makes a demand that is in excess of the demand made by the positionality of the worker. The worker demands that productivity be fair and democratic (Gramsci's new hegemony, Lenin's dictatorship of the proletariat, in a word, socialism). In contrast, the slave demands that production stop, without recourse to its ultimate democratization. Work is not an organic principle for the slave. The absence of Black subjectivity from the crux of radical discourse is symptomatic of the text's inability to cope with the possibility that the generative subject of capitalism, the Black body of the 15th and 16th centuries, and the generative subject that resolves late capital's over-accumulation crisis, the Black (incarcerated) body of the 20th and 21st centuries, do not reify the basic categories that structure conflict within civil society: the categories of work and exploitation.
Perm solves best- their colorblind approach perpetuates whiteness

Squires and Kubrin 06- *professor of sociology and chair of the Department of Sociology at GW, ** associate professor of sociology at GW, coeditor of Crime and Society (Gregory and Charis, “Race, Opportunity and Uneven Development in Urban America,” http://nhi.org/online/issues/147/privilegedplaces.html)

In response, it is argued that while the quality of life for racial minorities has improved over the years, such approaches simply do not recognize the extent to which race and racism continue to shape the opportunity structure in the United States. Colorblindness is often a euphemism for what amounts to a retreat on race and the preservation of white privilege in its many forms. In a world of scarce resources, class-based remedies dilute available support for combating racial discrimination and segregation. From this perspective, it is precisely the controversy over race that the class-based proponents fear, which demonstrates the persistence of racism and the need for explicitly anti-racist remedies, including far more aggressive enforcement of fair housing, equal employment and other civil rights laws. On the other hand, race-based remedies alone may not resolve all the problems associated with race and urban poverty given the many non-racial factors that contribute to racial disparity as indicated above. In reality, both approaches are required. Class-based policies (such as increasing the minimum wage and earned income tax credit, implementing living wage requirements) and race-based initiatives (more comprehensive affirmative action and related diversity requirements), are essential if the underlying patterns of privilege are to be altered.