tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post8196295834872655685..comments2023-12-14T20:02:51.470-06:00Comments on The Heavy Anglophile Orthodox: Racism - not a problem of ‘deplorables’Matthew Franklin Cooperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15233216128641267240noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post-8682252650964533132016-12-12T21:54:30.406-06:002016-12-12T21:54:30.406-06:00Oh, I don't doubt that race is still something...Oh, I don't doubt that race is still something in play for even the wealthy, but racial profiling is a means of displacing frustration that is fundamentally economic. When the poor or low-middling white is presented with the successful and wealthy black, it's like a short circuit. Racism is a means of keeping down, but it's also a means to lay an axe at the root of another's success. Thus, it is a mechanism of resentment. Thus, even though the black man is wealthy, powerful and successful, the claim to a racial hierarchy can always keep you above him, especially when you have the ability to enact it (i.e. as a representative of the state or as some service provider). The same goes with the pop-cultural stereotype of the "white guy has no rhythm", which is intended as a kind of buffet of justification and segregation of social capital.<br /><br />Anyway, that's all to say that race is still in play, but I think it's mostly a distraction. Its promulgation is a means to keep people from recognizing commonalities of systemic oppression, this is done through appeals to jealousy and resentment which easily take off. Fractionalization and tribalization of the masses is good for those who pull the strings.<br /><br />Thanks for your response. You're a good interlocutor! :)<br /><br />calCal of Chelcicehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04274276191242967318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post-86086031940740858622016-12-12T19:17:39.380-06:002016-12-12T19:17:39.380-06:00Hello, Cal! And thank you for the comments!
It wo...Hello, Cal! And thank you for the comments!<br /><br />It won't come as any surprise to you, I think, that I agree with you on a number of these points. In fact, it was my observation that the meritocratic element of the American <i>mythos</i> actually veiled over a certain hidden stratifying mentality which not even the aristocracies of Old Europe could pretend to, that led me to embrace a certain kind of High Toryism. Such High Toryism holds the wealthy responsible in ways American <i>laisser-faire</i> never could.<br /><br />And I don't think it will come as any surprise to you, either, that I agree with you on the last point of being perpetually surprised and dismayed at American Christendom's (even within Catholic and Orthodox circles, whose members have the Apostolic deposit ready to hand and should therefore know better) acceptance of the ideological <i>status quo</i> as somehow divinely-justified, ordained and therefore exempt from any humane systemic critique.<br /><br />Where I think we may disagree slightly is in the treatment of race as being wholly subsumed under economic realities. I sympathise with the argument, of course, but I have to be wary of the dangers in it, precisely because the persons of even 'wealthy' blacks, black folks who've 'made it', are often as much under scrutiny and the violence of the state as poor blacks' (or poor whites') are. There's something more than just applied economics at play, and that's something that needs to be attended to.<br /><br />As always, though, your comments are appreciated!<br /><br />Cheers,<br />MatthewMatthew Franklin Cooperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15233216128641267240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post-18974751702165277372016-12-12T18:37:59.281-06:002016-12-12T18:37:59.281-06:00Thank you for the comment, David. But with respect...Thank you for the comment, David. But with respect, did you even read the article?<br /><br />I make no comment on the state of other countries. I don't 'blame others' for racism, and in fact, I tend to blame the 'tribe' I grew up amongst (northern urban liberals) more than I do 'others'. And it certainly isn't my intent to 'fill' anyone 'with a sense of hopelessness and fatalism', but instead to point to practical measures that we can take to do something about entrenched racial inequities.Matthew Franklin Cooperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15233216128641267240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post-17755957621293438502016-12-05T15:35:04.377-06:002016-12-05T15:35:04.377-06:00Sorry, but don't give a rat's @ss about ra...Sorry, but don't give a rat's @ss about racism. There may be racism in America, but less than in other countries. And it's not the kind of racism (institutional) that will hold you back if you take full advantage of all the opportunities living in this country affords you (free education), instead of squandering them and blaming others. I actually believe blaming racism for everythig holds people back by filling them with a sense of hopelessness and fatalism.David Batllehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15041690869301327342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post-19901545885574403942016-12-05T12:32:53.843-06:002016-12-05T12:32:53.843-06:00The meritocracy only works as good as it is not un...<br />The meritocracy only works as good as it is not unveiled as a form of aristocracy where there is a constant succession of people already geared towards success. So we need justification why all these white people remain in relative poverty (inbred, stupid, evil, selfish etc.). The same is true with other sectors of people, but construed along different lines. There's genuine confusion as efforts at help seem almost from the gate, whether intentional or not, to be set up for failure or ineptitude. <br /><br />The game is trying to straddle the lines between an inclusive elite that tries to broaden the qualifications. As this circle expands, it almost simultaneously requires the conflagaration of people elsewhere. Hence a greater amount of people can join middling tiers of social prestige, while extreme poverty and sweat shops exist elsewhere, producing cheap-ish commodities that become status symbols of a new class identification (i.e. the iphone).<br /><br />This is why a serious left opposition attacks the structure of the middle-class by the demands of the working class. It's a fraudulent tension that is used to enfranchise people into a delusion. It's a way of inculcating bourgeoisie values of respectability into able defenders. In the slave-planter economy, this was the dangerous game of empowering the middling-class of slave catchers, overseers, and artisans, who's way of life becomes integrally related to the master at the expense of the slave.<br /><br />Of course, any of this is anathema where entering the Middle-Class is essentially a baptism into Americana. It's a religion where the catechumenate is a permanent state of endless striving, deceiving many working people from the impossibility of the dream. Race is a means of fragmentation of groups that actually share a similar interest (working whites and blacks), but the dream, combined with healthy doses of racism, and fear of necessity and scarcity, drives divisions.<br /><br />For the Christian, the poor may be with us until the eschaton, but it's because we ought to be actually among them, suffering their/our horrors of domination. As Chrysostom said, it's not about wealth, but about the procurement, sustenance, and use of said wealth. If we apply such to ourselves, many are guilty of being the dominators. Christians shouldn't necessarily be Communists, Socialists or whatever endless variety of solutions to the problems of global capital, but I can't understand a Christian who cannot agree with the Leftist assessment of dominance in the age of global capitalism. It's only by profiting from suffering we can keep ourselves blind, deaf, and dumb to the blood shed upon the altar of Mammon.<br /><br />2 cents,<br />cal Cal of Chelcicehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04274276191242967318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4251777016037497783.post-68192621140169706692016-12-05T12:32:46.525-06:002016-12-05T12:32:46.525-06:00While there remains a chunk of Americans who have ...While there remains a chunk of Americans who have a true-belief in racial hierarchies, I think a majority do not generally hold onto some sort of racial ontology. Yet, as you say, many of these people support racist institutions and structures that oppress and destroy lives.<br /><br />Consider the rise of blacks in the American sports industry. The coaches, team managers, investors etc. who signed people like Jackie Robbinson were not egalitarian idealists for the most part. They just could see a money opportunity that their competitors could not (or did not) see. They banked on the fact that wins and accumulated victories would break whatever public perception that might form around them. An athlete is an athlete, and to end discrimination opened a whole new crop of potential players. This not only brought wins and championships, it was a marketing campaign. A team could get more investors this way. The color-line was broken, in large part, because of greed, strategic economics, and skillful marketers.<br /><br />This is an indicator to me that these urbane hand-wringers are racist because, as elites, they're dependent upon structures that maintain an exploitable class of people. Race is, at its core, economics. Capitalism can simultaneously promote racism and destroy it depending on economic strategies, fluxes in the market, and different levels of competition.<br /><br />Of course, neo-liberal social policy is an attempt to de-colorized class lines. It welcomes in diverse peoples (whether race, sex, gender, sexuality etc.) by creating a more deracinated elite based on ability. 99% of black people might suffer in poverty or oppression, but it's not racist because Obama is president. The argument is not naive (among its more sophisticated articulators), but a way of restructuring class in American society. It still leaves a majority, whether "white trash" or "niggas" or whatever social distinction, in poverty and desperation. <br /><br />contCal of Chelcicehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04274276191242967318noreply@blogger.com