Clinton and Trump

Yes, I have not posted in a long time. I've been busier. I am also feeling more and more the repetitiveness of political/social drama and public discourse. Not only do I feel like I would be rehashing previous discussions, but it also drains the gas from my engine.

2016 is terrible, but as I am someone so clearly cynical about the inherent nature of political systems, the election is another area where my reactions would be easily predicted. There has been no dearth of fallacies, myths,and inaccuracies coming from all sides. It is infuriating. For some reason I decided it was time to weigh in on a few misconceptions.

Demagogues are responsible for bigotry. The best way to address bigotry is to discredit demagogues and defeat them at the polls by any means necessary.

This mode of thinking relies on a superhero view of the world where evil is something that exists in and of itself as a sine qua non of the order of the world. It is a characteristic of particular individuals who cannot be understood or changed, who are not rational beings, and are thus less than human. At the same time, this "evil" is treated like an infectious disease - it is contagious, it spreads, and it is capable of being incubated and exacerbated by malignant individuals - the demagogues. Bigotry follows this same pattern. Racists exist because... racists exist. They are, perhaps, a reflection of primordial human tendencies that some or most people have overcome. But the analysis is not as important as the public theater of denouncing them.

A sociological/anthropological analysis of racism stands in stark contrast to this moral-psychological view, with its understanding of society and systems and insistence on seeing all people. even the worst people, as nevertheless people - human beings with feelings and motives that can be at the very least understood. As I have mentioned before, the concept of race was developed as a means of channeling the anger of the white underclass in a direction that was not threatening to the dominating elites, as well as providing a moral justification for the oppression and/or extermination of non-white (black and native) populations. It has continued to serve this function. While neither race nor class is reducible to the other, they are at the same time very much interlinked. 

(Side note:  there is a parallel between the two analyses of bigotry and interpretations of terrorism. Some people see terrorists as irrational, not understandable, less-than-human, and terrorism as an aspect of the world that just is.  Their proposed solution to terrorism often involves a lot of violence. Others see terrorism as a phenomenon rooted in the domination of global capitalism and Western colonialism (this applies to domestic terrorism as well). They took seriously foreign terrorists' anger about the nature of U.S. involvement in other parts of the world and generally propose a radically different foreign policy as an important means of preventing terrorism. And they do this without justifying terrorism.)

If racism was birthed and maintained through economic exploitation and class conflict, then racism cannot significantly be addressed without altering the conditions of the political/economic system that sustains it. To that end, disregarding all of the concerns of that segment of the population to which racism is commonly considered endemic, is counter-productive to the goal of eradicating racism. I say "commonly considered" in part because I think there is a good case to be made that the elites perpetuate a subtle, yet vicious, form of racism that may be more damaging than that of certain blue collar whites. However, I think that particular issue is beyond the scope of this post.

This principle is applicable not just to Trumpism, but also, for example, to Brexit. If the people championing or indirectly supporting nationalism and bigotry are simultaneously aroused by feelings of anger related to economic opportunities and inequalities, eroding community bonds, and political disenfranchisement, then responding to these people by promoting policy that maintains or exacerbates these economic conditions (e.g. the type of policy represented by Clinton, the EU, and the British establishment), by explicitly demeaning and devaluing these people (calling them uneducated, ignorant, naive, incapable of acting in their own best interest), and by affirming their sense of helplessness in a political system that does not represent them (citing Trump or Brexit as a case that democracy is dangerous, advocating means of overriding the popular vote, telling third party voters that their vote only counts in relation to (for or against) one of the two main party candidates), one is actively promoting the conditions in which nationalism/racism/bigotry thrive.

The most constructive things a person can do are any actions that promote systemic change and a more open and representative political process. By this measure, voting for Hillary Clinton is not constructive.

Feeling that one can refrain from voting for Clinton is a form of privilege, as it indicates that one does not personally fear the consequences of a Trump presidency.

There is nothing I dislike more than social justice concepts such as "privilege" being used for base political ends. As a general rule, I am also incredibly frustrated by people who complain that "political correctness" is used to silence people who think differently. I have already written about what a disingenuous argument that is. In this case, however, this particular invocation of "privilege" is used to silence people who genuinely care about inequality (the argument is certainly not directed at conservatives) and this fact makes it all the more frustrating.

Recently I witnessed a female friend completely disregard the thoughts of a male who had just outlined the basis for his support of Jill Stein with the assertion that, as a man, he did not have to fear the consequences of a Trump presidency, and she thereby invalidated his choice to support Stein. I responded to her by pointing out that she had the privilege of not having to worry about the consequences of Clinton's foreign policy on the safety of either herself or her friends and family. I noted that I have heard Muslims and people with Middle Eastern and Latin American background/connections express such a personal fear. She ignored this point.

This could turn into a much longer discussion, but I will try to remain brief. Of course, it is important to take into account the experiences, observations, and social/historical perspectives of different people, most especially those who have not traditionally had a voice. But, being open and taking this into account, one must still formulate a set of principles and determine one's own positions based on those principles. Someone can validly assert that your arguments are based on fallacies, historical and sociological inaccuracies, a lack of evidence, and a disregard for others' experiences. A person can also validly link your personal position in society with such weaknesses in your arguments. But that is different than someone ignoring your arguments entirely and asserting that your position is flawed solely by virtue of the fact that you are X demographic category and happen to disagree on an issue with someone of Y demographic category.  

At any rate, there is a lot of variation within any group. Women, for example, have widely differing experiences and perspectives, and you could pick any argument and find some woman to agree with you and some woman to disagree with you. The key, as I already said, is the set of facts, evidence, and reasoning a person's principles and positions are based on.  A person can be well-versed in feminism, gender studies, queer theory, cultural studies, post-colonialism, African American studies, etc. and still reach the conclusion that a vote for a third party or a non-vote is less dangerous for society as a whole, including oppressed sub-groups, than a vote for Clinton. That is not "the privilege to not be afraid" - that is just someone with a similar set of concerns reaching a different conclusion.

Donald Trump is going to destroy society and that fear is more important than anything else.

Clearly it is not possible to say with any certainty what the results of a Donald Trump presidency will be. Personally, I think he is too incompetent to be the next Hitler or Stalin (also, institutional/structural conditions are completely different from Weimar Germany so those comparisons are problematic for other reasons) and based on all available evidence, including the heavy weight of institutional inertia in the U.S. political system, I imagine things would be fairly status quo under Trump. 

People will remind me of the danger that he stirs up racists.  I think those people like to forget that the radical right wing has been stirred up for a while. If anything, enthusiasm for Trump among those elements will wane once he is firmly part of the establishment, and the radical right will continue on. Once again, it will be more productive to reflect on the ways in which establishment discourse on terrorism, immigration, crime, drugs, and so forth, along with policies that create a white underclass, have done their share to stir up the radical right.

Most importantly, it is necessary to reject a politics based on fear. Some of the most terrible decisions are made when people act based on fear. (This even holds beyond humans, as fear is one of the primary causes of aggressive behavior outside of a predator-prey relationship.) That is why politicians always try to stoke people's fears to increase support for wars.  The fact that the agenda of news media has become so completely profit-driven, and that fear draws ratings, has only contributed to an environment in which fear plays an important role, and this environment just so happens to make people and situations much easier for politicians to manipulate.

If we give in to fear, we surely allow ourselves to be manipulated. Instead, we must remain rational, analyze problems at a systemic level, and be brave enough to pursue the actions and changes that we know are necessary.

Stand Your Ground in Vietnam and Florida

Recently I've been reading Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse. Turse examines the evidence of countless declassified reports (accessed by the Freedom of Information Act) and eyewitness accounts (the latter of which he even travels around Vietnam to procure) to provide a better understanding of the nature of the war waged in Vietnam. His conclusion: My Lai was the norm. The U.S., along with its Vietnamese allies, was essentially destroying everything in South Vietnam - killing anything, bombing anything, setting fire to anything, bulldozing anything. Now, this does not suprise me at all. I critiqued war, in general, before and have specifically argued against the myths of what war entails.

Still, something struck me.

Turse was describing many of the institutional characteristics that encouraged this destructive behavior - everything from the body count incentive to the ethos of basic training. He mentioned, regarding the latter, the racism that was embedded in the discourse of the military. From the beginning, recruits were told not to think of the Vietnamese as fully human. They habitually used racial epithets to refer to the Vietnamese people. Still, though, at this point, nothing surprising. I have written before about the way in which racism is inherently linked to warefare.

Turse went on to describe how civilian deaths were justified. First, there was an exhaustive (and contradictory!) list of behaviors that marked a person as "the enemy": say, running away, or staying still, or making eye contact, or not making eye contact. The list was so comprehensive, in fact, that any behaviors a civilian exhibited prior to being killed would invariably be on the list. So, you could always classify a civilian as an "enemy."

Sometimes, though, trigger-happy individuals were looked upon with some suspicion. For example, they said they had 10 enemy kills, but no recovered weapons. How likely was it that it was really the enemy?

Apparently, Stand Your Ground logic could be applied. One could say that they thought they heard gun shots, and they were just acting in self-defense. (Actually, the list of enemy behaviors also fit into this logic, because one could claim that those behaviors led them to believe they were being ambushed by the enemy, and therefore they were acting in self-defense.)

This is what struck me: the similarity of the logic employed in Vietnam and in Stand Your Ground laws.

1. You can kill an innocent person if you are acting in self-defense.
2. You are acting in self-defense if you are legitimately afraid for your life.
3. Your fear may be legitimized by a set of behaviors (real or imagined) that, when applied to a specific racial group, is supposed to indicate likely impending aggression.
4. But really, you can kill an innocent person because that person is deemed to be less human according to their race; the justification above is just for mental solace.

If you are Vietnamese, running away in fear from helicopters is a sign that you are Viet Cong and therefore you must be killed. If you are a black Floridian, walking through a neighborhood in the evening with a hoody on is a sign that you are a murderous criminal and therefore you must be killed.

Once again, there is a strong link between violence and racism. Violence is facilitated by dehumanization of victims. And dehumanization precipates violence.

Is Oppression Fun?

I recently had a conversation with a man who explained gender studies to me thusly: “It’s a bunch of white, middle class women who have it really good, they’ve got nothing but privilege, but they want to feel like they’re oppressed too. They don’t want to be left out of that game!” Of course this sentiment has been applied, in one form or another, to pretty much every form of oppression. The basic premise is that there is something exciting or rewarding about being oppressed – so much so that everyone wants to be oppressed! It’s treated as a badge of honor. What ultimately lies behind this attitude, I believe, is discomfort with any challenge to white, male privilege.

Now, one must allow for the fact that white, middle-class feminists have all too often been blind to their own privilege. That is true. And they have often defended their race and class privilege at the direct expense of working class white women, immigrants, and women of color. However, oppression is complex, particularly in its intersectionalities. Historically, white, middle class women have enjoyed many things – especially wealth and better working (or non-working) conditions; yet during the first waves of feminism they still were not able to vote, express their opinions publicly, receive professional designations, choose when to have sex, or make high-level household decisions. Women of any race or class have been viewed as less intelligent, rational, and strong. Even today, one cannot deny the existence of pay disparities, rape and other forms of assault, rampant eating disorders, unequal treatment in the health care system, disproportionate responsibility for childcare, sexualization/objectification, false beliefs about women’s analytical capabilities, the “big strong man” motif, etc. etc.

There is, however, another variation on the “everyone wants to oppressed” routine that I frequently encounter. This one does find white hetero men trying to inhabit the role of the oppressed. Not, though, because real oppression is actually desirable to them. To the contrary, this attitude is a response to perceived challenges to their privilege – privilege that they are terrified of losing. This claim of oppression is rather a strategic means of trying to defend their privilege – without looking too overtly like they are defending their privilege. Too bad for them, though, it is very clear what they are doing.

The reason why the “while male oppression” claim should not be taken seriously - if one has any doubt that it is a sham – is the inability of these men to articulate any social/political/economic foundation for their oppression. This claim is not embedded within any structural analysis that examines the way in which “being male” inherently places one at the wrong end of relations of exploitation and domination. It is impossible to find any structural basis for male oppression. In the U.S., for example, white, middle/upper-class men are over-represented in government, in business, and in science and engineering. They make more money than anyone else (even when one removes the class dimension) and have greater educational advantages. They are not hit as hard by unemployment, wage stagnation, urban decay, and cuts in social spending. White men are grossly under-represented in prison, and less likely to have to resort to low-wage service jobs.

It is true that white men are afraid that college and employers only look for women and people of color. However, the facts prove otherwise. This unfounded fear is born, in part, out of the general competitiveness of capitalist society and the instability of current times (college admissions are more competitive as more people pursue higher education; and having a degree does not guarantee anyone a job). Despite the fact that they are often spared the full force of this competition and instability, white men feel the need to place blame on others who are far more helpless (rather than the system itself).

And then there is oppression at the micro-level. Even white, middle class women have to deal with daily impediments to their agency: when, for example, they are never able to decide who opens the door or who goes in first; when assumptions are made about their rationality; when “emotional” dimensions of their behavior are highlighted; when they are presumed to be weak and helpless in all situations (unable to open doors and lift boxes, e.g.); when their assertiveness is construed as “bitchyness” and their silence as ignorance. This may not seem significant enough to some people to qualify as real oppression (remember that this micro level is in addition to everything else addressed above); yet, one should realize the full effects: everyday women are subtly made to feel weak and helpless; they struggle to present themselves as rational decision-makers who are not at the mercy of their emotions; and they are constantly marked as “special” human beings whose fragile existence must be carefully protected. A woman can never be “just” a professional or “just” a manager or “just” an athlete or “just” a politician or “just” a scientist.

White men, on the other hand, feel that they own public space. They never hesitate to make their voices heard and to assert their agency. The other day I was on a bus, and a couple of the passengers started to rudely (and loudly) command the bus driver how to make a difficult turn. “Frat boys,” I thought. Sure enough, when I turned around I saw college aged (ish) white guys. From my own experience, when someone is being a bit too loud or a bit too pushy, more often than not it is a young, white, straight, middle/upper class male. And is it any coincidence that the people who take out their emotional frustrations via mass public shootings - the prime example of claiming ownership over public space - are almost entirely all white men? All too often, though, white men do not perceive (or perhaps, more accurately, will not admit?) that they have this freedom and sense of entitlement. Instead, they nurse their resentment over the fact that they can’t continue to behave in ways that subtly make other people feel inferior or helpless, without potentially (though I would challenge far too infrequently) being called out on it. They are horrified – horrified! – at the suggestion that they give some thought to their speech and actions, and perhaps even listen to the perspectives of others.

The usual resort to “preserving traditions” is a clumsy way of defending white, male privilege. The misguided fears about women and people of color dominating academia and employment are an expression of white, male feelings of entitlement to the upper tiers of society. And the frustration with “politically correct” language and non-traditional theories (feminism, post-colonialism, critical race theory, etc.) is born out of the desire to preserve the patriarchal/bourgeois/racist ideology that places white men at the apex of civilization and progress.

Being oppressed is in no way enjoyable, and white men know it. That’s why they’re doing everything they can to maintain their dominance.

*Disclaimer: obviously, when I say “white men” or any variation thereof, I am not stereotyping or condemning ALL white men. I am referring specifically to those people who make the types of arguments that I am addressing here – those that try to embody the archetype of the White Man as a means of dominating or placing themselves above others. The people who are too concerned with preserving traditions to actually listen to the things other people have to say.

Sexual Violence and the Military

Recently there has been a lot of reporting on the high prevalence of sexual assault in the U.S. military. My favorite is the guy who was in charge of the Sexual Assault Prevention Program, accused of sexual assault himself. I have heard people speculate that this is a result of the transition to allowing more gays and women into the military. Yeah, it is always integration itself that is the problem, not the people who refuse to be integrated.

However, this is just another case in which people are resistant to (or completely incapable of) scrutinizing the military. Not certain things that it does here and there, but the logic of its operation – in fact, its very existence. The natural response to the current scandal is to think of more ways the military can be regulated, or more effective policy that can be put in place. I say, have fun with that.

The truth is, the predisposition toward violence against women lies in the very fabric of the military itself – and not just the U.S. military, but any military. For all of human history, from what I can tell, pillage and plunder has always been associated with rape. You can’t have one without the ooooothers. To understand why, we have to revisit the inherent nature of violence.

Violence is not a universal aspect of human nature, but rather a feature of structures of inequality. There are, of course, plenty of ways to sustain inequality without resorting to violence, and some have argued that power must defined in terms of the ability of both parties to act (thus precluding violence). Therefore, the relationship between violence and inequality/power is not merely a matter of direct practical necessity. Violence is, rather, one component of a particular kind of authority - an authority that is established upon the differential valuation of human life and dignity. Just as the distinction between man and animal, which entailed the exalted status of man, was traditionally justified by man’s dominion over animals (and this was always expressed through the act of hunting), the imposed hierarchical distinctions among different types of human beings are ideologically sustained by the “naturalness” (in some cases even virtue) of violence committed by white men, as the vanguards of human progress, and the complementary insignificance or invisibility of acts of violence carried out against Others (women, people of color, etc.).

In other words, while hierarchical structures do not always require violence to sustain their general existence, individuals employ violence to maintain the day-to-day, lived experience of hierarchy. Wherever the particularity of social life lies in the interstices of structures of inequality, violence works to reproduce the larger structures within the gaps that escape the hierarchy, and in so doing extend the hierarchy into its own margins.

So, with the notion of “legitimate violence” comes the white man as the legitimate purveyor of legitimate violence. There are two ways in which this is ideologically reinforced. First, violence is construed as a masculine characteristic. Science does its part by lending pseudo legitimacy to nonexistent data. Testosterone provides the link between gender and violence, despite a serious lack of knowledge about the effects of testosterone (for a number of reasons, testosterone is very difficult to study). Then families, schools, and entertainment media join the effort by subtly (or not so subtly) implying that “boys will be boys” and promoting violence as a valued expression of masculinity. Real men punch back. If men feel that their masculinity (i.e. superiority) is being threatened, they reliably resort to violence. This is why rape, or any violence against women, is essentially a means for men to assert their hierarchical domination over women.

Second, violence becomes part of the “white man’s burden” when it is encapsulated within the narrative of Progress. This has been true since the colonial era (as colonialism was ostensibly designed to bring civilization to the savages), and it is just as true today when military interventions are supposedly undertaken to support human rights and democracy, by fighting the forces of darkness, as represented by Muslims...err, terrorists... well, really, Muslims.

So yes, the military is inherently racist too. (Since race and religion are co-constructed and intricately entwined, Islamophobia does indeed count as a form of racism.) I have seen photo evidence that basic training primes recruits to view “the enemy” as someone existentially unlike them. Make them look like a cartoon version of the Evil Arab, and suddenly it’s not so hard to envision killing them. That is not to say, of course, that in the end many people in the military don't find it psychologically impossible to cope with the things they are doing. The military doesn’t seem to care too much about anyone’s psychological health once they’ve done their duty, but they do need to make it just a little easier for people to actually accomplish something before they develop PTSD.

If one wants to do anything about the scourge of sexual assault in the military, one has to accept the role of the military in sustaining gendered and racial hierarchies both ideologically and materially. The military itself is the problem. Or, rather, the military functions primarily to enforce the ideological and material regimes of domination that make sexual assault possible in the first place. Only with the dissolution of the military and radical systemic change can anything really be done about sexual assault.

Empowerment: Racist Rhetoric

I have already talked about the Western obsession with “empowering” women in other parts of the world (see here and here). Today I ran across this article detailing yet another statement to this effect: “this White House paper sums up by saying that 'across all [these] objectives, we will: deepen our engagement with Africa's young leaders; seek to empower marginalized populations and women...'”

I don’t really have anything new to say. I just felt my point was worth emphasizing. The discourse about empowering women and “marginalized populations” in other countries is a means of: 1) Asserting Western moral and cultural superiority (a sneaky form of racism); 2) Reinforcing the narrative of Progress; 3) Obfuscating domestic inequalities; and 4) Providing justification for various sorts of intervention (neocolonialism).

Most tellingly, this rhetoric is premissed on the assumption that it is Western powers that must do the empowering, while women and subalterns are passive recipients of empowerment, unable to act on their own accord.

It feels so good to be the Savior.

Muslims and Racism

Although racism of all varieties obviously still abounds, it appears that Islamophobia is currently the one form that is socially acceptable to express openly. Once again, as I have said numerous times, I do not think the "who is more oppressed?" game is very productive. Thus, my concern in this post is more the way in which racism is explicitly (as opposed to covertly) part of public rhetoric.

The other day I was talking to an older woman, and the subject of the state of Michigan came up. She said, "Oh, they have a lot of problems" (I expected her to say "with the economy" or " with unemployment" or "with foreclosures) "... they have all those Muslims." She was referring to the city of Dearborn, Michigan - a suburb of Detroit - which has the largest Arabic population outside of the Middle East. I don't think this woman realized that many of these people of Arabic descent are Christian, not Muslim. (Lebanese Christians, who came to work in Ford's factory, provided the original pull of Middle Easterners to the area.) I politely explained that Dearborn is a very nice community - no major "problems" of which I am aware, expecially compared to those facing Detroit.

I don't think this woman would have been very comfortable making a similar comment about African Americans (though Detroit is largely African American, and there has been racial tensions along black-white lines for decades). Yet, she did not hesitate in the slightest about making a "Muslim" comment.

Somehow, the fact that some Muslims have been involved with terrorism makes it "valid," in many people's opinion, to speak critically about Islam and to treat Muslims/Arabs/Middle Easterners differently. Nevermind the fact that "Islamic terrorism" (a problematic term in itself) only represents a tiny percentage of all terrorism in the U.S., or the more obvious fact that the vast, vast majoriy of Muslims do not have anything to do with terrorism.

This reasoning is not new: for example, when we were at war with Japan, overt racism and discrimination against Japanese Americans was suddenly trendy. Though Islamophobia definitely is an interesting case, in that it involves the conflation of race, nationality, and religion. Anyone can claim that they are not racist, but just have problems with the (supposed) tenants of the religion. This demonstrates the way in which "cultural reasoning" is often used as a more "progressive" sounding stand-in for racial reasoning (I expect to write a more detailed post about this topic sometime soon). Put plain and simply, rhetoric about "cultural difference" is often just thinly veiled racism.

In the case of Arabs/Muslims/Middle Easterners, "cultural difference" is a totally inappropriate framework in which to understand terrorism. Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterns have all been subject in different ways to colonial rule, neocolonial manipulation, capitalist exploitation, and racism of the "Orientalist" variety. This is the framework in which to understand terrorism. To avoid repeating myself, here are some links to previous posts on the subject:  MENA Dictatorships and Colonialism; The Death of Osama Bin Laden; Religion and Colonialism in MENA.

(And why is it that the "collateral damage" caused by U.S. military interventions in the MENA region is not considered "terrorism"?)

This just goes to show that, despite all the "progressive" trends that have occured throughout the past couple of centuries, we have not gotten past the point of socially acceptible racism.

"Population" is a Code Word for "Eugenics"

Apparently the world's population has reached or will soon reach 7 billion people. Concern about the world's population and its growth has a long history, and it is very much intertwined with eugenics movements, to the extent that the two concerns cannot be considered as independent matters.

A CNN headline today read: "7 Billion Reasons to Empower Women." The article was about contraception. This was about as unsurprising to me as the sun rising, for the reason that contraception is also deeply interlinked with the eugenics/population control movement.

[For some interesting reading, you can consult:
Sex, Race & Science:  Eugenics in the Deep South by Edward Larson
Killing the Black Body:  Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts
Building a Better Race:  Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom by Wendy Kline
Reproducing Empire:  Race, Sex, Science & U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico by Laura Briggs]

Fears about unfettered population growth were deliberately created and exploited in an attempt to legitimize efforts at reproductive control. (There actually is no ironclad reason to believe that population growth is a threat.) And, as much as white feminists might protest, curbing reproduction has had far less to do with "empowering women" than it has with reducing the number of people of color on this planet.

Margaret Sanger, the feminist icon who most famously championed birth control as a means of "empowering women," was also an avowed eugenicist who supported the involuntary imposition of birth control on women of color.

In fact, women of color in the U.S. and abroad have been subject to all sorts of infringements upon their rights (reproductive and otherwise) in the name of "women's empowerment." For example, Puerto Rican women were used against their will and/or knowledge to test new birth control methods with uncomfortable, potentially dangerous, side effects.

For many women of color, reproductive rights means the ability to reproduce if they want to.

One of many things that bothers me about CNN's headline ("7 Billion Reasons to Empower Women") is that, grammatically, women are the subjects who are acted upon by someone else.  Some other agent is empowering them. (I am pretty sure women can empower themselves.)  More specifically, though, it appears to be a call for the "developed" (in this case read:  white) world, including white feminists, to empower all those other women in the world (who are apparently too stupid to know how to take care of themselves and their families). Shockingly, women of color are just as capable of empowering themselves, without the benevolent aid of white women. Furthermore, it is an even bigger and more dangerous mistake to suppose that contraception equals empowerment. For a majority of women in the world this is not the case. In fact, the refusal of contraception itself could be seen as an act of empowerment.

Could we allow women around the world to empower themselves by letting them use their reproductive capacities as they wish? (And we, of course, would view it as "letting them," because we always have ultimate power.)

One may argue that even if population growth and contraception were initially associated with eugenics movements, that does not mean they aren't relevant concerns that might validly be considered independent of eugenics today. Surely eugenics is an outdated topic.

Unfortunately, eugenics is not outdated. The ideas have persisted and the acts have continued, albeit with less fanfare. (Only recently I linked to an article about a not-too-long-ago victim of eugenics in the United States.) It is a mistake to think that eugenics is a concern of the past. More importantly, population growth and contraception can't be considered independently of eugenics. The terms and principles were born within a eugencist framework and are eugenicist through and through. The very idea that the human population can be managed through technically advised control of reproduction? That is eugenics, by definition.

Moreover, pretending that population/contraception concerns can be separated from eugenics allows people to continue eugenicist projects under more benign guises. For example, the Ford Foundation can employ rhetoric about population control that is divorced from eugenics - even more, implement real projects, affecting masses of people around the world, based on this rhetoric - so that they can claim that their prime concern is actually "economic development" in the Third World. But it is not too difficult to pull back the mask and reveal the clearly racist bent of the Ford Foundation in general, across all of its projects.

To suggest that population/contraception can be considered independently of eugenics is in many ways to claim that racism does not exist anymore.

School Choice is Segregation

At the same time that Brown v. Board of Education, the Elementary and Second Education Act, and A Nation at Risk were shaping the educational landscape, another movement was emerging in opposition to these developments.  This counter-movement, premised on ideas of "choice" and privatization, has increasingly sought to undermine the enterprise of public education itself.

The "school choice" movement originated as a means of avoiding desegregation orders, particularly in southern states.  It was one loophole in the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.  The states/districts employing "choice" programs insisted that they were simply allowing students to decide where they wanted to go to school rather than mandating school assignments and implementing forced bussing.  The reality, however, was that they had devised a way of maintaining segregation of the schools.

Later, after the federal government began allocating funds for low-income schools, and after A Nation at Risk salvaged the Department of Education and inaugurated a discussion about national standards, the "school choice" movement morphed into an attempt to undercut the federal government's role in education entirely.  "Privatization" and "vouchers" became the buzzwords of the day.

In the 90s the attention started to shift toward charter schools, which are more palatable versions of voucher schools (mainly because public money does not go to religious schools).  Charters schools have become a raging fad, and there have been a number of popular books and documentaries (for example, Waiting for Superman) trumpeting the success of these schools.

All flying in the face of the fact that now there is undeniable evidence that voucher systems and charter schools do not do what their advocates claim they do.  A handful of charter schools are very good; but most aren't any better than the average public schools, and some are far, far worse.  Furthermore, even with non-discriminatory admissions policies and established under a guise of helping the neediest students, charter schools still tend to exclude the most disadvantaged students:  either directly in the admissions process or by "weeding them out" after they have enrolled.  [For more information about charter schools, vouchers, and school choice, I would recommend the book The Death and Life of the Great American School System:  How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch (a former proponent of these reforms).  It is, at the very least, a much more accurate account of the past few decades of reform than films like Waiting for Superman.]

The reason the "choice" movement has become so successful (in terms of its popularity only) is because it is neoliberal ideology in unadulterated form.  "Choice" advocates claim that competition will spur a "race to the top" (shout-outs to Obama's education policy!) in which bad schools "die out" and good schools proliferate.  But that is not how free markets work, number one, and number two, capitalism has strangled the freedom of the market.  What choice and competition actually do in every case is reinforce the existing socio-economic hierarchy and make it much harder for those on the bottom to "rise up."  Choice and competition in the realm of education is a case in point.  The real effects of vouchers and privatization of the education system, as far as it has been implemented, are increasing segregation and widening gaps.

In fact, the "school choice" movement is a perfect demonstration of the way in which education is used to reproduce the social order.

Education for Social Equity

The first two landmarks in American education in the post-WW2 era are Brown v. Board of Education and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).  Both were reflections of a new focus, during a period of economic growth, on using the education system as a tool to promote social equity.

Brown v. Board of Education marked the beginning of the Civil Rights movement.  The result of this 1954 Supreme Court case was an active effort to desegregate schools, with the intent of improving the quality of education for African American children.  As the saying goes, separate is inherently unequal, and segregated black schools suffered from lack of funding and resources.  In actuality, though, the project of school desegregation was another excellent way of placating those who might challenge the system, without significantly altering any social reality.  Desegregation did not close achievement gaps or erase the correlation between race and poverty.  What did end up happening was that African American students were often relegated to lower academic tracks (the tracking system, in which students within a single school receive differential education, supposedly according to their abilities and needs, was still popular for several more decades) and were subject to lowered expectations and discrimination by their teachers.  Of course, I do not believe that desegregation in itself is bad, nor do I wish to see the schools resegregated, however schools alone cannot solve structural racism.  To the contrary, educational reforms are limited by structural racism.

The ESEA of 1965 was part of President Johnson's "War on Poverty."  Among other things, it provided funds (the famous Title I funding) to impoverished schools and districts.  The hope here was that poverty, and the educational achievements gaps that went along with it, were simply the result of a lack of money.  Hence, providing money to those in need would eliminate these gaps and help raise children out of poverty.  Once again, this did more to make people feel good that something was being done, rather than do anything about poverty - or the quality of education received by those living in poverty.  Poverty is a structural problem and cannot be solved with money.  Even with Title I funds, children from blighted areas do not reach the same levels of proficiency, on average, as their more well-to-do peers.

"Panacea" is a word that is commonly used in the field of education.  That is because educators constantly have to remind themselves and others that education is not a panacea for social problems.  In fact, it is quite the opposite:  educational equity begins with social equity.

Race and Double Standards

The other night I was out with a group of people that I did not know that well. I am not sure how the topic of race came up (it seemed out of the blue).

One woman said, "If you just say what race a person is, people call you a racist." She pointed to bartender, saying, "hispanic,' and then, "I'm racist!"

She continued. "You can only say your own race - that's okay - but not anyone else's."

Some other comments followed this, including one man who, in the midst of insisting that stereotyping should be more acceptable, argued: "Some things are just fact. See, I could say, 'Black people generally come from Africa,' and then someone would say, 'Oh you're racist.'"

First, in response to the man who likes to stereotype I would say, you just demonstrated the problem with stereotyping. The example is far from cut-and-dry. For example, if you are talking about African Americans, most generally have some European ancestory; a significant number, in fact, have more European ancestory than African. So what does it mean, then, to say "Black people come from Africa.." ? The statement assumes racial purity, and more neatly separates "black" from "white" (genetically, geographically... ) than is truly the case. It also ignores an entire chunk of African American, nay, American history pertaining to slave mistresses, interracial marriage, the "one drop rule," "passing," etc. etc.

But really I would like to focus on the woman. Her first claim that to simply recognize race constitutes "racism" in our society is a misconception shared by many others. To the contrary, "color blindness" is a strategy often employed to maintain racial inequality by making it an "off limits" topic and therefore rendering it impossible to address. Obviously people in this society are going to be conscious of race because it has social significance. Racial consciousness is not a bad thing. One of my favorite definitions of "racism" is something along the lines of: racism is to knowingly benefit from a system of inequality and do nothing to change that system.

What is a problem is when consciousness of race takes the form of stereotypes. And I just touched on this above.

The woman's second point is even more contentious. I have often heard white people complain about double standards in terms of what one is allowed to say. The "N" word is one notorious example. I think that was what the woman was eventually getting at.

Ohhh the irony of white people complaining about double standards. They have enjoyed better jobs, better pay, better access to public services, the ability to take out loans and buy houses in whatever neighborhood they want... and they are upset about not being able to say the "N" word?

... Or the fact that they can't be the ones to decide who does and doesn't get to say it? The thought of black people having control over one tiny area of life - over one little word (a word that was used to abuse them, no less) - drives these people nuts!

In the midst of continued educational achievement gaps, income gaps, residential segregation, differential treatment by the justice system... white people are complaining about the "unfairness" of not being able to say a word that black people can say?

As they say, if that's all you have to complain about...

The History of U.S. Cities

I happen to have a personal interest in U.S. urban history, so I decided to write this post on a whim.

I really love U.S. cities, and among a number of reasons is the fact that, given the period of their existence, it is possible to see the progressive unfolding of (in many cases) about two centuries worth of history sedimented in its spatial organization, architecture, and demographic patterns. And this history also happens to be the history of capitalism. There is no greater visual historical map of capitalism than the typical U.S. city.

Beginnings
Many cities in the eastern half of the U.S. were founded during the birthing period of capitalism (18th to early 19th century). The settlement patterns at this point were, in general, much the same as they had always been for a good part of human history. Namely, that they were determined by the location of waterways, which supported the primary form of human and commodity transport. Nascent U.S. cities tended to be small, both in land area and population, as the country as a whole was sparsely populated (it was still a frontier country). Downtown cores sat adjacent to seas and rivers, with industrial zones extending along the waterways. Generally, the wealthy elite either resided in central downtown areas (usually a main street), or owned large plantations in the vicinity and frequented the downtown for its services. The working class populated the rest of the downtown and the industrial zones. The outskirts of town were rural/agricultural.

Transportation Transformation
The first depression of capitalism in the 1840s was largely overcome through investment in the railroad industry. The rapid construction of railroad lines in the U.S. was a boon for British investors, and also facilitated a wave of European immigration (cheap labor). The growth of U.S. cities in the mid to late 19th century proceeded according to the following patterns:

1. Expansion of industrial zones and working class neighborhoods along railroad lines.
2. Influx of European immigrants and, in northern cities, free blacks; consequent population growth
3. Movement of white middle and upper classes away from the downtown core, facilitated by the construction of streetcare lines.
4. Deterioration and overcrowding in the downtown area.

Second Stage of Capitalism and First Wave of Urban Revitalization
Capitalism experienced its second major depression, on a larger scale than the first, in the later 19th century. However, with some reorganization on a global scale (entailing more imperialism), the era that followed was a Belle Opaque for the industrial centers, with transformed energy sources in the form of automated engines and electricity. The automobile industry accelerated growth in many cities. In keeping with these changes, the early 20th century saw a number of developments:

1. Urban renewal projects (following the "City Beautiful" movement)
2. Building boom, modernist architecture (including skyscrapers in some cities)
3. Further movement of upper classes spurred by automobiles, development of suburbs
4. Solidification of segregation, often enforced through neighborhood restrictions based on race/ethnicity

Late Capitalism and Suburbanization
After the depression of the 1930s, capitalism entered its third and current stage. The transition to this phase was marked not so much by technological changes (although automation of the entire production process via assembly line techniques and the like was an important factor), but moreso by organizational changes, including but not limited to the rise of transnational corporations, increasing vertical and horizontal integration, and the movement of manufacturing plants into the suburbs and overseas (to take advantage of lower costs).

During the economic upswing of this period, which lasted from the end of WW2 until about 1970, these organizational changes were accompanied by escalating racial tensions. Accordingly, many U.S. cities at this time experienced:

1. Race riots
2. Civil rights organizing
3. White flight
4. Manufacturing/population shift to the suburbs
5. The beginnings of urban decline

Racial tensions were fueled in part by population increases following WW2, northern migration of African Americans, and the movement of wealth and resources out of the cities (for example, manufacturing plants and offices were an important source of tax revenue) with the concomitant containment of blacks within. To make matters worse, black people were often prevented from owning their own property and were subject to exploitative rents and food prices charged by the suburban-dwelling property owners. However, riots only accelerated the process of white flight and further strained the dwindling resources of many cities.

Economic Stagnation and Urban Decay
By the 1970s, many U.S. cities were bereft of resources and political power, serving essentially as "garbage bins" for the nation's most impoverished people, and abandoned and neglected by everyone else. At this time, the global economy had entered into the period of stagnation which continues to characterize the economy today. Adding insult to injury, the conditions within cities began to deteriorate even further. For the next two decades, city dwellers faced problems of urban blight, a crack epidemic (and consequent imprisonment of a large portion of the young African American male population), and various "revitalization" projects that seemed to uproot, disturb, and harm local communities more than they "revitalized" anything.

Gentrification
When a large bubble was manufactured within the U.S. economy by the mid 90s, young professionals and new (often internet/tech-related) companies began to move back into cities to take advantage of the lower rents and property values. Furthermore, rapidly declining crime rates made these locations more attractive. The combination of temporary (and limited) economic growth along with the new migrations back into the city led to gentrification in circumscrbed neighborhoods, and in some cases, revitalization of entire cities (Washington, D.C. being a prime example).
However, this has been a heterogenous process and it is too early to tell what the lasting effects will be, particularly as the global economy still has not emerged from its longstanding period of stagnation. Stagnation generally ends with a transformation of the foundations of the economy, which in turns shapes the dynamics of city life. It is even possible that the old distinctions - urban/rural/suburban - may not be salient anymore as the spatial organization of economic processes undergoes yet another metamorphosis.

Why I Hate "Travel"

I just watched an episode of The Bachelorette.  Not something I would normally do, but I just happened to be in one of those moods where I was willing to watch whatever hulu.com recommended to me.  One thing I noticed:  a couple of times, a male contestant tried to impress the bachelorette by mentioning that he liked to travel.

Everyone likes to travel. Everyone puts that down as a hobby. People think it makes them look so sophisticated, worldly, and wise. There are a number of reasons why this annoys me, the first being that I see it as a form of elitism. Who doesn't like to go to new places? People who say they enjoy traveling think it makes them unique (it doesn't). But not everyone can afford to travel. To emphasize the frequency with which one travels is both to highlight that one has the financial privilege to do so, as well as to suggest that one is somehow a better, more knowledgeable, or more "well-rounded" person for it. (This follows the general rule of only holding those experiences that are exclusively open to well-off people as valuable to human enlightenment and "cultural awareness.")

This elitism/classism has historical precedent and, in fact, the typical attitude toward travel smacks of residual colonial mentality.  First, there is the practice of exploiting other people (the Other) for a sense of personal edification and fulfillment.  In the Colonial Era, merchants, missionaries, anthropologists, and adventurers treated the non-European world as their personal zoo, in which they could study all of the human specimens in their natural habitat and use the knowledge they obtained to understand their own past (note: non-European societies did not, in fact, live in a "state of nature" equivalent to some stage of Europeans' past). Similarly, particularly on these reality shows (those which, like The Bachelorette, film in "exotic" locations), one hears people talk about how they like to "learn the culture" and "experience local traditions" (only for the sake of their own edification of course).  Almost always the reference to "culture" and "traditions" presumes that the "locals" are disconnected from the rest of the world, that they have no history of their own, that they basically inhabit some strange, isolated and timeless realm wherein they are stuck repeating the same habits and practices for all of eternity.  World Travelers presume that the lives of other people can be reduced to a motley collection of foods, clothing styles, rituals, random landmarks, bizarre behaviors, and odd beliefs. By sampling all of these strange and new things, World Travelers hope to get in touch with some inner, primitive humanity that they share.

However, when World Travelers visit other countries, they rarely stray too far from the luxurious resort areas and tourist zones (they may make their token trip to a market or something so that they can "experience local culture"). They don't learn about how colonialism unfolded in that particular part of the world; how neo-colonialism continues to shape the political and economic conditions; what different "local" people think about their position in the world, about the role of tourism, about the hardships and joys that they experience on a daily basis. The purpose of travel is not to build relationships, to bridge gaps, to better understand other people and the big picture that unites all of us. It is to sample things, to have new experiences, to say that one went to this country and ate this food and knows this list of facts about the Culture (assuming such a Culture exists).

"The only way to know is through trials of strength. 'Knowledge' is the state of this battlefront." - Bruno Latour (The Pasteurization of France)

Travel is a form of conquest. It entails a perception of "knowledge" and "understanding" as a collection of discrete, disembodied "facts." To become an educated person, one must master as many of these facts as one can (essentially cramming as many of them into one's brain as possible). Travel aids mastery by bringing a person closer to the material embodiment of "fact," to a more "authentic" manifestation (the same purpose served by museums - and perhaps not a coincidence that travel so often involves museum visits). Hence, Travelers learn about a land and its people by visiting all the key landmarks and historical sites, not by sharing mundane experiences with the people who live there.  Often planning for a trip involves picking out all the attractions from a book or guide that will allow one to feel like one has seen everything "important."

Furthermore, by ignoring global structures of inequality and current conditions of poverty (particularly the case in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia), whilst staying in fancy hotels and eating at expensive restaurants, Travelers are participating in direct relations of domination with those who serve them. I have heard a number of people from the Caribbean express unfavorable attitudes toward tourists. To them, it feels like a continuation of slavery when they have no economic option other than to wait upon rich white people, for a pittance. The tourism industry impoverishes local populations (in part by causing price increases), hinders self-sufficiency and promotes further neo-colonial dependence upon the industrial core. It causes crowding during peak seasons and degrades the environment in myriad ways. And often, it forces people to portray themselves in the unflattering way that tourists imagine them.

[And then, of course, there is the even more directly physical dominance that occurs when U.S. and European tourists use young women and children for sex...]

Rather than serving as a means to heighten understanding of other peoples' experiences of oppression, travel commodifies oppression and rebrands poverty as something "exotic" or "quaint."

A Woman Head of the IMF and Other "Tokens"

I saw yesterday that a replacement was named to head the IMF. The first thing I noticed as I looked at the picture accompanying the headline was that they had chosen a woman. My response: I chuckled. What better way to smooth over a sex scandal and dissociate from the "old boys club" image than to choose a woman as the replacement?

That is most frequently how members of oppressed groups "break ceilings" and rise up in the ranks of elite organizations: on account of their symbolic value. If a few prominent women, blacks, latinos, etc. are allowed to hold important positions, it helps to sustain the illusion of an equal playing field, a system that just needs a few "tweaks" (affirmative action?) in order to be fair, a social structure that exists to protect the general welfare and ensure equal rights, rather than to exploit large groups of people for the benefit of a few. It sends the message (or at least attempts to) to members of marginalized communities that if they just work hard enough, take advantage of opportunities, play their cards right, they too can be successful.

Now, I do support affirmative action, mostly because it seems like allowing greater opportunities to some people is better than doing nothing, and perhaps some of the educational opportunities may help stir the pot of real social change. More often, though, the lucky few just become absorbed into the middle class and reorient their identities and allegiances away from the marginalized communities they may have previously belonged to.

Similarly, I can't deny feeling excitement over the election of the United States' first African American president, even though, ultimately, it just means that there is one more highly visible black man helping to sustain a political-economic system that degrades and abuses black people in general, as a rule.

On the one hand, I don't think that people should not have hope; that consistently enforced and unmitigated cruelty is better than a mixed and falsley interpreted reality. On the other hand, if "token" successes and the illusions that they enable prevent the oppressed people of the world from truly challenging structures of domination and working for a better, necessarily different world order, then I think it can be severely damaging as well.

One of my favorite comments regarding the Strauss-Kahn debacle appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He said something to the effect of, "Not only is the IMF symbolically raping Africans, it is literally raping Africans." (The victim was African.) Sex abuse and patriarchy are not independent from the system of domination associated with (neo)colonialism and racism. One of the reasons I love Jon's joke is because it unwittingly highlights this connection. A woman may head the IMF, but the IMF is still one of the foremost institutions perpetuating global power structures, including, by necessity, that of patriarchy.

The woman is a token.

Eugenics

It only took a week or two after my posts on evolution and racism and evolution and gender to see eugenics pop up in the news.  As you can see from this article, the problem of eugenics is real and it is still present.  Thus, the fact that eugenics derives from an evolutionary framework to understanding race underscores the point that the concept of "evolution" must be treated with care.  Science must not be viewed as a neutral enterprise.

"Tribalism"

One strategy that imperial and neocolonial powers have employed to legitimize their actions, as well as the general global political-economic order, is to portray their subjects as culturally and developmentally backward. This tactic has taken multiple forms throughout the past couple of centuries or so. One recent manifestation is the invocation of the concept of "tribalism" when describing conditions in the Middle East and Africa. In the post I will focus specifically on the Middle East, in light of recent military involvements and current political interests.

The term "tribe," as it is currently used, has its roots in anthropology.   Here is another great example of the way in which science has served as a tool of colonialism.  For anthropology, in its origin as an academic discipline, was oriented toward elaborating an evolutionary (oh yes, we're back to evolution) framework of human history, which used certain living human populations to represent the past evolutionary stages of the more developed European civilization.  One aspect of this model of "cultural evolution" was a progression of social organization from bands and tribes to the eventual emergence of a state apparatus.  The former acheived social cohesion not "rationally" through laws and systems of justice, but "emotionally" (once again, the contradistinction between "emotional" and "rational") through bonds of kinship and patriarchal authority.

The cultural backwardness of non-European populations was used to justify the "civilizing" mission of colonialism. Europeans congratulated themselves on their attempts to liberate their subjects from the bonds of patriarchal tyranny, even while women in their own countries were denied fundamental rights.

It is obvious how the salience of kinship and partriarchy continues to dominate characterizations of Middle Eastern societies. The use of the word "tribalism" bears witness to the lasting influence of cultural evolutionism, and implies a less "civilized" form of existence for those to whom the term is applied.

In particular, "tribalism" is invoked to suggest that a situation is unpredictable, that the people with whom one is engaging are apt to act irrationally, that loyalties of kinship will frustrate efforts to enact compromises and create peace. It is a way of saying that persistant violence and chaos is "their" fault and not "ours." Conflict is the result, not of systematic exploitation by the industrial powers, but of ethnic/sectarian differences that have existed before the dawn of time ("tribal" people do not possess a history either of their own or in relation to the rest of the world). Conflict persists, not because of foreign intervention and provokation, but because "tribal" people are not able to act any differently.

However, let's consider the facts.  First, it is a property of human identities that they are malleable and changing while appearing as fixed or "natural" categories. Thus, every sort of ethnic/racial/sectarian identity, in the form that it currently exists, is necessarily new and responsive to the particular conditions at hand.  No feature of human social life is truly ancient.  Second, the Middle East was, during one of the most affluent and fastest-growing periods of human history (11th-13th centuries), the most developed region in the Old World. Localities that are now supposedly stuck in a primitive, tribal past, were home to some of the most advanced state structures, the most sophisticated economic institutions, and the most cosmopolitan and learned cities in the world. The stage of social evolution that is currently attributed to regions such as Afghanistan was far surpassed even 10 centuries ago!! Clearly, the current state of these locales cannot be a function merely of internal characteristics or enduring "tribal" loyalties. Rather, current conditions in the Middle East must, as with current conditions anywhere in the world, have arisen as a result of recent geopolitical/economic processes. Specifically, those processes include: colonialism, more colonialism, neocolonialism (i.e. foreign meddling), economic marginalization, etc. etc.

It is both inaccurate and racist to impute conditions in the Middle East and Africa to "tribalism."

Evolution and Racism

Ideas about evolution are elemental to the fabric of modern thought. As previously noted, evolution has provided an authoritative framework for the Ideology of Progress. In fact, notions of evolution are not particular to the field of biology: they have structured analysis in a variety of other disciplines, from linguistics to psychology. Models and discourses are most powerful when they can be applied to a number of distinct domains, as it allows the ideas to circulate more widely and quickly, and enables them to appear more obvious and "natural." For example, the "tree of life" model has been effective in mapping family ancestry, biological evolution, and the relations of human languages, among other things. Consequently, it constitutes an important component of the framework within which we understand relationships, history, and time.

But let's be clear about what the Ideology of Progress, and by extension, evolution, entails. I argued in my post about "normality" and health that in order to naturalize Progress (that is, for the idea to be taken for granted rather than questioned) it is necessary to create a visual artifact of Progress in some way. This has been done through the development of concepts of the "modern" and the "primitive," and the concomitant mapping of these concepts onto the existent human population. This is the way that inequalities become naturalized via the Ideology of Progress. Inequalities appear to be the natural result of different rates or stages of development.

It is no coincidence, then, that women, blacks, other people of color, lower classes, and gay men have all been characterized as "emotional" in contrast to the rationality of white, straight, upper and middle class men. It is these men who bear the mantel of Progress and modernity.

And once again, inequalities serve the economic functions of maintaining the social division of labor and the accumulation of wealth via exploitation. Thus, the Ideology of Progress and all that it entails ultimately serves to uphold the political economic order.

As the concept of evolution is inseparable from the Ideology of Progress, theories of evolution have played a very significant role in the naturalization of inequalities of all kind, most particularly those pertaining to race. For more detailed information on the history of evolution and scientific racism, please consult the following works (just a few of many):

-The Emperor's New Clothes:  Biological Theories of Race at the New Millennium by Joseph Graves
-Outcasts from Evolution:  Scientific Attitudes of Racial Inferiority by John Haller, Jr.
-Sex, Race & Science:  Eugenics in the Deep South by Edward Larson
-From Savage to Negro:  Anthropology and the Construction of Race, 1896-1954 by Lee Savage
-Nature's Body:  Gender in the Making of Modern Science by Londa Schiebinger

It should suffice for my purposes here to simply say that evolution allowed for the social construction of race. (According to anthropologists, there is no biological basis for race; it is a social construction.) Evolution fueled the project of eugenics, both in Europe and the United States. The eugenics movement in Europe was founded by some of Darwin's compadres, and that is also no coincidence. Evolution bears some responsibility for the Holocaust. Evolution continues to incite the infringement upon the reproductive rights of women of color throughout the world.

Like any product of science, evolution is not a neutral concept.

Obama Possesses An Anti-Colonial Worldview

Number One.  Obama does not possess an anti-colonial worldview.  If he did, why would he run for American public office?  Why would he perpetuate American neo-colonial foreign policy?  Why would he continue to prosecute the war in Afghanistan?  Why would he not withdraw all of the American troops from all the corners of the world?

Number Two.  What is wrong with being anti-colonial?  Generally, people who are critical of colonialism hold this attitude based on the grounds that it entailed genocide, slavery, and other forms of oppression, in addition to undermining the sovereignty and self-determination of all non-European societies.  Is there something wrong with disliking genocide, slavery, and conquest?  God help me.  I don't like it when innocent people are killed.  May I burn in hell.

Obama Is A Marxist/Anti-Colonial/Socialist/Racist/Muslim

Although these types of statements have been fairly habitual the past couple of years, a couple of recent ones have prompted me to devote a few posts to debunking these claims.

Now, for the purposes of this blog, I neither support nor oppose Obama (and honestly, that comes pretty close to my personal feelings as well).  I am not writing about this because I am an ardent follower of Obama.  I think it is relevant to my blog because the unspoken premises on which these claims are based form an important part of the ideological fabric which cloaks the forces of domination in this world.

I will start, in this post, with "Obama is a Marxist."

I wish.

Seriously, I wish.

On what grounds is this claim made?
-Actual policies?  Obama has continued, without hesitation, the economic strategies of his predecessors.  If Obama is a Marxist, then so is Ronald Reagan.

-Government take-over of healthcare?  Healthcare is probably the one area where Obama has appeared to do something different.  Appearances can be deceiving.  I will definitely devote a post to healthcare.  But, assuming Obama did make significant changes to the relationship between the state and the healthcare industry, considering that state subsidization and regulation of industry is endemic to capitalism, and considering that Marx envisioned a stateless society, this would still not make Obama a Marxist.

-Stated beliefs?  I never heard one thing come out of Obama's mouth that sounded the slightest bit Marxist.

-What about redistribution of wealth?  Obama may have made statements that directly or indirectly referenced this principle (though the accuracy of these quotes I cannot verify), but it certainly has not been a component of his platform.  Furthermore, redistribution of wealth is NOT A MARXIST PRINCIPLE!  Marxists are not so concerned with distribution of wealth per se as they are relations of production.  On the other hand, under the aegis of capitalism, a significant redistribution of wealth occurs every day - from the poor to the rich.  The excesses of millionaires are financed by the Third World.

-I am afraid of black people, especially when they attain positions of power?  Now we're getting somewhere...

So I say to all of you, as a proud Marxist, Obama is not one of us!!  Please don't call him a Marxist!