Race Matters

Friends,

     Gert's good observations and some of the reactions posted to
them overlook an elementary but crucial point:  before the Europeans
conquered and enslaved the world in the service of Capitalism, they
were its first victims.  It enslaved THEM first.  
     The entire process was like the spread of a disease, where
Europeans played the role of a disease vector.  Like most vectors
(e.g. mosquitos) they were largely ignorant of their broader historical
role.  
     Also, we must not forget that capitalism is a social relation of
exploitation that uses race even as it is blind to it, just as it uses ALL
social categories ("ethnicity," "class," "gender," "nature").  Each of
these are opportunities for exploitation and unequal exchange.  Every
distinction imaginable between humans offers that opportunity.  And,
once drawn, such distinctions--precisely because they *ARE* social
relations--become incorporated and reproduced across generations.  In
short they become reified and take on a life of their own.  But it would
be a profound error to confuse the vehicle of exploitation with its
cause, which has always lain with capitalism.  As Wallerstein himself
has pointed out, to follow a class analysis leads one to socialism, but
at the end of the road of race analysis lies fascism.  
     Having voiced that fear, I do not want to say that class is the
only thing that matters.  Our goal needs to be a society that seeks the
elimination of exploitation (="unequal exchange") in ALL of its forms, a
prerequisite of which is the elimination of capitalism itself. 
Simultaneously we must recognize and destroy patriarchy, racism,
nationalism, etc.   The fact that capitalist imperialism started in
Europe has stuck us all with the waning legacy of European privilege. 
But we must be vigilant against the prospect that some might confuse
the project of privilege elimination with racial elimination.

Peter