Base and Superstructure

Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology

Category: Race (Page 10 of 11)

These are posts on race from the blog Base and Superstructure. Race is one of the most important issues of political and social power. Topics include the relationship between race and class, racism in the United States and the rest of the world, and the relationship between race and political movements.

standardized testing
Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thedavisblog/2230010178

Standardized Testing: Progressive or Not?

February 25, 2019 /

About a year ago, Freddie deBoer wrote what he called the ‘progressive case‘ for the SAT. Mostly he used the SAT as a convenient stand-in for standardized testing in its American form.

DeBoer’s take on this was provocative and surprising. He took some flak. The general “left” line has been against standardized testing. And it has become one of several points at which liberals and leftists depart: the liberal as the technocratic tester, set against the leftist as the advocate for a free and democratic classroom sans test.

I find this all rather oversimplified. Here I’ll evaluate both deBoer’s argument in favor of a ‘progressive’ view of standardized testing and leftist arguments in favor of a ‘regressive’ view of standardized testing.

I find both arguments lacking.
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racial myths
Source: Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asiatiska_folk,_Nordisk_familjebok.jpg)

Race Isn’t Biological: Debunking Racial Myths

February 11, 2019 /

These days, many of us take some form of social constructionism about race for granted. And why shouldn’t we? But the victory over racial myths wasn’t easy. It was one of the most important wins of activist waves of the 1960s-70s. It overturned the reign of ‘racial science.’ And it dislodged, for many people, the idea that people are born as members of some natural category called ‘race.’

I find that those old racial myths are making a comeback. And on multiple political fronts. Including ‘left-wing’ fronts. Let’s talk about that.

Race is real. But it’s real in an entirely social and historical sense. It’s not encoded in genes. Rather, race, as a category, played a historical role. In late feudal and early capitalist societies, it justified the forced labor regime of white plantation owners and enslavement of black people. Those decisions still impact the world. The racial science and racial myths supporting those decisions are bullshit.

So far, so good. Now let’s get on to the return of racial myths. As I wrote above, I think they’re returning in a big way. On the right, surely, but also on the ‘left’, through identitarian tendencies.

I’ll examine a few of these racial myths in this post. This won’t be a complete list.

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women's suffrage
Source: Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Motto_web_dubois_original.jpg)

Du Bois on Women’s Suffrage

January 21, 2019 /

W. E. B. Du Bois wrote an article on women’s suffrage in The Crisis in 1914. I’m assuming all of you know who Du Bois was. But if any of you don’t, click the link in the previous sentence. The Crisis is a magazine Du Bois founded and edited for the NAACP.

Du Bois was no stranger to the issue of women’s suffrage, which was a hot political topic in his day. In this particular article, he focused on the relationship between suffrage and race. Especially whether black people should advocate for women’s suffrage even if the vote is extended to only white women.

Du Bois argued they should.

It’s more than 100 years old, and suffrage isn’t exactly a hot topic now. But it’s worth noting that voter suppression and felon disenfranchisement certainly are. Consequently, I think we can learn from his argument and apply it to contemporary issues.

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capitalism and racism

Capitalism and Racism: Which is Prior?

September 24, 2018 /

Marxists, other leftists, and/or antiracists have argued for decades about the relative importance of capitalism and racism. They’ve framed the issue in different ways. Some people discuss which system exerts the greatest force on society. Others discuss which system offers the more fundamental social explanation. Some people talk about which one came first, historically. And still others ask which we should address first in our leftist movements.

Not only that, but approaches aren’t even mutually exclusive.

You might ask: what’s the difference between these frames? If so, that’s unfortunate, because they are different. It’s possible to argue, for example, that racism (or capitalism) came first historically, but that capitalism (or racism) explains more or should be addressed first.

And so, I’m going to sort out some of these issues in this post. I’ll use Ibram X. Kendi’s book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America as a reference point.

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Stamped from the Beginning

September 16, 2018 /

stamped from the beginning

Ibram X. Kendi is Professor of History and International Relations and Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University in Washington, D. C. Most of his work covers 20th century racial justice movements, from the student activism of the 1960s to current activism. He’s the author of the recent book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.

Stamped from the Beginning is rather sweeping and ambitious. Kendi places the entire five or six century history of racist thought into a consistent historical narrative. He also takes steps toward assessing the relative importance of racist ideas to American life. The project is historical, sociological, political, and philosophical.

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