[Marxism] Notes on David Brion Davis' review

[Rakesh Bhandari]

>There is a reason why historians just try to define what's happening rather
>than come up with clever social science categorizations, because the more
>you rely on those categorizations, the more trouble you have trying to match
>up your theory with the realities.

Not sure I can understand this as a general point. Coarse categories 
would have us miss the fine grained nature of reality.


>I look at the material realities of institutional practice and see racism,
>but if "racism" is just an ideology of innately superior and inferior
>groups, where does that leave us in the US today?  After all, the U.S.
>ruling class, its politicians, its universities, its scientists, its
>doctors, its journalists, its ideological spokespeople say that there are no
>innately superior and inferior groups....
>
>So...no "racism"?
>
>ML

Good point! I don't think that an approach of laissez faire will 
correct the problems caused by the effects of racism in the past. And 
even as I have narrowly defined it I think racism remains more than 
marginal. At any rate, the continued existence of racial prejudice is 
well confirmed by Mahzarin Banaji and her researchers at Harvard.

There are also non racial but insidious ways of making sense and 
justifying our inequality. I think here of what Bourdieu calls IQ 
racism which is not necessarily racial in the old sense.

Yours, Rakesh