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it's not obvious that folk talk about the same thing when they talk about racism in the states...it's probably a modelling question, what different folk, working from different political positions and life experience, think of when racism comes up---this shapes what factors are taken into consideration and which are excluded.
the obvious dividing line is history---what counts as the history of racism, what it's effects are, and so to what extent the present is constrained by that history---this inevitably separates viewpoints. my own view is that the history should be understood broadly, that it's effects continue in myriad ways and so the present in this respect is heavily constrained by the past. so from that point of departure, i see most more conservative/individualist views of this to be untenable. but the point is not that--the point is that for there to be an honest conversation about racism in the states, there has to be a desire for one--and i'm not sure it exists---and some agreement about what we're talking about--and there isn't really. i mean, look through the thread or any of the many parallel threads.
curious to see myself name-checked by matthew earlier when i hadn't posted anything to the thread--it's strangely flattering to occupy that kind of space in his imagination.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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