In a message dated 10/25/00 4:34:57 PM Central Daylight Time, wmmmandel@earthlink.net writes: << On Michael Wright's closing point regarding the relative policies of other former slave states regarding discriminatory executions of Blacks and discriminatory disposition of bodies for dissection or the families, my caveat was solely for the sake of careful scholarship. I have no reason whatever to believe that the other states were better than Virginia. I have to say that Wright's position represents a particularly short-sighted and old-fashioned form of white chauvinism. >> And Mandel's statement about me, while contributing nothing to "careful scholarship," represents a "particularly short-sighted and old-fashioned" form of name-calling. While denouncing my "position," he continues to evade dealing with it. My position is that in this country's history, white radicals who seriously and openly oppose the ruling elites have enjoyed no special exemption from the axe of political repression because of our skin color. While continuing to talk about what was done to Blacks in the old South, he has yielded no data whatsoever to contradict my statement. >Post-slavery law in the South. . .was specifically crafted and even >more specifically enforced as a means of political terrorism against >African-Americans. I don't doubt it for a minute. But before denouncing my "white chauvinist" position, Mandel ought to examing the campaign of violence and repression -- spanning for decades -- against labor organizers and activists. They were mostly white folks, and their white skins didn't protect them. For details I recommend Robert Goldstein's book Political Repression in Modern America. Further, white Americans who visibly aligned themselves with the black struggle in the old South also enjoyed no privilege. Just ask the relatives of Viola Liuzzo and other whites who were murdered (for example, of the Cheney, Schwerner, and Goodman trio, two members were white). The left suffers from its own peculiar form of reverse racism, which sees black suffering as sacred and repression against white activists as insignificant. Serious scholars not contaminated with this form of PCism have begun to recognize that working class whites in this country have become the new scapegoats. For a series of informative commentaries on this, go here: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA97/price/open.htm ~ Michael Wright Norman, Oklahoma
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