tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2579189847356587096.post129013513917066470..comments2024-02-14T11:30:29.227-08:00Comments on Facts For Working People: Marxism, Socialism and Identity PoliticsRichard Mellorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00997976754939725087noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2579189847356587096.post-74427483461974507492017-04-30T20:05:03.956-07:002017-04-30T20:05:03.956-07:00Dear Jeff Perry,
I have very much appreciated th...Dear Jeff Perry,<br /><br />I have very much appreciated the work you have done on Theodore Allen and Hubert Harrison. I hope you can understand that by citing Allen, I am also trying to bring greater attention to his important work. I don't quite see why this particular terminological quibble advances that project – the word "bribe" is used here in a casual sense (this was a spoken conversation), to indicate that white-skin privilege is imposed from above as a form of social control, rather than being a decision of white workers to oppress black workers. The passage you cite from "Can White Workers/Radicals Be Radicalized" does not seem to me to be about the word "bribe" in particular, but about the theory which says that "the privileges of [white] workers are paid for by the super-profits wrung out of the super-exploited black, yellow and brown labor of colonial peoples." I reject that theory, which is the basis of my comments in this interview. I suggest you read the interview in its entirety, which is devoted to showing, as you put it, that white-skin privilege "is not in the interest of the mass of laboring class European-Americans." I hope we can set this terminological quibble aside and move forward with the collective project.<br /><br />Asad HaiderAsad Haiderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15853337924988247087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2579189847356587096.post-74243595715314761802017-04-30T17:36:44.788-07:002017-04-30T17:36:44.788-07:00Theodore W. Allen did not maintain that “the white...Theodore W. Allen did not maintain that “the white workers had been bribed” and he consistently argued against that position.<br /><br />Fifty years ago he explained that such a statement “confuses the white-skin privilege in general, which is the prerogative of every white person living in the United States, with the special form of that privilege, the payment (direct or indirect) to the ‘aristocracy’ of labor above what would be necessary according to the laws of normal competition, and which enables those few workers to escape in all but a formal sense from the proletarian to the petit-bourgeois life.” He added, “The white-skin privileges of the masses of the white workers do not permit them nor their children to escape into the ranks of the propertied classes. In the South, where the white-skin privilege has always been most emphasized and formal, the white workers have fared worse than white <br />workers in the rest of the country.”<br /><br /><br />Allen was clear that while the system of “white skin privileges” was not in the interest of the mass of laboring class European-Americans. He was also clear that the system of “white skin privileges” was in the interest of ruling-class “whites.”<br /><br />Allen consistently called for efforts to “dismantle the ‘white race’” and he urged European-American workers to challenge white supremacy, to struggle in ongoing efforts to repudiate the system of white privileges, to break from “the incubus of white identity,” and to “resign from the white race,” which he understood to be a “ruling class social control formation” and a principal form of “class collaboration.”<br /><br />Theodore W. Allen offered a “class struggle approach” to “The Invention of the White Race” and to “The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America” (the title and subtitle of Volume 2 of his “classic work”).<br /><br />I encourage people to read Theodore W. Allen. Here is a link to writings, audios, and videos by and about him – http://www.jeffreybperry.net/_center__font_size__3__font_color__sepia___b_4__theodore_w__allen_br___font_size_86151.htm<br /><br /><br />Here is a link to “The Developing Conjuncture and Some Insights From Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen on the Centrality of the Fight Against White Supremacy,” which offers the fullest treatment of the development of his thought. -- http://www.jeffreybperry.net/files/Perry.pdf<br /><br />Jeffrey B. Perry<br />Jeffrey B. Perryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16009600734327985569noreply@blogger.com