[Nyclocal] Toward A Socialist Theory of Racism

[SocialistAlliances]

 Toward 
        A Socialist Theory of Racism 

      
by Cornel 
        West

      




      
      
What 
        is the relationship between the struggle against racism and socialist 
        theory and practice in the United States? Why should people of color active 
        in antiracist movements take democratic socialism seriously? And how can 
        American socialists today learn from inadequate attempts by socialists 
        in the past to understand the complexity of racism? In this pamphlet, 
        I try to address these crucial questions facing the democratic socialist 
        movement. First, I examine past Marxist efforts to comprehend what racism 
        is and how it operates in varying contexts. Second, I attempt to develop 
        a new conception of racism which builds upon, yet goes beyond the Marxist 
        tradition. Third, I examine how this new conception sheds light on the 
        roles of racism in the American past and present. Last, I try to show 
        that the struggle against racism is both morally and politically necessary 
        for democratic socialists. 

      
      
 
        Past Marxist Conceptions of Racism 

      
      
 
        Most socialist theorizing about racism has occurred within a Marxist framework 
        and has focused on the Afro-American experience. While my analysis concentrates 
        on people of African descent, particularly Afro-Americans, it also has 
        important implications for analyzing the racism that plagues other peoples 
        of color, such as Spanish-speaking Americans (for example, Chicanos and 
        Puerto Ricans), Asians, and Native Americans. 

      
      
 
        There are four basic conceptions of racism in the Marxist tradition. The 
        first subsumes racism under the general rubric of working-class exploitation. 
        This viewpoint tends to ignore forms of racism not determined by the workplace. 
        At the turn of the century, this position was put forward by many leading 
        figures in the Socialist party, particularly Eugene Debs. Debs believed 
        that white racism against peoples of color was solely a "divide-and-conquer 
        strategy" of the ruling class and that any attention to its operations 
        "apart from the general labor problem" would constitute racism in reverse. 
        

      
      
 
        My aim is not to castigate the Socialist party or insinuate that Debs 
        was a racist. The Socialist party had some distinguished black members, 
        and Debs had a long history of fighting racism. But any analysis that 
        confines itself to oppression in the workplace overlooks racism's operation 
        in other spheres of life. For the Socialist party, this yielded a "color-blind" 
        strategy for resisting racism in which all workers were viewed simply 
        as workers with no specific identity or problems. Complex racist practices 
        within and outside the workplace were reduced to mere strategies of the 
        ruling class. 

      
      
The 
        second conception of racism in the Marxist tradition acknowledges the 
        specific operation of racism within the workplace (for example, job discrimination 
        and structural inequality of wages) but remains silent about these operations 
        outside the workplace. This viewpoint holds that peoples of color are 
        subjected both to general working-class exploitation and to a specific 
        "super-exploitation" resulting from less access to jobs and lower wages. 
        On the practical plane, this perspective accented a more intense struggle 
        against racism than did Debs' viewpoint, and yet it still limited this 
        struggle to the workplace. The third conception of racism in the Marxist 
        tradition, the so-called "Black Nation thesis, " has been the most influential 
        among black Marxists. It claims that the operation of racism is best understood 
        as a result of general and specific working-class exploitation and national 
        oppression. This viewpoint holds that Afro-Americans constitute, or once 
        constituted, an oppressed nation in the Black Belt South and an oppressed 
        national minority in the rest of American society. 

      
      
There 
        are numerous versions of the Black Nation Thesis. Its classical form was 
        put forth by the American Communist party in 1928, was then modified in 
        the 1930 resolution and codified in Harry Haywood's Negro Liberation (1948). 
        Some small Leninist organizations still subscribe to the thesis, and its 
        most recent reformulation appeared in James Forman's Self-Determination 
        and the African-American People (1981). All of these variants adhere to 
        Stalin's definition of a nation set forth in his Marxism and the National 
        Question (1913) which states that "a nation is a historically constituted, 
        stable community of people formed on the basis of a common language, territory, 
        economic life and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture." 
        Despite its brevity and crudity, this formulation incorporates a crucial 
        cultural dimension overlooked by the other two Marxist accounts of racism. 
        Furthermore, linking racist practices to struggles between dominating 
        and dominated nations (or peoples) has been seen as relevant to the plight 
        of Native Americans, Chicanos, and Puerto Ricans who were disinherited 
        and decimated by white colonial settlers. Such models of "internal colonialism" 
        have important implications for organizing strategies because they give 
        particular attention to critical linguistic and cultural forms of oppression. 
        They remind us that much of the American West consists of lands taken 
        from Native Americans and from Mexico. 

      
      
 
        Since the Garveyite movement of the 1920s, which was the first mass movement 
        among Afro-Americans, the black left has been forced to take seriously 
        the cultural dimension of the black freedom struggle. Marcus Garvey's 
        black nationalism rendered most black Marxists "proto-Gramscians" in at 
        least the limited sense that they took cultural concerns more seriously 
        than many other Marxists. But this concern with cultural life was limited 
        by the Black Nation Thesis itself. Although the theory did inspire many 
        impressive struggles against racism by the predominantly white left, particularly 
        in the 1930s, its ahistorical racial definition of a nation, its purely 
        statistical determination of national boundaries (the South was a black 
        nation because of its then black majority population), and its illusory 
        conception of a distinct black national economy ultimately rendered it 
        an inadequate analysis. 

      
      
 
        The fourth conception of racism in the Marxist tradition claims that racist 
        practices result not only from general and specific working-class exploitation 
        but also from xenophobic attitudes that are not strictly reducible to 
        class exploitation. From this perspective, racist attitudes have a life 
        and logic of their own, dependent upon psychological factors and cultural 
        practices. This viewpoint was motivated primarily by opposition to the 
        predominant role of the Black Nation Thesis on the American and Afro-American 
        left. Its most prominent exponents were W. E. B. DuBois and Oliver Cox. 
        

      
      
Toward 
        a More Adequate Conception of Racism 

      
      
This 
        brief examination of past Marxist views leads to one conclusion. Marxist 
        theory is indispensable yet ultimately inadequate for grasping the complexity 
        of racism as a historical phenomenon. Marxism is indispensable because 
        it highlights the relation of racist practices to the capitalist mode 
        of production and recognizes the crucial role racism plays within the 
        capitalist economy. Yet Marxism is inadequate because it fails to probe 
        other spheres of American society where racism plays an integral role-especially 
        the psychological and cultural spheres. Furthermore, Marxist views tend 
        to assume that racism has its roots in the rise of modern capitalism. 
        Yet, it can easily be shown that although racist practices were shaped 
        and appropriated by modern capitalism, racism itself predates capitalism. 
        Its roots lie in the earlier encounters between the civilizations of Europe, 
        Africa, Asia, and Latin America-encounters that occurred long before the 
        rise of modern capitalism. 

      
      
 
        It indeed is true that the very category of "race"-denoting primarily 
        skin color-was first employed as a means of classifying human bodies by 
        Francois Bernier, a French physician, in 1684. The first authoritative 
        racial division of humankind is found in the influential Natural System 
        (1735) of the preeminent naturalist of the 18th century, Caroluc Linnaeus. 
        Both of these instances reveal European racist practices at the level 
        of intellectual codificaton since both degrade and devalue non-Europeans. 
        Racist folktales, mythologies, legends, and stories that function in the 
        everyday life of common people predate the 17th and 18th centuries. For 
        example, Christian anti-Semitism and Euro-Christian antiblackism were 
        rampant throughout the Middle Ages. These false divisions of humankind 
        were carried over to colonized Latin America where anti-Indian racism 
        became a fundamental pillar of colonial society and influenced later mestizo 
        national development. Thus racism is as much a product of the interaction 
        of cultural ways of life as it is of modern capitalism. A more adequate 
        conception of racism should reflect this twofold context of cultural and 
        economic realities in which racism has flourished. 

      
      
A 
        new analysis of racism builds on the best of Marxist theory (particularly 
        Antonio Gramsci's focus on the cultural and ideological spheres), and 
        yet it goes beyond by incorporating three key assumptions: 1. Cultural 
        practices, including racist discourses and actions, have multiple power 
        functions (such as domination over non-Europeans) that are neither reducible 
        to nor intelligible in terms of class exploitation alone. In short these 
        practices have a reality of their own and cannot simply be reduced to 
        an economic base. 2. Cultural practices are the medium through which selves 
        are produced. We are who and what we are owing primarily to cultural practices. 
        The complex process of people shaping and being shaped by cultural practices 
        involves the use of language, psychological factors, sexual identities, 
        and aesthetic conceptions that cannot be adequately grasped by a social 
        theory primarily focused on modes of production at the macrostructural 
        level. 3. Cultural practices are not simply circumscribed by modes of 
        production; they also are bounded by civilizations. Hence, cultural practices 
        cut across modes of production. (For example, there are forms of Christianity 
        that exist in both precapitalist and capitalist societies.) An analysis 
        of racist practices in both premodern and modern Western civilization 
        yields both continuity and discontinuity. Even Marxism can be shown to 
        be both critical of and captive to a Eurocentrism that can justify racist 
        practices. Although Marxist theory remains indispensable, it obscures 
        the manner in which cultural practices, including notions of "scientific" 
        rationality, are linked to particular ways of life. 

      
 
        A common feature of the four Marxist conceptions examined earlier is that 
        their analyses remain on the macrostructural level. They focus on the 
        role and function of racism within and between significant institutions 
        such as the workplace and government. Any adequate conception of racism 
        indeed must include such a macrostructural analysis, one that highlights 
        the changing yet persistent forms of class exploitation and political 
        repression of peoples of color. But a fully adequate analysis of racism 
        also requires an investigation into the genealogy and ideology of racism 
        and a detailed microinstitutional analysis. Such an analysis would encompass 
        the following: 1. A genealogical inquiry into the ideology of racism, 
        focusing on the kinds of metaphors and concepts employed by dominant European 
        (or white) supremacists in various epochs in the West and on ways in which 
        resistance has occurred. 2. A microinstitutional or localized analysis 
        of the mechanisms that sustain white supremacist discourse in the everyday 
        life of non-Europeans (including the ideological production of certain 
        kinds of selves, the means by which alien and degrading normative cultural 
        styles, aesthetic ideals, psychosexual identities, and group perceptions 
        are constituted) and ways in which resistance occurs. 3. A macrostructural 
        approach that emphasizes the class exploitation and political repression 
        of non-European peoples and ways in which resistance is undertaken. 

      
The 
        first line of inquiry aims to examine modes of European domination of 
        non-European peoples; the second probes forms of European subjugation 
        of non-European peoples; and the third focuses on types of European exploitation 
        and repression of non-European peoples. These lines of theoretical inquiry, 
        always traversed by male supremacist and heterosexual supremacist discourses, 
        overlap in complex ways, and yet each highlights a distinctive dimension 
        of the racist practices of European peoples vis-a-vis non-European peoples. 
        

      
This 
        analytical framework should capture the crucial characteristics of European 
        racism anywhere in the world. But the specific character of racist practices 
        in particular times and places can be revealed only by detailed historical 
        analyses that follow these three methodological steps. Admittedly, this 
        analytic approach is an ambitious one, but the complexity of racism as 
        a historical phenomenon demands it. Given limited space, I shall briefly 
        sketch the contours of each step. 

      
For 
        the first step-the genealogical inquiry into predominant European supremacist 
        discourses-there are three basic discursive logics: Judeo-Christian, scientific, 
        and psychosexual discourses. I am not suggesting that these discourses 
        are inherently racist, but rather that they have been employed to justify 
        racist practices. The Judeo-Christian racist logic emanates from the Biblical 
        account of Ham looking upon and failing to cover his father Noah's nakedness 
        and thereby receiving divine punishment in the form of the blackening 
        of his progeny. In this highly influential narrative, black skin is a 
        divine curse, punishing disrespect for and rejection of paternal authority. 
        

      
The 
        scientific logic rests upon a modern philosophical discourse guided by 
        Greek ocular metaphors (for example Eye of the Mind) and is undergirded 
        by Cartesian notions of the primacy of the subject (ego, self) and the 
        preeminence of representation. These notions of the self are buttressed 
        by Baconian ideas of observation, evidence, and confirmation which promote 
        the activities of observing, comparing, measuring, and ordering physical 
        characteristics of human bodies: Given the renewed appreciation and appropriation 
        of classical antiquity in the 18th century, these "scientific" activities 
        of observation were regulated by classical aesthetic and cultural norms 
        (Greek lips, noses, and so forth). Within this logic, notions of black 
        ugliness, cultural deficiency, and intellectual inferiority are legitimated 
        by the value-laden yet prestigious authority of "science, " especially 
        in the 18th and 19th centuries. The purposeful distortion of "scientific" 
        procedures to further racist hegemony has an important history of its 
        own. The persistent use of pseudoscientific "research" to buttress racist 
        ideology, even when the intellectual integrity of the "scientific" position 
        has been severely eroded, illustrates how racist ideology can incorporate 
        and use/abuse science. 

      
The 
        psychosexual racist logic arises from the phallic obsessions, Oedipal 
        projections, and anal-sadistic orientations in European cultures which 
        endow non-European (especially African) men and women with sexual prowess; 
        view nonEuropeans as either cruel revengeful fathers, frivolous carefree 
        children, or passive long-suffering mothers; and identify non-Europeans 
        (especially black people) with dirt, odious smell, and feces. In short, 
        non-Europeans are associated with acts of bodily defecation, violation, 
        and subordination. Within this logic, non-Europeans are walking abstractions, 
        inanimate objects, or invisible creatures. Within all three white supremacist 
        logics-which operate simultaneously and affect the perceptions of both 
        Europeans and non- Europeans-black, brown, yellow, and red peoples personify 
        Otherness and embody alien Difference. 

      
The 
        aim of this first step is to show how these white supremacist logics are 
        embedded in philosophies of identity that suppress difference, diversity 
        and heterogeneity. Since such discourses impede the realization of the 
        democratic socialist ideals of genuine individuality and radical democracy, 
        they must be criticized and opposed. But critique and opposition should 
        be based on an understanding of the development and internal workings 
        of these discourses-how they dominate the intellectual life of the modern 
        West and thereby limit the chances for less racist, less ethnocentric 
        discourses to flourish. 

      
The 
        second step-microinstitutional or localized analysis -examines the operation 
        of white supremacist logics within the everyday lives of people in particular 
        historical contexts. In the case of Afro-Americans, this analysis would 
        include the ways in which "colored," "Negro," and "black" identities were 
        created against a background of both fear and terror and a persistent 
        history of resistance that gave rise to open rebellion in the 1960s. Such 
        an analysis must include the extraordinary and equivocal role of evangelical 
        Protestant Christianity (which both promoted and helped contain black 
        resistance) and the blend of African and U. S. southern AngloSaxon Protestants 
        and French Catholics from which emerged distinctive Afro-American cultural 
        styles, language, and aesthetic values. 

      
The 
        objective of this second step is to show how the various white supremacist 
        discourses shape non-European self-identities, influence psychosexual 
        sensibilities, and help set the context for oppositional (but also co-optable) 
        nonEuropean cultural manners and mores. This analysis also reveals how 
        the oppression and cultural domination of Native Americans, Chicanos, 
        Puerto Ricans, and other colonized people differ significantly (while 
        sharing many common features) from that of Afro-Americans. Analyses of 
        internal colonialism, national oppression, and cultural imperialism have 
        particular significance in explaining the territorial displacement and 
        domination that confront these peoples. 

      
 
        The third step-macrostructural analysis-discloses the role and function 
        of class exploitation and political repression and how racist practices 
        buttress them. This step resembles traditional Marxist theories of racism, 
        which focus primarily on institutions of economic production and secondarily 
        on the state and public and private bureaucracies. But the nature of this 
        focus is modified in that economic production is no longer viewed as the 
        sole or major source of racist practices. Rather it is seen as a crucial 
        source among others. To put it somewhat crudely, the capitalist mode of 
        production constitutes just one of the significant structural constraints 
        determining what forms racism takes in a particular historical period. 
        Other key structural constraints include the state, bureaucratic modes 
        of control, and the cultural practices of ordinary people. The specific 
        forms that racism takes depend on choices people make within these structural 
        constraints. In this regard, history is neither deterministic nor arbitrary; 
        rather it is an open-ended sequence of (progressive or regressive) structured 
        social practices over time and space. Thus the third analytical step, 
        while preserving important structural features of Marxism such as the 
        complex interaction of the economic, political, cultural, and ideological 
        spheres of life, does not privilege a priori the economic sphere as a 
        means of explaining other spheres of human experience. But this viewpoint 
        still affirms that class exploitation and state repression do take place, 
        especially in the lives of non-Europeans in modern capitalist societies. 
        

        

      
Racism 
        in the American Past and Present 

      
This 
        analytical framework should help explain how racism has operated throughout 
        United States history. It focuses on the predominant form racism takes 
        in the three major historical configurations of modern capitalism: industrial 
        capitalism, monopoly capitalism, and multinational corporate capitalism. 
        It is worth noting that although we have been critical of Marxist explanations 
        of racist practices, Marxist theory remains highly illuminating and provides 
        the best benchmarks for periodizing modern history. U.S. industrial capitalism 
        was, in part, the fruit of black slavery in America. The lucrative profits 
        from cotton and tobacco production in the slave-ridden U.S. South contributed 
        greatly to the growth of manufacturing (especially textiles) in the U. 
        S. North. The industrial capitalist order in the North not only rested 
        indirectly upon the productive labor of black slaves in the South, it 
        also penetrated the South after the Civil War along with white exploitation 
        and repression of former black slaves. In addition, U.S. industrial capitalism 
        was consolidated only after the military conquest and geographical containment 
        of indigenous and Mexican peoples and the exploitation of Asian contract 
        laborers. On the cultural level, black, brown, yellow, and red identities 
        were reinforced locally, reflecting the defensive and deferential positions 
        of victims who had only limited options for effective resistance. For 
        example, this period is the age of the "colored" identity of Africans 
        in the United States. 

      
The 
        advent of the American empire helped usher in U. S. monopoly capitalism. 
        Given both the absence of a strong centralized state and a relatively 
        unorganized working class, widespread centralization of the capitalist 
        economy occurred principally in the form of monopolies, trusts, and holding 
        companies. As the United States took over the last remnants of the Spanish 
        empire (for example, in Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam) and expanded 
        its economic presence in South America, U. S. racist ideology flourished. 
        Jim Crow laws-consciously adopted models for apartheid in South Africa-were 
        instituted throughout the South. Exclusionary immigration laws-supported 
        by the lily white American Federation of Labor-were enacted, and reservations 
        ("homelands") were set up for indigenous peoples. Mexican and indigenous 
        peoples were removed from their lands through the use of force and by 
        the courts. A settler colonial regime was established in the Southwest 
        to oversee the extraction of raw materials and to subject the Mexican 
        population. 

      
At 
        the same time, America opened its arms to the European "masses yearning 
        to be free," principally because of a labor-shortage in the booming urban 
        industrial centers. In this period, a small yet significant black middle 
        class began to set up protest organizations such as the NAACP, National 
        Urban League, and the National Federation of Afro-American Women. Limited 
        patronage networks were established for black middle-class enhancement 
        (for example, Booker T. Washington's "machine"). This period is the age 
        of the "Negro" identity of Africans in the United States. Some influential 
        blacks were permitted limited opportunities to prosper and thereby seen 
        as models of success for the black masses to emulate. Despite its courageous 
        efforts on behalf of black progress, the NAACP in this period could not 
        help but seen as a vehicle for severely constricted black gains. The NAACP 
        was defiant in rhetoric; liberal in vision, legalistic in practice, and 
        headed by elements of the black middle class which often influenced the 
        interests of the organization. 

      
The 
        emergence of the United States as the preeminent world power after World 
        War II provided the framework for the growth of multinational corporate 
        capitalism. The devastation of Europe (including the weakening of its 
        vast empires), the defeat of Japan, and the tremendous sacrifice of lives 
        and destruction of industry in the Soviet Union facilitated U. S. world 
        hegemony. U. S. corporate penetration into European markets (opened and 
        buttressed by the Marshall Plan), Asian markets, some African markets, 
        and, above all, Latin American markets set the stage for unprecedented 
        U. S. economic prosperity. This global advantage, along with technological 
        innovation, served as the hidden background for the so-called American 
        Way of Life-a life of upward social mobility leading to material comfort 
        and convenience. Only in the postwar era did significant numbers of the 
        U.S. white middle class participate in this dream. 

      
Aware 
        of its image as leader of the "free world" (and given the growing sensitivity 
        to racism in the aftermath of the holocaust), the U.S. government began 
        to respond cautiously to the antiracist resistance at home. This response 
        culminated in the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision 
        (1954) and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 respectively. 
        The ramifications of the court decision and legislation affected all peoples 
        of color (and white women) but had the greatest impact on those able to 
        move up the social ladder primarily by means of education. As a result, 
        the current period of U.S. multinational corporate capitalism has witnessed 
        the growth of a significant middle class of peoples of color. Overt racist 
        language-even under the Reagan administration-has become unfashionable; 
        coded racist language expressing hostility to "affirmative action, " "busing, 
        " and "special interests" has now replaced overt racist discourse. 

      
As 
        the legal barriers of segregation have been torn down, the underclass 
        of black and brown working and poor people at the margins of society has 
        grown. For the expanding middle class of people of color, political disenfranchisement 
        and job discrimination have been considerably reduced. But, simultaneously, 
        a more insidious form of class and racial stratification intensified-educational 
        inequality. In an increasingly technological society, rural and inner 
        city schools for people of color and many working class and poor whites 
        serve to reproduce the present racial and class stratified structure of 
        society. Children of the poor, who are disproportionately people of color, 
        are tracked into an impoverished educational system and then face unequal 
        opportunities when they enter the labor force (if steady, meaningful employment 
        is even a possibility). 

      
In 
        the past decade, American multinational corporate capitalism has undergone 
        a deep crisis, owing primarily to increased competition with Japanese, 
        European, and even some Third World corporations; a rise in energy costs 
        brought about by the OPEC cartel; the precarious structure of international 
        debt owed to American and European banks by Third World countries; and 
        victorious anticolonial struggles that limit lucrative capital investments 
        somewhat. The response of the Reagan administration to this crisis has 
        been, in part, to curtail the public sector by cutting back federal transfer 
        payments to the needy, diminishing occupational health and safety and 
        environmental protection, increasing low wage service sector jobs, and 
        granting tax incentives and giveaways to large corporations. Those most 
        adversely affected by these policies have been blue collar industrial 
        workers and the poor, particularly women and children. Thus Reagan's policies, 
        which are often supported by the coded racist language of the religious 
        right and secular neoconservatives, are racist in consequence. Poor women 
        and children are disproportionately people of color, and jobs in the "rust 
        belt" industries of auto and steel played a major role in black social 
        mobility in the postwar period. 

      
      
Socialism 
        and Antiracism: Two Inseparable Yet Not Identical Goals 

      
      
 
        It should be apparent that racist practices directed against black, brown, 
        yellow, and red people are an integral element of U. S. history, including 
        present day American culture and society. This means not simply that Americans 
        have inherited racist attitudes and prejudices, but, more importantly, 
        that institutional forms of racism are embedded in American society in 
        both visible and invisible ways. These institutional forms exist not only 
        in remnants of de jure job, housing, and educational discrimination and 
        political gerrymandering. They also manifest themselves in a de facto 
        labor market segmentation, produced by the exclusion of large numbers 
        of peoples of color from the socioeconomic mainstream. (This exclusion 
        results from limited educational opportunities, devastated families, a 
        disproportionate presence in the prison population, and widespread police 
        brutality. ) 

      
 
        It also should be evident that past Marxist conceptions of racism have 
        often prevented U. S. socialist movements from engaging in antiracist 
        activity in a serious and consistent manner. In addition, black suspicion 
        of white-dominated political movements (no matter how progressive) as 
        well as the distance between these movements and the daily experiences 
        of peoples of color have made it even more difficult to fight racism effectively. 
        Furthermore, the disproportionate white middle-class composition of contemporary 
        democratic socialist organizations creates cultural barriers to the participation 
        by peoples of color. Yet this very participation is a vital precondition 
        for greater white sensitivity to antiracist struggle and to white acknowledgment 
        of just how crucial antiracist struggle is to the U. S. socialist movement. 
        Progressive organizations often find themselves going around in a vicious 
        circle. Even when they have a great interest in antiracist struggle, they 
        are unable to attract a critical mass of people of color because of their 
        current predominately white racial and cultural composition. These organizations 
        are then stereotyped as lily white, and significant numbers of people 
        of color refuse to join. 

      
The 
        only effective way the contemporary democratic socialist movement can 
        break out of this circle (and it is possible because the bulk of democratic 
        socialists are among the least racist of Americans) is to be sensitized 
        to the critical importance of antiracist struggles. This conscientization 
        cannot take place either by reinforcing agonized white consciences by 
        means of guilt, nor by presenting another grand theoretical analysis with 
        no practical implications. The former breeds psychological paralysis among 
        white progressives, which is unproductive for all of us; the latter yields 
        important discussions but often at the expense of concrete political engagement. 
        Rather what is needed is more widespread participation by predominantly 
        white democratic socialist organizations in antiracist struggles-whether 
        those struggles be for the political, economic, and cultural empowerment 
        of Latinos, blacks, Asians, and Native Americans or antiimperialist struggles 
        against U.S. support for oppressive regimes in South Africa, Chile, the 
        Philippines, and the occupied West Bank. 

      
A 
        major focus on antiracist coalition work will not only lead democratic 
        socialists to act upon their belief in genuine individuality and radical 
        democracy for people around the world; it also will put socialists in 
        daily contact with peoples of color in common struggle. Bonds of trust 
        can be created only within concrete contexts of struggle. This interracial 
        interaction guarantees neither love nor friendship. Yet it can yield more 
        understanding and the realization of two overlapping goals- democratic 
        socialism and antiracism. While engaging in antiracist struggles, democratic 
        socialists can also enter into a dialogue on the power relationships and 
        misconceptions that often emerge in multiracial movements for social justice 
        in a racist society. Honest and trusting coalition work can help socialists 
        unlearn Eurocentrism in a self-critical manner and can also demystify 
        the motivations of white progressives in the movement for social justice. 
        

      
We 
        must frankly acknowledge that a democratic socialist society will not 
        necessarily eradicate racism. Yet a democratic socialist society is the 
        best hope for alleviating and minimizing racism, particularly institutional 
        forms of racism. This conclusion depends on a candid evaluation that guards 
        against utopian self-deception. But it also acknowledges the deep moral 
        commitment on the part of democratic socialists of all races to the dignity 
        of all individuals and peoples-a commitment that impels us to fight for 
        a more libertarian and egalitarian society. Therefore concrete antiracist 
        struggle is both an ethical imperative and political necessity for democratic 
        socialists. It is even more urgent as once again racist policies and Third 
        World intervention become more acceptable to many Americans. A more effective 
        democratic socialist movement engaged in antiracist and antiimperialist 
        struggle can help turn the tide. It depends on how well we understand 
        the past and present, how courageously we act, and how true we remain 
        to our democratic socialist ideals of freedom, equality, and democracy. 
        


      


      

      







      
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