[Xmca-l] Re: Alternatives to Social Capital and Knowledge Brokering

Andy Blunden andyb@marxists.org
Sat Mar 9 17:01:21 PST 2019


Yes. I haven't got to that chapter yet, but he has already 
made this clear. It also shows how the issue of poverty and 
the labour issue became transmuted into the issue of the 
emancipated slaves. This is what I meant by the 
"racialisation" of American politics, a problem which is 
still disabling progressive politics in the US. We have 
racism in Australia. No doubt about that. Anti-immigrant 
racism is, in my view, utterly ineffective in changing the 
political landscape overall, despite heaping misery on 
whoever the latest wave of immigrants happens to be. But 
after a few years, the colour of the next wave changes, a 
new generation grows up and we move on. The racism against 
the indigenous people remains and it is a terrible problem 
for us. But I don't think it poisons the entire political 
landscape like the legacy of slavery does in the US.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 10/03/2019 11:50 am, Helena Worthen wrote:
> Andy and others:
>
> Thanks for reading DuBois. The chapter titled “The White 
> Worker” is living history, the clearest, strongest 
> explanation available of the situation of racism in the US 
> today. This is a chapter one can actually assign to 
> students when they ask “Why Trump?”
>
> Helena
>
>> On Mar 10, 2019, at 7:30 AM, Andy Blunden 
>> <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>>
>> At the moment I am reading W E B Du Bois on the history 
>> of the Reconstruction after the American Civil War. 
>> Horrific reading in terms of the brutality of the 
>> Southern whites' attitudes to the "freedmen" and the 
>> system of laws designed to keep them in bondage, but also 
>> startling how much of the terms of debate seem not to 
>> have changed over a period of 150 years. Du Bois is 
>> interesting because he shows how Lincoln never intended 
>> to end slavery, but the whole logic of the situation 
>> forced his hand, even though he was the first to see 
>> that. The depth of the legacy of slavery in the US 
>> becomes abundantly clear; every social issue gets 
>> racialised. How similar the issues are today as when Du 
>> Bois was writing!
>>
>> "Social capital" seemed to count for little, but "human 
>> capital" of course, took on a very specific meaning in 
>> those days.
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> Andy Blunden
>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>> On 10/03/2019 6:08 am, Peg Griffin wrote:
>>>
>>> How difficult doing social solidarity is in spite of its 
>>> necessity, right?  Here’s an SPLC piece (with a book 
>>> suggestion within it) that I think some folks probably 
>>> already have and others might want.  It’s called “If 
>>> nobody is racist, why is racism still America’s biggest 
>>> problem?”
>>>
>>> Keeps on being hard to follow John Lewis into “good 
>>> trouble,” doesn’t it?
>>>
>>> PG
>>>
>>> It rained on marchers from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, 
>>> in 1965, and it rained on them again last weekend as 
>>> they commemorated the day when police beat civil rights 
>>> marchers so badly that the date became known the nation 
>>> over as Bloody Sunday.
>>>
>>> SPLC logo 
>>> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.splcenter.org%2f&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa>
>>>
>>> *FIGHTING HATE // TEACHING TOLERANCE // SEEKING JUSTICE 
>>> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwww.splcenter.org%2f&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa>*
>>>
>>> MARCH 9, 2019
>>>
>>> *Weekend Read // Issue 121*
>>>
>>> Peg,
>>>
>>> It rained on marchers from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, 
>>> in 1965, and it rained on them again last weekend as 
>>> they commemorated the day when police beat civil rights 
>>> marchers so badly that the date became known the nation 
>>> over as Bloody Sunday.
>>>
>>> Fifty-four years have passed since that historic march 
>>> for voting rights, but as the speakers lamented last 
>>> weekend, we are still fighting for the right to vote today.
>>>
>>> However, as Rep. John Lewis told a crowd at the Civil 
>>> Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery as part of the 
>>> Bloody Sunday anniversary, “We come with the spirit and 
>>> the belief that we can change things. We have the power. 
>>> We have the ability. We can do it.”
>>>
>>> Doing the hard work of achieving the ideals of the civil 
>>> rights movement is the message of white academic and 
>>> diversity trainer Robin DiAngelo’s recent book “White 
>>> Fragility.” It has spent seven months near the top of 
>>> /The New York Times/ bestseller list despite a 
>>> challenging message to white people, its intended 
>>> audience: When — not if — you perpetuate racism, don’t 
>>> get defensive 
>>> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2f2Sb5maE&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa>.
>>>
>>> “In my experience, day in and day out, most white people 
>>> are absolutely not receptive to finding out their impact 
>>> on other people,” DiAngelo told Nosheen Iqbal for /The 
>>> Guardian/. She recounted the way that “They insist, 
>>> ‘Well, it’s not me’, or say ‘I’m doing my best, what do 
>>> you want from me?’”
>>>
>>> One problem, DiAngelo says, is that white progressives 
>>> often define racism as something obvious and violent 
>>> — like when police beat civil rights marchers in Selma 
>>> in 1965 — when the reality is that it is much more 
>>> insidious.
>>>
>>> “We have to stop thinking about racism simply as someone 
>>> who says the N-word,” she told Iqbal. “This book is 
>>> centered in the white western colonial context, and in 
>>> that context white people hold institutional power.”
>>>
>>> But over the course of 20 years of doing trainings 
>>> around race and diversity, DiAngelo has discovered that 
>>> white progressives who say they want to be allies to 
>>> people of color are often nonetheless uncomfortable 
>>> examining the impact of their own behavior 
>>> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2f2J3s0Tc&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa>.
>>>
>>> DiAngelo defines this as white fragility — the inability 
>>> of white people to tolerate racial stress.
>>>
>>> “I want to build the stamina to handle the discomfort so 
>>> we don’t retreat in the face of it, because retreating 
>>> holds the status quo in place, and the status quo is the 
>>> reproduction of racism,” DiAngelo explained.
>>>
>>> Without that stamina, white people who discover ways 
>>> they may have accidentally perpetuated racial inequality 
>>> and injustice too often “weaponi[ze their] hurt 
>>> feelings” by getting indignant and defensive, in turn 
>>> creating a climate that makes their anxiety more 
>>> important than the concerns of the people of color 
>>> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2f2Sb5maE&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa> around 
>>> them.
>>>
>>> As DiAngelo asks, “If nobody is racist, why is racism 
>>> still America’s biggest problem? What are white people 
>>> afraid they will lose by listening?”
>>>
>>> It can be difficult to know how to do that in the 
>>> moment. Our guide on how to respond to everyday bigotry 
>>> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2f2C5l2ar&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa> can 
>>> help. So can our guide on 10 ways to fight hate 
>>> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2f2ztiIc7&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa>, 
>>> one of which is to educate yourself through cross-racial 
>>> conversations, like the kind DiAngelo has been promoting 
>>> for decades.
>>>
>>> After all, within the white, western colonial context, 
>>> DiAngelo points out: “Racism is a white problem. It was 
>>> constructed and created by white people and the ultimate 
>>> responsibility lies with white people. For too long 
>>> we’ve looked at it as if it were someone else’s problem.”
>>>
>>> On this anniversary of the march from Selma to 
>>> Montgomery, when voter suppression is still rampant 
>>> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2f2tMp30b&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa>, 
>>> police abuses are still violent 
>>> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2f2TvrZLZ&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa>, 
>>> and civil rights are far from guaranteed 
>>> <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2f2Bf3NA6&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa>, 
>>> it could not be more clear.
>>>
>>> The Editors
>>>
>>> P.S. Here are some other pieces we think are valuable 
>>> this week:
>>>
>>>   * Immigration detention has life-changing consequences
>>>     for sisters
>>>     <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2f2EX1AhX&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa>
>>>     by Liz Vinson for the /Southern Poverty Law Center/
>>>   * How a black man says he ‘outsmarted’ a neo-Nazi
>>>     group and became their new leader
>>>     <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fwapo.st%2f2TEsfZ4&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa>
>>>     by Katie Mettler for /The Washington Post/
>>>   * Kneeling during the anthem at Ole Miss: ‘I needed to
>>>     stand up for my rights’
>>>     <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fnyti.ms%2f2tRS218&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa>
>>>     by Billy Witz for /The New York Times/
>>>   * Dollars on the margins
>>>     <https://donate.splcenter.org/page.redir?target=https%3a%2f%2fnyti.ms%2f2SRJ9ig&srcid=1228102&srctid=1&erid=344519828&efndnum=17317216624&trid=da8c8854-aae9-4bf2-911b-a9bc0000d3fa>
>>>     by Matthew Desmond for /The New York Times Magazine/
>>>
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>>>
>>> *From:*xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu 
>>> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] *On Behalf Of 
>>> *Simangele Mayisela
>>> *Sent:* Saturday, March 09, 2019 12:54 PM
>>> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Alternatives to Social Capital 
>>> and Knowledge Brokering
>>>
>>> Dear Andy
>>>
>>> I browsed your  ethical politics paper and found it to 
>>> be  moving. I realise my view of social capital has 
>>> somehow been narrow as only focused on knowledge 
>>> transfer – conscious or unconscious. Thanks for 
>>> providing the background of the concept. At a political 
>>> and economic level, it reminds me of the South African 
>>>  “Xolobeni” saga, where a rural community, located on 
>>> beautiful coastal  landscape with indigenous flora in 
>>> the Eastern Cape is bulldozed by an Aissie mining 
>>> company who “obtained” mining rights from the government 
>>> under the guise that this will bring development and 
>>> jobs to the community.  You can find the images and the 
>>> news briefs on this social conundrum and the plight of 
>>> the Exolobeni people on google  This is where the need 
>>> of social solidarity becomes paramount above the idea of 
>>> social capital. Thanks for sharing…will read this paper 
>>> in depth.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Simangele
>>>
>>> *From:*xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu 
>>> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] *On Behalf Of 
>>> *Andy Blunden
>>> *Sent:* 07 March 2019 04:00 PM
>>> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
>>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Alternatives to Social Capital 
>>> and Knowledge Brokering
>>>
>>> Social Solidarity versus “Social Capital”
>>>
>>> https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/social.pdf
>>>
>>> material for your brainstorming.
>>>
>>> andy
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Andy Blunden
>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>>>
>>> On 8/03/2019 12:55 am, Greg Mcverry wrote:
>>>
>>>     I really enjoy the thinking behind social capital
>>>     and the related idea of knowledge brokering but find
>>>     the free market/enterprise thinking problematic.
>>>
>>>     Comes across as everyone is trying to gain all the
>>>     time and learning gets defined sorta as a nuisance,
>>>     "I guess I will teach you since you help the community"
>>>
>>>     I know that is over simplified but something been
>>>     bugging me about this for a long time, simply
>>>     haven't found a better alternative or formulated my
>>>     thinking.
>>>
>>>     Playing with the idea of taking cognitive
>>>     apprenticeships and recasting it as agentive
>>>     apprenticeship to get at the bidirectional knowledge
>>>     development and diffusion that occurs between both
>>>     agents and networks.
>>>
>>>     Anyone have ideas? Just using email to brainstorm.
>>>
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>>> Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary.
>>>
>
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