Peace Be Unto Those Who Follow Right Guidance.
A few days ago, I managed to obtain a copy of Racism In Mind, Edited by Michael P. Levine and Tamas Pataki. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004). It's a collection of papers purporting to examine the phenomenon of 'racism' from various 'philosophical' perspectives - moral, psychoanalytic, feminist etc.
Currently, I'm reading the (lengthy) Introduction written by Pataki. Although the book tends to uphold the view that 'racism' is a mental construct - hence, the title, Racism in Mind - it does, ostensibly, consider non-mentalist accounts of 'racism'. (As the discerning reader should note, I'm using 'racism' rather than Racism since it is not at all clear that the authors of the book recognise the existence of a globally operating system of White Supremacy.)
For example, Pataki argues that the sociological study of race relations has
uncovered two important conceptions: the notion of unintended, indirect racial discrimination and the notion of institutional or structural racism or racial discrimination. (p.13)
Although institutional and/or structural 'racism' are not necessarily implicative of, let alone identical to, systemic Racism (White Supremacy), it is worth exploring this conception of 'racism' further.
Pataki goes on to state that
in some cases the discriminatory processes have a life of their own, causally independent of the agency of individual bigots or racists" and that "the concept of racism has been extended to cover these forms of institutional or structural discrimination by affinity. (p.13)
Is this correct?
Granted that the causality of a system (whole) is not reducible to the causality of its components (parts) since such a reduction ignores the relations between them, does it follow, thereby, that structural processes of discrimination are independent of individual agency, i.e. fully autonomous? As an Islamic counter-Racist, I must admit to becoming suspicious at this point. While I am prepared to accept that "the agency of individual bigots or racists" as a mere collection of individual acts does not constitute a sufficient condition for maintaining structural processes of discrimination, I would argue that they certainly constitute necessary conditions.
Pataki goes on to argue that
it is far from clear that the model of individual racism constructed around (say) vicious orectic [i.e. desire-based] and affective dispositions can be expanded to explain the racially discriminative practices and operations of institutional and social structures and their particular viciousness. (p.14)
Agreed. But this does not mean that individual acts of 'racism' - or rather, Racism (White Supremacy) - do not have a necessary causal/constitutive role in establishing, maintaining, expanding and/or refining institutional and structural 'racism'.
Referring to a paper contributed by white feminist, Sally Haslanger, which appears later in the book, Pataki states that
in structural oppression there may not be an (individual) agent responsible for the oppression, and "social structures are often beyond the control of individual agents." (p.14)
My Islamic counter-Racist perspective alarm is sounding again and I'm reaching for my copy of Charles W. Mills' The Racial Contract (1997). The power and and privilege afforded white people as beneficiaries of the system of Racism (White Supremacy) is a given in that it is a legacy inherited from white predecessors who were signatories to 'The Racial Contract'. However, this does not absolve all white people, both individually and collectively, from the responsibility to refuse this legacy, to turn 'race traitor', to unmake/tear up 'The Racial Contract'.
IMHO, the claim that social structures are beyond the control of individual agents is a half-truth and, thereby, a DECEIT: While it is true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, the whole is composed of the parts (and their relations) - that is, unless one is committed to some form of dialectical position, idealistic/spiritual or historical/materialistic, in which socially-constructed entities such as 'The State' take on an existence of their own, independent of human agency.
Pataki then goes on to ask
whether or not structural racial oppression in the absence of individual racist agency, either in a proximate or historical sense, is appropriately classified as racism (p.14)
There seems to be some obscurantism at work here: As I have argued above, the irreducibility of structural racial oppression to atomic individual racist agency - that is, acts considered as separate or unrelated - does not entail the non-necessity of such agency to/for structural oppression.
Is Pataki attempting to "liquidate history" vis-a-vis what might be referred to as "Racial Sedimentation" here? Do structures, processes, institutions - in fact, SYSTEMS - not have histories/genealogies of PRODUCTION? Are these not REPRODUCED? Is this not how structures, processes, institutions - in fact, SYSTEMS - maintain, expand, refine [=adapt] themselves?
One of the most important contributions that seminal counter-Racist analyst, Neely Fuller Jr., made to the study of Racism (White Supremacy) was/is his systems-theoretical account incorporating notions of adapation and functionality. Fuller's basic insight can be deepened, and some of the issues I have raised above can be clarified, by considering Racism (White Supremacy) not merely as a system, but more specifically as an autopoietic system.
The term autopoiesis - literally "self-making" - was originally introduced by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in 1973 and presented as a system description that was said to define and explain the nature of living systems. Autopoiesis can be defined as follows:
An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network.
The discerning reader will have noticed that the definition is (intentionally) circular; interestingly, Fuller's definition of Racism (White Supremacy) is also circular (or reflexive):
Racism (White Supremacy) is a system of thought, speech, and action, operated by people who classify themselves as 'white', and who use deceit, violence, and/or the threat of violence, to subjugate, use, and/or abuse people classified as 'non-white', under conditions that promote the practice of falsehood, injustice, and incorrectness, in one or more areas of activity, for the ultimate purpose of maintaining, expanding, and/or refining the practice of White Supremacy (Racism).
Racism (White Supremacy) is an autopoietic machine. When the parts of the machine wear out, they are replaced with new ones (e.g. signatories are replaced by beneficiaries). After a time, it MAY be that SOME parts of the machine are no longer aware that they ARE parts of the machine. ALL parts of The Machine are equal in that they are ALL parts of the machine; however, SOME parts (white) are more equal than other parts (non-white).
Peace
