Notes on: Cole, M (2009) The Color – Line and the
Class Struggle: a Marxist response to critical
race theory in education as it arrives in the
United Kingdom. Power and Education 1 (1):
111 – 123
http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/power.2009.1.1.111
Two central tenets are to be challenged, the
primacy of race over class and the notion of white
supremacy. Instead he advocates '(xeno– racialised
capitalism' which has more explanatory power and
suggests that both class and race are crucial
factors. CRT suggestions for human liberation are
'variable and vague' compared to Marxism.
CRT emerged as a non-Marxist left challenge and
its main protagonists include Gilborn who
presented papers at an international conference at
Manchester Metropolitan University, and later at a
BERA conference 2007 and 2008. The latter included
Ladson- Billings.
One of the central tenets is that race rather than
class is the major form of oppression and one root
is the philosophy of Marcus Garvey who argued that
race was the primary factor in all parts of the
world. Marxism is white radical orthodoxy by
comparison, but race is the primary contradiction.
Subsuming it under class is '"the typical Marxist
error"' Gillborn in particular will be discussed
on the UK education system.
His analysis in his 2008 book says it is complex
but particular minoritised groups are less likely
to achieve the key benchmarks when compared to
white peers of the same gender; white students are
the only group to show an increase in the number
of higher grade GCSEs; and young people in each of
the black categories are more likely to be
permanently excluded from school. This results in
'"locked-in inequality"', so deep-rooted and so
large that it is more or less inevitable. He
mentions gap talk, where the gap is a discursive
strategy used to construct the view that things
are improving, and statistics are given a
particular tone that encourages positive
interpretation. Assessment is rigged so even if
black children do succeed the rules are changed —
the system as fixed grade limits which prevents
them getting the highest grades and a new system
of assessment for five-year-olds penalises black
children in the only part of the system where they
were successful. Black-and-white inequality for
five-year-olds is now growing. So he concludes
that 'not only does assessment produce inequality,
it sustains it as well' (112 ) [see also Gillborn ].
These data indicate 'white supremacy', a more
useful concept than racism, which tends to focus
on extreme racist organisations and considers
instead forms are normalised and taken for
granted, that saturate everyday actions and
policies, something deeply rooted, more
comprehensive and subtle.
Marxists agree that there has been a continuity of
racism but say that white supremacy does not
explain this continuity because it is unconnected
to modes of production and developments a priori.
Marxism is able to 'understand and challenge all
forms of racism'. CRT does not focus on modes of
production; it 'homogenises all white people
together as being in positions of power and
privilege'; it inadequately explains
'"non-colour-coded racism"' and is
counter-productive as a political unifier and
rallying point. (113) Non-colour-coded racism
includes Sivanandan on xeno-racism, anti-Irish
racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Gypsy Roma
traveller racism.
Miles , a Marxist sociologist, sees racialisation
as an ideological process assisting the
appropriation of labour power. Races are
categories which are socially constructed, not
functionally linked to capitalist development, but
produced by combining human biological
characteristics and cultural characteristics in
order to produce differentiated social
collectives. They interact with different modes of
production and their social relations. The mode of
production refers to the combination of
forces [human and mechanical] and the
relations of production [social relationships
primarily between social classes]. Together this
affects the way people relate to the physical
world and to each other, and they occur in
'historically specific, structural and necessary
ways'. Together they constitute the economic
structure of society, the real foundation et
cetera. Racism and rationalisation has its origins
in the British Empire and is 'historically and
geographically specific', associated with the
racialised concept of nation, in the context of
competition from other countries and being overrun
by other European races. 'The indigenous racism of
the period was anti-Irish and anti-Semitic' (114),
fuelled by numbers of destitute Jewish immigrants.
Overt institutional racism was intentional and
found in all the major institutions of society and
became part of popular culture including the
actual curriculum.
After World War II 'the Empire came home to roost'
with the demands of an expanding economy producing
a shortage of labour leading to migration from the
Republic of Ireland, the Indian subcontinent and
the Caribbean, with minority ethnic workers as a
source of cheap labour. Despite their
heterogeneous class structure, they came to occupy
an homogenous position among 'the semiskilled and
unskilled', disproportionately concerned in
certain types of manual work — 'shift working,
unsocial hours, low pay and an unpleasant working
environment' (115). They came to occupy a distinct
fraction of the working class, '"a racialised
fraction"'. When the children enter the education
system they were represented differently. Black
kids were seen as disruptive and violent, Asian
kids were academic but a social threat to white
children, or religious aliens. Asians were seen as
benign but passive, often compared deliberately to
aggressive Caribbean students.Gillborn wants to
see all this as white supremacy, but for Marxists,
we need to understand different rationalisation of
the subjects of former imperial colonies [for
economic reasons though -- because of class
destinations? Needs more argument.]
Racialisation continues today , and antiblack
versions coexist with anti-Asian versions, but
differentiated according to social class.
Anti-Asian racism is further differentiated
according to ethnic origin, Bangladeshi and
Pakistani people faring worse than Indians, for
example 'a reflection of the social class
differences between these communities' [active
social class in the UK?]. Increasing
Islamophobia is also a factor in the aftermath of
terrorist events 'which themselves cannot be
understood without reference to both old UK and
new US imperialisms' (115).
CRT focuses on racism related to skin colour and
says that except for Nazi Germany Europeans were
always ranked above nonwhites. But there is much
'actual and potential variants of present-day
non-colour-coded racism' , again linked to the
labour market. The British capitalist state needs
a ready supply of cheap labour which is then
publicly vilified 'in order for the state to
maintain hegemony over the longer residing
population' (116). There is a direct comparison
between former imperial citizens and migrant
workers from Eastern Europe today, including
'similarities in perceptions and treatment'. The
demand for market flexibility leads to questions
of social control, new emphasis on the ideology of
the social contract, new stresses on demarcation.
Sivanandan has identified non-colour-coded racism
as a result, 'xeno-racism' — '" a racism that is
meted out to impoverished strangers even if they
are white"'. It has an economic basis in ethnic
wars, exclusion, the notion of aliens coming to prey
on the wealth of the West and destroying national
identities. 'There is substantial evidence of
xeno-racism in Europe' [including the EU's own
recent survey], and recent attacks on Polish and
Eastern European people in Britain.
All of this shows the importance of social class,
especially if we take the Marxist usage to refer
to 'all those who need to sell their labour power
to survive'. Other sociologists use different
terms to refer to lower status and lower earnings,
and some people have referred to fractions of the
working class. Eastern European migrant workers
mainly occupy low-paid jobs. Gillborn himself has
acknowledged the importance of low-paid jobs in
the past, and gross economic inequalities, but
says that class does not appear to be equally
significant for all groups [this piece refers to
the controversy over students with FSM, which
apparently offers insufficient recognition that
race is classed and gendered [see Gillborn et all
and their
submission to Sewell Cole is quite good on
the emphasis placed by Gillborn on the small group
of Irish and Travellers to deny class].
There are different visions of the future. For CRT
racial liberation is primary for any emancipatory
education. Crenshaw says there is a shared ethical
commitment to human liberation even if there are
disagreements over the specific direction — 'thus
often in CRT the solution is vague' (117) with
talk about the struggle, visions of hope, the end
of oppression, the ultimate goal of social
transformation and so on. There is a lot of talk
about praxis, commitment, and ending racial
oppression to end all oppression, but no
particular indication of what liberation means or
social transformation. Mills thinks that white
supremacy has to be overthrown first before
socialism is possible because a non-white
supremacist capitalism is still preferable to a
white supremacist capitalism, which might be OK —
but the next stage, capitalism without racism or
sexism 'is almost inconceivable'. (118). There may
be more liberal versions on offer. CRT may well be
'"passionate… about classism "' as Gillborn
claims, but tackling oppression should also lead
to tackling exploitation at the point of
production.
This has been an attempt at 'comradely discussion'
although Gillborn seems reluctant to debate with
Marxists. He thinks that Marxists will not be
amenable to his pragmatic intent to use the best
analytic tools because they want to '"fetishise a
single concept or theory"' (118). He does think
that intersectionality might help unite the
differences. Overall though, Marxism is not
moribund, but is a living project, with
applications say in Venezuela and Chavez [oh dear]
. CRT is not up to the 'gargantuan task' of
struggling against capital and empire.
[ replies to this, and replies to replies ensued]
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