Class & Race - a challenge for the Left

part 1 part 2 of 4

On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Sandra van Niekerk wrote:


 Jeff Rudin has asked me to forward this to the debate list.

 I trust that the attachment will be clear without the need for an explicit
 introduction.  I am sending it to all of you because what began as a
 private conversation a month or so ago  between David (McDonald) and
 myself, on what I consider to be the mis-use of race, merits much wider
 discussion.  The issue is now also a matter of public debate, thanks to the
 Mail & Guardian .  However, to my knowledge it is a debate not yet had
 within the framework of the marxian left.  My hope is that this exchange
 between David and me will spark wider discussion.  It is certainly long
 overdue, in my view.

 Jeff

 12/1/03

 Hello David,

 Thanks for sending me a copy of your paper on 'Environmental Racism and
 Neo-liberal Disorder in South Africa'.  Unfortunately, the paper served
 mainly to reinforce my concerns about the gratuitous use of race by those
 of us who in other respects are persuaded by the primacy of class analysis.
  Let me emphasise that my concern is exclusively the gratuitous use of
 race.  I am not therefore saying that 'race' is never an appropriate
 analytic category.

 Let me make my position as clear as possible.  I do not for one moment
 doubt the enduring importance in South Africa of 'race' as self-identity,
 even though race has little if any meaning in biology or genetics.  My
 problem lies with the way race or colour is said to be used in the
 allocation of scarce resources or in access to those resources in post 1994
 South Africa.  It is in this context that race is seriously mis-used, in my
 judgement.

 Behind much of my thinking is that while working class self consciousness
 is very weak, racial self-identity is very powerful.  The question in this
 circumstance is also a tactical one for those of us within the Marxian
 tradition.  Should we who recognise class also be promoting race,
 particularly when the racial analysis is so very suspect, as I will
 demonstrate below?  Race is guaranteed to be most effectively promoted by
 the black bourgeoisie, the would-be black bourgeoisie and the state that
 reflects their class interests.  They certainly do no the need our
 assistance.  If race confuses the working class - and does so with such
 ease and effectiveness - who is to promote analytically the class needs of
 the working class specifically?

 There is a direct parallel in these matters with nationalism and the manner
 in which socialist/communist/marxian movements world wide have dealt with
 the dilemma.  Most workers throughout the world see themselves as members
 of distinct and competing nations; few workers see themselves exclusively
 or even primarily as workers.  Despite this overwhelming national
 self-identity by workers and the marginalized, I'm suggesting that we ought
 to associate ourselves with those movements which, while not ignoring the
 relevance of nationalism, have nonetheless left its promotion to the
 bourgeoisie.

 Apartheid arguably represents the highest institutional form reached
 anywhere in the world of a racialised allocation of scarce resources.
 Rather than challenging the terrifying racism bequeathed us by apartheid,
 we on the Left seem everywhere to be in the forefront of those reinforcing
 racial thinking in its various forms.  We stand perilously close to a
 conflagration fuelled by our colour-coded present.  Religious, language,
 tribal, cultural, ethnic differences all feed into a proletariat not
 conscious of itself.  Our task is to sharpen class analysis and encourage
 the working class to think as workers.

 Such an enterprise would of course be flawed if, in promoting class, we
 chose dogmatically to ignore 'race' regardless of the evidence.  Race must
 be addressed if its exclusion weakens the analysis.  My strictures are
 exclusively against what I consider to be race used gratuitously.
 In my opinion, your paper provides many examples of race being used without
 warrant.  I shall be citing a few of them explicitly, but let me first
 address the main thrust of your argument, as I understand it.

 You argue that the allocation of scarce resources continues to reflect our
 apartheid past, that is, suburbs now often described as being 'historically
 white' continue to be privileged in a range of ways at the expense of
 'black townships'.  Various forms of racism, including unconscious racism,
 expressed by 'white' bureaucrats and 'white' businesses are your
 explanation for these practices.

 To argue thus, however, is to ignore the reality of black authority at all
 levels of government.  There is no exception to the fact that black elected
 representatives constitute a large majority at local, provincial and
 national government levels.  It is similarly to ignore that the higher
 levels of the state bureaucracy are now increasingly occupied by 'blacks'
 who are indeed often in the majority, especially in all the major cities.
 The skewed allocation of resources, which is very real, cannot therefore
 simply be attributed to white racism.  Even if this white racism was real
 to the extent you imply, one would still have to explain why it is
 acceptable to the authorities who are overwhelmingly black.

 Class offers a ready explanation.  The black elite no longer live in the
 townships; they have long since moved into the 'historically white'
 suburbs.  They therefore have a direct material interest in protecting the
 privileges of the suburbs and of hiding behind the alleged whiteness of
 their new neighbourhoods.  Their acceptance of the industrial pollution of
 black areas is similarly explicable:  pollution is the unfortunate and
 unavoidable 'collateral' cost of investment paid by the poor of whom they
 are no longer a part.  This class analysis applies also to the behaviour of
 the white bureaucracy and white bourgeoisie, even if it is intermingled
 with (largely) residual white racism.

 It used to be fashionable in North America and Britain - it might still be
 - to define racism as prejudice + power.  Legitimate authority and
 political power in post-apartheid South Africa is very much black, if we
 are to give it a colour.  White racism, in other words, does little if
 anything to explain the discriminatory allocation of state resources in the
 South Africa of today.  Even if whites are still deeply racist they no
 longer have the political power to make policy or the bureaucratic
 authority to enforce policies unpopular with their political masters. White
 racism is thus a poor explanation for the continuing discrimination against
 townships or rural areas.

 The preservation of some apartheid-created inequalities has far too
 superficially been taken to mean the preservation of racism.  The fact that
 the middle and upper echelons of the class hierarchy are now rapidly being
 re-coloured is ignored in these falsely coloured commentaries.  Similarly
 ignored is the fact that the policies reproducing the inequality endured by
 workers and the poor generally are the very policies of a black-led
 government implemented by black politicians at provincial and local levels.

 (As far as I know, there is no evidence showing that the allocation or
 redistribution of resources in the few 'white' controlled municipalities
 differs significantly if at all from the 'black' controlled ones.)

 The inequalities inherent in capitalism along with the specific needs of
 the bourgeoisie - with its increasingly black component, including its
 black arm within the machinery of state - together with black nationalism
 (which is itself class based) suffice in explaining the reproduction of
 inequality in contemporary South Africa.  Some apartheid bequeathed
 inequalities, however, are vigorously being tackled, as an urgent matter of
 government policy.  But it is the needs of the black elite (plus a dose of
 black racism) that account for the selection of those inequalities that are
 actively being redressed: affirmative action and black economic empowerm
 ent.

 Your paper abounds with examples of what I think is the decidedly unhelpful
 use of race.  I draw your attention to some of them with the reminder that
 what I consider to be a problem is one common to the left and dating back
 to 1994.  Indeed, when we first spoke about this matter I was not referring
 to anything you wrote.

 *    "?.white residential areas [not even 'historically white'!] continue
 [note the present tense] to receive a disproportionate share of municipal
 services, almost a decade after the end of apartheid."
 *    "Private companies - large mining and chemical companies in particular -
 have been responsible for some of the most environmentally racist practices
 in the country.  ?  Do these corporations behave this way near white
 communities in South Africa?  In short, no.  ?  One cannot avoid the
 conclusion that racism remains [note: 'remains'] a key factor.  How else
 can one explain the fact that large corporations in South Africa contribute
 millions of dollars annually to the protection of flora and fauna and
 advertise themselves as environmentally responsible for their wealthy
 (white) customers, while at the same time contributing to some of the worst
 environmental health & safety conditions in the world for their black
 neighbours and employees? [Inconsistency and hypocrisy are and have been
 the hallmarks of all ruling classes world wide.  The same applies to all
 major multi-national companies.  How else is one to explain the
 international corporate dominance of the WSSD, when sustainable development
 is hardly a bedfellow of capitalism?]
 *    "   white suburban neighbourhoods [again, not even 'historically
 white']?.continue [again, note 'continue'] to receive the cheapest and most
 heavily subsidised services in the country.  Black residents in the former
 homelands, meanwhile pay twice as much on average for electricity as
 suburban residents? [This colour coding is not only wrong analytically but
 reinforces racial thinking.  Nothing is lost by removing all reference to
 colour.  Should you wish to provide an explanation for the iniquity, class
 offers the only valid one and moreover one that is very simple to
 understand.  'Rich' should substitute for 'white' and 'black' should be
 replaced by workers, poor etc]
 *    "?.white South Africans are not expected to expose themselves to these
 environmental hazards?."
 *    "Landfills are much the same, with the bulk of commercial and domestic
 waste originating in white residential areas.  Wealthy South Africans
 simply consume (and discard) too much.  [Treating 'white' as synonymous
 with 'wealthy' not only serves to detract from class analysis but allows
 the black politicians, the actual policy makers who are also dwellers in
 'white residential areas', to escape attention.  And it is us, the
 Marxists, who thus do so well at managing capitalism's public relations as
 well as those of the black bourgeoisie.]
 *    "?is it right to be watering gardens in white suburbs while homes in the
 townships have no water at all??"
 *    "?.environmental racism can be described as the grease that allows
 neo-liberalism to inflict so much environmental damage on low-income, black
 South Africans.  How else could a municipality get away with providing
 world-class, publicly-owned services to white suburban areas while at the
 same time allowing third-rate, privatised service delivery to take place in
 the neighbouring black township?  How else could well-to-do- white suburbs
 continue to receive heavily subsidised services while low-income black
 townships go without or have to pay the full costs of what they receive.
 The most orthodox of neo-liberal policies in South Africa are being
 introduced in, and most aggressively enforced in, black residential areas."
 [Neo-liberalism everywhere creates inequality, besides reinforcing
 pre-existing inequalities.  This is a universal feature of neo-liberalism,
 even though the inequalities in South Africa are more marked than most
 other places.  Given the universality of neo-liberal inequalities, the use
 of exclusively South African racism has very limited if any explanatory
 value. But it does have enormous confusion value.
 Moreover, the last sentence of this example is particularly telling.  The
 'most orthodox of neo-liberal policies' are the official policies of the
 overwhelmingly black ANC and, moreover, are policies endorsed by an
 overwhelming black parliament.  What is more, these policies are being
 'most aggressively enforced' by black controlled municipalities.  Using
 race, in other words, serves only to confuse.  The onus is plainly on those
 who would still maintain the relevance of race, notwithstanding the colour
 of the policy makers and enforces, to explain their position.  I would go
 so far as to say that the only racism in any of this is when critics of
 neo-liberalism, who happen to be 'white' or foreign, are attacked by
 'black' leaders on the basis of their skin or place of birth.]
 The use of race in all these above examples is, for me, not only wrong
 analytically but serves to reinforce a colour-coded thinking when our task
 is surely to be challenging racism in all its forms.  All these examples
 show how easy it is for us, the proponents of class analysis, to fall into
 the trap of using race as a substitute for class.  Rigorous class analysis
 has all the virtues:  it promotes clarity, facilitates understanding,
 challenges racism and advances working class self-consciousness.  The
 mystery is why we, the advocates of class analysis, are so adept at
 avoiding the analysis we champion.

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