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Spring 2001 Class, Cultism, and Multiculturalism

Ramin Farahmandpur Portland State University, [email protected]

Peter McLaren University of California - Los Angeles

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Citation Details McLaren, P., & Farahmandpur, R. (2001). Class, Cultism, and Multiculturalism. Multicultural Education, 8(3), 2-14.

This Article is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. Class, cultism, & multiculturalism: A notebook on forging a revolutionary politics McLaren, Peter;Farahmandpur, Ramin Multicultural Education; Spring 2001; 8, 3; ProQuest Research Library pg. 2 •

By Peter McLa ren Ramin Farahmandpur

If this were a dictatorship it'd be a tape parades and local beer hall celebra­ millionaire novelas offame for the lucky few , heck of a lot easier. tions only serves to momentarily deflect and misery and poverty for the unlucky many. -George W. Bush attention from the millions of exploited The functional integration among produc­ men, women, and children around the world. tion, trade, global financial markets, and Who Wants to a The challenge of turning the country into transport and speed technologies that make one giant theme park to entertain the rul­ financial transactions instantaneous, have The new millennium has finally ar­ ing class has not been met in all corners of facilitated the re-deployment of capital to rived with Bourbon Street reverie. But the the globe, and the opposition is withering "least-cost" locations that enable exploita­ unsettling triumph represented by ticker away by the minute. More and more coun­ tion on the basis of advantages it will bring tries are donning what William Greider to those wishing to become part of the has called globalization's "golden straight­ "Millionaires R Us Club." Peter McLaren is a professor jacket" of "follow our orders, and we will As global assembly lines increase, and and Ramin Farahmandpur make you rich (someday)"-forced auster­ as speculative and financial capital strikes is a graduate student at the Graduate School of Education ity programs orchestrated by institutions across national borders in commando-like and Information Studies such as the International Monetary Fund assaults ("move in, take the goods, and of the University of California, that dictates what foreign governments move out"), the state continues to experi­ Los Angeles. mayor may not do (2000, p, 14). ence difficulty in managing economic trans­ The text of this article was first presented Despite all the fanfare surrounding actions but has not yet detached itselffrom at the Annual Meeting the promises of free trade, it remains the the infrastructure of corporate imperial­ of the American Educational case that both advanced and developed ism. Transnational corporations and pri­ Research Association, countries have been hurt by globalization. vate financial institutions-Gold Card New Orleans, Louisiana, April 26, 2000. A version of this article will appear Only a few metropolitan centers and select members of the leading worldwide bour­ in an Australian volume social strata have benefited, and it is no geoisie-have formed what Robinson and edited by Bill Cope and Mary Kazantatis secret who these select occupants are. It's Harris (2000) call a "transnational capi­ and sections of this article will also not the case that the poor are next in line to talist clan." And while the emergent global appear in the following articles: Peter become millionaires. That's not part ofthe ca pi talist historic bloc is marked by contra­ McLaren, Aimee M. Carillo-Rowe, Rebecca overall scheme. The success of Regis has dictions in terms of how to achieve regula­ L. Clark, and Philip A. Craft (in press), brought with it his repressed double, the tory order in the current global economy, "Decentering strategies of white racial unemployed worker who returns to visit the national capitals and nation states con­ domination," in Glenn Hudak and Paul Kihn (Eds), Labelling: Politics, Identity, scene of his firing to do some 'firing' of his tinue to reproduce themselves. Home mar­ and Pedagogy, New York: Routledge; Peter own, only this time through the barrel of an kets have not disappeared from the scene McLaren and Jill Pinkney-Pastrana (in automatic rifle as he guns down his ex-boss since they continue to provide ballast for press), "Cuba, Yanquizacion, and the cult and fellow workers. No, the poor are not the imperialist state through ensuring the of Elitin Gonzalez: A view from the next in line to enter free market heaven. general conditions for international pro­ 'Enlightened States, '" International In fact, the poor are completely written duction and exchange. Journal of Qualitative Studies in out of the script; they serve as permanent Liberal democracies like to pretend Education (a special issue on Cuba, edited extras for the background shots for larger that the state is a separate and autono- by Denise Blum and Peter McLaren).

MULTlCULTURAL EDUCATlON 2

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A Notebook on Forging a Revolutionary Politics

mous sphere of activity because that way In fact, self-determining governments only have stolen the election through voter cleans­ they can set up convenient smokescreens get in the way of the goal of transnational ing in his brother J e b' s state of Florida, but against the internal workings of the capi­ corporations, which is "to open all domestic is determined to realize his potential for talist production process. They can also markets, natural resources, builtinfrastruc­ manifest delusion and to exercise a stub­ prevent the staggering exposure of capital­ tures, and labor pools of all societies of the born willingness to give away billions of ism's zero-sum game and hinder our under­ world to foreign transnational control with­ dollars of tax cuts to the wealthiest one standing of the indivious ways in which the out the barrier of self-determining govern­ percent of the population. Bush not only state actually functions to sustain and pro­ ment and people in the way" (McMurtry, lacks moral intelligence, but he serves as mote the capitalist system. Not to mention 1999,p.58). The real agendaoftransnational an understudy for such a lack. He's already the ways in which the state locates blame corporations is, in other words, to create an upstaged Dan Quayle in the 'wasted mind' within individuals (they are too lazy, igno­ anti-welfare capitalism with a human face department, but it remains to be seen what rant, unskilled) rather than within their while drawing attention away from the para­ his boss, Dick Cheney, has in mind for him. conditions of existence (i.e., the value form doxical congeniality of capitalism and its How has the globalization of capital of wealth that is historically specific to repressed underside. fared? The economic performance of indus­ capitalism). Within liberal democracies, The current mind-set of global capital­ trial countries under globalization in the individuals are conveniently held respon­ ism can, in fact, be traced to the Trilateral 1980s and 1990s is much poorer than dur­ sible for their own poverty as blame is Commission of 1973 (composed of the ing the 1950s and 1960s when they oper­ shifted away from the capitalist race to the world's leading corporate CEOs, academ­ ated under a more regulated social-market bottom to see who can prosper with the ics, government officials, etc.), who argued economy (Singh, 2000). Economic growth minimum or lowest standards of social and that there existed "an excess of democracy" as well as GDP growth has been lowered economic justice as well as environmental in the Western world and who advocated and productivity has been cut in half; in protection and sustainability. The blame the legitimacy of hierarchy, coercion, disci­ addition, unemployment has risen dramati­ is always shifted away from the means by pline, secrecy, and deception, as well as the cally in the OECD countries. which surplus-value is created through the non-involvement of a governable democ­ That the United States has fared bet­ internal or dialectical relation that exists racy (McMurtry, 1999). Mutagenic capital­ ter on the issue of unemployment than between labor and capital-that is, away ist values have transmogrified into a social Western European countries cannot be at­ from the way workers are locked into an ethos, making it easier for flim-flam finan­ tributed to the less flexible labor markets internal and antagonistic relation to capital cial ventures to proliferate, breaking the of the latter, nor on the information tech­ in the most alienating and dehumanizing of tenuous accord that has long existed be­ nologies revolution. In the case of Japan ways-and away from the fact that exploita­ tween labor and capital. Adam Smith's and Korea, their periods of fast economic tion is a constitutive feature ofthe capitalist notion of the market as a servant of the growth, poverty reduction, and raises in the production process (Allman, in press). public good through the shared 'wealth of standard oflivingwas under managed trade The globalization of capitalism is not in nations' has achieved the status of a good and capital controls, not laissez-faire evan­ anyway accountable to democratic interest, joke in bad taste. Arching over the blan­ gelism. When Korea, Malaysia, and Indo­ yet its cheerleaders have hidden its diaboli­ dishments ofthe value program ofthe glo­ nesia, for example, liberalized their exter­ cal nature behind the non-sequitur claim bal market is the aerosol figure of George nal capital flows they suffered economic that the free market promotes democracy. 'Dubya' Bush, who is not merely content to meltdowns (Singh, 2000).

SPRING 2001 :I

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Latin American countries that have anteed as a constitutive factor of our de­ inequality the proportions of which stagger liberalized their trading and external capi­ mocracy, so this condition is carefully dis­ the imagination. As Willie Thompson notes: tal regimes have suffered from fall outs and guised as a "voluntary contractual agree­ "The trend is precisely in the opposite direc­ from severe financial crises, including the ment," even though the only alternatives to tion, towards intensified polarization, the peso crisis of 1994-95 in Mexico and the shaking the sweaty palm of the market's concentration of misery, suffering, depriva­ "Samba effect" of 1999 in Brasil. Latin invisible hand are starvation, disease, and tion and hopelessness at the lower end ofthe American countries following the Washing­ death. Liberals and conservatives alike scale, mirrored by exorbitant and unceasing ton consensus have, since the late 1980s, love to heap fulsome praise on the United accumulation [of capital] at the other experienced a long-term growth rate reduc­ States as the world's bastion of freedom pole ... "(1997, pp. 224-225). Whether by in­ tion from 6 percent per annum to 3 percent while ignoring the abysmal disparities creasing the extortion of absolute surplus­ per annum (Singh, 2000). between effort and reward. Marxists know value through the proliferation of maquil­ The battle over free trade is not only otherwise. The only "free" cheese is in the adoras along the U.S.-Mexican frontera, or about profits. It's also about manufacturing mousetrap. increasing relative surplus val ue extortion ideology. Globalization has been a dismal Postmodern theorists recognize these through increasing the productivity oflabor failure for the vast majority of the world's contradictions but are largely unable to and reducing the value oflabor power, capi­ capitalist nations. And yet the corporate develop a counter-hegemonic politics ex­ talism continues to hold living human la­ elite refuse to concede defeat, In fact, they cept by restructing their observations to bor hostage, fetishizing its own commodity are boldly claiming victory and, furthermore, the culture plane and thereby obfuscating logic and valorization process, and recast­ that history is on their side. In a sense they the political economy of real existing capi­ ing the world into its own image. Value­ are correct. But we have to understand that talism. Neil Larsen warns that the medium and the outcome of abstract they are speaking forthemselves. They have labor-binds individuals to its law of mo­ at best, the culturalist account of been victorious. In fact, they've made mil­ tion. Like Ahab, lifelessly thrashing about globalization results in mere descrip­ on the body ofMoby Dick as the White Beast lions. The question remains: At whose ex­ tivism-e.g., the work of Garcia pense? Canelini. At worst---e .g., Baudrillard submerges itself into the icy fathoms of Global capitalism has won the battle or Bhabha-it results in the kind of eternity, we are carried into the future on over ideology hands down. Global capital­ pseudo-theory that simply reads off the backs of our worst nightmare, in a ist monocracy has declared itselfvictorious certain ofthe lateral effects of global­ ghoulish parody of life. Spawned in the over socialist and communist ideologies. ization (e.g., the hybridization ofna­ social universe of capital, our nightmares The latter are being auctioned off at tional cultures or the manipulation chart the course of civilization, illuminated Sotheby's as relics of class struggle from of global opinion through the mass by the dark lamp of history. bygone eras, to be archived in museums dissemination of CNN-type 'news' According to James Petras, "The boom dedicated to democracy's victory over the simulacra) as the fantasmagorical in the U.s. is fueled in part by an exagger­ evil empires spawned by Mr. Marx. For now, sites for its subversion or its eternal ated speculative bubble that is unsustain­ capitalism has succeeded in steering the replication. This is reified thinking able. Stocks are vastly overvalued; savings wheels of history to the far right, to a head­ taken to the extreme of mistaking are negative and the performance of the on collision with the reigning neoliberal the empty shell of a globalized com­ productive economy has no relation to the modity form for the social, human bloc, where postmodernized signposts on paper economy" (2000, p. 16). He further content that it progressively fails to the streets declare the triumph of privati­ notes that it is clear "that one quarter ofthe contain. (2000, p. 4) zation over socialization, individualism capitalist world cannot prosper when three over collectivism, life-style identity poli­ The social and political antagonisms quarters are in deep crisis-the laws of tics over class politics, cynicism over hope, haunting capitalism today are manifold capitalist accumulation cannot operate in and barbarism over civilization. and can be discerned by utilizing the optic such restricted circumstances" (2000, p. 16). Capitalism has become our ticket to of historical materialist critique. On the the gaudy world of tinsel dreams and chlo­ one hand, we witness firsthand the vast roformed hope, to a subterranean public profusion of material resources able to sus­ sphere where American Psycho replaces Che tain the livelihood ofthe six billion inhab­ Guevara as the icon of the postmodern itants of the earth, and provide basic neces­ The fall of the Berlin Wall and the revol ution. Under the beguiling eye of''high sities including full employment, housing, cataclysmic social and political implosions stakes" financial investors, a two-tiered and heath care. On the other hand, the grow­ in Russia and Eastern European countries laboring class has been created, with low­ ing bipolarization and the over-accumula­ coincides with the premature "end-of-ide­ skill, low-paid service workers toiling along­ tion of capital by the new breed of opulent ology" proclamations and correlative self­ side a small segment of highly skilled and gangster capitalists from reigning global canceling pronouncements about the end of well-paid workers. For the millions ofpeople mafiacracies has reduced the odds of surviv­ history hailed by conservative social theo­ whose lives remain commodified and regu­ ing hunger, poverty, malnutrition, famine, rists such as Francis Fukuyama. In classic lated in the charnel house of "fast-track" and disease for a growing segment of work­ red-bating style, Fukuyamahas announced capital accumulation and its seductive com­ ing-class men, women, and children who are the end of revolutionary movements and panion, consumer ideology, the clearly vis­ now joining the ranks ofthe urban ghettos the demise of socialism altogether. How­ ible contradictions within capitalist social and global slum dwellers in their casas de ever, in their mad dash towards capitalist and economic relations of production have carton all over the world. We are not talking utopia, the growing lumpen-proletariats in become too obvious to be recognized. They only about Calcutta and Rio de Janeiro, but ex-socialist European countries, drunk on have been naturalized as common sense. our own urban communities from New York the prospect of get-rich-quick schemes and After all, the buying and selling of human to Los Angeles. of reaping enormous windfalls, are stum­ , lives as commodities-the creation of what Instead ofcelebrating growing economic bling over the corpse of Lenin and learning

Marx called "wage slaves"-must be guar- democracy worldwide, we are facing growing the lessons of privatization and the empty ! L-______J MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION " Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. promises ofmarket socialism the hard way. logic taken to the nauseating heights of comet comes crashing from its heavenly Of course, Russia is not the only country actually blaming the Holocaust on the Jews heights, smack into the swirling ocean of being deceived by capitalism's promises of themselves and blaming the victims of so­ economic uncertainty. prosperity. Thousands of workers in coun­ called Marxist regimes on Jewish political Teachers are told that they are enter­ tries whose dictators borrowed from the theory. The Cold War may be over, but sci­ ing a new post-industrial, high-tech infor­ World Trade Organization-and who ence has a way of returning, time and time mation era that will usher in a gilded age of stealthily pocketed most of the profits­ again, to the scene ofhistory's greatest crimes prosperity for themselves and their stu­ are suffering through imposed austerity and persecuting its victims all over again. dents. As James Petras (2000) notes, how­ programs in which they have been made to ever, this characterization of current eco­ assume repayment of international loans. nomic conditions is patently false, since If the postmodernists want to brag about computer industries represent less than the disappearance ofthe U.S. working class Despite the collapse of any significant three percent ofthe economy. The electronic and celebrate the new culture of lifestyle opposition movements to neo-liberal capi­ superhighway permits financial capital to consumption, then they need to acknowl­ talism, educators have been encouraged to move with the speed of greased lightning. edge that the so-called disappearing work­ be optimistic as they navigate their way As capitalism strives to "annihilate ... space ing class in the U.S. is reappearing again in through the first precarious stage of the with time" (Marx, [1858] 1993, p. 539), it the assembly lines of China, Brasil, Indo­ nesia, and elsewhere, where there exist fewer impediments to U.S. profit-making (Zizek, 2000). The world's greatest exponent of class struggle, Karl Marx, still remains under attack (in itselfnot such a surprisingobser­ vation). The opponent grabbing the head­ we are saying certainly is no longer a secret. lines this time is a prominent spokesper­ son for evolutionary psychology. Maintain­ What is new is the stage-managed resignation that has ing that the Talmud and Tanakh has, over the centuries, ordered Jews to adopt an accompanied the news. When we learn that Latino unconscious eugenics program by insisting that they practice endogamy in order to students are twice as likely as African-Americans and remain racially pure, California State University, Long Beach professor Kevin three times as likely as whites to drop out of high MacDonald has recently and infamously argued that Jewish emphasis on group co­ school. .. the information registers but somehow operation has resulted in Jews having sig­ nificantly higher IQs than other ethnic groups (Ortega, 2000). Used by publicity-hungry British his­ torian David Irving as an expert witness in new millennium. Even though the contra­ displaces labor in North America while a libel lawsuit against Professor Deborah dictions of capitalism abound, as the home­ increasing exploitation in Latin America. Lipstadt and Penguin books (acase in which less stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the In this predominately financial-industrial Irving claimed that there were no gas cham­ affluent on the crowded streets of our urban economy, government leaders in league with bers at Auschwitz, and, fortunately, a case megalopolises, teachers still cling to the privateers and laissez-faire evangelists like that he lost), MacDonald not only argued Malthusian dream ofliving in the best of all to hype the information age-era stuff, be­ that Judaism is an evolutionary group strat­ possible worlds. Such engineered optimism cause in doing so it is easier for them to egy used to discipline genes as part of a and its accompanying incapacity for dissent generate false optimism about the future, social program of increasing Jewish intel­ has helped capitalism to survive for decades and to draw attention away from the fact ligence beyond other groups and thus en­ through a low-intensity democracy, driven that prosperity is largely confined to specu­ suring group survival (a strategy that he by pitiless bureaucrats who provide just lative-financial and real estate sectors of claims was copied by the Nazis in their enough equality to keep people from taking the capitalist class at a time when re­ philosophy of Aryan superiority developed to the streets in acts of civil disobedience. trenchment by the state is draining re­ as a defense against the Jews), he also But even this unstated alliance among sources from the poor and redirecting them accused Marxism of being a subversive ruling interests is breaking down, as recent to already bulging pockets of the rich. Jewish -con trolled intellectual movement anti-WTO events in Seattle and Washing­ By creating a fac;ade of information era responsible for untold deaths: "In the 20th ton D.C. attest. While Jean-Bertrand utopianism through carnival-like huckster­ century many millions of people have been Aristide can recently note that "history ism that accompanies the corporate inva­ killed in the attempt [by Jews] to establish moves in waves-we cannot always live on sion ofour classrooms, calls for educators to Marxist societies based on the ideal of the crests" (2000, p. 56), the planet remains be converted into McTeachers, and a com­ complete economic and social leveling, and ill-prepared for the im pact that the crisis of puter technology millenarianism that as­ millions of people have been killed as a globalization is currently having on the sures salvation through Internet conscious­ result of the failure of Jewish assimilation already poverty-stricken. If the situation ness, potential criticism can be siphoned into European societies" (MacDonald, cited already appears out of control, what will away from the fact that we live in an era in Ortega, 2000, p. 14). happen when we face the Tsunami that will marked by monopolistic giants, greedy con­ Here we see both bad science and racist smother vast populations when capital's glomerates, snake oil privateers, and selec-

SPRING 2001 5

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. tive protectionists who support massive other and the familiar coupling of the two cation can guarantee linguistic mi­ state subsidies, the selling-off of public en­ words is really just a form of linguistic­ norities a better future, as educators terprises to private monopolies, welfare for hence ideological-mystification. We guess like William Bennett promise, why the rich, domestic and overseas multi-bil­ that rationale is: Ifwe keep hearing the term do the majority of Black Americans, lion-dollar money laundering, arms indus­ "capitalist democracy" frequently enough, whose ancestors have been speak­ try domination ofthe export sector, and the we will begin to believe that the two terms ing English for over two hundred placing of key state institutions under the are inseparable and unconsciously strip the years, find themselves still relegated influence of financial sectors of civil soci­ terms oftheir association with domination. to the ghettos? (2000, p. 2) ety-in short, an era populated by capital­ In fact, the two terms need to be torn In the midst ofthe widening scenario of ist Overworlders who support the creation apart, not yolked together. Maybe another immigrant bashing, it is not difficult to make of a social order in which class warfare runs adjective needs to precede the term "de­ the case that democracy has been discounte­ amok (Petras, 2000). mocracy." Maybe "socialist democracy" is a nanced, its attempts at civic renewal and Teachers are also taught that the more appropriate coupling for those who invigoration of the public sphere even ren­ Internet will "equalize" society. That is yet wish to make democracy live up to its egali­ dered detumescent. Two types of reactions another myth. Borders are not transcended tarian ideals. But since we have been predominate. The first is to engage in a half­ but reinscribed. The Internet is supposed enculturated throughout the Cold War to revolution through "reformist" efforts, under­ to dissolve distance through simultaneity. get a headache even at the mere mention of written by a teleological belief in the evolu­ Yet, as Randy Martin notes, information the word "socialism," it is unlikely we will tion of democracy through the free market. and communication technology has created ever see the topic of "socialist democracy" The second is to engage in political activism a spatial unevenness "characterized by appear with any mounting regularity in the that cuts to the heart ofneoliberalism, corpo­ densities of access and vast exclusions" journals devoted to educational reform, at rate control of the schooling process, and (1999, p. 10). Such technology reinscribes least not anytime soon. capitalist relations of exploitation. While the boundaries--especiallywhen those bound­ California is often a precursor to the former beggars the praxis ofcritical struggle, aries occur within those strata with "high dominant scenarios of U.S. futurity. It is the latter lacks a coherent national and inter­ regime status" (1999, p. 10). Martin notes the state that passes propositions (i.e., national strategy. importantly that the "info-poor and hidden 187,209,227) that routinely are given birth Neo-liberalism lingers on with the le­ masses are a spatial effect of technology through a marriage of political Monday­ thal stubborness ofspent uranium in a U.S. and not merely those next in the queue to morning-quarterbacks in the form of rich military armor-piercing shell. With the ex­ get on-line" (1999, p. 10). businessmen like Ron Unz, and manic, ception of the Seattle and Washington Of course, the marketization, privatiz­ mean-spirited, right-wing populists such antiglobalization campaigns, opposition to ation, and neo-liberalization of schooling is as Pat Buchanan, Peter Wilson, and their neoliberalism has been muted, thanks to functionally advantageous to the conditions ilk. California's political initiatives often the polished statecraft of Clinton and his described above. Although it has been serve as political harbingers for a politics successful cheerleading for an unfettered smuggled in under cover of a revival of the that will eventually spread throughout other free market, under cover, we might add, of democratic imperative of privatization, states like a runaway contagion, mixing a Third Way detente between Keynesian schooling has been reduced to a sub-sector racism, sexism, bourgeois historical amne­ economics and ultra-capitalism. Opposi­ of the economy and continues to provide sia, class arrogance, and homophobia into tion has also been blunted through the ballast for existing discourses and prac­ a political cocktail as wickedly dangerous efforts and cagey triumphalism of New tices of class exploitation and white su­ as any biological weapon invented by the Right apologists of the free market. The premacist heteronormative patriarchy Pentagon. colonial apotheosis of New Right heroes (Hill, 1999; Cole, 1998; Rikowski, 1997). California is a state that generates a such as Pat Buchanan, Donald Trump, What we are saying certainly is no longer lot oftension around educational reform­ Jesse Ventura, and George W. Bush, and a secret. What is new is the stage-managed a tension that can be traced largely to mind the brain-stunting banality of their politi­ resignation that has accompanied the news. numbing ethnocentrism, Anglo elitism, and cal platforms, has met with a lack of any When we learn that Latino students are social frameworks of perception and classi­ real spirited opposition among the educa­ twice as likely as African-Americans and fication that are inextricably connected to tionalleft. But this is partly due to lack of three times as likely as whites to drop out of the current climate ofLatino phobia. This is any rival oppositions to global capitalism high school, or that, in 1997, 25.3 percent of not hard to understand in an antagonistic either nationally or on a world scale. For the Latinos aged 16 to 24 dropped out of high geopolitical arena where scapegoating im­ foreseeable future the left has painted it­ school compared with 13.4 percent of Mri­ migrants from Mexico is a commonplace self into a corner. But it can only truck with can Americans and 7.6 percent of whites and accepted practice. California is also pessimism for so long. (McQueen, 2000), the information registers where the English Only movement is gain­ but somehow ceases to enrage us. Part ofthe ing momentum. as reason for this is that exploitation through Donaldo Macedo captures the absur­ the capitalist marketplace has been so natu­ dity of the English Only proponents who The recent custody battle surrounding ralized and the pauperization ofthe state so argue that English is the most effective Elilin Gonzalez, the young Cuban boy, re­ dehistoricized and depoliticized that we have language for citizens of the United States, sulted in a gaudy Cold War side show that learned to accept a certain amount ofexploi­ and that it is the language that will best amounted to little more than a continuous tation and accompanying forms of racism guarantee a successful future: advertising display for the virtues ofcapi tal­ and sexism and homophobia. We feel that it ism. The protagonists in this case were the First, if English is the most effective is an inevitable part ofliving in a developed Miami Mafia, who argued vociferously that educational language, how can we capitalist democracy. explain why over 60 million Ameri­ Elilin should be kept in the United States What we fail to grasp is that capitalism cans are illiterate or functionally illit­ with his great uncle, Lazaro, and Janet Reno, and democracy actually work against each erate? Second, if English Only edu- who represented the U.S. government.

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION 6

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Miami Mafia functioned collec­ Petras, 1999). Who do you think owns most corporate revenues and profits, on the one tively and cohesively as an integrated anti­ ofthe U.S. mass media? Who are the Lords hand, is perceived as good and to be ap­ Communist lobby, proselytizing against of the Marketplace? proved and what decreases corporate rev­ Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution. By A question never asked by the Miami­ enues and profits is bad and to be con­ counter-posing capitalist values of free­ based adherents ofthis market theodicy is demned. He claims that this prescriptive dom and democracy to the evil empire of the price one pays to live in a truly "free and duality of Good and Bad is no less absolute Cuba, the Miami Mafia functions as a cult efficient market." In other words, what is and binding than religious commandments. of capitalism. Their temple of worship is the price that one pays for not selling one's Our argument is that the "free market" the high-tech retail mega-mall bathed in labor to a master? For those who do not decrees absolute commandments of non­ the perfumed images ofHavana in the early follow this fundamentalist market theol­ intervention. The "invisible hand," to which 1950s. In their fervent defense of the ogy and its accompanying declaration of all alike must submit, that lies at the "American way of life" the Miami Mafia human freedom, misery, and starvation center ofmarket command and that perme­ participates in various "ideological" prac­ result. The Miami Mafia fails to question a ates the sociocultural orders in which we tices that uncritically support the "furies of claim made by philosopher John McMurtry are nestled, is, in reality, the bloc fortunes private interest." In fact, its anti-commu­ (1998), that "freedom" in capitalist democ­ of several hundred billionaires who own as nist declarations constitutes a type ofbrain­ racy lies within the moral commandments much wealth as almost half the globe's washing that is awash in every corner of ofthe market's rule, in particular the com- population put together, the interlocking United States society, from school assem­ blies, to television programming, to maga­ zine advertisements, to the local gossip at the corner store. Such values, democratic or otherwise, rarely stand alone. In this instance, they are conditioned by worldwide corporations who exercise dominant control over what is believed by the exiles to be a "free" and "open" market need to recognize ... that there is no positive where producers and sellers compete on an value that can be given to the social position known equal playing field. Lost in this equation is the fact that these corporate oligopolies­ as whiteness. The term cannot be recovered, or given also known as emergent supranational a positive spin. White people need to disidentify institutions-are linked to a global social structure of accumulation that works to entirely with enforce economic, political, and cultural norms. These "capitalist" norms have be­ come the regulating mechanisms of what has been called "the New World Order." mand that no one is to interfere with its directorates of multinational corporations, Elite-based polyarchies operating as a smooth, unfettered movement. and global intrafirm trading empires that transnationalized state work to consolidate The anti-Castro cultists seek their dominate the market's base of supply and ideological-cultural practices-and it is the salvation in capitalist market doctrine and demand. These ruling positions of the glo­ combined effect ofthese practices that is the their undiminished and militant faith in bal market hierarchy participate in a regu­ real wizard behind the glittering fac;:ade of the frictionless character ofits market laws. lating paradigm of mind and reality in Uncle Sam's OZ (see Robinson, 1998). Such a position removes the inconvenience which the ultimate value system support­ We would be deluded to think that the of having to undress such laws so as to ing democracy is comprised by the laws of missionaries of the New World Order are reveal their inner workings and to evaluate the market, which seemingly exist prior to limited to business oligarchs or right-wing the consequences of such laws in the lives of and independent of society. In other words, pugalists and their rhetorical ejaculations. millions of poor and suffering children. It they ARE the laws of nature and of God In fact, the New World Order has an un­ excuses them from the burden of insight (McMurtry, 1998). stated agreement with many liberal demo­ into how the United States, as global The value system of the market doc­ crats who have been in bed with anti-com­ imperialism's alpha male, rapaciously en­ trine before which Miami's anti-Castro munists and opponents ofthe far left since forces those laws. The received doctrine of cultists kneel in slack-jawed reverence sup­ the early days ofthe Cold War when numer­ the market with its principles of classical ports the efforts offree marketeers, oillion­ ous U.S. and European writers were only market theory and its market value pro­ aires, and global carpetbaggers to harass, too eager to denounce socialism, commu­ gram are upheld at any price, even if it to torture, and to murder union and commu­ nism, or anything their pro-imperialist means dismissing people as disposable nity organizers who fight for legislative masters considered "anti-American." Ap­ and, as McMurtry notes, even if it means protection of citizen rights. Do these Cult­ pearing on the CIA payroll, writing for CIA­ accepting that people will starve to death if ists for Capital know that they are support­ sponsored journals, or working for the CIA­ they are not hired for profitable use in an ing a value system that is purposively erod­ run Congress for Cultural Freedom were oversupplied labor market. ing job security and protection from haz­ such notables as Isaiah Berlin, Daniel Bell, McMurtry describes capitalism's value ardous working conditions? Czeslow Milosz, George Orwell, Sidney program as informed by a totalitarian The Miami Mafia has attempted to Hook, Hannah Arendt, Dwight MacDonald, master discourse in which the ultimate inject its anti-Castro invective into a pro­ Robert Lowell, Stephen Spender, Melvin vehicle ofvalue is the corporate person, and American discourse without revealing that Lasky, Mary McCarthy, and Irving Kristol, the ultimate measure of value is money the source of their hatred towards Castro's to name just a few (see Saunders, 1999; profitability. In other words, what increases Cuba is the fact that Castro took away their

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. class privileges, their property ownership, ness-a non-antagonistic society in which offered the indentured servants a place in and their accompanying ability to exploit there is room for all manner of cultural the corporate infrastructure ofthe planto­ the poverty-stricken who labored under the communities, lifestyles, religions, and cracy where they were given the role of iron fist of dictator Fulgencio Batista. sexual orientations" (2000, p. 39). Zizek policing the behavior of the Africans. This Castro will never be forgiven for closing reveals that this Sameness relies on an also included the right to citizenship and a down the casinos and brothels and nation­ antagonistic split. "white" identity. The theologian, Thandeka alizing all business, depriving the UB. We believe that this split results from (1999), identifies this as a form of "white Mafia and U.S. based multinationals of a the labor-capital relation sustained by classism." Offering white identity to inden­ profi table cash cow. They will never forgive white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. tured Europeans allowed them to identify Castro for surviving the scores of assassi­ This is why we need to join Noel Ignatiev, "racially" with the plantation owners. In , nation attempts carried out by the CIA. David Roediger, and others in calling for the addition, it manufactured a class illusion i In their paeans directed at Elian, the abolition of whiteness. We need to recog­ by having poor whites identifY with the . miracle child, the anti-Castro cultists de­ nize (as we have tried to make clear in our class interests of plantation owners with­ flect attention from the 40 year economic work over the years) that there is no posi­ out enjoying any of their economic privi­ war waged against the people of Cuba. The tive value that can be given to the social leges. Eventually, white racism allowed embargo imposed by the United States position known as whiteness. The term poor whites to blame Africans for their denies food, medicine and other supplies cannot be recovered, or given a positive economic hardships while harmonizing the whose lack the cultists rejoice in pointing spin. White people need to disidentify en­ class conflict between plantation owners out in their tirades against the conditions tirely with the white race. To seek any kind and poor whites. While the African slaves of poverty in Cuba. We find it interesting of identity with a white race-{)r political were fully aware that they were victims of that Senators such as Trent Lott and Lonnie detente-is ill-conceived at best. white racism, poor Europeans failed to rec­ Mack protested the Immigration and N atu­ As Theodore Allen (1994, 1997) notes, ognize that they were the victims of white ralization Service (INS) raid to reunite the social function of whiteness is social classism. Elian with his father yet supported efforts control, a practice which has colonial ori­ By granting racial/corporate member­ to triple the size of the INS police forces. gins that can be traced back to the assault ship to the European bond -laborer who had Surely they know that INS raids occur all upon tribal affinities, customs, laws, and the responsibility of preventing rebellion the time-especially against undocu­ institutions ofAfricans, native Americans, against the dominant center, the corporate mented immigrants. and Irish by EnglishlBritish and Anglo­ state that emerged out of the plantocracy What is clear is that the Miami Mafia American colonialism. Such insidious prac­ was able to survive and flourish. Poor white does not want a normalization of relations tices of social control reduce all members of laborers were offered membership in the between the U.S. and the Cuban govern­ oppressed groups to one undifferentiated corporate plantocracy in order to control the ment since the future of Cuba must, in their social status beneath that of any member subalterned non-white labor force. Whites view, be linked to their right-wing organiza­ of the colonizing population. With the rise were thus given a double role: as workers tions in Miami. The U.S. left has largely of the abolitionist movement, racial and as white people. White laborers were abandoned the Elian saga to a Manichean typologies, classification systems, and given membership at the center of the cor­ struggle between those who argue for family criteriologies favoring whiteness and de­ porate plantation structure while still serv­ values (e.g., return Elian to his father) ver­ monizing blackness as the lowest status ing as a marginalized labor force. By using sus those who vehemently oppose commu­ within humanity's "great chain of being" whiteness as a means of guaranteeing alle­ nism (Eli an must remain in the U.S. be­ became widespread in order to justify and giance, the plantocracy secured its hege­ cause in Cuba's supposedly totalitarian re­ legitimize the slavery of Africans and en­ mony through white solidarity and the in­ gime he will lose his autonomy and become sure the contribution of lifetime chattel tegration of labor relations (wage labor, a member of the group mind). Lost in the bond-servitude. prison labor, etc.) into the white confraternal public debate was the central role of capital­ White racial identity found its way society or what Martinot calls the ism as a social relation of exploitation and into Euro-American consciousness at the "overarching white social machine" (2000, an instrument of social control. end of 17th century during a period when p. 50 ). Whiteness or white solidarity be­ the Southern plantocracy recognized that came an "administrative apparatus" ofthe African slaves were a more profitable ven­ slave/class economy that served as a "ma­ ture than indentured servants who were trix of social cohesion" that located whites Spurred on by a lack of opposition to primarily from impoverished European "in a structural relation to each other" the race, class, gender, and class exploita­ backgrounds. Thus, by the beginningofthe (2000, p. 52). tion that has been bolstered by neo-liberal 1700s, half of the labor force consisted of Whiteness became such a powerful policies worldwide, multicultural educa­ slave labor. social/corporate social position that class tion continues to defang its most emanci­ While there existed two million slave struggle often fell short of actually chal­ patory possibilities by calling for diversity owners in the South by 1860, 75 percent of lengingthe basis of the corporate structure in isolation from an interrogation of its slaves belonged to 8,000 plantation owners because such a structure was synonymous center of sameness known as the hegemony (representing 7 percent of the total slave with profitability and allegiance. The white of whiteness. It is this sameness that is the owners). Moreover, the economic power of working class-in order to become a class in distillate of colonialism, and the ether of the small yet powerful planter class en­ itself and for itself-had, tragically, to ex­ white lies that spikes the very air we breathe. abled them to wield political power over ist in collaboration with white capital. Slavoj Zizek has pointed out that in the five million Europeans who did not own White corporate society functioned as the Left's call for new multiple political slaves. ruling class with respect to the nonwhite subjectivities (e.g., race, class, feminist, In order to fracture intraclass con­ people that it exploited. Martinot further religious), the Left asserts its exact oppo­ sciousness between European indentured points out that because white workers in site-"an underlying all-pervasive same- servants and African slaves, the plantocracy the United States have a different relation

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION B

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to black workers (since the former belong to ture; there is youth culture and drug exploits and degrades them. For those the corporate state) and because the pri­ culture and queer culture. There is people, whiteness does not bring free­ mary relation between white workers and no such thing as white culture. dom and dignity. It is a substitute for capital is not mainly across the means of Shakespeare was not white; he was freedom and dignity. It is for those production but though a social administra­ English. Mozart was not white; he who have nothing else. Its abolition tive hierarchy whose purpose is to admin­ was Austrian. Whiteness has noth­ is in the interests of all those who ister those 'Others' who exist outside the ing to do with culture and everything want to be free, "whites" no less than to do with social position. Without the corporate state, the idea of working-class others. privileges attached to it, there would struggle aimed at the overthrow of class be no white race, and fair skin would Ignatiev (1998a) writes that identifi­ society "has never made sense to the white have the same significance as big cation with white privilege reconnects working class in the United States" (2000, feet. (1998a, p. 199) whites to relations of exploitation. The p. 56) whose resistance to class exploita­ answer to this plight, notes Ignatiev, is for tion rarely attempted to undermine profit­ Ignatiev (1998b) also warns: whites to cease to exist as whites. Whites ability or contested its legitimacy. This The white race is a club, in which "must commit suicide as whites to come helps to explain why, in Martinot's words, "Marxism has never extended itselfbeyond trade union consciousness because it was never able to fathom the structure of white solidarity by which the white working-class was constructed" (2000, p. 56). Mrican Americans today are sometimes granted the status ofrecognition ofblack worker but only as "adjuncts to white hegemony" or as multiculturalism remains "white-by-association" (2000, p. 56). The initial objective of white racism permeated by the capitalist mode of production was not to construct racial boundaries so through structures of class, race, gender, and sexual much as to maintain class relations. Rac­ ism was instrumental in protecting Virginia's class structure by ensuring that poor whites and blacks would not recognize their common class interests. In short, rac­ ism was an instrument for maintaining people are normally enrolled at birth, alive as workers or youth or women or art­ and reproducing the plantocracy's property without their consent. Most mem­ ists or whatever other identity will let them relations. Of course, what transpired bers go through life following the stop being the miserable, petulant, subor­ throughout the brutal history of European rules and accepting the benefits of dinated creatures they now are and become and United States imperialism and colo­ membership without thinking about freely associated, developing human be­ nialism was that Mrican Americans be­ the costs. Many times, they are not ings" (1998a, p. 200). He goes on to say: came literally denounced and relegated to conscious ofits existence-until it is the bottom tier of a social hierarchy that challenged, when they rally militantly The task at hand is not to convince more whites to oppose "racism"; there functioned like a caste system with Mrican to its defense. Immigrants to the are already enough "antiracists" to Americans being positioned as "untouch­ United States, coming to the club do the job. The task is to make it ables." The brutal torture and murder of later in life, are often more conscious impossible for anyone to be white. Mrican slaves and the history of racism than natives of the white race as a social rather than a natural forma­ What would white people have to do against Mrican Americans up to the present to accomplish this? They would have day constitutes one of the world's most tion. The club works like any exclu­ sive club, in that membership does to break the laws of whiteness so shameful legacies. Another of the world's not require that all members be ac­ flagrantly as to destroy the myth of most shameful historical legacies involves tive participants, merely that they white unanimity. They would have the genocidal practices of Europeans and defer to the prejudices of others. to respond to every manifestation of Euro-Americans in the massacre of North The United States, like every white supremacy as if it were di­ America's indigenous peoples. While elimi­ capitalist society, is composed of rected against them. (1998a, p. 202) nating capitalism will not bring about the masters and slaves. The problem is Although the ideology ofwhiteness needs end of racism, it is certainly a necessary that many of the slaves think they to be vigorously critiqued, this task only step in that direction. are part ofthe master class because partially fulfills the requirements for anti­ Today "whiteness" has become natu­ they partake of the privileges of the capitalist and anti-racist struggles. What ralized as part of our "commonsense" real­ white skin. The abolitionists' aim is is needed further is an acute recognition of ity. Whiteness is not a unified, homoge­ not racial harmony but the abolition how the ideology ofwhiteness contributes to neous culture but a social position. As of the white race, as part of the the reproduction of class divisions-par­ Ignatiev comments: mobilization ofour side for class war. There are many poor whites in the ticularly divisions between working-class There is nothing positive about white United States. In fact, the majority of Anglo-Americans and ethnic minorities­ identity. As James Baldwin said, "As the poor are white. Whiteness does in order to reinforce existing property rela­ long as you think you're white, there's not exempt them from exploitation, tions. no hope for you." Whiteness is not a it reconciles them to it. It holds down Along with efforts to abolish the white culture. There is Irish culture and more whites than blacks, because it race (not white people, there is, of course, Italian culture and American cul- makes them feel part of a system that a distinct difference) we must support ef-

SPRING 2001 9

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. forts to abolish capital. While it may be of a moral victory as teachers begin to as human beings through meeting the needs l true that the globalization ofcapital brings exercise their voices of dissent (Kincheloe & of others, and therefore the greater the in its wake the trappings of democracy, it Steinberg, 1997). diversity of our society, the more fulfilling is important not to mistake these seduc­ the society would be for all (Allman, in tive trappings for the real thing. As Perry press). Marx believed that diversity in­ Anderson notes: creases our potential to enrich the quality Liberals Who Champion Difference of our lives. (Through September 1999, BBC Democracy is indeed now more wide­ News Online ran a cyberpoll to discover spread than ever before. But it is By focusing on the margins rather than "the thinker ofthe millennium." Thousands also thinner-as ifthe more univer­ the hegemonic center of white supremacist sally available it becomes, the less capitalist patriarchy, mainstream multi­ of people worldwide participated and Karl active meaning it retains. The United culturalists have airbrushed the most vex­ Marx was ranked number one, followed by States itselfis the paradigmatic ex­ ing dilemmas in the liberal humanist call Albert Einstein.) ample: a society which less than half for diversity and have left uncontested the Revolutionary multiculturalism em­ of the citizens vote, 90 percent of ever-present discourses of liberal democ­ phasizes the collective experiences of congressmen are re-elected, and the racy and the workability of capital-dis­ marginalized people in the context of their price of office is cash by the million. courses that naturalize events so that their political activism and social mobilization. (1992, p. 356) outcome no longer seems open to debate. By We distinguish revolutionary multi­ culturalism from the dominant ideologies At this point we would like to mention championing the values of a well-tempered of multiculturalism which seek to legiti­ that we don't want those who advocate the democracy, liberal multiculturalists have mize the social order through racial har­ abolition of whiteness or who engage in also left unchallenged the social relations mony and a national identity based on the criticism of white social, cultural, and po­ of production. "Americanization" of marginalized cul­ litical practices to be acknowledged as part Latent in the spectrality that has been tures. As a framework for developing a ofa "white movement." We don't want to see disclosed by the discursive and representa­ pedagogical praxis, revolutionary multi­ academic departments dedicated to white tional practices of mainstream multicul­ culturalism opens up social and political studies, nor do we wish the burgeoning turalismis the continuing advance ofwhite spaces for the oppressed to challenge the literature on whiteness to serve as yet an­ supremacist logic and social practices. various forms of class, race, and gender other vehicle used by white scholars to Ghosted into the ideas of mainstream oppression that are produced and repro­ dominate the academic scene. At the same multiculturalists is a promiscuous fasci­ duced by dominant social relations. time, we believe that scholarship that fo­ nation with difference and epistemological We believe that by using their lived cuses on the intricacies of white hegemony exoticisms and the return ofthe erstwhile experiences, histories, and narratives as is exceedingly important, provided that such eclipsed Other. Mainstream multicultur­ tools for social struggle (McLaren, 1995), studies also are part of a larger anti-racist alism remains permeated by the capitalist subaltern groups can interpret and recon­ and anti-capitalist project dedicated to the mode of production through structures of struct their oppressive social conditions abolition of the white race. Ifwhite educa­ class, race, gender, and sexual domination. into meaningful social and political action tors wish to transform themselves into (McLaren, 1995; 1997). Revolutionary agents of social justice (and we would en­ multicultural pedagogy encourages mar­ courage them to do so) then we suggest that Marxist Multiculturalism ginalized groups and communities to forge they accomplish this as Polish, Irish, Cana­ political alliances, and in so doing to eradi­ Marxist multiculturalists recognize dian, English, or French, etc., and not by cate cultural homogeneity by interpreting identifying themselves with the vile his­ the political primacy of making structural and (re)constructing their own history changes in the larger social system while torical fiction known as the white race. (McLaren, 1995). As part of a concerted fighting the ability of capital to re-absorb Radical educators are becoming fed up effort of anti-capitalist struggle, revolu­ reform efforts within its own commodity with white lies. They see through them. tionary multiculturalism seeks to estab­ logic. Consequently, many Marxist multi­ They are beginning to attach a language to lish social and economic equality in con­ culturalists see the need for a direct action them and are starting to theorize the issues trast to the conservative and liberal ideol­ politics centered around equality, anti-rac­ more completely, and more deeply. Are ogy of "equal opportunity" that masks the ism, and a politics of difference. This is i decorous shifts towards decentralization existing unequal distribution of power and decidedly not a politics of piecemeal incre­ rigorous academic standards, multicul: wealth at the heart of capitalist society. ments. It is a revolutionary praxis for the turalism, teacher accountability, and pa­ A revolutionary m ulticultural curricu- present that we refer to as "revolutionary rental choice supposed to fool anyone? Have 1um in the classroom encourages students multiculturalism." For those who imperi­ recent attempts to camouflage the deep to interrogate the multiple meanings of ously dismiss Marx as an irrelevant figure assumptions of terms such as "account­ race, class, gender, and sexuality in a to the debate over the future ofmulticultural ability" so frequently bruited about by neo­ postmodern society which playfully and society, or who are determined to believe liberal pundits these days, effectively seductively inverts and reverses the true that his vision of communism was similar blinded teachers to the protofascist ele­ meaning of social equality. In our view, to those gloomy gray photos of robotized ments of the New Right gospellers and free revolutionary multiculturalism has the po­ factory workers in the plants of the former market evangelists? Are teachers fooled by tential ofpressuring democracy to live up to Soviet Union, they should try reading Marx. such aerosol terms as "empowerment" that its name by putting bourgeois liberal egali­ Marx believed that it was possible to create are shouted as much in the board rooms of tarianism on the witness stand of history. a society based on social relations that corporations as they are in teacher educa­ Cruz (1996) argues that we must refuse the would not only help to meet one another's tion programs? Teachers are no fools, and entrapment ofthe empty promises ofbour­ needs, but that would foster a desire to do they are not to be fooled with. While we geois democracy by might inhabit a period of political defeat at so. Furthermore, Marx believed that we can the ballot box, we find ourselves on the cusp only fully realize our individual potential

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION 10

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. · .. bringing into political discourse the Neither do we support front organiza­ under conditions not oftheir own making. promises dangled in the ideology of a tions of specialized movements but foresee We must continue to attack the re­ longer equality enshrined at the core a model in which various groups indepen­ stricted Western bourgeois character of En - of bourgeois liberal democracy, by dently address issues and create new dis­ lightenment universalism but to attack uni­ giving groups a sense of place in courses and forms of mobilization. This versalism itself is not only foolish but politi­ society and in history, by offering the would take place within an overall form of cally dangerous. Bruce Robbins is correct comfort that comes (tendentiously) inter-group and inter-ethnic solidarity. But when he asserts that all universal stan­ in being able to say something about this would not be a mechanical coalition of dards are in some way provisional. In other who they are, by attempting to re­ diverse groups brought together as a broad­ words, they deal with "provisional agree­ think morally and reconstruct insti­ tutionally the meanings behind egali­ based historical bloc, with each group's goal ments arrived by particular agents" (1999, tarianism, and by insisting that social representing an equal strategic priority. p. 74). He goes on to maintain that universal power be truly empowering, enhanc- We follow Boris Kagarlitsky in advocating standards "are provided in a situation of i ing, and protecting for all. (pp. 32-33) for a "hierarchy of strategic priorities but at unequal power, and they are applied in a the same time a real equality of people in situation of unequal power" (1999, p. 74). Here, we follow Joel Kovel in struggling the movement" (2000, p. 71). He articu­ There is no such thing as a clean universal­ not only against economic conditions but lates the struggle as follows: ism that is not tainted by power and interest also against the delimiting of the self by of some sort. Robbins concludes that "all capital's conversion of labor power into a We must realize our ecological project, commodity. Steadfastness must be exer­ cised while challenging bureaucratic ratio­ nalization, possessive individualism, and consumerist desire. As Kovel notes: "It fol­ lows that capital must be fought and over­ come, not simply at the micro level but as it inhabits and infests everyday life through a critical pedagogy is clearly the structures of bureaucratic rationaliza­ tion and consumerist desire. However, capi­ a necessary yet insufficient condition for tal cannot be overcome unless it is replaaed, at the level of the subject, with an alterna­ tive notion" (1998, p. 109). It is important to note here that revo­ lutionary multiculturalism does not privi­ lege class oppression over race, gender, or universalisms are dirty. And it is only dirty we must affirm women's rights and sexual oppression. We believe that by link­ universalism that will help us against the minorities' rights through and in the ing anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-ho­ powers and agents ofstill dirtier ones" (1999, process ofanti-capitalist struggle, not mophobic struggles to local and internation­ p.75). alist anti-capitalist struggle, such struggles as a substitution or alternative to it. Finally, this does not mean that other Although we support the Enlighten­ will be better equipped to succeed in the long movements, not addressing the cen­ ment's project of universalism, we also rec­ run. We are not arguing that race, gender, or tral issues of the system, must neces­ ognize its limitations. This is in sharp sexual oppression be reduced to economic sarily be seen as enemies or rivals of contrast to those postmodern educators issues, nor do we wish to marginalize or socialists. These movements are just who frequently associate Enlightenment displace the important work that continues as legitimate. Everyone has the same universalism with Eurocentrism's empha­ to be done in anti-racist and feminist schol­ rights. It mean simply that no one must sis on objectivity and rationality. While we arship. To suggest that revolutionary peda­ expect the socialist left to drop its own resist efforts to police the expression of non­

gogy is an alternative to work being done in culture, tradition and, last butnotleast, European viewpoints, we find the politics of ! cultural studies is to fall into the "divide and its identity for the sake of'democratic postmodern pluralism - i.e., providing voice rule" traps of bourgeois capitalist scholar­ equivalence.' (2000, pp. 71-72) to those marginalized social groups who ship which fears the establishment ofworld­ We must move beyond the liberal so­ have been denied political participation- wide efforts at alliance building against cialism ofthose who espouse radical democ­ to be problematic. The belief that an in­ capital relations of exploitation. racy in order to embrace a unified struggle in creased diversity of marginalized voices We acknowledge that we live in a het­ which a collective political consciousness is will automatically ensure that margin­ erogeneous society that is constituted by not only possible but necessary. Such a alized social groups will gain social, politi­ conflicting and contradictory social forma­ consciouness would involve, after Marx, not cal, and economic demands and interests is tions and the diversity of social and cul­ only understanding how capital produces politically naive. We argue that the struggle ' tural life. Yet we also acknowledge that social relations, but how capital itself is for diversity must be accompanied by a such diversity is a contested one. The ques­ produced. We don't need to scrap universal­ revolutionary socialist politics. tion we raise is: Diversity for whom? We do ism, as the postmodernists would advocate, Kenan Malik (1996) asserts convinc­ not subscribe to a politics in which specific but rather to assiduously struggle for what ingly that postmodernism's refutation of and disparate social movements are Kagarlitsky refers to as an "open universal­ universalism is, for the most part, similar cobbled into a form of artificial, mechanical ism" based on a dialogue of cultures (2000, to the crude 19th century racial theories unification or totality. There has to be some p. 75). After all, universals are not static, which rejected universal categories and establishment of priorities, a leadership of they are rooted (routed) in movement. They instead emphasized relativism. Malik fur­ some kind, although we don't envision re­ are nomadically grounded in living, breath­ ther adds that "in its hostility to universal­ turning to the Bolshevik model here. ing subjects ofhistory who toil and who labor ism and in its embrace ofthe particular and

SPRING 2001 I I

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the relative, poststructuralism embodies Recognizing that global capitalism has Multicultural capitalism acknowl­ the same romantic notions ofhuman differ­ ushered in a period marked by accelerating edges social groups primarily as consum­ ence as are contained in racial theory" (p. 4). class polarization along with the upward ers in the global market. We ignore at our Malik asserts that "while difference can redistribution of wealth, Edna Bonacich peril capitalism's ability to accommodate arise from equality, equality can never arise and Richard Appelbaum (2000) propose a differences by linking them to its own glo­ from difference" (p. 4). strategic deployment ofworkers' centers as bal market operations that encompass flex­ We believe that it is important to re­ a way of building political movements that ible methods of production and the personi­ ject a politics where the left is implicated in would directly address the rights of work­ fication of services and goods for diverse the "divide and rule" tactics of the ruling ers. Such workers' centers would be instru­ ethnic, cultural, and linguistic minorities. elite. A. Sivanandan describes how such a mental in providing basic social services Capitalism gives recognition to ethnic and politics plays out in Britain: and assisting workers in a number of cru­ racial minorities who possess capital, while cial ways. For instance, they could help minorities without sufficient disposable Government funding of self-help workers to fight for higher wages and back income are systematically marginalized groups undermined the self-reliance, (LaFeber, 1999). the self-created social and economic pay, in addition to providing legal assis­ base, of[groups]. ... Multiculturalism tance on issues related to immigration. We believe that a pre-condition for a deflected the political concerns ofthe In our opinion, political education plays "globalized borderless capital" is "cross black community into the cultural a crucial role in raising workers' revolution­ border cooperation" of ethnic, cultural, and concerns of different communities, ary consciousness and promoting an in­ linguistic communities of people (LaFeber, the struggle against racism into the depth understanding of political economy, 1999). But such cooperation is double-edged. struggle for' culture .... (cited in particularly with respect to the existing While border-crossing facilitates capital­ Kagarlitsky, 2000, p. 84) antagonisms between capital and labor. ist flows, it also consolidates the advan­ Workers' self-education can bring into criti­ tage of the capitalist class. Thus, it is im­ At the current historical juncture, when cal relief the contradictions between de­ perative that a border pedagogy move be­ the workers' movement has been demoral­ mocracy and capitalism. In the larger so­ yond the celebration of hybridized identi­ ized, supporters of postmodern radicalism cial arena, political education can help ties and pluralism and encompass an analy­ have, in effect, strengthened the bourgeoi­ workers recognize how imperialism is sis of political economy and class exploita­ sie.! Kagarlitsky writes: linked with the rhetoric of "humanitarian tion. That is, border pedagogy should en­ The supporters of identity politics aid." Finally, workers' centers can assist in gage in a critique ofthe existing contradic­ make an assiduous pretence of not organizing workers to participate in politi­ tions between ca pi tal and labor, the exploi­ knowing a simple, obvious fact: that cal struggles so crucial to demonstrating tation of labor, and profiteerism. It is a the quantity of resources and activ­ the power ofthe working-class to resist the pedagogical struggle that addresses the ists at the disposal of the left is ex­ rule of capital. importance of unity and difference not only tremely limited. This means that IN A revolutionary multicultural peda­ as a sense of political mobilization, but conditions when neo-liberalism gogy recognizes the necessity of a worker­ also as a practice of cultural authenticity threatens the very bases of people's centered pedagogy that is empowering, that neither fetishizes tradition nor fore­ normal human existence, these re­ democratic, participatory, and is also able closes its allegiance to traditional know­ sources and strengths should not be to address the material conditions of the ledges (Grande, 2000). It is a revolutionary dispersed over a range of "different, workers. Thus, the revolutionary multi­ project that seeks alliances with diverse but equal struggles," but should be cultural pedagogy we are advocating here is groups, while respecting and learning from concentrated as far as possible on the competing moral visions and a reimagin­ main lines of resistance. N eo-liberal one which stresses worker participation ation of the political space surrounding politicians KNOW this, and do not and worker self-organization on the basis squander their energies on trifles. of collective economic and political inter­ identity (Grande, 2000). They turned their fire against sup­ ests. As a consequence, a central practice of Equal representation does not neces­ porters of identity politics only after a revolutionary multicultural pedagogy is sarily guarantee social and economic equal­ dealing with the labor movement, an examination of how identities of work­ ity under capitalism. Thus, a revolutionary and they concern themselves with ers are lived conjuncturally, particularly in multicultural pedagogy must refocus on identity politics only to the extent to terms of class, race, and gender relations. the issue of redistribution of wealth by which it hinders them in carrying out The corporate-sponsored multicultur­ recognizing that equality must be struggled specific tasks. (2000, p. 96) alism that we witness today in school class­ for within the social relations of produc­ rooms maintains class and racial divisions tion-particularly property relations by articulating a liberal version of equality (McLaren & Farahmandpur, 1999a, 1999b, that is grounded in equal recognition of 2000). A revolutionary multiculturalism cultural practices. While this is a good undresses capitalism as a pernicious sys­ In our view, a critical pedagogy is clearly thing as far as it goes, it overlooks the tem and exposes regimes of exploitation a necessary yet insufficient condition for exploitation ofwage labor by focusing for the hitherto silenced or undeclared. It attempts revolutionary praxis. A critical pedagogy most part on cultural practices, which main­ to reveal how relations of exploitation are must be able to endorse the cultural stream multiculturalists frequently divorce insinuated into the warp and woof of "em­ struggles of workers and coordinate such from the social relations of production. In bodied" everyday life. As Morris Suzuki struggle as part of a broader 'cross-border' this instance, the social identities of notes, "the contemporary world of global social movement unionism aimed at orga­ marginalized minorities become articulated capital is not a universe where the non­ nizing and supporting the working-classes around consumption practices rather that material has conquered or subordinated and marginalized cultural workers in their production or labor practices. In the same the material: it is one where matter and efforts to build new international anti-capi­ manner, identity politics effectively detaches symbol increasingly interpenetrate. We talist struggles. cultural practices from labor practices. must therefore find ways of looking at po-

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. litical agency which unite the material and frequently polarizes differences instead specific forms of exploitation. The unwit­ symbolic dimensions of life rather than of uniting them around the common eco­ ting outcome of such an identity politics counterposing them" (2000, p. 70). A revo­ nomic and political interests of margin­ is a strengthening of the rule of capital. lutionary multiculturalism seeks to map alized social groups. This works to the detriment of all work­ the fault lines of agency, where discourses We have witnessed the development ing-class groups. As Linda Gordon notes: and social relations converge in the activi­ of crude forms of identity politics where Indeed, while calling attention to the ties of everyday life. "critical pedagogy" is discussed-often need to acknowledge that others have We need nothing short of a social revo­ derisively-as an approach reserved for different experiences, "difference" lution. This mandates not only the trans­ white activists only because it is focused has had a chilling effect on the formation ofour social and economic condi- mainly on issues of social class. This posi- struggle to recognize connection. At its worst it suggests thatcommunica­ tionisimpossible,andmaythusmake actual communicative experience suspect. It may even deter effort to communicate, which require asking direct questions, risking expressions of ignorance, rejecting the discourse of personal guilt. Just as seriously, difference talk leads us away from specifYing the relationships that give of today are those who are not afraid to recognize the rise to gender, racial, class, and many other inequalities and alienations. type of social evil that we see all around us We need to ask for much, much more than merely respecting difference. (1999, p. 47) It bears repeating that our aim here is not to ignore the cultural and ethnic tions but also the transformation of our tion does a disservice to scholars and activ­ identities of marginalized social groups, relationship to the 'Other.' This also means ists of color who historically have been at to relegate anti-racist struggles to a dis­ abolishing the contradictions or the inter­ the forefront of struggles against class op­ tant sideshow, nor elevate the centrality nal relation between capital and labor as pression. Furthermore, it artificially trun­ of capitalist exploitation over racialized well as the value form of wealth that is cates the scope and depth of critical peda­ social practices, but to argue that one of historically specific to capitalism (Allman, gogy which-at least in the revolutionary the most insidious aspects of capitalism in press). This is necessary in order to break tradition that we are advocating here-is is precisely that its relations of exploita­ the self-replicating cycle ofpoverty brought strongly anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti­ tion hurt people of color in particularly about by money exchange. Here we recog­ homophobic. To pit, for example, critical invidious-and d\sproportionately dis­ nize that many readers might find our plat­ race theory (for scholars of color) against abling-ways. We wish to bring into form to be naIve, impractical or hopelessly critical pedagogy (for white scholars) is to deeper focus than one often finds in criti­ utopian. We wish to remind these readers set up a false opposition. It does grave cal race theory or multicultural educa­ that such a turn to socialism in no way injustice to both educators of color and tion, the relationships that obtain among diminishes the importance of industrial, white educators who critically appropri­ race, gender, ethnic, and class identities post-industrial or technological develop­ ate from the best of both traditions of with the purpose of articulating a po Ii tical ment, which we believe must continue. How­ scholarship and activism. Such an rendi­ framework that moves towards trans­ ever, in our socialist vision, individuals would tion of identity politics is more concerned national ethnic alliances. Our central aim contribute labor according to ability, and the with who is more "authentically" Asian, is the·abolition ofthe rule of capital and the material means oflife would be distributed Latino/a, African-American, Canadian, forms ofexploitation and violence that flour­ according to need. Ideally, a redistributive Irish, etc., than with understanding the ish under capital's watch. socialism would be followed by the managed relationship among class oppression, sex­ Faced with the uncertainty of the obsolescence of the money exchange. ism, and racism, or with building active present, some look to religion to save us A revolutionary multicultural peda­ working-class coalitions against multiple from ourselves. It has been said that gogy links the social identities of margin­ forms of exploitation. We are not arguing religion is for those who fear hell; but it alized and oppressed groups-particu­ against cultural authenticity but rather could also be said that educational activ­ larly the working-class, indigenous against practices that reduce authenticity ism is for those of us who have already groups, and marginalized populations­ to the laws of genetics. We view authentic­ been there. The educational activists of with their reproduction within capitalist ity in the context of a shared history of today are those who are not afraid to relations of production. It also examines struggle and survival. By underscoring the recognize the type of social evil that we how the reproduction of social, ethnic, importance of "diversity" without inter­ see all around us and to name it as such. racial and sexual identities, as particu­ rogating how capitalist social relations And they are committed to fighting the lar social and cultural constructs, as well set limits to what passes as diversity and racist, sexist, and corporate evil that still as shared histories of struggle, are linked what forms of diversity will be "accepted," envelopes us even as we move with confi­ with the reproduction of the social divi­ these crude forms of identity politics also dence to face the challenge of the new sion of labor. It therefore moves beyond mask the important connections among millennium. the oftentimes fragmented and atomized the capitalist law of value, the exploita­ entrapments of identity politics, which tion of human labor, and gender-and-race-

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. otte Norton & Company. McQueen, A. (2000). Dropout rate of Latino Larsen, N. (2000). Dialectics and "globalization": students rises. Daily Bruin News, 1. It is interesting to observe that in countries The problem of how (not) to think about Thursday :\'larch 16, 8, 14. where 'traditional' workers' movements a new internationalism. Working Papers Morris-Suzuki, T. (2000). For and against f, are stronger, the position of women also in Cultural Studies, 22. Pullman, WA: NGOs. New Left Review, no. 2 (second improved quite dramatically in the 1980s Department of Comparative American series), 63-84. and 1990s (Kagarlitsky, 2000). Cultures, Washington State University, Ortega, T. (2000, May 25). In the hot seat. 6-16. [Online) In New Times Los Angeles. Avail­ Macedo, D. (2000). The colonialism of the able at:

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