Reading Notes 2017.10.21

# An unlikely triumph by David Labaree.
美國許多 college 設在偏僻小鎮，因為原本就是為了炒新開發區地皮而設。大學部學費是主要收入來源，所以課程不能太難，要讓學生開心，與社區民眾及校友維繫感情，經營球隊是方法之一， populism。

# From BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
很久沒讀這種論述性質的東西了。我關心的問題：階級與種族兩線上的運動為何分裂，又如何可能聯合，作者也關心，但只是輕描淡寫地穿插提及。一來，本書的主題固不在此吧，二來，作者始終停留在論述層次，不在意將論述轉譯成經驗命題 (例如，哪些白人工人有強烈的種族主義傾向？為甚麼？)，也不試圖從經驗分析中尋求支持。

作者舉了些數據說明美國低階白人也受到不少壓迫，且受苦的白人在數量上更多，這些白人與黑人應該有團結的基礎。但現實結果並非如此。於是作者提問：If it isn't in the interest of ordinary whites to be racist, why do they accept racist ideas? 這種古典提問自然就引來古典回答：

[p.212] There are two primary reasons: competition and the prevalence of ruling-class ideology.

然後...就沒有然後了。除了一些一般性的宣稱與修辭之外，就像大多數論述作品那樣，作者沒有深入討論真實世界的競爭與意識型態在黑白工人之間的運作機制。

其他：

[p.4] The success of a relative few African Americans is upheld as a vindication of the United States' colorblind ethos and a testament to the transcendence of its racist past. Where there is bad treatment on the basis of race, it is viewed as the product of lapsed personal behavior and morality, but it is "no longer endemic, or sanctioned by law and custom," as President Obama suggested in a speech commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.

This is precisely why the spectacle of unchecked police brutality and murder has morphed into a political crisis. After all, the United States does not passively contend that it is a colorblind society; it actively promotes its supposed colorblindness as an example of its democratic traditions and its authority to police the globe. The federal government and politicians in both parties have used this as an excuse to cut social programs and other aspects of the public sector, in denial of the central way that discrimination harms Black life in the United States. In other words, if a central demand of the civil rights movement in the 1960s was federal intervention to act against discrimination and act affirmatively to improve the quality of life for African Americans, promoting the United States as colorblind or postracial has done the opposite as it is used to justify dismantling the state's capacity to challenge.

雙重標準固是普遍現象，但我猜測美國 (人) 的雙重標準性格特別強烈。我不覺得運動有絲毫動搖這一點。

[p.210] "Whiteness" is therefore not necessarily embodied in white people; it can apply to anyone - Black, Latino, Asian, and, yes, white people. ...when "acting white" is invoked to explain the actions of reactionary nonwhite political actors, like Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, it is being used to transpose class and race, further distorting the existence of class difference. In this way, "whiteness" is an adaptation of the American left to the myth that the United States is a classless society. Nonwhite people in positions of power are accused of "performing whiteness" instead of exercising their class power...

相對於運動中出現的本質主義傾向 ("白人全都是天然的種族主義者")，這實在太輕描淡寫了。