Abstract

Race as a political phenomenon defies subsumption within the framework of the Left and of its Marxist variants. When not dismissed or simply ignored, racism has usually been relegated to epiphenomenal status. Often enough this is done with the hypocritical self-assurance intended to whistle inadequate paradigms past anomalies. So racism becomes “merely” a tool to divide the working class — a ploy that will be overcome either on the way to socialism or after the “revolution". Nowhere is this more obvious than in the U.S. where racism is clearly identifiable and is not confounded by nationality. Moreover, even when radical critique seeks to fit race to a Procrustean bed of alienated theory, it resorts to mystification.