Andrew Young the former UN Ambassador and Mayor of Atlana, apologist for NIKE and big business sweat shops in the U.S. has lost his job at Wal-Mart. For making racist comments, but the reality is that his essential point is true.....In the interview, published Thursday in The Los Angeles Sentinel, a weekly, Young said Wal-Mart should displace mom-and-pop stores in urban neighborhoods.
Capitalism essentially replaces small self employed business with large corporate monopolies. The small self employed farmer and business owner are inefficient producers, whose existence is temporary in the expanding capitalist economy. Corporate farming replaces the inefficient deficit financed family farmer, managing many farms as Archer Daniel Midlands (ADM) does. The local corner store is replaced by the big box mall store, like Wal-Mart, which pays its workers the same as small business, while taking advantage of large scale warehousing and logistics to purchase goods and distrbute them cheaply.
Andy Youngs attack on 'Jews, Korean and Arabs' is typical of some Afro-Americans conspiracy mythology, that immigrants are to blame for their problems. American Blacks have been subjected to competition for work, housing, etc. with new immigrant populations, by the American ruling class. It has allowed that Ruling Class to appeal to their former slaves as being more 'American' than the foreigners, while assimilating immigrants, especially those from Europe, as being 'Whites'.
The attack on other visible minorities such as Jews, Koreans and Arabs, is the attack on the shop keepers who service the ghettos, and who are seen by their neighbours as having some sort of unfair advantage over the indigenous American population. As if they moved there deliberately to exploit the black population, when in fact they share, and have shared the same ghetto existance.
"You see those are the people who have been overcharging us," he said of the owners of the small stores, "and they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they've ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it's Arabs."
It is racism borne of jealousy, the mistaken belief that the immigrants in the community have an advantage over the indigenous population, that is the Afro-Americans. It is nothing less than good old fashioned American nativism.
And is no less racist than the current White American nativist attacks on latino immigrants.
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Immigration
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2 comments:
I agree. Immigrants are hard workers who are easy to scapegoat because of their limited political power. And this doesn't just happen in America. In South Africa, Indian store owners are perceived by many to be exploiting the poor. In South-East Asia, Chinese merchants are often blamed for the plight those less fortunate. Despite our different views on other matters, I think we can both agree that this is a case of misplaced class warfare.
Actually its no surprise we do agree...I tend to find the right wing libertarian arguements in favour of immigration quite rational...the roll of the ethnic minorities is a reflection of Imperialism and colonialism, the case of the East Indians is one of being an imported compradour class used by the English in their colonies. See my article on this....World On Fire Who Sells The Matches
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