VRG: Arendt on Race #1 (Race Thinking Before Racism, Chapter 6 of Origins of Totalitarianism)

This VRG session took place on February 24, 2023
We discussed: Race Thinking Before Racism (Chapter 6 of Origins of Totalitarianism)
For full schedule see here: hac.bard.edu/p...
HANNAH ARENDT ON RACE AND RACISM
After completing Hannah Arendt's The Jewish Writings, a collection of texts largely written in the 1940s at the height of antisemitic persecution and just before the founding of the state of Israel, the Virtual Reading Group will turn to Arendt's later writings on race and racism. These include chapters from the book that made her famous, The Origins of Totalitarianism, as well as a number of shorter texts in which the exiled German-American theorist tried to grapple with the realities of race in America. Most notoriously, Arendt's essay on the Little Rock Nine and school desegregation caused an uproar upon its publication in 1959. In the aftermath of this controversy, Arendt received a letter from Ralph Ellison to which she responded with an interesting admission of oversight. To complement her responses to contemporary events like desegregation and campus protests by black students, we will also read her foundational Introduction to Politics, which situates the political precisely vis-a-vis prejudice. Together, these texts constitute an opportunity for thinking about how Arendt understood anti-black racism in the US in light of her writings on prejudice and ideology, on the one hand, and on Jews and antisemitism, on the other.

[@MichaelLariviere-if4fj]

I have just only recently discovered your work and I must say there is nothing of the kind on offer where I live (in France). I am a practicing psychoanalyst, something to which I came after reading philosophy in University (Strasbourg). I had the privilege of working with people such as Derrida, Barthes, Lyotard, Lacoue-Labarthe, Nancy, Lacan, Pontalis, and others. I would very much like to engage in conversation with you as, I repeat, what you are offering is quite unique. There is a remarkably humble intelligence to your approach which I find invaluable.

[@dabrupro]

Excellent. Thank you.

[@Damian-dv6qx]

Jerry Kohn is just the best. National treasure.

[@aryeh155]

Is the workshop available through Zoom or some means not in person?

[@Johnconno]

No, it's been deleted.
Orders from Tel Aviv.

[@newyorkone3584]

I listened to the entire discussion and I have a raging headache. I think it is due in part to the material and part to the format.
The material is at once fascinating as it is enraging. I think in part due to the distinction between racism as opinion and racism exemplified by conduct. Opinion in a society which values free speech is not exempt from either critique or quite honestly censure. By the latter, I am referring to individuals deciding to refuse invitations to speakers who engage in racist speech. A good example is the cartoonist Sam or Scott Adams who developed Dilbert. He went on FB and launched into a truly horrific diatribe about white/black reactions to one another. His cartoon was cut from WAPO, NYDaily News and other papers. Did the conduct of the papers violate “free speech?” I don’t think so. There are issues of accountability for what we say, yes? And I think it important to draw a distinction between GOVERNMENT action & action by listeners, viewers. In fact, the 10 A to US Constitution apply to STATE action- aka Bill of Rights.
As for action, Jim Crow, etc as well as eugenic policies, ( Comstock Laws) were/are state action. And their racist outcomes violated law and some would say morality. I found the distinction between racist speech and action troubling for myriad reasons, especially now.
Anti-semitism is racism. Plain & simple. There is a difference between Christian anti-semitism and racialization of Jews- in the ideology. Yet, both contributed to genocide, whether by the Holy See or Hitler( inquisition & Holocaust). Thus, it is a difference without a (key?) distinction.
As for the format, while I think theory speak is something to suffer thru in a class… but in terms of this, my hope we could dispense with it. There is no question that racism was supported by the Church- I really don’t care what Jefferson said. Christian writings, Court opinions, statements by legalists, state actors, philosophers, use religion to justify division of people (Aryans v Deplorables) in literally an act of G-d. And that is what is occurring now-in 2023.
Finally, even the use of race/racism is enraging. No such thing because there is one race- human. The development of hierarchy of “ beings” is the chief perversion- whether if denoted by “color” or perceived color, size of forehead-etc. and all of the isms which we have to dealt with-misogyny, sex/gender, class, age, national origin asymmetry are spawned from the SAME toxic waste.
Sorry this took up so much space

[@thetruthis24]

Have you read the essay by Marcuse called “Repressive Tolerance?”