First is quite simple, a ‘methodology’ suggested by Michael Hardt in the recent Upping the Anti, which I’ll paraphrase as: in evaluating a given analysis, there are two questions. One is simply is the analysis accurate, and the second is: What does it mean for resistance, how it will or should it effect resistance and how we participate in? Whether or not it leads to effective resistance is also important in evaluating the usefulness or ‘correctness’ of the analysis, not _only_ it’s apparent objective truth.

The second line of thought I have is a way of thinking about things that may seem obvious to some, and/or may have some special name to Marxists (maybe it’s just ‘dialectics’). In every program or perspective, there are inherent pitfalls, inherent mistakes or modes of failure waiting _inherently_ in the particular path. This first started occuring to me reading the infamous ‘Tyrrany of Structurelessness’. I thought, _yes_ Freeman has succesfully outlined some of the ‘pitfalls’ of ’structureless’. But that doesn’t neccesarily _doom_ it, because of course there are pitfalls to (excessive? incorrectly designed? carelessly implemented?) structure too. Then I thought of this point again listening to interminable debates between ‘organizanists’ and ‘anti-organizationists’. Both sides are _correct_ in identifying some of the possible pitfalls in organization, or in lack of any organization. But that doesn’t help us decide how to proceed.

Identifying pitfalls or downsides is of no use as a tactic to trash someone elses political choices. Simply because a program or perspective has pitfalls is not reason to dismiss it, because _every_ program or perspective has it’s _own_ inherent pitfalls. Instead, the reason we identity these pitfalls (and it is an important thing to do), is as an aid to those who have _chosen_ a path with those pitfalls, as the first step to then figuring out how to avoid, minimize, deal with, or transform those pitfalls. So the Tyranny of Structureless isn’t an argument against, say, consensus or lack of hierarchy, it is instead a warning for those who choose radical democracy, that here are some things you need to be careful of and figure out how to mitigate (some of which introduce a form of hieararchy despite your intentions; so if you really want to get rid of hieararchy, you do it by identifying and working to mitigate these problems).

So, that’s a long way of saying I think you’ve nicely identified some of the ‘pitfalls’ (what’s a better word for that?) in the race privilege analysis and it’s implications for forms of resistance. Needless to say, other forms of analysis (certainly including any that ignore that race is a fundamental constructing principle of US society) will have their _own_ pitfalls.

So if not by it’s pitfalls, how DO we judge an analysis, a program, or a perspective? Back to Hardt, who suggests, both by it’s ‘truth’, and by it’s consequences for action. So is ‘past performance’ a judgement of consequences for action? It’s one aspect of that, but not neccesarily the only one. And I’m not sure that the practical evidence of race privilege analysis is all negative. Just as these pitfalls can come out of it, some of the smartest and most effective activists, revolutionaries, and radical projects I’ve seen and experienced have come out of it too (also some of the worst).

So I would suggest that the question is really NOT “can it still be saved at this late date from its problems?” The question is instead, as we walk this road, how do we mitigate and avoid those pitfalls? If in asking and answering that question, as we walk, we wind up drifting further and further away from what we now recognize as race privilege analysis, so be it. If not, not. But the important thing is figuring out how to work around those pitfalls (by which we’ll surely encounter others yet to be identified), that’s why we identify them, not to trash or abandon a program or analysis.

I have noticed more and more people bringing up these potential problems though, NOT as a critique of an ideology, but instead as a way to learn how to transcend them. Several of the articles in Upping the Anti #4 approached these issues one way or another, in an attempt to be constructive (and usually from authors in fact fully committed to privilege analysis). So I am optimistic.