RacIaL exPLoItatIoN ( 131 )federal governments, from the general advantage of being the privileged
race in a system of racial subordination. The transparency of the connec-
tion between race and social advantage or disadvantage also has implica-
tions for social consciousness. Marx famously claimed that capitalism was
differentiated from slave and feudal modes of production by the seem-
ingly egalitarian nature of the transactions involved: the “fair exchange”
between worker and capitalist requires conceptual labor to be revealed as
(allegedly) inequitable. As a result, the subordinated workers often do not
recognize their subordination— capitalism is the classless class society. By
contrast, the transparency of racial exploitation, certainly in its paradig-
matic form, means that the R2s will usually have little difficulty in seeing
the unfairness of their situation. If Marxist “class consciousness” has been
more often dreamed of by the left than found in actual workers, “racial
consciousness” in the racially subordinated has been far more evident
historically.
RACIAL JUSTICE
Illicit White Benefit and the Racialized “Basic Structure”I claim that the articulation of such a framework would greatly facili-
tate discussions about racial justice. Instead of focusing exclusively on
“racism,” our attention would shift to wrong ful white benefit. The ideal for
racial justice would, quite simply, be the end to current racial exploita-
tion and the equitable redistribution of the benefits of past racial exploi-
tation. Obviously, working out the details would be hugely complicated
and in fine points impossible, but at least on the level of an ideal to be
simply stated, and by which present- day society could be measured,
it would give us something to shoot at. In dialoguing with the white
majority, the imperative task has usually been to convince them that
independently of whether they are “racist” (however that term is to be
understood), they are the beneficiaries of a system of racial domination
and that this is the real issue, not whether they have goodwill toward peo-
ple of color or whether they ever owned any slaves. The concept of racial
exploitation is designed to bring out this central reality. Relying not on
controversial claims about surplus value, it derives its legitimacy from
the simple appeal to the very normative values (albeit in their inclusive,
race- neutral incarnation) to which the white majority already nominally
subscribes. And because it encompasses a derivative as well as a primary
form (exploitation inhering not in the assumption of unequal normative
status but in the continuing intergenerational impact of the unfair dis-
tribution of assets resulting from that original normative inequality), it