Pretty much, he argues for "race as a form of class" which I honestly don't find convincing, it really seems like a confounding of a race and a nation that ends up essentialising race.
I think his argument is that in the US, slavery was based on race. So white people where peasants, proletarians, and small proprietors, and black people were slaves, meaning these two groups of people are forced onto either side of a class divide. After slavery is abolished, black people remain among the most exploited workers and peasants, plus they are discriminated on based on their race, solidifying the fact that black people and white people form a distinct and seperate group on the US with a different history and different shared life.
All this is totally right, but where I think Sakai diverges with Marxism is instead of seeing this instance where racism was used to justify a class difference, and then is used to justify the continued special oppression of racial minorities, as something that creates distinct nations (i.e. peoples), he says that race in the US will always have a 1:1 relationship with class, and the oppressed races are proles and white people are not. This completely leaps over the issue of national liberation into an anti-Marxist definition of class which essentialises race, which he justifies with plenty of examples of white chauvenism to prime the reader to make the same logical leap he is making.
edit: just noticed you asked where, not how, he argued for that lol. I got most of this from an interview Sakai had for his book When Race Burns Class, where he gives the argument he presents in Settlers in brief
I honestly can't give you one single quotation since the argument is kind of spread out in between a lot of anecdotes and it is left to the reader to connect the dots. He does say "Race as a form of class is very tangible, solid, material," which is where he puts this forward most clearly in the interview I'm talking about.
He says its "socially constructed" right there! I can't see anywhere where he says race "will always have a 1:1 relationship with class" like you claimed. Saying that he leaves it up to the reader to "connect the dots" - more accurately he doesn't say it at all. Probably best not to make things up if you can't find quotations to support your assertion.
I know he says its socially constructed, it's just that, from what I understood in the interview, he believes that the US, as opposed to Europe, has this unique situation of "colour-coated classes" (pretty sure that is from the same interview) where this social construct simply lines up with class. Maybe "1:1" was a strong way of putting it. If you think I'm misreading Sakai and that his ideas are actually compatible with Marxism I would actually really like to hear it. I haven't read Settlers yet but I was recommended the interview as an intro to Sakai by people who swear by the book.
The situation is different to that in Europe because USA is a settler colony. Sakai is Marxist and uses Marxist analysis in his history of class in the USA.
Pretty much, he argues for "race as a form of class" which I honestly don't find convincing, it really seems like a confounding of a race and a nation that ends up essentialising race.
Where does he argue for that?
I think his argument is that in the US, slavery was based on race. So white people where peasants, proletarians, and small proprietors, and black people were slaves, meaning these two groups of people are forced onto either side of a class divide. After slavery is abolished, black people remain among the most exploited workers and peasants, plus they are discriminated on based on their race, solidifying the fact that black people and white people form a distinct and seperate group on the US with a different history and different shared life.
All this is totally right, but where I think Sakai diverges with Marxism is instead of seeing this instance where racism was used to justify a class difference, and then is used to justify the continued special oppression of racial minorities, as something that creates distinct nations (i.e. peoples), he says that race in the US will always have a 1:1 relationship with class, and the oppressed races are proles and white people are not. This completely leaps over the issue of national liberation into an anti-Marxist definition of class which essentialises race, which he justifies with plenty of examples of white chauvenism to prime the reader to make the same logical leap he is making.
edit: just noticed you asked where, not how, he argued for that lol. I got most of this from an interview Sakai had for his book When Race Burns Class, where he gives the argument he presents in Settlers in brief
good post
Where does he say this? Using quotations please.
I honestly can't give you one single quotation since the argument is kind of spread out in between a lot of anecdotes and it is left to the reader to connect the dots. He does say "Race as a form of class is very tangible, solid, material," which is where he puts this forward most clearly in the interview I'm talking about.
He says its "socially constructed" right there! I can't see anywhere where he says race "will always have a 1:1 relationship with class" like you claimed. Saying that he leaves it up to the reader to "connect the dots" - more accurately he doesn't say it at all. Probably best not to make things up if you can't find quotations to support your assertion.
I know he says its socially constructed, it's just that, from what I understood in the interview, he believes that the US, as opposed to Europe, has this unique situation of "colour-coated classes" (pretty sure that is from the same interview) where this social construct simply lines up with class. Maybe "1:1" was a strong way of putting it. If you think I'm misreading Sakai and that his ideas are actually compatible with Marxism I would actually really like to hear it. I haven't read Settlers yet but I was recommended the interview as an intro to Sakai by people who swear by the book.
The situation is different to that in Europe because USA is a settler colony. Sakai is Marxist and uses Marxist analysis in his history of class in the USA.