Greg McDonald
2008-01-28 14:29:38 UTC
Perhaps one 'measure' of racism in the United States will be to
observe the results of Obama's multi-ethnic and broad-based
coalition. Will he succeed in winning southern white states without
large black minorities? (Hmm, what states would these be?). Not
that racism does not exist in northern states. It's just more
subtle, not as crude or virulent . Racism crows in the north mainly
through red-lining and ethnic neighborhood settlement patterns.
Anyway, I think the essay below offers a possible schematic for
observing the interplay of race and class during mainstream
political moments.
Greg McDonald
RACE vis-?-vis CLASS IN THE UNITED STATES
Powell, John A
In his groundbreaking 1903 treatise, The Souls of Black Folk,
W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, "for the problem of the Twentieth Century is
the problem of the color-line." A century later, and a full
generation removed from the battles of the Civil Rights era, many
now suggest that class, not race, is the greatest cleavage in
American society. They fear that talk of race and the evils of
racism obscure the more powerful politics of class and divide those
sharing a common economic interest. Such claims hinge upon what is
meant by race and class, and assume that the two are separable,
conceptually and strategically.
In truth, neither race nor class is well understood. Perhaps the
most critical flaw in our formulations of race and class is that
they are assumed to be phenotypical markers or economic locations
ahistorically derived and acontextually applied. Our current
understanding of race and class did not arrive as the culmination
of inevitable objective, historical logic. Race and class acquired
meaning over time and are not comprehensive outside of that
development.
History Lessons
From the American Revolution to the Industrial Revolution and Civil
War, race and class were uncertain markers in a struggle that
ultimately shaped many of the institutional arrangements under
which we live today. Through the ideology of the American
Revolution, the indentured European servant became a free white
laborer while black slavery remained firmly intact and protected by
powerful economic interests and guarded by our Constitution. To
reconcile the love for liberty with the reality of slavery,
Americans adopted an uncomfortable narrative of black inferiority
and racial otherness. These developments ensured that the newly
emergent industrial working class clearly identified as white.
Immigrants arriving in this country forcibly negotiated a color
line protected by law, custom and ideology. The first Immigration
and Naturalization Act, unanimously passed by the first Congress,
restricted immigration to free whites. The ways in which the Irish,
for example, competed for work and adjusted to industrial morality
in America made it all but certain that they would adopt and extend
the politics of white unity. From this nation's inception, the race
line was used to demarcate and patrol the divide between those who
constituted the "We" in "We The People." It was no surprise when in
March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief
Justice Roger B. Taney, declared in the Dred Scott case that all
blacks - slaves as well as free - were not and could never become
citizens of the United States.
Even when freed blacks were brought into the political community
after the Civil War and granted citizenship, a now well-imbedded
narrative of black inferiority and legacy of separation ensured
that whites did not see themselves as having commalities with
blacks. According to economists Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser,
much of the difference between American and European welfare
systems can be explained by racial heterogeneity. In a pattern that
persists today, opponents of welfare programs deploy racialized
narratives to rouse a majority in opposition. In contrast to the
generous Civil War pensions, provisions to the Freedman's Bureau
were short-lived, meager and stigmatizing. Many believed that
welfare provisions to freed slaves were undeserved, and the Bureau
was characterized as an immense bureaucracy whose programs were
likely to make blacks lazy, de pendent and prone to live off of
"handouts." Racism contributed to the undoing of Reconstruction,
but the failure of Reconstruction to secure Blacks' rights as
citizens and free laborers accelerated racism's spread until, by
the early 20th Century, it had fully pervaded the nation's culture
and politics, with profound class consequences, complicating the
efforts of reformers for generations.
Not only were blacks excluded from the bevy of New Deal programs,
race was carefully used to narrow these programs, limit their
applicability and ultimately to reverse their trajectory, to the
detriment of similarly situated whites. New Deal programs could not
survive the Southern voting block unless they were carefully
restricted to leave the region's racial patterns undisturbed. As a
consequence of our racialized past, Americans live with a
comparatively thin social welfare system.
The phenomenal economic growth of the postWWII period was shaped by
the racially inscribed New Deal institutions to produce the
economic reality and new identity of the middle class, from which
blacks were substantially excluded. The racism that influenced the
New Deal programs and excluded blacks institutionalized racial
disparities and imprinted the emergent middle class as white. The
invisibility of the racial imprint on middle-class consciousness
and institutions makes it possible for rejuvenated narratives of
black otherness and unworthiness, conceived in the antebellum
period, to persist, now explained in cultural terms rather than
biology. The narrative of the American Dream -hard work and fair
play - is the primary explanation for social mobility. Race is a
critical part of the construction of class-as-merit. It is this
individualistic ideology that helps to defeat class solidarity.
Today's Tasks
Race is so intimately intertwined with our class understandings
that a politics of class will ultimately be split asunder by the
subterranean use of race. Today, the race issue undergirds messages
on taxes, government spending, poverty, immigration, crime, rights,
values and even urban development. The racial mythology of the
welfare state has become so entrenched in party politics that it
constrains the policy choices for progressive change that would
benefit all Americans, whatever their color or class. Race was
critical to the development of arrangements that prevent class
solidarity and a political movement hostile to helping citizens in
need. American exceptionalism, characterized by a weak labor
movement, a thin social welfare apparatus and a stronger states'
rights institutional framework, cannot be understood without seeing
the role that race has played as our formative institutions were
developed. Class identity and class consciousness itself has been
thoroughly shaped and limited by our racialized arrangements.
Because class is understood as an individual position, it is an
empty vessel for building up a progressive movement. All but the
most destitute and wealthiest Americans consider themselves
middleclass.
As we move toward a majority/minority nation, the need to develop
and sustain multi-racial, multi-class coalitions will become
increasingly important. The challenge is to link - to integrate -
the interests of people of color with those of the white working
and middle classes without losing sight of race. Race and class
inequalities are inextricably linked, and collective solidarity
across races can be achieved only by fleshing out their
intersections, not by ignoring them. The most successful multi-
racial, multi-class progressive movements in the United States
tackled race directly. Multi-racial coalitions were critical to
Abolition movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and even the New
Deal coalition. The key to whether progressive movements will
obtain widespread support or be vulnerable to the negative use of
race, implicitly or explicitly deployed, has been their commitment
to interracial solidarity.
Full: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4081/is_200701/observe the results of Obama's multi-ethnic and broad-based
coalition. Will he succeed in winning southern white states without
large black minorities? (Hmm, what states would these be?). Not
that racism does not exist in northern states. It's just more
subtle, not as crude or virulent . Racism crows in the north mainly
through red-lining and ethnic neighborhood settlement patterns.
Anyway, I think the essay below offers a possible schematic for
observing the interplay of race and class during mainstream
political moments.
Greg McDonald
RACE vis-?-vis CLASS IN THE UNITED STATES
Powell, John A
In his groundbreaking 1903 treatise, The Souls of Black Folk,
W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, "for the problem of the Twentieth Century is
the problem of the color-line." A century later, and a full
generation removed from the battles of the Civil Rights era, many
now suggest that class, not race, is the greatest cleavage in
American society. They fear that talk of race and the evils of
racism obscure the more powerful politics of class and divide those
sharing a common economic interest. Such claims hinge upon what is
meant by race and class, and assume that the two are separable,
conceptually and strategically.
In truth, neither race nor class is well understood. Perhaps the
most critical flaw in our formulations of race and class is that
they are assumed to be phenotypical markers or economic locations
ahistorically derived and acontextually applied. Our current
understanding of race and class did not arrive as the culmination
of inevitable objective, historical logic. Race and class acquired
meaning over time and are not comprehensive outside of that
development.
History Lessons
From the American Revolution to the Industrial Revolution and Civil
War, race and class were uncertain markers in a struggle that
ultimately shaped many of the institutional arrangements under
which we live today. Through the ideology of the American
Revolution, the indentured European servant became a free white
laborer while black slavery remained firmly intact and protected by
powerful economic interests and guarded by our Constitution. To
reconcile the love for liberty with the reality of slavery,
Americans adopted an uncomfortable narrative of black inferiority
and racial otherness. These developments ensured that the newly
emergent industrial working class clearly identified as white.
Immigrants arriving in this country forcibly negotiated a color
line protected by law, custom and ideology. The first Immigration
and Naturalization Act, unanimously passed by the first Congress,
restricted immigration to free whites. The ways in which the Irish,
for example, competed for work and adjusted to industrial morality
in America made it all but certain that they would adopt and extend
the politics of white unity. From this nation's inception, the race
line was used to demarcate and patrol the divide between those who
constituted the "We" in "We The People." It was no surprise when in
March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief
Justice Roger B. Taney, declared in the Dred Scott case that all
blacks - slaves as well as free - were not and could never become
citizens of the United States.
Even when freed blacks were brought into the political community
after the Civil War and granted citizenship, a now well-imbedded
narrative of black inferiority and legacy of separation ensured
that whites did not see themselves as having commalities with
blacks. According to economists Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser,
much of the difference between American and European welfare
systems can be explained by racial heterogeneity. In a pattern that
persists today, opponents of welfare programs deploy racialized
narratives to rouse a majority in opposition. In contrast to the
generous Civil War pensions, provisions to the Freedman's Bureau
were short-lived, meager and stigmatizing. Many believed that
welfare provisions to freed slaves were undeserved, and the Bureau
was characterized as an immense bureaucracy whose programs were
likely to make blacks lazy, de pendent and prone to live off of
"handouts." Racism contributed to the undoing of Reconstruction,
but the failure of Reconstruction to secure Blacks' rights as
citizens and free laborers accelerated racism's spread until, by
the early 20th Century, it had fully pervaded the nation's culture
and politics, with profound class consequences, complicating the
efforts of reformers for generations.
Not only were blacks excluded from the bevy of New Deal programs,
race was carefully used to narrow these programs, limit their
applicability and ultimately to reverse their trajectory, to the
detriment of similarly situated whites. New Deal programs could not
survive the Southern voting block unless they were carefully
restricted to leave the region's racial patterns undisturbed. As a
consequence of our racialized past, Americans live with a
comparatively thin social welfare system.
The phenomenal economic growth of the postWWII period was shaped by
the racially inscribed New Deal institutions to produce the
economic reality and new identity of the middle class, from which
blacks were substantially excluded. The racism that influenced the
New Deal programs and excluded blacks institutionalized racial
disparities and imprinted the emergent middle class as white. The
invisibility of the racial imprint on middle-class consciousness
and institutions makes it possible for rejuvenated narratives of
black otherness and unworthiness, conceived in the antebellum
period, to persist, now explained in cultural terms rather than
biology. The narrative of the American Dream -hard work and fair
play - is the primary explanation for social mobility. Race is a
critical part of the construction of class-as-merit. It is this
individualistic ideology that helps to defeat class solidarity.
Today's Tasks
Race is so intimately intertwined with our class understandings
that a politics of class will ultimately be split asunder by the
subterranean use of race. Today, the race issue undergirds messages
on taxes, government spending, poverty, immigration, crime, rights,
values and even urban development. The racial mythology of the
welfare state has become so entrenched in party politics that it
constrains the policy choices for progressive change that would
benefit all Americans, whatever their color or class. Race was
critical to the development of arrangements that prevent class
solidarity and a political movement hostile to helping citizens in
need. American exceptionalism, characterized by a weak labor
movement, a thin social welfare apparatus and a stronger states'
rights institutional framework, cannot be understood without seeing
the role that race has played as our formative institutions were
developed. Class identity and class consciousness itself has been
thoroughly shaped and limited by our racialized arrangements.
Because class is understood as an individual position, it is an
empty vessel for building up a progressive movement. All but the
most destitute and wealthiest Americans consider themselves
middleclass.
As we move toward a majority/minority nation, the need to develop
and sustain multi-racial, multi-class coalitions will become
increasingly important. The challenge is to link - to integrate -
the interests of people of color with those of the white working
and middle classes without losing sight of race. Race and class
inequalities are inextricably linked, and collective solidarity
across races can be achieved only by fleshing out their
intersections, not by ignoring them. The most successful multi-
racial, multi-class progressive movements in the United States
tackled race directly. Multi-racial coalitions were critical to
Abolition movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and even the New
Deal coalition. The key to whether progressive movements will
obtain widespread support or be vulnerable to the negative use of
race, implicitly or explicitly deployed, has been their commitment
to interracial solidarity.
ai_n18621981/print