First, I believe it is necessary to understand why this system, which results in the existence of several marginalized groups, came to exist. Then, also to examine what happens to people or those groups when the system is resisted. Third, ask ourselves how we can we change the system. Finally, we should really think about if we are willing to deal with whatever consequences come in changing it.

1. Reading through the posts, whether dealing with economic, gender based, or racial discrimination, the source of this injustice is how the United States decided to create a caste system which has resulted in an aristocracy today in which people have a difficult time figuring who the "oppressor" or "enemy is." We can all agree the United States began and continued to flourish through slavery. To legitimize this practice, "racial" distinctions were created to place blacks and whites in certain "positions" in society. This maintained a certain power structure that is subconsciously engrained in the minds of countless Americans. However, white men "at that time" explicitly wanted to place themselves at the top of this power structure, so they discounted and subjugated women using any method necessary (e.g. religion - Adam and Eve, for example, etc.). This structure or inherent social "order" is still purposefully ingrained in our "system" today causing enormous differences in wealth, massive violence, and “psychological slavery.”

2. In finding ways to justify the system, the people who have the most power in this country divert attention away from themselves and create the "other" so the 99% fights against one another while the 1% laughs and carries on unabated. Those who have attempted to overthrow the corrupt system (e.g. Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., etc.) were murdered. For years, these murders were carried out by those in the highest rungs of power. However, since the system has now become entrenched, everyone else subconsciously and some consciously do their dirty work for them. For example, black and black crime is increasing at alarming rates, when in the past the KKK or white racist groups were the widespread murderers of black communities.

3. This system has only strengthened despite what may appear to be “incredible progress.” Kipp wants to help, but I mentioned to him, similar to comments made by Prashant and Rumbi, that it is necessary that he understands his “white privilege” and how he is subconsciously affected by it. In addition, as Meagan pointed out, we also cannot let ourselves, no matter our color or gender, continue to strengthen the system by doing nothing at all except following conventional norms. If a friend is bragging about how he “runs” things at home and his wife does not speak unless spoken to, you should condemn those actions. If private conversations are occurring blaming a “minority” for taking someone’s job or spot at a school, you should condemn these racist actions.

4. As soon as we find a common cause and work together (e.g. with the Trayvon Martin case), governmental social control will be powerless against the will of the people. It may mean risking one’s life, since the system is so entrenched and those in power will stop at anything to keep it that way. However, this is the harsh reality. We also have to ask ourselves do we really want to fight this battle. Really helping these communities, as I told Kipp, will also result in a reduction of “white privilege,” which is a privilege that is not always visible but one that some will do anything to keep intact. I want to work with Kipp and anyone else who really wants to confront these issues. However, law school works to keep the system intact and justifies it. Most people who graduate from CLS will do nothing to change it due to individual gain. But anyone who really wants to work at this, please let me know. We can make law school work for us (i.e. classes, events, meetings, collaborations, etc.) I’m looking for people I can go to battle with. I’m looking for people who really want to make a difference. I’m all in and want to know if anyone else wants to go all in too.

With that personal diatribe out of the way, I wanted to add an article I read a couple weeks ago that this discussion reminded me of. A NYT op-ed by Rich Benjamin, The Gated Community Mentality, talks about the Zimmerman case in terms not only of race, but also class, age, property ownership, etc. As an outsider in a gated community, according to this piece, Trayvon Martin was in danger owing to a confluence of many factors, race being one. "Residents’ palpable satisfaction with their communities’ virtue and their evident readiness to trumpet alarm at any given “threat” create a peculiar atmosphere — an unholy alliance of smugness and insecurity. In this us-versus-them mental landscape, them refers to new immigrants, blacks, young people, renters, non-property-owners and people perceived to be poor."

If you read the whole article, you may find Benjamin's mathematics to be problematic, and some of his conclusions to be ill-evidenced (how did Zimmerman know Martin wasn't a resident in such a big community? were there no other children in the community?), but there's something to be said for expanding the dialogue to merely a white vs. black one. Certainly racism was a problem, but perhaps not the only one. The full article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/opinion/the-gated-community-mentality.html?_r=2.

I have two points to make. They were supposed to be super short, but I got carried away.

1) Are Discussions of Classism Really Less Alienating? I think that, in this thread, there is an accepted assumption that condemning oppressive policies along the lines of class rather than race is less alienating to dominant groups and, as a result, provides an increased opportunity for collaboration between privileged people and underprivileged people. I don't agree.

Let's tweak Kipp's scenario: what if, that night at the event, instead of a glorified janitor, Kipp was a trustfund baby, albeit equally as down for the cause as the real Kipp. What if the speaker had instead disparaged all rich people as greedy and oppressive? I'm not sure that rich-Kipp would have felt any less alienated or unfairly stereotyped. I guess my point is that I am not convinced that there is a 'unifying' way to speak about oppression in the presence of people that are members of oppressive groups. While real-Kipp wouldn't have been as offended by the substitution of wealth for whiteness in that scenario, that has everything to do with the fact that he does not see himself as rich.

I think that the idea that talking about bad policies in terms of class is any less divisive than talking about these issues in terms of race is refuted by the political reactions that we've seen to the Occupy Wallstreet Movement (remember all that talk about 'class warfare'?). No one ever wants to be the bad guy whether he is characterized as such by the fact that he is rich or white.

Anyway, maybe I'm being unimaginative, but I can't think of a way to talk about racism (better expressed White Supremacy) or classism (better expressed Aristocracy) in a way that is not divisive, and doesn't run the risk of alienating Kipps--which brings to me to my next point:

2) Why Assume that the Most Productive Discussions are the Least Divisive Ones? First, let me say that in terms of healing racist feelings, I agree that unity between members of privileged and underprivileged groups is definitely the answer. To heal feelings of animosity and prejudice you need integration, social interaction, and dialogue.

However, I felt that--and I hope I'm not mischaracterizing you guys because it's hard to figure out which racism we're talking about (psychological or structural)--this discussion contained the assumption that the best (or most likely successful) way to fight White Supremacy or Aristocracy is "unity" between oppressive groups and oppressed groups. I don't think that the assumption that social change is catalyzed in this way is supported by history. I think that the majority of revolutions (or shifts in socioeconomic power) have necessitated, first and foremost, unity within the oppressed group.

Such unity is power. We can see evidence of this in recent American history. The Civil Rights Movement and the strides in social and economic policy that we see today were catalyzed by the unification of people of color both internationally and domestically. The result was integration, but the impetus was power. The boycotts, the riots, the marches--were all demonstrations of unified power that the American government responded to.

In conclusion... The sum of my two points is this: I think that sometimes the means for the necessary unification of underprivileged people will result in divisions along the lines of oppressed and privileged groups. If you are a member of a privileged group that is down for the cause, sometimes this unification will be at your expense. In saying that, I don't want to discount or silence justifiable feelings of alienation. I agree that on an individual level, sweeping characterizations are totally unfair. However, I do think most would agree that the success of the cause is bigger than you.

-- GechiNzewi - 12 Apr 2012

Toma, I agree completely that saying something along the line of "all white people actively work towards increasing oppression of minorities in America" is obviously false and unnecessarily alienating (and is also racist in it's own right). Somehow, though, I seriously doubt that that was the point the speaker in Kipp's story was making (even Malcolm X denounced that idea, saying once, ""I am not a racist.... In the past I permitted myself to be used...to make sweeping indictments of all white people, the entire white race and these generalizations have caused injuries to some whites who perhaps did not deserve to be hurt. Because of the spiritual enlightenment which I was blessed to receive as a result of my recent pilgrimage to the Holy city of Mecca, I no longer subscribe to sweeping indictments of any one race."). This is all probably moot since no one but Kipp knows exactly what the speaker was saying, but since it was in a speech at the multicultural center at Berkeley, my guess is that it was probably something closer to what you and I agree on, namely that acknowledging white privilege is a crucial component of any discussion regarding class stratification. I guess my point is that I agree with what you're saying, but that is quite far from agreeing with what was originally said. Kipp can go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong though.

Meagan, I agree that we all play a part in reinforcing stereotypes. There was an argument in my criminal law casebook, when discussing the connection between police discretion and racism, that the fact that more black people are now members of the police force does not mean that there will no longer be racist police discretion, because studies indicate that many black members of the force also racially profile people. Sure, point granted. But the problem of otherizing discussed earlier does not stem from the critic distinguishing white complicity with the complicity of minorities; it was rather discussed in connection with when a minority speaker criticizes "whiteness" as a foundation for class stratification, that somehow the association of class stratification with a race alienated those people of that race (paraphrasing Kipp, "why not say what it is?" IE class, not race). And my point was that the association of class stratification with a race is inevitable and necessary when that relation is grounded in fact. In the end I don't think we're disagreeing on anything, I think we're just making different points.

Cheers, Prashant

-- PrashantRai - 11 Apr 2012

I am not suggesting that minorities are equally to blame for white privilege or that oppressed minority groups are responsible for their oppression. Nor did I maintain that minorities benefit from white privilege. The descriptive reality of white supremacy is a function of institutional hierarchies. I believe we are all complicit in reinforcing and maintaining the social distinctions that are often used to lend credence to the institution of white supremacy and to perpetuate discord and disunity. What I simply mean to say is that all races share some responsibility (to various degrees) in maintaining socially entrenched racial stereotypes and ‘racist’ distinctions prefaced on ‘otherness’.

Here is an example. Last weekend I was walking home from dinner in midtown up Broadway. It was late - around 10 pm - and as I was walking up a well-dressed, older black man emerged from a restaurant, bid farewell to his dining companions and started to walk up the street a few feet in front of me. Ahead of us both were two black youths, dressed in baggy jeans and hoodies, hanging out on the side of the street. The man in front of me slowed down a bit, so that he was almost walking beside me, as we reached the boys. After we had passed them he turned to me and said “I just wanted to make sure you were all right – it didn’t look like they were up to anything but you never know”. I said thanks, and we went our separate ways.

I think this just points to how, regardless of the color of our own skin, we all have internalized classist and racist proclivities that manifest themselves both consciously and unconsciously in day to day life. I try hard to acknowledge and stay conscious of my own, so that I can better critique and dismantle them, though I don’t always succeed. My above post was not meant to assign blame. It was just meant to call attention to the fact that we are all, regardless of race, complicit in harboring societal stereotypes, ‘us vs. them’ distinctions and a sense of ‘otherness’ – regardless as to whether we choose to or not – because of how we have been socially conditioned. I simply believe it would be most effective to work together to recognize, call into question and discard these classifications that serve to reinforce disunity and to bolster the institution of white supremacy.

-- MeaganBurrows - 11 Apr 2012