There's many draws to calling a certain policy racist:

1. It draws clear distinctions (who is the bad guy, who is the good guy). That way, people can easily rally behind a cause. 2. It creates a common enemy; a promoter of the bad.

The problem, of course, is that 1) sometimes it's overly reductive and 2) sometimes it's really alienating in an unfair way.

If you don't know me, I'm a white dude. Like most of you, I was born with a certain skin color. During college, I worked essentially as a glorified custodian in the multicultural center on campus. We had awesome events there... the experience was incredible. But at times, I went home pretty bummed out. Sometimes it honestly would suck the life out of me.

We'd have events in the building where people would have fantastic causes against governmental policies or bank regulations. They'd point out all kinds of biases in our criminal justice system that dramatically hurt the poor. I was totally on board, riled up and ready to go!

And then a speaker would declare it's the greed of the white man or that white people are an oppressive people.

I spoke with one of the guys who said that after the rally. I told him, "I was totally with you, really pumped about the issues, and then you alienated me. I don't get that. As far as I know, I'm not in much of a position of power. I'm pretty damn broke in fact. And I'm not trying to oppress anyone. I wanna be a part of this, but it sounds like I can't be because of the color of my skin."

He clarified that it wasn't against all white people. That there's lots of white people joining him. But then why not say what it is? That it's against the powers that be? That these are classist practices, most of the time inspired by racism but also clearly directly related to institutionalized classism?

Of course, the two aren't mutually exclusive. They usually go hand in hand.

But it bothers me when it's oversimplified as White v. All for two reasons.

1. I'm white, and I don't wanna be against all, damnit.

2. I think it takes our eye off the ball when it comes to another huge cause of oppression - classism.

One more example:

A girl I was good friends with in college entered the country illegally with her family and picked strawberries for less than minimum wage in her youth. Now, she was at UC Berkeley getting her degree in sociology.

She took issue with the conditions of the workers on the fields, as any person should. She argued that it was white people that made her family live that way. "The people running the fields were white and the people who buy the product are white".

I then proceeded to ask her whether she now buy fruits from supermarkets, which of course she admitted. "Then isn't the issue more complicated than white vs. all?" I asked.

It's not that her anger was unjustified. In fact, there's all too much reason to be upset over the conditions that immigrants live under in this country. We essentially have a third world labor force sitting amongst us, working 16 hours a day to survive so that we can put strawberries on our ice cream.

But the people who run the system, the powers that be, choose the conditions those people live under and the prices to sell the fruit for. They choose to lower prices at the expense of their workers and hire families that have no choice. They are the ones that promulgate a merciless system of economic slavery. White, black, green and orange people are consumers of it because we live in that system, not because we created it. And all colors are in those positions of power. For historical reasons, race does closely correlate with class, but that doesn't mean race is always the single cause.

I want to emphasize that I'm not at all saying racism doesn't play a role in all of this. I'm also not saying at all that other policies aren't primarily influenced by racism.

Of course they are. Racism is everywhere. But sometimes, in my opinion, the root of the cause is classism. And I feel left out and frankly heart-broken when I'm told what side I'm on, particularly when every bone in my body is so against the side deemed "White".

I want to note that I'm not referring to anything specific nor responding to anyone specifically. It's just a sensitive sentiment I have in my experience talking about race, and our class broaches the subject quite a bit. I don't have any discussion from class in mind. I definitely do believe that the Trayvon Martin case is a clear case of racism. Not referring to that. Just wanted to throw my sentiment into the ether.

-- KippMueller - 07 Apr 2012

I appreciated this post on the whole. I have one devil's advocate question for you: Do you think classism is why the people who run the system are making the fruit cheap, exploiting their workers, etc? Assuming they weren't classist, what would they do differently?

-- DavidHirsch - 07 Apr 2012

I think what allows it to happen is rooted in classism. Most of these workers work terrible hours for virtually no pay... making just enough to buy food. Most of them also can't unionize, either because it's not legal or because they're coerced into not doing so. These kinds of conditions once existed in America's middle class during the industrial revolution, and it caused mass protests and strikes and the creation of nation-wide unions.

But I think we have a mentality in this country that because of the "American Dream", anyone should be able to climb out of poverty and that those in poverty are therefore in some way deserving of it. And because of that, the lower class is treated as the undeserving.

I think that the people who run the farms are doing so with purely capitalist motives. But I suspect (and cannot prove) that if their workers spoke the same language, wore the same clothes and had the same favorite books, conditions would change. Plenty of companies regularly raise wages for workers simply to boost morale and create a positive corporate culture. I don't see that happening on these farms. In fact, the unions that represent farmers (at least in California) regularly fight any reforms that would better the living/working conditions of farm workers. I can't prove it, but I strongly attribute both the sentiment of the people who own the farms AND the reflected policy that keeps undocumented immigrants working in horrible conditions as products of classism (with a healthy dose of racism involved as well).

-- KippMueller - 08 Apr 2012

"But I suspect (and cannot prove) that if their workers spoke the same language, wore the same clothes and had the same favorite books, conditions would change." -- Kipp

Maybe. Although I imagine we'd find a different way to cast the workers as an "other." Perhaps one of the reasons that racism and classism often work hand-in-hand is because the ruling class needs a way to rationalize treating the working class poorly. It's much easier to do that if you view the workers as an inferior race. A different race, though, is probably more of a sufficient cause than a necessary one.

-- SanjayMurti - 08 Apr 2012

That's really what I'm getting at. When you say we'd find another way to cast the working class as "other", that's exactly my point. That whatever the differences we claim exist between the workers and rulers (whether we claim it's race or gender, religion or certainly education level), it really always comes back to ruling class finding ways to distinguish themselves from the working class.

And the different race thing as sufficient but not necessary is totally true. It can be a sufficient cause of discrimination, but it's not always around. There's plenty of poor white people working in shitty conditions for rich white people. So other "otherness" is found to distinguish. But in that case, that's smoke and mirrors.

-- KippMueller - 08 Apr 2012

"I spoke with one of the guys who said that after the rally. I told him, "I was totally with you, really pumped about the issues, and then you alienated me. I don't get that. As far as I know, I'm not in much of a position of power. I'm pretty damn broke in fact. And I'm not trying to oppress anyone. I wanna be a part of this, but it sounds like I can't be because of the color of my skin."

Three points on this:

1) The notion that a criticism of racial power inequalities must not alienate the people at the top of the hierarchy is suspect. I don't think that whoever this person was should have to accommodate you.

2) The fact that you aren't trying to oppress anyone does not absolve you -- you benefit from the power system regardless of whether you actively participate in its reinforcement. That is enough for you to fall within the class of people that deserve criticism. I don't know who the speaker was so I can't speak for him/her personally, but the way the argument usually goes is that the fact that you are being criticized is not a personal attack but a reminder that you are complicit in a racist power structure so long as you are not actively fighting it.

3) You can be a part of "this," by admitting your participation, feeling bad about it, and doing whatever you can to lessen the gap. But the first step is admitting your complicity and not trying to escape criticism by saying that you're not "trying to oppress anyone."

In his article "Black and White," Robert Jensen puts it I think as best as any:

"So when I ask white people -- including myself -- to think about our own complicity in racism, I don't mean to suggest all whites are KKK members or sympathizers. When I talk about the racism that lingers in me, I mean not only the attitudes and behaviors that the culture in which I was raised taught me, but also the tendency to want to ignore the ramifications of race that are all around me. That's why I so often talk not about racism but white privilege -- the advantages that come to white people who live in a white-supremacist culture. To be antiracist is to acknowledge that privilege and take one's place in the political struggle against it."

-- PrashantRai - 08 Apr 2012

My point was that the issues he was discussing at the rally were not racial power inequalities, so he wasn't alienating the people "at the top" at all. He was alienating based on race when the issues he was discussing were class-based. He alienated me, conflating me with the powers that be.

I'm not denying the existence of white privilege at all. This post has nothing to do with that. I feel like I said twenty times in the post that I recognize well that racism exists and I completely agree that white privilege exists and that it's shitty and unfair.

I'm talking about the sources of discriminatory policy, not about whether race or white privilege exist and influence the world. At least in my view, you're conflating the concepts in the way that I'm writing about. I'm saying classism plays a powerful role in discriminatory politics, and you're responding by saying I should recognize that race does. But no one is arguing it doesn't. I'm saying that there's more than one source of discrimination in this country, and that sometimes we only point to racism as the source when it is only part of the problem.

I wasn't asking him for "accommodation". I was letting him know that people of all backgrounds agree with him, and that the issues he was discussing were classist issues that correlate with race.

Who's trying to "escape criticism"? I get that racism exists and that white privilege exists. But assuming that I'm complicit and guilty in this entire scheme for my being born this way, what exactly is your point? That until I rise in arms, I can't argue that classism exists and that it is oftentimes the root of discriminatory policy?

Does arguing this automatically mean I'm dodging bullets? I can't make this point because of the color of my skin?

How do you know what my motivations are for posting this? That I'm trying to absolve myself of anything?

I'm sorry for sounding defensive, but it's a heavy accusation to suggest I wrote this to absolve myself of any guilt in this world and not because I believed it to be true.

-- KippMueller - 08 Apr 2012

Kipp,

I, like, Prashant, was also rubbed the wrong way by your initial post. I can’t speak to what the speaker you referred to was saying because I wasn’t there. You might well be right that his speech was oversimplifying. I also agree that race and class are too often conflated in this country. But for people who are poor AND people of color, these issues might as well be two sides of the same coin because the ways in which these identities intersect is going to position them, socio-economically, in a way that is separate and unique from not being a beneficiary of one or the other (race or class privilege). I also think it’s reductive to expect people who experience an intersection of multiple forms of discrimination to only refer to one or the other when discussing discriminatory policies, because it is precisely how these forms interrelate that’s going to inform the overall impact of certain policies on them. Thus, to say you are uncomfortable or feel “alienated” by the way some people have chosen to frame that reality does sound a little off-putting, and very much like the expectation of someone who unconsciously expects to be accommodated by, if not the center, of all dialogue, especially as there are plenty of spaces that exist to discuss class or gender, or any other system of oppression, absent the consideration of race.

-- RumbidzaiMaweni - 08 Apr 2012

I guess that makes sense. But I'm saying these particular spaces were heavily influenced by classism in my opinion, and yet the concept of classism was never even broached as a reason. And it felt wrong to discuss them only as an issue of race.

I would discuss classism absent race or any other consideration if I could. The reason I brought it up in the context of race is that the two are very often complementary, as you said. It's very difficult to find a space that exists to discuss class in which race doesn't come into play, which is why I think classism gets lost in the conversation. So I brought up these examples as times in which I felt classism played a larger role than what was recognized.

I honestly don't feel like I was saying it to accommodate myself, but rather because I didn't think it was a fair characterization of the root issue being discussed. I get that because I'm white, it's going to be pretty hard to convince anyone of that, but I'll just say that's at least what I'm consciously aware of as my motivation.

Obviously, I know it's a super touchy subject and don't mean to off-put. Sorry for that. I don't like to off-put at all. But I also wrote that I felt alienated, knowing that I'm not supposed to say that as a white guy and not really caring because regardless of whether I'm supposed to say it or not, it's just how I felt.

Rumbi, as far as the interrelation point of race and class... couldn't agree more on that. I just would like to see both discussed. When you say it's the interrelation of the two that is the cause, I'm totally on board with that. I want to emphasize I'm absolutely not saying race isn't part of the equation. I'm just saying there's another variable that's too often forgotten.

I would want to hear specifics on both race-based AND class-based discriminatory policies. And if they're discriminatory policies motivated primarily by racism, I'm obviously on-board to see their demise. But I just care a lot also about the subject of class. And I'd like to see it exposed for what it is more often.

-- KippMueller - 08 Apr 2012

Thank you for starting this topic, Kipp.

While Rumbi's point about the particular experience of people who are both poor and people of color is totally valid, I don't think it's incompatible with Kipp's sentiments. The consistent conflation of race and class ignores the plight of a significant portion of the population that is poor and white. According to a 2010 count, 14% of poor people are white and 36% are black. While there is certainly a much larger percentage of poor and black people, there are still about 27 million poor white people. (http://www.statehealthfacts.org/profileind.jsp?rgn=1&cat=1&ind=14) I don't think you can fairly compare the experiences of poor white people and poor black people, but I don't see why we should delegitimize the struggles of poor white people solely because they have white privilege on their side. (Scroll down to illustrative examples of white privilege - http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html)

"2) sometimes it's really alienating in an unfair way." -Kipp

I think that the responses (and accusations) that your original post provoked support this view. Like you, I'm trying to figure out how to be noncomplicit about injustice, but it's discouraging when you have to defend your good intentions.

-- MichelleLuo - 08 Apr 2012

Totally agreed, thanks Michelle. Just to be clear, I really had no intentions with this post to even allude to the poor white population. I just wanted to try to isolate issues that affect the poor population, absent race, but also point out that race is so inextricably linked with class that it's hard to distinguish the two. In San Francisco, I remember multiple bus raids where police would stop the bus and check everyone's tickets. I doubt they raided offices without warrants in the financial district often for illegal behavior. And while these raids certainly disproportionately affected minorities, they were absolutely blatant in their classism. And I wish we'd point to them and say that yes, it very well could have been influenced by racism, but the classism is written on the wall!

But classism isn't really conceptually important, it seems. We don't really take apart policies for their classism very often. When we discussed literacy tests in Con Law, we talked about whether they had disparate impact based on race and could therefore be found unconstitutional. I talked with Professor Greene after class, asking whether one could argue that they were unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause because they unfairly discriminated against people based on class (education level). He said that just wasn't a concept really cared about by our legal system. That's really what I'm reacting to. Anyways, talking everyone's ears off. I'll let it be. Thanks for comments, all!

-- KippMueller - 08 Apr 2012

Kipp,

I enjoyed your last two posts, and agree with your overall point. Thanks for taking the time to clarify your position.

Michelle,

I’m not exactly sure how we jumped to “de-legitimizing the poor, white experience.” There’s certainly nothing controversial about anything you’ve said. I think where Kipp and I differ is in perception, and to what extent we feel like there exist spaces to talk about class without everything being subsumed into race. Treating race and class as though they are interchangeable is definitely problematic. I just don’t think that the “alienation” of a white person who felt that a (I assume) non-white speaker spent too much time talking about race, and not class, was a good starting point for that discussion. It gave the impression of privileging white comfort over the fact that the speaker may well have felt that race was the more salient issue at play.

Finally, I’m also not quite sure I understand why you find it discouraging when someone’s good intentions are questioned- there’s a great deal of harm done in this world by so-called well-meaning people, and I don't think anyone should have the privilege of an automatic pass when they do or say potentially questionable things simply because they meant well. I think pushing each other to be transparent and honest about why we’ve chosen our positions on these topics goes a long way towards illuminating the discussion for everyone.

-- RumbidzaiMaweni - 08 Apr 2012

Hey Kipp,

I originally posted a long response to your response to my post, but then I realized that its length was borderline obscene and evoked the feeling of "tl; dr" a little too much. I think I'll just leave it at: I agree with everything Rumbi has said in this thread.

(1) I don't think that you feeling alienated by discussions of white privilege is unfair.

(2) I don't think that people who talk about racism must talk about classism in order to avoid "taking our eye off the ball."

(3) I don't think that being well-meaning is enough to get anyone off the hook.

Cheers, Prashant

-- PrashantRai - 09 Apr 2012

Sorry Prashant, I know I said I'd just leave it at that but just wanted to say real quickly that I think we're for the most part in agreement. But for your first point above, the guy and I in the story weren't discussing white privilege. We were talking about the source of an unfair policy, one that I believed was very much based on classism. He wasn't saying that white privilege exists, to which I was responding that that's unfair to say. He was saying that white people were the source and sole contributor to a policy issue, to which I was saying that that was an unfair characterization of the actual root of that particular discriminatory policy.

Okay, I'm done and done and done. Maybe we'll talk more about this stuff over a beer sometime.

Cheers, Kipper

-- KippMueller - 09 Apr 2012

Rumbi, my schpeel about poor white people wasn't really going off of what Kipp was saying. I was just making an obvious point about how equating race with class ignores the experiences of at least one group of people.

My reading of Kipp's anecdote wasn't that he went to a talk about policies that hurt the poor and was upset that there was too much race talk. Rather, he justifiably felt alienated by comments about "the greed of the white man" and that "white people are an oppressive people." This wasn't a productive discussion about white privilege. These are comments that assume that all white people, because they are white, are the sole cause of classism and they have no part in helping to remedy classist practices. I'm not saying that we shouldn't question well-meaning people. I'm just saying that promoting the racial divide with divisive rhetoric hinders movements for social justice. Power relations rest upon both race and class hierarchies and alliance across race and class would strengthen challenges against these hierarchies.

-- MichelleLuo - 09 Apr 2012

Whoa, I like that. Thanks for making this thread hot, guys. You guys are damn smart. I'm going to take a tangent from this thread to talk about the concept of "to not act is to act" in a bit. Hoping you guys could join me.

-- KippMueller - 09 Apr 2012

I do agree with Kipp and Michelle that the speaker chose a poor way to speak about all “white people,” describing them as all having the personal attributes of “being greedy” or “oppressive.” Issues rarely if ever can be simplified down to “white v. all.” I think it is interesting to note, though, that Kipp is upset because he has been stripped down as a person to one or two characteristics, put into a box, and stereotyped as a villain. Yet people of color face such over-simplified and incorrect stereotypes everyday, and much more of them. Though it is of course not acceptable or productive to stereotype all white people as “oppressive,” think of the numerous negative black stereotypes being promulgated by the media, schools, news, etc. What about the “model minority” Asian stereotype? The “illegal immigrant” stigma Latinos face? And these stereotypes create tangible roadblocks in the lives of people of color. Assumptions regarding intelligence, abilities, culture and so on affect how people are treated. So maybe instead of feeling “alienated” by being stereotyped, maybe Kipp and others can use it to empathize and better understand the position people of color face.

Such “overly reductive” statements like the ones the speaker made are likely to incite feelings of white guilt, and make white people less willing to join in dialogues that even relate to issues of racism (such as classicism). And it is very important to include all people in these discussions. Because of white privilege, white people have the opportunity to ignore issues of race that surround them, since they are not directly confronted by them. I remember being shocked at hearing people discuss our “post-racial” society soon after Obama was elected across my predominately white college campus. By making general, incorrect statements about white people being “greedy” and “oppressive,” instead of describing the numerous historical factors that have made white people the privileged race in our society, such a speaker is likely to make people less willing to talk about race at all.

I do believe, however, that classism is inextricably linked to racism. The way the country has been structured since its creation has caused this. Though it is possible to speak strictly about classism in certain contexts, I believed that in most other contexts this would lead to a very incomplete discussion about the issue. Of course other factors such as gender and education also have strong roles in classism, and should not be forgotten. But it cannot be ignored that in our society whiteness has great advantage, especially in regards to socioeconomics. For example, “studies suggest that working-class whites are typically better off in terms of assets and net worth than even middle-class blacks with higher incomes, due to past familial advantages” (Tim Wise, White Like Me, viii). By acknowledging such facts, we are not ignoring the existence of classism, but better understanding its many components.

-- ShefaliSingh - 09 Apr 2012

Thanks Shefali,

Totally agree with most everything... in particular your last paragraph. But I don't think it's at odds at all with what I'm saying. I'm pretty sure you don't either. But just to be sure I'm not advocating to replace discussions of race with class. I agree that they're inextricably linked and that both should be addressed.

I do empathize with all stereotyping. And I, like anyone else, don't want to be told what I believe or excluded from anything based on the color of my skin... it's an awful, devastating feeling.

But you say to feel empathy towards others stereotyped instead of feeling alienated. Why not both?

No one should be judged, excluded or alienated for the color of their skin, plain and simple. Doesn't matter what color you are. I never chose the color of my skin.

And, anticipating the tangential discussion about white privilege which benefits me regardless of whether I chose my color or not, I get that. We all agree that exists. No need to go down that road.

But I personally unequivocally do not believe that justifies alienation. It just means that institutionalized white privilege is something to be cognizant of and something to be resisted.

And I don't believe it's unjustified for me to feel a sense of alienation just because I'm white. I don't think you do either, Shefali, but I just sense from the thread generally a resistance to it and I want to address it outright.

-- KippMueller - 09 Apr 2012

I also wanted to add something from earlier. Rumbi, you mentioned my first post implied that I "privilege 'white comfort' over the fact that the speaker may well have felt that race was the more salient issue at play".

I don't know really what "white comfort" is as a concept. But I value my own integrity and right not to be discriminated against. And while the speaker may have thought that the policy was primarily race-based that he was discussing, that doesn't justify in my opinion calling all white people "greedy" or oppressive. He didn't put it as eloquently as race "being the salient issue at play". He told me I was greedy and oppressive. Needless to say, he had never met me. He didn't know my passions, my commitments. I was now greedy and oppressive in that room.

I don't think there's anything at all wrong, as I've been saying every post, with saying that policies are racist and favor white people in this country. That's just not what was said.

(Sorry for specifically addressing posts to people. I just want to address particular statements and play them out. I know all of you posting and love and respect you muchly!)

-- KippMueller - 09 Apr 2012

Kipp,

There are two threads of this conversation that have become muddled (primarily because I think we began with a problematic example). I think it would be helpful to separate them out. I hope this is a fair characterization of your first post, and feel free to let me know if it isn’t.

On one hand, as Michelle and Shefali pointed out, it sounds like you may have felt alienated by the overall tenor of the comments in your first example (“white people are greedy”, etc.). I don’t think we were discussing this, specifically, until Michelle brought it up in her second post, and I agree that these statements are oversimplifying and hurtful. That's a fairly easy thing to point out. I also agree with Shefali that it’s important that we all feel like we have an equal stake in and can participate in making our society a more racially equitable one. Just as we can never fully address patriarchy without men examining the concept of masculinity, it’s important that white people also feel like they can examine what it means to be white and engage with that social reality. I’m huge advocate of whiteness studies programs, and Peggy McIntosh? ’s essay, which Michelle helpfully posted, is a great starting point.

However, from the title of this thread, and the overall substance of your posts beyond your first example (i.e. “I would discuss classism absent race or any other consideration if I could”) it sounds like your “alienation” derives from more than one isolated experience where someone mischaracterized “all white people,” but rather from discussions of policies that adversely affect poor people that essentially become conversations about race. If that’s the case, I still stand by my first post. And while I can’t tell you how to feel, I can say that I genuinely don’t understand it (and maybe that’s a failure of empathy on my part), and I’m not sure if it's something that people of color should be bending over backwards to try and alleviate or solve. Shefali and Michelle speak to the need to bring white people into the conversation, but I don’t think that should be done at the expense of circumscribing or limiting the ideas of people of color or telling them that they should have spoken about class rather than race and that, if they don’t, they’ll alienate you (“…the concept of classism was never even broached as a reason. And it felt wrong to discuss them only as an issue of race”). As social theorist Patricia Hill Collins writes in her book Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, “Oppressed groups are frequently placed in the situation of being listened to only if we frame our ideas in the language that is familiar to and comfortable for a dominant group. This requirement often changes the meaning of our ideas and works to elevate the ideas of dominant groups." I guess my feeling is that when you say you feel “alienated” because the debate wasn’t framed the way you felt that it should be framed, or because discussions about poverty will often times implicate your identity by, simultaneously, also being discussions about race, it sounds like you expect something to be done about it, and I'm not sure what that is.

I’ll just end by saying that I’m glad you used this forum to start this thread, Kipp, and I really hope you don’t view anything either myself or anyone else has said here as a personal attack. I wish we lived in a country where people felt they could have more conversations like this without getting defensive. This has definitely been a useful discussion for me, and I hope you feel you’ve gotten something from it as well.

-- RumbidzaiMaweni - 09 Apr 2012