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