On HU
Featured Archive Post: Consuela Francis on teaching race in the comics classroom. Conseula died earlier this month. We’ll really miss her.
Ng Suat Tong on Jacen Burrows’ art in Providence.
Tom Head on imperfection and activism.
Chris Gavaler on how Daredevil is like a weakly electric fish.
Me on failing to write that back to the future thinkpiece.
Jimmy Johnson on the worst television show ever.
Utilitarians Everywhere
At the Chronicle of Higher Ed I wrote about how even people who don’t know anything about Wonder Woman can write about Wonder Woman.
At the Establishment I wrote about how everyone has embodied sexual fantasies, but only trans women are shamed for them.
On Splice Today I wrote about
—how people who hate identity politics should hate Trump’s white identity politics first.
—the Dracula Hammer film Dracula Rises from the Grave, and how vampires bite through your continuity.
—how I am more rational than all the rationalists.
At the Chicago Reader I wrote about the lovely indie folk band Mutual Benefit. (yes, the name is no good, alas.)
Other Links
Ryan Cooper on Barack Obama’s failures in the foreclosure crisis.
Maggie McNeil on rape fantasies.
Adrienne Keene on that Washington Post R*dskins survey.
Noah, have you read this comic The Legend of Wonder Woman? Caleb Mozzocco keeps saying things like it’s the “best post-Marston Wonder Woman comic”, which suggests that (unlike 95% of everyone who talks about Wonder Woman) he actually cares about the latter, so it might be worth checking out
I’m curious as to what you found objectionable about the Jacobin article (not that I am saying there is necessarily nothing objectionable about it), since you picked it out as a major example of what your argument opposes in the white identity politics piece.
The Jacobin piece literally comes out and says that pointing out racism is a tactic to undermine class struggle. I think that’s wrong and also racist.
I don’t actually think that’s what it’s saying (I might be naive, and I readily concede that people who DO think we should never talk about racism because it undermines the class project will point to this article). I construed the article as arguing that the charge of virulent racism itself is becoming a dehumanizing stereotype that justifies the abandonment of a large working-class sector, if not an outright attack on that sector. It’s essentially substituting the class war for race and culture wars.
The white working class has largely been abandoned as a potential segment of the base of a class project. The problem is, you need them, or some of them. White supremacy has disabled non-white communities to enact sweeping change without them. This is NOT to say that you should avoid race all together. But you have to treat them with some basic respect and humanity.
I think the extent to which the white working class has been abandoned in the US is vastly overstated. Or, to the extent the white working class has been abandoned, it’s the whole working class that’s been abandoned (though not sure when they were ever exactly *not* abandoned.) The white working class votes less for Dems than everyone else, but that’s because the republican white identity party appeals to white people of every class, including the working class.
I don’t think you can address class in the US without dealing with race. Hatred of black people is why universal social programs are such a hard sell in the US—*not* hatred of white people.
Charging white people of any class with racism is not a dehumanizing stereotype. It’s the unfortunate truth. Politics of blaming economic hardship on immigrants and black people are very popular with white people of every class (Trump’s base is mostly not working class; more middle and upper middle.) I think there is a point to be made about liberal stereotypes around working class white people, and why they are gross and hateful. The problem though is presenting racism as if it is a function of lacking class or sophistication, when in fact racism is as (more?) rampant among upper class people. Sneering at the white working class, when it happens, is despicable both because it stereotypes poor people *and* because it fails to adequately hold *all* white people accountable for their racism. When you leave out the second bit, you leave the door open (as that Jacobin article does) to simply dismissing charges of racism as a distraction from class. And doing that is bad morally and, in the U.S. context, bad politics, because you can’t address class in the U.S. without addressing race—not least because the only way you’re ever going to get anti-poor policies passed in thsi country is by relying on overwhelming support from black and poc people.
I haven’t! Is that the one Trina Robbins worked on? I’ve tried to find copies but without much success…
Ok, I actually agree with that pretty much completely. I agree that any attempted end run around race is a guaranteed failure for any leftist politics, especially one necessarily based on coalition building.
Although to clarify:
“Charging white people of any class with racism is not a dehumanizing stereotype.” I didn’t mean to suggest charging people of any class of racism is a dehumanizing stereotype, I mean that the way liberals use it to dismiss poor whites (relative to “sophisticated”, “enlightened”, middle class/rich white liberals) IS exactly that. Which I think you agree with, judging by the rest of that paragraph…? American liberals love to pretend that their liberal values justify their imperialism (read: “saving” Afghani women from Afghani men by bombing all of them). To me, this (the use of this “poor whites are racist” stereotype) is another example of liberal colonial ideology, which justifies colonial policy because “we” are more “enlightened” than “they” are. Now, of course, poor whites often ARE very racist. But they are also humans, and should be respected and treated as such. And that means they are a necessary part of any leftist coalition that hopes to succeed. POC groups are clearly NO LESS essential, obviously.
Sure; the comparison with imperial rhetoric is on point, I think.
I don’t really know anything about it beyond what Mozzocco has said
Thank you for the rationalist article! ****guffaws, followed by sigh of relief****
Glad it amused!