This first ran on Splice Today.
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“The white working class.” Those words send shivers through the hindbrain of the Democratic Party. If only poor white people would suddenly wake up and realize that the Republican Party hates them. If only working class whites would see the advantages of labor unions and sticking it to the rich; if only they’d shake off their false consciousness and vote with their pocketbooks. Then, finally, the Democrats would have a true, unbeatable majority, and would sweep the Republicans into the wilderness, there to wail and gnash their capital gains in despair forever more.
Robert Reich invoked this dream once more in a recent Salon article responding to Black Lives Matter protests directed at Bernie Sanders. “For decades Republicans have exploited the economic frustrations of the white working and middle class to drive a wedge between races,” Reich warns, “channeling those frustrations into bigotry and resentment.”
From Reich’s perspective, the Black Lives Matter protestors interrupting Sanders and other presidential candidates are divisive; they play into the hands of the Republicans. “Our only hope for genuine change is if poor, working class, middle class, black, Latino, and white come together in a powerful movement to take back our economy and democracy from the moneyed interests that now control both,” he insists. So, focusing on race, or emphasizing race, undermines the “only hope for genuine change.” To address racial inequities, to create “genuine change,” racial issues need to take a back seat to economic solidarity.
Reich is arguing against division and for solidarity. But it’s a solidarity that says, flat out, that getting the white working class in the Democratic coalition is the priority, and the only possible route to success. That’s why, from Reich’s perspective, Black Lives Matter is a danger. If unity is defined as the inclusion of the white working class first, last, and always, then a movement that focuses on race is at best a distraction. At worst, it may alienate those very working class whites saviors who will finally wake up and swoop in to save the Democratic Party… and America.
I’m all for economic populism and reaching out to poor people of every race. If the Democratic Party wants to soak the rich (a popular policy), I’m on board. But the fact remains that over the last 50 years, African-American support for the Democratic Party has been more consistent, and more sweeping, than working-class white support. Given the extent to which the GOP is built on white identity politics, that’s not likely to change anytime soon.
Black Lives Matter just underlines that Democratic grassroots energy is centered in the African-American community. You want angry white populism, you go to the Tea Party and white people confusedly demanding that the government take away their health care. The current movement in America against inequality, the current movement demanding a transformation in the landscape of poverty, is Black Lives Matter.
As Reich says, one of the main ways poverty is enforced and perpetuated in this country is through mass incarceration and the vicious policing of disadvantaged communities. So, if you’re an economic progressive, is BLM a distraction? Or is it the most energized, focused and effective grassroots movement out there? When BLM protests at Bernie Sanders rallies, is it hurting the movement for economic justice? Or is it showing that there is a huge appetite for and passion for justice? Why is it “unifying” to see it as the first, and “divisive” to see it as the second?
Reich argues, “Racial inequalities are baked into our political and economic system,” and that police brutality, mass incarceration, and housing discrimination “all reveal deep structures of discrimination that undermine economic inequality.” He’s right. And yet, somehow, the movement addressing those structures of discrimination is presented in his article as a threat to real change.
Maybe instead, as a counter-theory, Democrats might admit that economic populism hasn’t notably worked as a rallying cry on the left. You want change? Then get on board with the passionate grassroots movement you’ve got. And stop trying to divide the party in the name of a white working-class savior who, all the evidence suggests, is never going to show up.
There is just…SO much more wrong with Reich’s argument than any one piece could adequately address…so I’ll do it in a blog comments section instead!
1) Reich still thinks the Dems are the party they were in the 60s, minus the Dixiecrats. There is no way in hell the Dems are ever letting a George McGovern type candidate get to the top spot, or even the Senate, if they can help it. Reich is making arguments as if the Democratic party is something it hasn’t been since LBJ, at least.
2)”For decades Republicans have exploited the economic frustrations of the white working and middle class to drive a wedge between races.” There is just…so much wrong here. First of all, Republicans didn’t invent race and racism, slave owning plantation capitalists did. They did do it to get a large base of “white” immigrants on “their side” to suppress black workers, first as slaves, than as slaves-by-another-name under Jim Crow, and now under the incarceration regime. They used/use the manufactured anxiety and anger of “white” people to control blacks, and later Chinese, Latino, Native, etc workers. Gerald Horne argues this (I believe, amongst other things) in his book, the Counter-Revolution of 1776 (which I have not read, to be fair). But this leads to…
3) “Our only hope for genuine change is if poor, working class, middle class, black, Latino, and white come together in a powerful movement to take back our economy and democracy from the moneyed interests that now control both,” The only way to create such a coalition is to attack the concept of race head on, elucidate the fiction behind it and why that fiction was spun. That leads you to examine the slave trade in depth, and it leads you to the point that modern capitalism couldn’t exist without the blood-soaked exploited labor of African slaves. And once you realize THAT and all the fallout from it, well then you’re compelled to seriously consider scary things like reparations, as well as to realize that the social democratic policies Reich is so friggin’ nostalgic for are actually pretty weak and dumb, and you have to start talking about socialism.
Sorry for the rant, but I agree with you on Reich’s argument Noah. Just adding my piece.
**couldn’t adequately address**…there’s always something
@noah @petar interesting commentary –
I remain puzzled at the tension between class consciousness and identity politics. I know some about the historical reasons for it, but fail to grasp why that antagonism still persist. A political narrative that accounts for both seems to be missing from mainstream culture.
Any ideas as to why the two seem irreconcilable?
I think it’s part of the history of the U.S., Ben. America consciously created an underclass of black people, and has more or less consciously perpetuated that for a couple of hundred years. Extraction of wealth from blacks defines American culture and history. That means, among other things, that it’s difficult to create class politics across race, because poor white people, like rich white people, know that their own wealth and power is often tied to screwing over black people.
I think Marxist analysis is not well-suited to dealing with the dynamics of a racial caste system. For Marx, economics is supposed to be predominant, and then when it isn’t analysts get frustrated.
I’m on board with Noah on this, Ben, although I would argue that poor white people are less conscious of the fact that they’re own (meager and highly relative) successes are dependent on the maintenance of a black underclass. Perhaps they are aware of it to some extent, and don’t want to question white supremacy because they are already comfortable with it. And that unwillingness to question white supremacy is responsible for much of the pushback, from poor and middle class whites, against progressive identity politics.
And Noah, I think you’re point on Marx’s analysis being a-racial, in a way, is accurate. I am relatively young and naive on Marx, and haven’t had the chance to actually read him (although I’ve certainly heard a lot of Marxists/Socialists discuss him), but I don’t think that gap in his analysis is permanently fatal. That is, it can be amended and accounted for. As far as I understand, Black Radical Marxism attempts just that. Although it’s clear a socialist system is by no means necessarily an anti-racist one, especially after the FHA and redlining.
Sure; there’s lots of work reconciling Marxism with racial analysis. I think fissures still remain though…
Well, I’m more than happy to hear what you think they are. And it’s not like I could give you a great counter-analysis without studying quite a bit.
Hah; well, I don’t know how qualified I am to go much beyond what I’ve already said…
…”because poor white people, like rich white people, know that their own wealth and power is often tied to screwing over black people.”
Quite the reverse. For all of American history, poor whites have resented the competition for jobs from poor blacks. The latter were paid lower wages and called in to be scabs during strikes. It’s why African-Americans were kept out of the unions for many decades.
I don’t think the explanations are either opposite or exclusive…
@Baldanders
I’m not sure it’s as simple as resenting the competition either. That doesn’t really explain the nature and real viciousness of white supremacist ideology in this country. It also doesn’t explain why Southern whites made lynching a tradition. But maybe I’m arguing with something you didn’t really say…?
Well, lynchings and other violence are horrible but effective ways of keeping blacks “in their place”.
Remember that, even in the South in slavery times, four out of five white households didn’t own a slave. Most slaves were on the plantations where the rich extracted their millions from money crops like cotton and tobacco on the back of forced black labour. The poor whites derived little or no benefit from slavery or the racial peonage of Jim Crow. Hence the hatred.
Incidentally, white-on-black extreme violence was by no means confined to the South.
@Noah
…”because poor white people, like rich white people, know that their own wealth and power is often tied to screwing over black people.”
@Baldanders
Quite the reverse. For all of American history, poor whites have resented the competition for jobs from poor blacks. The latter were paid lower wages and called in to be scabs during strikes. It’s why African-Americans were kept out of the unions for many decades.
I think the latter evidences the former, at least so long as we accept that wealth and power are relative.
Has anyone caught this podcast: http://www.wnyc.org/story/on-the-media-2016-03-18/
The second part presents an interesting history that is rarely discussed. It seems relevant to what is being discussed in so far as it illuminates how poor whites have been portrayed and thought about for centuries now.
We too often think of racism as the problem of poor or working class whites and demonize them for it – probably in order to distance ourselves from the problem. But social class is as real as racism, and it’s effects profound (there were recent reports on life expectancy and social class).
Shouldn’t a leftist political coalition be built with poor and working class whites – not so much for purposes of political power – but simply because it’s the ethically right to do? It of course shouldn’t be done at expense of Black Lives Matter, as Reich seems to propose. Do you think it is simply naive to envision a populist movement where both groups could coexist?
@Ben
I totally agree with you Ben, and I think whether, it’s naive or not, any such leftist movement will fail without the participation of the white working class. But it will also fail without a coinciding racial and class analysis. So the difficult bit is simply forcing people to challenge their own ideology and identity by pointing out the contradictions and trusting they will work their own way out. You present this challenge through media and education, spreading a more accurate, less heavily fictionalized version of American history and society person to person. Any smaller, less ambitious effort will fail, in my view, so it’s irrelevant whether it’s naive or not.
@Baldanders
“The poor whites derived little or no benefit from slavery or the racial peonage of Jim Crow. Hence the hatred.”
Maybe we are in violent agreement here, but I think the fine point to stress is that the hatred could have just as easily been directed at the slaveholders, and would have been (judging by the history or interracial alliances of indentured workers in revolts prior to the Antebellum period) if not for a concerted effort by slaveowners, the dominant class of Antebellum capitalism, to concoct the ideology of white supremacy in order to redirect that hatred. I don’t know if you actually argue this, but I dispute the idea that white supremacist hatred was a natural and inevitable response by poor whites to the slave system. In my view, it was concocted by those who had a vested material interest in spreading it, like most ideologies.
People who didn’t own slaves benefited from saves in a lot of ways. They could work as foreman, they could be slave traders, they could not have to worry about competition for jobs.
And of course it’s not a regional issue solely. The North has been, and remains, very racist, as any Chicago resident should be able to tell you.
“the dominant class of Antebellum capitalism, to concoct the ideology of white supremacy in order to redirect that hatred.”
I think this is overly simplistic. White supremacy isn’t false consciousness keeping people from recognizing their real class interests. White supremacy creates a community and a set of interests which redound to the benefit of white people, poor as well as rich.
You can certainly make the argument for, and adopt policies to, try to appeal to all working class people, and I support those. But you need anti-racism too, imo.
I agree, Noah, and maybe I phrased the point badly. To clarify, whatever the case is with the origin of white supremacy, I think any appeal to the white working class HAS to include anti-racism, or else you’re forging no coalition at all, and you’ve already failed. But as any former Israeli-settler turned anti-occupation advocate will tell you, that has to start by challenging the fundamental identity of people who hold racist ideology directly, by pointing out the contradictions and forcing people to reckon with them. That’s a delicate process, and has to come with an ingrained realization that even racists aren’t evil, though they are clearly motivated by ideology to commit evil. I’m rambling now, but I think I made the necessary point, which is that anti-racism is a necessary part of the “class project”.