In continuing with this blog's current bent on racism and white privilege, but before talking about the main article in this post, I'd like to point people to a post at The Republic of T., which contains some thought-provoking observations, asks some good questions, and along with white privilege adds into the mix male privilege and heterosexual privilege.
On to Tim Wise and What's the Matter With White Folks?: Racial Privilege, Electoral Politics and the Limits of Class Populism
Apparently this article is to be published in LiP Magazine, but I can't find it anywhere online, so click on the link at the bottom to read the whole (unformated, sorry) thing here. This is a great read for anyone struggling with electoral politics from a leftist perspective, especially this past election. I hope it can illustrate to some of the white "I'm not racist, race doesn't matter" liberals how much race and racism does matter. If in four years you want it to be your rich, white male who gets elected president, this is worth considering.
Some excerpts:
Whether in the form of a Nation or American Prospect editorial, or a Jim Hightower screed, or the writings of best-selling author Thomas Frank (What's the Matter With Kansas?), the prescription is the same: all the Dems need to do is develop a good old fashioned populist appeal, whereby they point out the economic self-interests of the voters who are moderate income and yet voting for Republicans‹persons who they should, according to these voices, view as their class enemies.
[...]
People of color, for example, voted at least 70-30 against the President, with African Americans doing so by an 89-11 margin. Likewise, union households voted overwhelmingly for the President's removal, as did low-income voters, earning below $30,000 annually.
So which voters could we say were ignoring their class interests, as Thomas Frank might put it? Who are the persons who have, in Frank's terms, become vulnerable to "wedge issues whose hallucinatory appeal would ordinarily be far overshadowed by material concerns?"
Though Frank is loath to say it, and though pretty much everyone else in the mainstream has ignored it as well, the answer is simple. The problem is white people, by and large: especially white folks in the "anxious middle class," whose incomes are vulnerable though not terribly low, depending on where they live (between $30,000 and $50,000 per year), but who are certainly closer to the working class than the wealthy whose candidate they tend to vote for. It is only these folks who seem to ignore their class interests and vote Republican.
What's the Matter With White Folks?
Racial Privilege, Electoral Politics and the Limits of Class Populism
By Tim Wise
It almost goes without saying that most of the analysis offered up by
mainstream commentators in the wake of the Presidential election has been
largely devoid of substance.
For example, the persistent claim that President Bush's re-election was the
result of a "moral values" revolt by Christians has been seriously
overblown. After all, Bush actually received more votes from those who said
terrorism was the most important issue than he did from those who identified
moral values as the key to their electoral behavior.
Likewise, has been the quadrennial drivel spewing from the mouth of Al From
and his cronies at the Democratic Leadership Council, to the effect that if
the Democrats would just move further to the right they would find
themselves on the winning end of election night outcomes.
After years of following this advice, the Democratic Party has lost ground
in the Senate, the House, and in states across the country. Indeed, most of
the Democrats who have been ousted in the past decade have been precisely
those, especially in the South, who never ran or governed as progressives,
but rather hewed most closely to the Republican line.
But what has been even more distressing than the terribly off-base analysis
served up by the DLC or the chattering class on the Sunday talk shows‹all of
which is to be expected‹has been the equally simplistic diagnosis of the
Democrats' problems provided by the liberal-left and progressives.
Whether in the form of a Nation or American Prospect editorial, or a Jim
Hightower screed, or the writings of best-selling author Thomas Frank
(What's the Matter With Kansas?), the prescription is the same: all the Dems
need to do is develop a good old fashioned populist appeal, whereby they
point out the economic self-interests of the voters who are moderate income
and yet voting for Republicans‹persons who they should, according to these
voices, view as their class enemies.
Actually, this is pretty much the same thing said by all corners of the left
every election year. Just as the DLC says the Democratic Party should move
right and abandon its working class roots, the left says it should do the
opposite, moving left to an explicitly class-based politics. While the
left's suggestion may be closer to the truth than that offered up by the
DLC, it too has serious flaws, and would be unlikely to succeed, at least as
expressed by those making the case. For one obvious reason, it's foolish for
us to expect such a move from the Democratic party, seeing as how they don't
want fundamental change any more than Republicans. But as progressive
movement activists we need to be fluid in our understandings of power,
particularly with regard to class populism, if we want to build hope in
place of cynicism.
Who is ignoring their class interests? The color of "false consciousness"
The reasons for the likely inadequacy of class-based appeals are varied but
must be examined if those pushing for their adoption hope to prevail in
future political struggles. To begin with, it must be recognized that to a
large extent, some voters are already voting their self-interests and need
no handholding or persuasion to do so in the future.
People of color, for example, voted at least 70-30 against the President,
with African Americans doing so by an 89-11 margin. Likewise, union
households voted overwhelmingly for the President's removal, as did
low-income voters, earning below $30,000 annually.
So which voters could we say were ignoring their class interests, as Thomas
Frank might put it? Who are the persons who have, in Frank's terms, become
vulnerable to "wedge issuesŠwhose hallucinatory appeal would ordinarily be
far overshadowed by material concerns?"
Though Frank is loath to say it, and though pretty much everyone else in the
mainstream has ignored it as well, the answer is simple. The problem is
white people, by and large: especially white folks in the "anxious middle
class," whose incomes are vulnerable though not terribly low, depending on
where they live (between $30,000 and $50,000 per year), but who are
certainly closer to the working class than the wealthy whose candidate they
tend to vote for. It is only these folks who seem to ignore their class
interests and vote Republican.
The racial electoral divide, indeed, is larger than any of the others about
which we constantly hear discussion. So, for example, the always mentioned
gender gap this year was only seven points, and the gap between those
earning $30-50,000 and those earning $100-150,000 was only eight points.
Meanwhile the racial gap in voting between whites and people of color was a
whopping 28 points‹even greater than the 21 point gap dividing those with
incomes between $15-30,000 and those with incomes above $200,000 annually.
The white/black divide was 47 points: a modern record, in large part because
Bush increased his vote amongst whites by four percentage points, capturing
58 percent of all white votes cast, including 62 percent of white men and 55
percent of white women.
The racial voting gap was especially pronounced among evangelical
Christians, and this is particularly important, given the inane
pronouncements about how evangelicals were responsible for Bush's victory.
Fact is, only white evangelicals elevate their provincial moral concerns
above classical conceptions of self-interest. Black evangelicals‹a sizable
group to be sure‹voted against Bush by margins of anywhere from 6 or 7 to 1,
despite often agreeing with the right on certain issues like abortion, gay
rights, or prayer in schools. But white evangelicals and "born again
Christians" voted 78-21 for Bush, a huge increase from the 62 percent
average received by the Republican candidate in the previous two
Presidential contests.
In fact, the racial divide was far more salient than the mythical
"red-state, blue-state" dichotomy pushed by the media. Though it has been
scarcely mentioned since election day, whites even in the blue states voted
mostly for Bush (including whites in New York, California and Illinois),
while people of color in the red states voted for Kerry.
Bottom line: interracial voting differences were far greater than
differences based on geography, gender, income, level of education, age,
occupational status, religion, or any other factor, raising the obvious if
unasked question, why?
Why do white folks vote so differently from people of color? Why do white
evangelicals vote so differently from evangelicals of color? Why do white
working class and lower middle class whites often vote against their
apparent class interests, even as working class and lower income people of
color don't?
And there's another element too. In Stephen Ducat's recent book The Wimp
Factor, which is on the whole an excellent examination of the motivations
behind male voting behavior, the author suggests that "anxious masculinity,"
and insecurities about their manhood prompt men to seek to reassert their
domination through a macho politics of control and semi-authoritarian policy
options.
Yet what Ducat overlooks is how race and whiteness undergird his theory.
After all, men of color, though subjected to the same patriarchal messages
and conditioning as white men, do not vote for right-wing candidates or
policies. So why? Why do white men vote so differently from men of color?
In other words, flipping Thomas Franks' question a bit, the issue is not,
"What's the matter with Kansas," but rather, what's the matter with white
people?
I would suggest four principal reasons for why whites vote so differently
from blacks who are otherwise similar in terms of class, gender and
religion, and are thus largely immune to the appeal of class-based politics.
Most whites have the luxury of believing in meritocracy
To begin with, class-based appeals have always been difficult in the United
States, in large part because, unlike the European nations in which Marxism
first gained traction, in the U.S., the notion of meritocracy has been a
cornerstone of the nation's ethos. No such pretense has existed in most
places, least of all those that were so proud to have developed under feudal
arrangements; but here, the myth of individual merit and mobility has been
central to the construction of the nation's political soul.
This myth of meritocracy is especially alluring to whites, whose experiences
with upward mobility have been just sufficient to allow faith in the concept
to be maintained over time. While truly poor whites may know better (and
largely vote their class interests, as noted above), those who earn incomes
around the median, though vulnerable, are likely doing well enough to
believe that with just a little more effort on their part, they can climb to
the next level on the class ladder. As such, they are likely to be skeptical
of class-based appeals for their vote. After all, they may feel no animosity
for those above them, and indeed expect that one day they will join them in
the ranks of the affluent.
Self-interest has never, for whites, been a simple economic calculus
Perhaps most importantly, what much of the left overlooks is that
self-interest is not just an economic or class concept.
A simple glance at the history of this country makes it all too clear that
whites, in particular, have been willing to overlook their class interests
for the sake of racial privilege. Working class whites did this in the
South, when elites convinced them to fight for a slave system that undercut
their own economic well-being; they did it again during the emergence of the
labor movement, when, fearing the racial solidarity in wages that unionism
would bring, they fought to keep their unions all-white.
In other words, white supremacy has long offered whites an alternative
identity, besides their class status, around which to rally. As UCLA
Professor of Law Cheryl Harris puts it, whiteness is a form a property,
every bit as valuable to those who possess it, as the material goods they
might receive by voting for more progressive candidates. This is not false
consciousness, in other words, but alternative consciousness: the
prioritizing of interests other than fiscal by persons who have been offered
alternative interests by a system of racial inequity.
So if whites‹even those whose economic status is vulnerable‹come to view
progressive government policies or candidates as threats to their hegemonic
status and control (be it through immigration, affirmative action, welfare
and social service programs, or even a foreign policy that is insufficiently
belligerent to darker-skinned terrorists), it ought not surprise us that
such persons might ignore their true class interests and vote instead for
what they view as their other interests, including those that are in effect
conceived in racial terms.
But it's not only race that provides an alternative form of identity to
which whites can cleave: so too with gender, religion or sexual orientation.
Heterosexual, male, evangelicals of color have a hard time ignoring their
economic interests, so clearly are these endangered by the right-wing
politics of the ruling party. This is so, even if they share some of the
gender, religious and sexual anxieties of white men. But whites enjoy
enough mobility in most cases to allow them to ignore class and instead
emphasize their status as men, or straight Christians. After all, maleness,
heterosexuality and Christianity are also forms of property in this society,
as with whiteness. They provide benefits, in relative terms, and a form of
personal and collective elevation above others, and as such are guarded
jealously by those who fear that their status is being challenged in those
realms of daily life.
While black men might logically view the greatest challenge to their
patriarchal manhood as systemic‹the inability, thanks to a racialized class
system to provide for their families‹and thus vote in more progressive
fashions, white men, whose ability to serve as providers tends to be more
secure, have the luxury thanks to their privilege, of viewing the biggest
threats to their manhood in decidedly gonadal terms: threats from feminists,
threats from homosexuals, and such.
So appeals to homophobia, or "anxious masculinity," as Ducat puts it, would
be more likely to work with whites than people of color, and could often
trump class concerns, again, not because of false consciousness, but the
ability of privilege to create alternative consciousness and alternative
forms of interests and property than those typically considered.
As for religion, there is little doubt but that white evangelical
Christianity has always been fundamentally different from that practiced by
persons of color. That difference is the difference between the faith of the
conqueror and that of the conquered. While black Christianity, for example,
has long been a theology of liberation, redemption and deliverance, the
Christianity of white Americans has almost always been‹in its fundamentalist
conceptions‹a theology of dominion. So when that hegemonic Christianity is
in any sense seen as being challenged, those who are used to the
unquestioned privileges of their scriptural interpretation, and their
untrammeled ability to define the larger culture, logically engage in
backlash.
While evangelicals of color can and do conceive of "moral issues" as
including poverty, unemployment, racism, and unjust wars abroad, white
evangelicals (at least who are not poor) literally cannot in most cases
conceptualize morality in that way, as doing so would require that they
interrogate their own role in immorality, as suggested by their privileges
and the degree to which those privileges come at the expense of those
without them.
So whether the issues at play in an election are explicitly racial, or
merely play to the gender, sexual and religious anxieties of whites whose
privileges allow them to define their identities other than as workers in a
class system, the effect is the same: whites, more so than others, remain
far more resistant to populist and class-based appeals for votes and
support. Their electoral behavior is based less on values in the abstract,
or moral values specifically, and more on the value they place upon
maintaining their relative status as members of privileged groups.
Cynicism about the prospects for change limit class appeals
Adding to white folks' willingness to ignore their economic interests and
instead prioritize their status as whites, or men, or Christians, or
heterosexuals, is a deep cynicism regarding the ability to actually change
the economic system in fundamental ways.
If the class system is indeed a powerful monolith, in which rich folks
pretty much have their way with the rest of us, one ought not be surprised
when some folks, despairing of their ability to really change such a
powerful configuration, decide to gravitate to other forms of political
mobilization than those offered by class consciousness. In fact, there's a
psychological logic to it, which actually multiplies exponentially, the more
convinced one becomes that they are getting their asses kicked by the rich.
While the left has always assumed working class folks would respond to
rising class consciousness with rebellion, or at least by pushing for
reform, there is in fact another option: namely, they can become so
defeatist about the prospects for change that they would then seek refuge
elsewhere. In the instant case, such refuge could be provided for some at
least, by the politics of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation.
By cleaving to their racial, religious, gender and sexual identities, such
persons can identify with an inspiring vision of hegemony and entitlement.
After all, despite feeling "under siege" by gays, women, minorities and
secular humanists, identifying their interests along these axes nonetheless
is more empowering than identifying as workers.
Such persons can clearly "remember" a time when straight, white, Christian
men were not only dominant (which they still are) but exercised a kind of
control that was largely unquestioned and unthreatened in the mainstream.
But they cannot envision a time when workers like them were ever in charge,
or running the show, so even if they find economic populism appealing at an
intellectual and affective level, they may become cynical about the
prospects for change‹for exercising power‹in that realm. So frustrated, they
will logically then turn to those arenas of daily life where they are likely
to be more successful, where their strength is palpable, where their
privileges‹however threatened‹are still very much intact.
Our cultural attachment for "winners" complicates class-based appeals
In keeping with this last line of analysis, our nation's cultural attachment
to winners makes the efficacy of class-based political appeals questionable,
to put it generously.
America, more so than anywhere else on Earth, has nurtured a cultural appeal
for winners over losers, such that many of its residents seek nothing more
than to identify with the winners, whoever they may be: a sports team,
random billionaires like Donald Trump or Bill Gates, or the larger class of
successful so-called rich folks.
To ask workers to identify their interests as workers and act on those
interests is to ask them to identify, by definition, with the losers in the
class game, and nothing in this culture is less appealing than to be labeled
and seen as a loser. At least by identifying ones interests and very
identity in non-class terms, as Christians, heterosexuals, whites, or as
men, such persons can nurture a sense of power, or superiority, of their
status as winners, since these are all dominant groups to which they belong,
instead of that relatively weak grouping of which they are also a part:
workers.
While people of color can hardly ignore their marginal status, and while
truly poor and lower-income whites too will typically identify their
interests in economic terms, those whites in the middle-middle class‹whose
economic status is precarious but not desperate‹have the luxury of
identifying with these other, more rewarding identities. Indeed, they have
every reason to do so, as they hardly want to be reminded of their
vulnerability in the class system.
So what to do? Dealing with white political pathology
Given the various limitations placed on explicit class-based appeals, at
least insofar as these are aimed at middle and working class whites like
those about whom Thomas Frank seems so concerned ,the left must then
consider what it might do, if it wishes to gain actual political strength.
Putting aside the obvious limitations on electoral power under any guise,
there are at least some lessons to be gleaned from the above information and
analysis: lessons that might help push a progressive politics forward.
First, the white left must come to realize that it has a white people
problem, and that problem is directly related to white privilege. To the
extent whites have advantages over people of color, it becomes possible and
even likely that many such whites will seek to maximize their relative
advantage over others, rather than thinking of self-interest in explicitly
class terms. As such, the left will have to confront white privilege
directly: exposing it for what it is and how it operates, and demonstrating
the harm that racial inequality does to those without such privileges, and
the larger society.
Exposing white privilege in this way would serve two purposes: it would
likely maximize voter turnout and political engagement among people of
color, who overwhelmingly would vote for the more progressive candidate; and
secondly, it would, for some whites at least, neutralize backlash by
demonstrating that those who feel threatened are actually still quite large
and in charge, thus, less in need than they otherwise might think, of
organizing to defend their prerogatives."
Next, progressives, and especially white progressives, must point out the
destructive downsides to a system of inequality, racial privilege, gender
privilege and religious hostility. We must articulate and organize around an
analysis that focuses on the way in which such inequalities and hostilities
make neighborhoods and communities less sustainable, increase the likelihood
of terrorism, and contribute to the very anxieties that so many Americans
feel. After all, trying to maintain ones edge over others‹be it racial,
religious, gendered, or whatever else‹takes an enormous amount of energy.
Third, we must develop a narrative of fairness that directly creates shame
around racism, sexism, straight supremacy and Christian supremacy. Most
whites who cleave to these forms of domination have never been challenged to
think about their views and what those positions mean for those who are
different than themselves. If we assume that most white people are decent
and rational‹which at some level the populist theorists assume by
definition‹then we must also assume they can be reached by appeals to
fairness. By ignoring fairness and seeking only to appeal to self-interest,
we leave in place the very kind of relative thinking that has long propelled
whites to elevate racial and now gender, religious and heterosexual
interests to the pinnacle of their political ideology. Such appeals, of
course, are unlikely to move most whites, but could certainly move the small
percentage necessary to alter election outcomes, and thus buy the true left
and progressive movements the breathing room to effectively challenge both
major electoral parties and the larger political-economic system.
And finally we must develop and articulate a vision of possible social
change and economic transformation. It isn't enough to argue that the tax
cuts pushed by Republicans are only for the rich, or to claim that the
health care plan of Democrats is somewhat better than that offered by
Republicans. Unless voters are given a reason to believe that truly
transformative change is possible‹not merely differences at the margins of
public policy‹it will make sense for them to ignore class appeals, seeing as
how they will remain cynical about the prospects for change in economic
terms, and instead define their perceived interests in other arenas, where
they can feel a greater level of efficacy and control.
* * * *
Thus, the left will have to seriously develop and extend analyses about what
the economy and polity might look like, and how the system to which we have
grown accustomed might change; how work might be organized differently, how
communities might be re-conceptualized, and how working people may be able
to exercise greater power and control over their lives. While we can't
expect the Democratic party to do much or any of this, there is no reason
why progressive movement activists can't focus on such future visions,
trading what we're against in favor of the world we're for.
Whatever the case, we should acknowledge the limitations of class politics,
whether conceived in Marxist or Democratic Party terms. White folks are a
political breed unto themselves in this country; and until progressives come
to understand the inner workings of the species' mental structures, we'll be
unlikely to gain much traction, or hope to reverse the rising tide of
reactionary sentiment among so many of their type.
Tim Wise is an essayist, activist and father. He is the author of White Like
Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (Soft Skull Press).
As usual Wise's piece is excellent.
As a white guy myself, I often do say (to myself), thank god there aren't more white people in this country. If only whites voted we'd be living in a fascist dictatorship!
But the question that haunts me is, why? Why do 2/3 of white guys in the US vote for right wing extremists like Bush? And what leads the 1/3 of us who don't to see things differently?
I think this piece by Wise is a great stab at answering that crucial question. Of course lots of white folks don't want to hear this. But thanks for putting it out here.
Posted by: Upstate guy | April 13, 2005 at 09:16 PM
I was blown away by that article. I know from my own experience with my White, Born Again, Hetero, Anti-Feminist father, that he is hitting the nail on the head. I never could get him to explain why he was voting for Bush. I even explained that business wasn't playing fair under Bush, and he said "Life's not fair". I tried to explain that at least we can ATTEMPT to make it fair, and he said "But I'm a REPUBLICAN!" I swear, it was like reading a checklist of my father's muddled sense of self.
Amazing.
I would go a little further and say that Bush is their surrogate for lashing out at a world they no longer understand.
Posted by: Nevadan4now | April 14, 2005 at 02:47 AM
thank you both for your insightful comments. it is a really amazing phenomenon. i wish the answers came more clearly. what does one do when logic fails? (i guess the answer would be: vote republican!)
Posted by: scott | April 16, 2005 at 01:09 AM
Scott:
White people are on the way out. There are just too many other people of color--like the Chinese--ready to ascend the throne.
Here in Asia, things are really interesting. No Moo-hyun, the president of Korea, is trying to find a graceful way out from under the American umbrella. Of course, Condoleeza Rice hates it. But that's just one thing her Uncle Tom ass will have to deal with.
America is changing, but the Good Old Boys are going to go down kicking and screaming, fer sure.
Posted by: yankabroad | April 17, 2005 at 11:39 AM
I hope you're right Yank. That's what the demographic stats seem to say, I just hope whitey doesn't destroy the world before he abdicates the throne.
Posted by: scott | April 17, 2005 at 06:31 PM