Introduction
College
students study race and class in sociology courses or in Black Studies
programs, although it should be part of the core curriculum for all incoming college
freshmen who need to understand the history of this multi-racial, multi-ethnic,
multi-religious society. The issue of race identity vs. class identity in the
US is as old as the institution of slavery followed by an apartheid society
from the end of the Civil War to the Supreme Court decision of 1896 in Plessy
v. Fergusson, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and down to the early 21st
century with lingering cultural and institutional racism manifesting itself in
everything from the criminal justice system to public schools and public health.
The
sociological and political issue of race transcending class and vice versa is
controversial depending on one’s ideological perspective. White liberals and black
nationalists subordinate class to race, while varieties of socialists for the
most part, although hardly unanimous, argue that class transcends race and it
must be so in order to address the broader problems of social justice. The
dominant culture and institutional structure that includes government at all
levels and everything from the educational system and churches to media have always
subordinated class to race. It is hardly surprising to this day that this is
what the majority reflect in public opinion polls as well, considering that
America is much less class conscious than other developed nations despite the
lack of social justice.
http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2016/01/30/racial-attitudes-differ-more-on-ideology-than-class/; also
see Barbara Fields, “Ideology
and Race in American History” in Region,
Race, and Reconstruction, ed.
by J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson (1982).
The Congressional
Black Caucus and the Politics of Conformity
In
February 2016, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) decided to endorse Hillary
Clinton on the basis of her record of support for blacks arousing the curiosity
of many who immediately looked into the financial backing of the CBC to
determine who exactly was paying for the endorsement. Beyond the obvious
Washington corporate lobbyists linked to the CBC, there are several salient
questions that need some analysis, including class consciousness vs. race
consciousness in America, and why is it that there is a blurring of the two.
Is the
political economy best served currently by both black and white elites and the
white dominant culture and institutional structure perpetuating racial
divisions over class divisions? Is identity in America based on skin color,
ethnicity, religion and gender rather than class? Does race consciousness mean
the same thing in the early 21st century when a black president has
been elected twice as it did in the mid-19th century when black
abolitionist Frederick Douglass lived in a society where race and class were
the same under the institution of slavery? Is the CBC following a long-standing
tradition of black churches that conform within the white establishment?
Historically,
black clergy have kept the congregation focused on spiritual matters within the
black community isolated from the white mainstream; some have gone along with
the white establishment both conservative and liberal so they can keep their
turf; others as during the 1950s and 1960s became politicized and demanded
reforms within the system or declared Black Nationalism as the solution. Does
the fact that CBC exist indicate societal racism that needs a political power
broker? If so, what does this reveal about race vs. class identity and why the
former transcends the latter in America when it is not the case in other
multi-racial societies?
The
racial identity vs. class identity issue emerged in the forefront of the
presidential election of 2016 when two white people in the Democrat Party –
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders - were competing for the voting bloc of
African-Americans who supported overwhelmingly Barak Obama in his bid to the
White House. Despite the fact that the Republican Party had a black
presidential candidate (Ben Carson), in February 2016 the Congressional Black
Caucus chose to support the former Sec/State Hillary Clinton, arguing she
represents the interests of black people, presumably all of them and not just
the 35,000 black millionaires in a population of about 39 million blacks or 13%
of the total in the US.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/US_real_median_household_income_1967_-_2011.PNG;
It is important to note that big
capital was as solidly behind the decision of the Black Caucus as it has been
behind the Clinton campaign. There is something seriously wrong and highly
hypocritical when the Black Caucus claims to represent all black people, but
its funding sources come from the largest US-based multinational corporations
influencing its decision to endorse Clinton rather than Sanders. http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/12/who_endorsed_hillary_clinton_the_congressional
“Members of the CBC PAC board include Daron Watts, a lobbyist for Purdue Pharma, the maker of the
highly addictive opioid OxyContin; Mike Mckay and Chaka Burgess, both lobbyists for Navient, the student loan giant
that was spun off of Sallie Mae; former Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md., a
lobbyist who represents a range of clients, including work
last year on behalf of Lorillard Tobacco, the maker of Newport cigarettes;
and William A. Kirk, who lobbies for a cigar industry trade group on
a range of tobacco regulations.”
A Historical Overview of Race and Class
Although the promise of capitalism
is that it is color-blind and a system that provides equal opportunities for
all to attain upward social mobility, the empirical reality not just in the US
but across the globe has been anything but the promise. The market system has
always taken advantage of race, gender, and ethnicity to divide the working
class and middle class and to benefit by paying lower wages to those groups in
society that are discriminated. Just as there have been lower wages for women,
similarly the white-black wage ratio has also been lower working to the benefit
of the employer using race to realize higher profits, thus contributing to the strengthening
of US capitalism. Racial stereotypes that the media and the dominant culture
perpetuate – blacks are prone to crime, collecting welfare, and draining the
social welfare system – help to maintain racial divisions that keep a large
percentage of the minority community in a permanent state of social
subservience. (Nicola Ginsburgh, “Race
and class in the US” Issue: 134 (27th March 2012) http://isj.org.uk/race-and-class-in-the-us/)
Capital
accumulation would not be possible in the absence of the active role of the
state. This is where politicians enter into the picture of promoting
co-optation so that capitalists encounter the least possible resistance to
their goals. Following a long-standing tradition of yielding to white bourgeois
co-optation, which has been an effective mechanism of sociopolitical control of
the minority population, the Black Caucus invoked race above class to endorse
Hillary Clinton. That she is running on a platform to maintain the neoliberal
status quo that has kept blacks in the lowest income category of any social
group in America in the last half century, including under Obama was not
mentioned because the same big capital contributors to Clinton are also contributors
to the CBC bought and paid for.
Without
mentioning big money contributors behind the endorsement, the Black Caucus
argued that Hilary and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, were
involved in the Civil Right Movement of the 1960s and Hillary best represents
the “Obama legacy” whereas her opponent has been critical of America’s first
black president for caving to Wall Street and the establishment. Two-thirds of
Americans believe that the class divide is a more serious issue than immigration
or race relations, given that the elusive American Dream has become just a
dream for the vast majority, causing polarization in society in across all
social realms including race relations.
Historically
the American Dream – upward social mobility from the working class to the
middle class - was never as easily attainable for blacks as it was for whites.
Before the Civil War, the American Dream was more or less the domain of the
white Anglo-Saxon Protestant elite, but it was hardly much different from the
end of the Civil War to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed discrimination based on race,
color, religion, sex, or national origin.
While there was a gradual opening for upward social mobility to blacks, it was
hardly comparable to the rate of whites. More significant, the vast majority of
the black population continued to make up a disproportionate part of America’s
poor, lacking decent health and education. Although the Civil Right Act
officially put an end to the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Fergusson
(1896) of “separate but equal”, it hardly ended the practice throughout the
country of an apartheid society.
In an article entitled “Race transcends class in this country: A response to Seekings and
Nattrass”, South
African university professor Xolela Mangcu argues that in his apartheid society race transcends class because
people see color first and foremost even after he would have to announce his
social status. Moreover, regardless of class differences, black people feel a
sense of solidarity because of their common struggle against apartheid society.
http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2015-04-06-race-transcends-class-in-this-country-a-response-to-seekings-and-nattrass/#.VsBhP-Y_DIW
As
shocking as many people may find it, there are some similarities between South
Africa and the US, though clearly the US is the military leader of the world
and still a powerful economy despite the global challenge that China has
presented in a remarkably short period of time. Because of the institution of
slavery that relegated black people in the southern states to the status of
property that whites owned, and because of Jim Crow laws at the state and local
level enforcing segregation and apartheid conditions, a hierarchy evolved based
not just on class but also race. Almost like a caste system, blacks were at the
bottom of the hierarchy, followed non-Western European immigrant workers from of
any ethnicity regardless of color, and then white workers. Not surprisingly,
the slowly evolving black middle class also fell into the same race-based
hierarchy, considering that many cities have historic black middle class neighborhoods,
just as they do of other ethnic groups.
The endeavors
of civil rights leaders in the 1950s and 1960s, including Martin Luther King to
have race eliminated as criteria and to have blacks accepted on the same
meritocracy-based criteria as whites was actually conceived by Europeans during
the Age of Reason in the 18th century when the US was born as a
republic. While the Founding Fathers incorporated the value system of the
Enlightenment in the Constitution and laws, they excluded minorities and women.
The white European bourgeois philosophy and values of the 18th
century are deeply ingrained in American society that places the individual
above the collective, thus protecting the individual property owner and slave
owner.
In a
recent article entitled “Martin Luther King Jr. Transcended Color and Class and So Can You,” liberal Huffington Post reflects the ideal of 18th century Enlightenment
liberal thinking against any communitarian values. “In reality, no one can set another free.
True equality arises from within. When you become it and live it, your
demonstration of strength of character creates your ticket to freedom. Each one
of us contains all the power we require to set ourselves free. Ultimately, it's
an inside job.” The suggestion
that Martin Luther King transcended class and race is as absurd as the one that
freedom comes from within. Of course, he was the first to admit as much.
This 18th
century liberal ideal assumes that the individual has choice in the matter of
transcending race and class, when in fact the institutional structure
determines racism and classism. No one decided to become a slave while all
along thinking in her/his mind he/she is free. Slaves did not have the ability
to free themselves from the institution simply by imagining they were free.
This is only something that religion promoted to provide slaves with a spiritual
outlet for their predicament in daily material life and something that white
masters promoted along with black preachers, although for different reasons,
resulting in maintaining the status quo.
Racism at the City
Level: Chicago
American
history is rich with examples of black leaders conforming to the white
establishment and endorsing the political enemies of workers and especially black
workers en masse. Some such cases have been very egregious that backfired on
the black community. For example, the black leadership in Chicago chose to
support Rahm Emanuel, another Obama protégé committed to neoliberal policies
and conducting policy to strengthen the richest citizens of the city. The black
elites and black community leaders for the most part rejected Jesus Garcia, the
candidate running on a populist progressive platform with a broad appeal to the
middle class and workers. Despite the fact that Emmanuel had a record of
covering up for institutional racism in the police department and refusing to
make any changes at the leadership level, black leaders asked their followers
to vote for Emanuel because they assumed a Latino mayor would be less friendly
toward the minority community than a mayor linked to Obama. http://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/7/71/507983/humility-black-partnerships-forge-win-rahm-emanuel
This was
two years after Emanuel had ordered that 53 public schools and 61 buildings primarily in
minority neighborhoods be shut down so the city could save $1 billion. This was
carried out as part of a neoliberal agenda where Emmanuel was privatizing
public services and using funds saved by shutting down schools so the city could
then transfer funds for a variety of corporate welfare projects to local
businesses. Moreover, he proposed building a public school near an
environmental toxic site to save money. Nevertheless, blacks voted for him
instead of his Hispanic opponent, despite his record of supporting a racist
police force, and pursuing a racist policy toward public education. Although these
neoliberal policies impacted largely the black community, they are at the core
class and not race issues despite the hit the black community took because it
was the easy target to the white establishment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/rahm-emanuel-school-toxic_n_3941302.html; http://www.chicagonow.com/kelly-truth-squad/2015/02/the-next-50-chicago-public-schools-rahm-emanuel-will-close/; http://inequality.org/privatization-chicago/
Black Nationalism and the Liberal
Integrationist Model
Both at the local level as Chicago
politics suggests as well as the national level the issue of race benefits
capital but it only continues unabated because politicians black and white
perpetuate the interests of capital over class and race, the latter which they
use to subordinate the class struggle clearly evident in subtle and blatant
forms. Unfortunately, Black Nationalism in the 20th century has
actually helped to inculcate into the minds to black people that race
consciousness transcends class consciousness. This is certainly since the era
of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro
Improvement Association in the 1920s and down to the late 20th century
with various black leaders advocating nationalism, albeit often for
opportunistic self-serving reasons as in the case of some black Muslims. (William
L. Van Deburg, Modern Black Nationalism: From
Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan (1996).
Despite the reality that in all people’s
everyday material lives class transcends race, Black Nationalist leaders have
tried to sell illusions not very different than those the church has been
selling to the faithful who need spiritual comfort against the incredible odds
in the real world. By the same token, the liberal integrationist model which
has presented itself as the antithesis of Black Nationalism has also
contributed to distracting from class consciousness in the black community. The
liberal integrationist models rooted in local and national Democrat Party
politics and coming out of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s were in
essence detrimental to the upward socioeconomic mobility of blacks, always as
judged by results clearly evident half a century later.
In fact, those liberal
integrationist experiments of the 1960s and 1970s (segregated housing that
entailed ghetto living, permanent welfare, substandard health and education,
etc.) were in essence intended to provide the minimal social safety net while
at the same time absorbing a tiny percentage of the black elites into the institutional
mainstream. Meanwhile, nothing changed for the vast majority of the population
that remains at the very bottom of the socioeconomic ladder judged by income
and personal wealth statistics. It is these black elites that the Congressional
Black Caucus represents today as it has historically, rather than the unarmed
black teenager shot by cops every other week in cold blood in one of America’s
cities. Gary Peller, Critical Race Consciousness: The
Puzzle of Representation. (2012).
The underlying problem is social
justice. Both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King recognized toward the end of
their lives when they too finally went beyond the issue of race and on to the
much larger issue of class and the structure of the political economy and
dominant culture. The alienation of blacks in contemporary society is not so
different than it is for Hispanics and other non-European immigrants, or poor
whites. The lumpenproletariat, of which a large segment blacks have been
related by the political economy, are in the same boat as their brethren of
other races and ethnicities. They are all
operating under a system geared toward capital accumulation and bent on using
race, gender, ethnicity and religion, especially targeting Muslims since 9/11,
to divide the masses. This is hardly a new strategy, considering we see it on
the part of the Europeans in the 19th and 20th century
and their behavior toward colonial people as Franz Fanon among others has
argued trying to understand the root causes of class and race alienation.
Alienation, Race, Gender and Class
Like
sexism and xenophobia, racism breeds alienation not only because of the
exclusion from the mainstream but because the people on the receiving end
internalize the identity assigned to them by the hegemonic culture rooted in
discrimination. As George Lulacs, History
and Class Consciousness (1972) pointed out in the 1920s, the issue of
alienation is catalytic in capitalist society, an issue on which Existentialist
thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre dueled in their writings especially as
alienation was dominant in bourgeois life. Not only do we see very clear
evidence of alienation among the petit bourgeoisie in America across all ethnic
and religious groups despite their protestations to the contrary that
capitalism effaces such alienation, the problem is becoming even more
pronounced in a techno-society that continues to alienate human beings from
each other as individuals and social classes striving to assert their identity
and pulled in different directions by forces intended to distract them from the
problem of social justice.
Against
such a culture of alienation even more prevalent today than when George Lucacs
was writing a century ago, it is hardly surprising that racial, ethnic,
religious, and other “communal” identities transcend class identify, especially
for the lumpenproletariat. After all, who wants to identify with the working class?
Whereas the American middle class was the essence of the American Dream a half
century ago, that class is now considerably weakened, debt-ridden and hardly
carries the same prestige it did during the early Cold War. Is it any wonder
that working class people with high school diplomas support a billionaire
right-wing populist presidential candidate Donald Trump who represents their
fears and aspirations, their prejudices and anxieties, even when he invokes
xenophobia, sexism and racism?
What a
better way to co-opt a segment of the disgruntled masses and keep them divided
than to have such right wing populists who point to working people of a
different race, ethnicity and religion? This is exactly what ultra right-wing
politicians did in the interwar era of Fascism and Nazism rooted in
discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender and religion. Public
opinion makers – think tanks and media, politicians and community leaders - mold
mass psychology to accept alienation as normal, to reject class consciousness
and to identify with communal groups of similar background instead of seeing
the absence of social justice in its universal framework impacting the working
class and middle class regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or gender.
There are
many sociological and historical studies analyzing the issue of race
transcending class in America that goes hand in hand with gender transcending
class, and ethnicity, and religion. These are all traits of a capitalist
society where the political and social elites co-opt a small percentage of the
leadership of the minority groups, keep these groups separate and use them to
forge political and social consensus that serves a political economy aimed at
preserving the privileges of the wealthy that includes a small percentage of
blacks and other minorities, as well as women. Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton,
a millionaire who represents Wall Street, used her gender as an issue to co-opt
women voters just as the Black Caucus used the issue of race to co-opt black
voters for Clinton.
Divisive
tactics based on race, religion and ethnicity were commonly used by European
colonialists to co-opt the native population and to keep it divided, whether in
Africa, India and the rest of Asia, especially in the 19th and early
20th century. In short, the tactics of European imperialists remain
alive and well in 21st century US.
Throughout history, the
social and political elites in the US have endeavored to suppress any attempt
at raising class consciousness, while exacerbating race, gender, ethnic and
religious consciousness.
It is
hardly surprising that class consciousness is subordinate to race, gender,
ethnicity, and religious consciousness in a society where the entire
institutional structure from educational system to community social clubs have
no references to class because it is an anathema to even mention the class structure
although it is staring at people in the face when they go from the ghetto to
the gated community. It is a testament to the success of the elites in
co-opting the disgruntled masses in the late 1960s and early 1970s by
fragmenting their causes, breaking down their solidarity by focusing on specific
groups that included feminists, blacks, Hispanics, gay rights activists and
environmentalists, and all separate and never in solidarity with each other. (Angela
Davis Women, Race and Class,
1983; also see Paula S.
Rothenberg, Race Class and Gender in the US, 2004)
Civil Rights, Cold
War and Cryptic Jim Crow
As the
white establishment as the co-opted black elites always sing the praises of the
civil rights movement, which did go a very long way in addressing some of the
most egregious segregation problems and it did result in modest upward mobility.
While the civil rights movement had some
limited success, would any one argue that it eliminated institutional racism in
America? If not, to what degree is this the fault of the white establishment and
the black political elites that enjoy influence over black ministers and
community leaders?
The Obama
legacy on which Hillary Clinton is running for president in 2016 is much closer
to the Clinton one in so far as it continued the neo-liberal tradition that
strengthened the richest Americans than it did the bottom 90%; among those
bottom 90% blacks doing very poorly under Obama with youth unemployment at 50%
and income disparity that suggests very clearly institutional racism as a
mechanism that strengthens capital. Given the material lives of the vast
majority of black people, the Black Caucus is about as relevant to black
peoples’ lives as Gloria Steinem and her generation of upper middle class
feminists to the lives of working class women of all ethnic backgrounds.
In many multi-racial
societies, class transcends race but not in the US where the elites of all
ethnic groups and races have joined historically to suppress the concept of
class as radical, socialist or Marxist. By contrast, race isolated as an issue
is acceptable because it speaks to the possibilities of co-optation of a
segment of minorities into the white institutional structure. In this respect, the US is not very different
from South Africa, but very different from the Muslim North African and Middle
East countries where class most definitely transcends race.
In a pluralistic society that claims
to be Enlightenment-inspired merit-based but in reality steeped in racism and
xenophobia diversity is essential to prove that the system works and must be
sustained as is. During the early Cold War when the US was engaged in a global
struggle for ideological and political influence with the Communist countries,
domestically it practiced apartheid while preaching the virtues of democracy to
the rest of the world. The Civil Rights movement emerged from the Cold War
political climate and became necessary to silence critics about the limits of
American democracy. John Kennedy recognized as much but so did Lyndon Johnson.
In the early 21st century America has come full circle with the
anti-Islam campaign under the name “war on terror” elaborately
institutionalized to replace the Cold War. (Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and
the Image of American Democracy. 2011)
Although the internal dynamics of a
society drive domestic policy, in the case of the US foreign policy under Pax
Americana bent on global policing if not hegemony invites attitudes of inevitable
superiority as history suggests in the long standing Protestant tradition of providence
and Manifest Destiny. Just as racial discrimination was part of the conquest at
the expense of Native Americans, Latin Americans from the Polk to the McKinley administration,
there was a parallel race discrimination against blacks that is continuing despite
Affirmative Action as one way to address it.
Diversity and Affirmative Action emerged from
the Civil Rights movement that was in no small measure intended to improve
America’s image abroad, but also to come to terms with the substantial
demographic changes as minorities were becoming a larger percentage of society.
Although loosely applied in many cases, Affirmative Action has helped to bring
more blacks in college and that has been a catalyst to upward social mobility
in a merit-based society. That some whites view Affirmative Action in higher
education as preferential treatment for blacks or reverse discrimination as they
argue in courts, including the Supreme Court, fails to take into account the
centuries of excluding blacks from higher education on the basis of skin color
without any regard to meritocracy.
Education is itself a commodity for
purchase by the wealthiest, considering that the children of the wealthy have
access to the best schools, and the very wealthy are contributors to
universities where their children attend classes. In other words, as a microcosmic
reflection of the larger society, higher education is based primarily on class
and secondarily on race, considering that the rich black students graduating
from expensive private or affluent suburban schools can hardly be placed in the
same category as the inner city public high school graduate where preparation
for college is a luxury instead of a priority. (Ira Katznelson, When
Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in
Twentieth-Century America. 2006)
In the workplace Affirmative Action
been used as a meritocracy mechanism for professional jobs that benefit the
black college-educated middle class now dwindling at an even greater rate than
the white middle class under neoliberal policies of corporate welfare since the
Reagan era at all levels of government.
Other than skin color, which they use for their own personal gain, what
exactly do black corporate executives have in common with an unemployed young
man in Detroit? Similarly, white CEOs have more in common with their black
counterparts than with unemployed white youths in rural Louisiana. Solidarity
exists among the black and white capitalist but not necessarily among the black
and white unemployed youth of working class background.
In the era of a two-term black
president, in the era of self-proclaimed pluralism, America is just as steeped
in repression rooted in racism directed at working class blacks as it was
before the Civil Rights movement. This becomes very clear when one looks at the
American justice system and prisons filled with minorities. Moreover, the
courts are institutionally biased against minorities. For example, George
Zimmerman, the “neighborhood watch” volunteer shot and killed 17-year-old
Trayvon Martin in February of 2012, but the court acquitted him. In most cases
police killing unarmed black youth, prosecution and imprisonment of the police
officer and police reform to end racism is rare. (Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
2015;
One could ask what the white and
black political and social elites are doing about this new form of racism and absence of social justice at a time that they have the
audacity to preach human rights and civil rights to the rest of the world. If
Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were to return today they would be shocked
that America remains so utterly oblivious to improving social justice for all
people, especially minorities. These civil right leaders of the 1960s would probably not be shocked that the Congressional Black Caucus is on the payroll of
multinational corporations that contribute by the millions to buy influence.
Because the minority political leaders as well as most community and church
leaders feel that racial equality comes within the capitalist system, their
goal is greater integration within the system not the struggle against it. A clear recognition that the capitalist system is the source of
inequality and social injustice as much in the black community as in all others will be the beginning of social action. Major Owens, The Peacock Elite,
A Case Study of the Congressional Black Caucus, 2011)
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/11/congressional-black-caucus-hillary/; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/us/politics/14cbc.html?_r=0
Neither Black Nationalism nor
liberal bourgeois schemes intended to assuage the entire minority community by
absorbing a small percentage into the institutional mainstream while providing
a weak social safety net for the rest have succeeded
in eliminating
poverty and ending institutional racism. Grassroots organizing and class
solidarity is the only hope blacks, Hispanics and all working people.
Following political and community leaders on the payroll of corporations, or
merely dependent on business funding for their activities will only perpetuate
the status quo. It is not unrealistic to expect institutions under the existing
political economy to continue enjoying various ways of co-opting the
leadership of the black community and quelling any demands for social justice.
As America’s demographics are rapidly changing and the current minorities (13%
black 17% Hispanic) will become the majority in 25 years or so, systemic change
will come collectively by a cross section of people coming together to address
the structural causes of injustice that rest with the social order under the current
political economy.
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