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Title: Whiteness and the 99% Author: Joel Olson Date: 20 November 2011 Language: en Topics: whiteness, Occupy Wall Street, Bring the Ruckus Source: Retrieved on 15th November 2021 from https://joelolson.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Whiteness-and-the-99.pdf
Occupy Wall Street and the hundreds of occupations it has sparked
nationwide are among the most inspiring events in the U.S. in the
21^(st) century. The occupations have brought together people to talk,
occupy, and organize in new and exciting ways. The convergence of so
many people with so many concerns has naturally created tensions within
the occupation movement. One of the most significant tensions has been
over race. This is not unusual, given the racial history of the United
States. But this tension is particularly dangerous, for unless it is
confronted, we cannot build the 99%. The key obstacle to building the
99% is left colorblindness, and the key to overcoming it is to put the
struggles of communities of color at the center of this movement. It is
the difference between a free world and the continued dominance of the
1%.
Left colorblindness is the belief that race is a “divisive” issue among
the 99%, so we should instead focus on problems that “everyone” shares.
According to this argument, the movement is for everyone, and people of
color should join it rather than attack it.
Left colorblindness claims to be inclusive, but it is actually just
another way to keep whites’ interests at the forefront. It tells people
of color to join “our” struggle (who makes up this “our,” anyway?) but
warns them not to bring their “special” concerns into it. It enables
white people to decide which issues are for the 99% and which ones are
“too narrow.” It’s another way for whites to expect and insist on
favored treatment, even in a democratic movement.
As long as left colorblindness dominates our movement, there will be no
99%. There will instead be a handful of whites claiming to speak for
everyone. When people of color have to enter a movement on white
people’s terms rather than their own, that’s not the 99%. That’s white
democracy.
Biologically speaking, there’s no such thing as race. As hard as they’ve
tried, scientists have never been able to define it. That’s because race
is a human creation, not a fact of nature. Like money, it only exists
because people accept it as “real.” Races exist because humans invented
them.
Why would people invent race? Race was created in America in the late
1600s in order to preserve the land and power of the wealthy. Rich
planters in Virginia feared what might happen if indigenous tribes,
slaves, and indentured servants united and overthrew them. So, they cut
a deal with the poor English colonists. The planters gave the English
poor certain rights and privileges denied to all persons of African and
Native American descent: the right to never be enslaved, to free speech
and assembly, to move about without a pass, to marry without upper-class
permission, to change jobs, to acquire property, and to bear arms. In
exchange, the English poor agreed to respect the property of the rich,
help them seize indigenous lands, and enforce slavery.
This cross-class alliance between the rich and the English poor came to
be known as the “white race.” By accepting preferential treatment in an
economic system that exploited their labor, too, the white working class
tied their wagon to the elite rather than the rest of humanity. This
devil’s bargain has undermined freedom and democracy in the U.S. ever
since.
As this white race expanded to include other European ethnicities, the
result was a very curious political system: the white democracy. The
white democracy has two contradictory aspects to it. On the one hand,
all whites are considered equal (even as the poor are subordinated to
the rich and women are subordinated to men). On the other, every white
person is considered superior to every person of color. It’s democracy
for white folks, but tyranny for everyone else.
In this system, whites praised freedom, equal opportunity, and hard
work, while at the same time insisting on higher wages, access to the
best jobs, to be the first hired and the last fired at the workplace,
full enjoyment of civil rights, the right to send their kids to the best
schools, to live in the nicest neighborhoods, and to enjoy decent
treatment by the police. In exchange for these “public and psychological
wages,” as W.E.B. Du Bois called them, whites agreed to enforce slavery,
segregation, reservation, genocide, and other forms of discrimination.
The tragedy of the white democracy is that it oppressed working class
whites as well as people of color, because with the working class
bitterly divided, the elites could rule easily.
The white democracy exists today. Take any social indicator—rates for
college graduation, homeownership, median family wealth, incarceration,
life expectancy, infant mortality, cancer, unemployment, median family
debt, etc.—and you’ll find the same thing: whites as a group are
significantly better off than any other racial group. Of course there
are individual exceptions, but as a group whites enjoy more wealth, less
debt, more education, less imprisonment, more health care, less illness,
more safety, less crime, better treatment by the police, and less police
brutality than any other group. Some whisper that this is because whites
have a better work ethic. But history tells us that the white democracy,
born in the 1600s, lives on.
No one is opposed to good schools, safe neighborhoods, healthy
communities, and economic security for whites. The problem is that in
the white democracy, whites often enjoy these at the expense of
communities of color. This creates a distorted mindset among many
whites: they praise freedom yet support a system that clearly favors the
rich, even at the expense of poor whites. (Tea Party, I’m talking to
you.)
The roots of left colorblindness lie in the white democracy and the
distorted mindset it creates. It encourages whites to think that their
issues are “universal” while those of people of color are “specific.”
But that is exactly backwards. The struggles of people of color are the
problems that everyone shares. Anyone in the occupy movement who has
been treated brutally by the police has to know that Black communities
are terrorized by cops every day. Anyone who is unemployed has to know
that Black unemployment rates are always at least double that of whites,
and Native American unemployment rates are far higher. Anyone who is
sick and lacks healthcare has to know that people of color are the least
likely to be insured (regardless of their income) and have the highest
infant mortality and cancer rates and the lowest life expectancy rates.
Anyone who is drowning in debt should know that the median net wealth of
Black households is twenty times less than that of white households.
Only left colorblindness can lead us to ignore these facts.
This is the sinister impact of white democracy on our movements. It
encourages a mindset that insists that racial issues are “divisive” when
they are at the absolute center of everything we are fighting for.
To defeat left colorblindness and the distorted white mindset, we must
come to see any form of favoritism toward whites (whether explicit or
implicit) as an evil attempt to perpetuate the cross-class alliance
rather than build the 99%.
Throughout American history, attacking the white democracy has always
opened up radical possibilities for all people. The abolitionist
movement not only overthrew slavery, it kicked off the women’s rights
and labor movements. The civil rights struggle not only overthrew legal
segregation, it kicked off the women’s rights, free speech, student,
queer, Chicano, Puerto Rican, and American Indian movements. When the
pillars of the white democracy tremble, everything is possible.
The only thing that can stop us is us. What prevents the 99% from
organizing the world as we see fit is not the 1%. The 1% cannot hold on
to power if we decide they shouldn’t. What keeps us from building the
new world in our hearts are the divisions among us.
Our diversity is our strength. But left colorblindness is a rejection of
diversity. It is an effort to keep white interests at the center of the
movement even as the movement claims to be open to all. Urging us to
“get over” so-called “divisive” issues like race sound inclusive, but
they are really efforts to maintain the white democracy. It’s like Wall
Street executives telling us to “get beyond” “divisive” issues like
their unfair profits because if you work hard enough, you too can get a
job on Wall Street someday!
Creating a 99% requires putting the struggles of people of color at the
center of our conversations and demands rather than relegating them to
the margins. To fight against school segregation, colonization,
redlining, and anti-immigrant attacks is to fight against everything
Wall Street stands for, everything the Tea Party stands for, everything
this government stands for. It is to fight against the white democracy,
which stands at the path to a free society like a troll at the bridge.
While no pamphlet can capture everything a nationwide movement can or
should do to undermine the white democracy and left colorblindness,
below is a short list of questions people might consider asking in
movement debates. These questions were developed from actual debates in
occupations throughout the U.S.
dismissive of demands for racial justice?
police,” do they consider how police terrorize Black, Latino, Native,
and undocumented communities? Do they consider how police have attacked
occupation encampments?
focus on redlining, predatory lending, and subprime mortgages, which
have decimated Black and Latino neighborhoods?
like electric and heating bills as well as home mortgages and college
loans?
they take place primarily in segregated neighborhoods, and do they
propose to start there?
many communities of color have already been in chronic “recessions” for
decades, and do they propose to start from there?
Attack capitalist power—attack the white democracy.
Build the 99%!
People of color at the center!
No more left colorblindness!