Thursday, March 26, 2015

Divide & Conquer: Strategies for the Elimination and Reduction of Racism & Classism


Andre Owens[shared link] To my white friends, particularly the conservatives, please read this article without defensiveness. It may be illuminating to you.


In These Times of Racial Strife, A White Professor Explores The Prevalence of ‘White Fragility’

Trey Noë - Interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

Melissa Toms Minotti - A thought-provoking article. And to me, paradoxically it outlines the point that the only way we will be able to make progress is to keep working and keep talking...even if the topic makes us uncomfortable.

Trey Noë - @Andre… I guess the first step is admitting there is a problem... However I am interested in tangible personal behaviors that can improve things. I believe it is difficult to discuss this without introducing a more expansive topic, class. Certainly there is a correlation with race in America's class structure. If you forgive the simplicity of that framework, can you or your Facebook family share any example of a dominant social class acting in a way that would be instructive in our case?

Andre Owens - Yeah, Class is definitely an issue. Although the same people who deny structural racism usually deny Classism too, and use phrases like "pull yourself up by your own boot straps." I learned long ago that my perception of reality (by growing up middle class in Maugansville amongst all whites) that I had a distinct class advantage over kids who grew up in the hood.

Muhammad Rasheed - 'Race' and 'class' are linked in western society. An exclusive elitist class was built along race lines because of the American heritage of slavery and later jim crow laws. We still feel the effects of it today, that's why the national "joke" stereotype is that all blacks are low class 'thugs.'

To attempt to have that discussion by side-stepping 'race' is to either be in defensive denial, or a deliberate misdirection attempt. If all or most poor blacks moved up the socio-economic ladder into the middle and upper classes would we still have the race issue in this society?

Trey Noë - @Muhammad… I would expect the answer to your question to be yes but with a different dynamic. Again, the goal may be perfection but I am a realist when it comes to humanity. High goals and lower expectations. I can as a skeptic see a society that potentially includes some bilateral prejudices (old wounds and social memory with phantom pains like a man who loses his leg in battle) but no structural or institutional discrimination. Is that perfection, no but a better place than where we have been or are at.

For clarification, I am asking about class as a corollary not a substitute. I do this seeking positive examples of progress in reconciliation or progress in class struggles since it seemed to me as more likely there are other historical circumstances we can learn from than that of only race. Having said that, I accept your critique on the use of class as a substitute as being incomplete at its core.

Brian Rise - It's always about class - Karl Marx (my paraphrase).

Muhammad Rasheed - Trey Noë wrote: “Muhammad: I would expect the answer to your question to be yes but with a different dynamic. Again, the goal may be perfection but I am a realist when it comes to humanity. High goals and lower expectations.”

Perfection is a road, not a destination. Only God is perfect. We can only work hard to achieve our ideals and stick to consistent measures of development and recovery when we mess up along that road. We’ll be alright as long as we are sincere and walk with integrity.

Trey Noë wrote: “I can as a skeptic see a society that potentially includes some bilateral prejudices (old wounds and social memory with phantom pains like a man who loses his leg in battle) but no structural or institutional discrimination. Is that perfection, no but a better place than where we have been or are at.”

Firmly and consistently disciplining those people who willfully and stubbornly insist upon falling short of our ideals in this particular area, in which leadership has expressed as a high priority, will help ensure that the culture itself changes, and institutionalized racism will finally be removed from our systems.

Trey Noë wrote: “For clarification, I am asking about class as a corollary not a substitute. I do this seeking positive examples of progress in reconciliation or progress in class struggles since it seemed to me as more likely there are other historical circumstances we can learn from than that of only race. Having said that, I accept your critique on the use of class as a substitute as being incomplete at its core.”

Classism is far older and far more powerful than racism. Racism represents no less than our country’s shame, it being the fruit of a practice that directly contradicted the high principles upon which the nation was founded. The longer it sticks around, the worse we all look, and we “taint our witness,” so to speak, when we have the audacity to correct others on their historic wrongs. Racism has stuck around so long because it was directly linked to classism, and as such, offenders tend to be of the traditional elitist class it was built for. The link between the two concepts manifests itself when people of the lower classes, conspicuously absent of the perks & trappings’ of the wealthy elite, STILL express racial superiority over members of the traditionally disenfranchised group, even when the latter has achieved wealth. If we remove classism, racism will indeed remain, as the wholesale slaughter of economically successful all-black towns and communities of the past can attest. The way to fix the issue for the long term is to:

1.) Clear the way towards higher education and training in fields that traditionally pays well and generates a foundational wealth for families (technology, medical, etc.)

2.) Immediately, firmly and consistently discipline anyone who discriminates against another along race lines. A nationwide commitment to a zero tolerance policy for racist practices is key.

The two of these items combined as a new part of American culture will have the eventual long-term desired results. Classism will not be eliminated altogether, but the gap between the socio-economic classes will be significantly shortened.

Muhammad Rasheed - The “different dynamic” you mentioned would be a hate-filled bitterness generated by the lower class of the race the elitists belong to. They have been programmed to believe they are inherently superior to the racially disenfranchised group by way of birth, and it will be difficult to convince them that the black race achieved their successes through education and hard work (it’s one of the reasons why the concept behind ‘affirmative action’ has been such a sabotaging failure, doing more to create nation-dividing bitterness than it has actually helped anyone).

Muhammad Rasheed - That's why a very firm and zero tolerance disciplinary policy will be needed. Racism by its nature is irrational; you cannot reason with it.

Trey Noë - Thanks for the thoughtful response. Do you feel like incidents like the one involving the Oklahoma University fraternity members are a good or bad sign ? The chant was unquestionably wrong but has the response including the two expulsions and the closing of the SAE chapter given you any hope that tolerance is diminishing?

Muhammad Rasheed - Trey Noë wrote: “Do you feel like incidents like the one involving the Oklahoma University fraternity members are a good or bad sign ? The chant was unquestionably wrong but has the response including the two expulsions and the closing of the SAE chapter given you any hope that tolerance is diminishing?”

The response to the incident was definitely a good sign that things will be better, as long as practices like this are dealt with equally swiftly, firmly and consistently across the board. The problem is that what those guys did was an example of the heritage of racism saturated throughout our national culture. Tolerance hasn’t “diminished.” It was never built up in the first place. Handheld camera/video + social media have made vile practices traditionally hidden within the hushed ranks of the violators now open to public scrutiny. “Institutionalized racism” meant that the influential members of our institutions have protected those who commit these acts, and there have been very little consequence to the actions. That is of course the exact formula needed to make sure racism never goes away. The Oklahoma University fraternity incident response makes me feel hopeful.

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