Fighting Racism: Liberal Academia to the Rescue with White Fragility.

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Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

 “And just because you have colleges and universities doesn't mean you have education.” Malcolm X

I would be interested in what people think of Theodore Allen's work on racial slavery in the US and the origins of the "white race" ideology. I have a couple of links in this commentary, one of them a shorter contribution and the other to Allen’s two-volume work on the issue, both with an introduction by Prof. Jeffrey Perry, the executor of Allen’s estate. To understand this history in my opinion and why a great revolutionary like Malcolm X can assert that "You can't have capitalism without racism.", is crucial if we are to fight racism and escape the madness of the so-called free market.

Many liberal academics, black and white, who would consider themselves radicals even socialists, rarely mention this quote of Malcolm X because they don’t really agree with it; his nationalist period is more useful to them as it doesn’t threaten capitalism. The goal of their radicalism is to advance their class interests within the framework of capitalism. They represent that social layer between the white racist ruling class and the multi-racial, far more numerous and powerful working class,

The black section of this intermediary layer is especially vulnerable as it is smaller than whites in a similar position and in competition with them as well. They do not have the numbers, social weight and have not amassed the necessary capital or have the same access to it being denied access to it for centuries.  They do not have the many links to the white ruling class for the same reason.

And it is the revolutionary potential of the black working class that they all fear the most. At the head of the present global movement against police or state security violence that has become much more, are the black workers and youth in the US.

While Malcolm X doesn’t specifically offer socialism as the alternative, he certainly placed it on the table and was clearly moving in that direction in the latter part of his life as was Martin Luther King Jr. More importantly, what flows from Malcolm X's profound statement on the subject is that to rid society of racism, we have to eliminate capitalism and the only conclusion we can draw from this is that we cannot overthrow capitalism without working class unity. I say this because I personally believe it is only the working that has the social weight and the most to gain from doing so. Marx himself made it clear when he wrote that, “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself.”

The working class, including the millions abandoned by capitalism, the unemployed or underemployed and those incarcerated in US prisons, is the most powerful and integrated force in society strategically positioned within the capitalist mode of production to bring it to a halt and ultimately transform society. The US 1%, to use the term popularized during the Occupy Movement, is aware of this powerful force and threatened by it. The ruling class relies on this intermediate social layer to act as a buffer between itself and the working class, the source of their wealth. This class layer has historically been referred to as the petit-bourgeois or middle class whether as small capitalists, members of academia or the professions or in Hollywood or as professional sports figures etc.  This buffer is even more important during periods of heightened class struggle and in the era of capitalist decay.

The class struggle is nothing but the battle between capitalists as the owners of wealth and wage workers whose life activity actually produces it: it is the driving force of history.

It is not an accident that here in the US, the working class is referred to as the middle class. Workers even describe ourselves in this way and it is normally in reference to income as opposed to a social role in production. We are encouraged to make it in to this “middle class” layer as it is a touted as a symbol of our success, ingenuity and hard work. Unions are praised not because they strengthen the economic power and political potential of the workers as a distinct class, but because they can offer us a pathway in to the middle class. We are taught to escape our class rather than rise up with it. Here in the US we have the rich, the middle class and the poor. We are to believe there are no workers here although this view is changing rapidly as in the last analysis, consciousness is a product of material conditions. If you are poor, the mass capitalist media can’t convince you that you are not. It can convince you that it is your fault your poor though.

So if we are going to discuss racism and in particular, the issue of whiteness, white privilege and so on, we cannot do so devoid of class content. We have to understand how this idea of whiteness as a racial definition arose in the US; how it supplanted the class question and for what purpose. In other words, we have to approach it with class in mind and with the intention of uniting the working class whose unity and social power is harmed by it.

In his introduction to CLASS STRUGGLE AND THE ORIGIN OF RACIAL SLAVERY: The Invention of the White Race    Jeffrey Perry points out that Allen argued, "the logic of 'race as a social construct' must be tightened and the focus sharpened" and "the 'white race' must be understood, not simply as a social construct (rather than a genetic phenomenon), but as a ruling class social control formation."

Perry adds that this was “consistent” with “Allen's repeated efforts to challenge what he considered to be the two main arguments that undermine and disarm the struggle against white supremacy in the working class”, namely:

1. the argument that racism is innate, and

2. the argument that European-American workers benefit from racism.

In the Invention of the White Race Allen goes further though as Perry points out:  “Allen's new theory is built, as he explains, on "three essential bearing-

points" that challenge both Jordan and Morgan and "from which it cannot be toppled":

“First, racial slavery and white supremacy in this country was a ruling-class

response to a problem of labor solidarity. Second, a system of racial

privileges for white workers was deliberately instituted in order to define

and establish the "white race" as a social control formation. Third, the

consequence was not only ruinous to the interests of the Afro-American

workers but was also "disastrous" . . . for the white worker.”

Visit Jeffrey Perry's website for extensive information on this subject including videos

I do not intend to write a thesis here as I’ve never written one and wouldn’t know how, but the definitive moment for Allen in the history of the Anglo-American colonies and the use of the term “white” as a racial definition, arose as a result of Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 in which both black and white labor eventually found a voice. This rebellion did not begin this way but all movements have a motion of their own at times and this one sacked Jamestown and threatened the rule of the plantation elite in the Virginia colony. Prior to this change, the labor supply was composed of individuals that were referred to as a Negro and Englishman, or a Negro and an Irishman and so on.

Historians often write of this history as if there were no class distinctions between colonists; they were all just “white” people but that identity had not yet arisen to the place it occupies now. The colonial expeditions and the mercantile capitalists and/or landowners that led them and the labor they imported, were financed by the Virginia Company a vehicle for these investors seeking new markets.

This approach to history, a history devoid of class struggle in the main, is quite acceptable to the white racist ruling class as their central role in the introduction of chattel slavery and the racist history of the US is obscured, and the white worker blamed for their inherent hatred of those with darker skin. The liberal middle class academic, and let’s remember, universities are capitalist think tanks, thrive on this as they can avoid their own class privilege in contrast to the white worker and wax eloquent about how racist the white worker is. If only they’d read my books. In fact, more often than not, white liberals of this type prove how non-racist they are by attacking white workers as the culprits and the force behind the whole schema.

Racism is far more entrenched in this class layer and it is through this class layer that the ideology of the 1%, selfish individualism, patriarchy, racial superiority, and the argument that their successes in the capitalist world are due to their own individual efforts, are brought in to the working class through the education system, the pulpit, the media and so on.

I raise this yet again as I have come across another trendy analysis of racism and how to combat it from a white liberal academic who, like so many others, is doing quite well writing books about racism dripping with morality, guilt shaming and attempts at psychoanalysis. The object being to help “white people” accept that they are racist and that they must admit to their white privilege in order to escape it. Refusing to discuss, or having difficulty discussing racism openly and accepting how racist they are is called, “White Fragility” which is, as the inventor of this process says, is not fragile at all for black folks.

I sat through a couple of nauseating videos as Robin DiAngelo, who coined the term “White Fragility” droned on about how white people get uncomfortable when racism is mentioned which is true.  But why is this difficult to talk about and what can we do about it? Here’s the first answer: Don’t read DiAngelo’s books. Silly me, the average worker wouldn’t get past the first chapter; we’re not stupid.

Privileged white middle class academics like DiAngelo  believe their role is to educate the workers, white ones in this case. They’ve learned this in the universities you see.  They must help us understand what we fail to understand. DiAngelo claims to have been raised “white and poor” which may be true (she’s still white I think) but if she had an ounce of class consciousness as a worker it has been eradicated in the morass of the university milieu and her building her successful book business.

These types complain that white workers need to discover and accept that they have white skin privilege and they will help us discover it. That’s a reflection of the arrogance of this social class. There is not a class conscious white worker that doesn’t recognize that being white in US society is an advantage. If they tell you otherwise they are lying to you. Ask them if they think they’d be better off if they were black and see what they say.

They will certainly not be candid when approached by people like DiAngelo with the “white fragility” playbook. They will respond differently however when we approach this issue with the class question at the core of it. The privileged white middle class in academia is incapable of this approach because they really have nothing but contempt for the white working class otherwise they’d be where they are. In fact, they feel the same way about all workers, black ones as well, but there’s nothing they fear more than being called racist, after all, they’re “woke”, and their assault on white workers proves how non racist they are you see.  Check out Malcolm X on white liberals.

Robin DiAngelo’s books will not help overcome the reluctance of white workers to discuss racism with people like her. I’d be interested in how she tackled the issue in an integrated workplace if she’s worked in one for any length of time. It’s unfortunate that many well-intentioned whites from middle class backgrounds will be drawn to this disastrous approach to the issue. These folks are often filled with guilt having both white skin and class privilege and sometimes male privilege as well. DiAngelo’s world view will undermine efforts to unite workers against the system that oppresses all workers, it won’t help unite us in the workplace further weakening the struggle against racism in this critical arena. The thing is, working class unity is not in the “White Fragility” playbook and her approach will also push some white workers further to the right.

Not knowing what “white fragility” was, I asked a black friend who had been to university but she has her feet solidly rotted in the working class. I shared one of the videos I had watched which is here. I told her I didn’t agree with this approach at all and she jokingly said, “See, you’re defensive when it comes to discussing racism. You proved her point.”

That hit the nail on the head. What a great deal for DiAngelo’s book business. If you question her at all it confirms how right she is and how racist white people are.

Here is a link to an article critical of this nonsense from a slightly different angle. https://medium.com/@thelogicalliberal/the-intellectual-fraud-of-robin-diangelos-white-fragility-e98197d16eb1