-- MeaganBurrows - 11 Apr 2012

In the interest of bringing outside reading into the discussion, Kent Russell's American Juggalo is a great, quick journalistic take on race and class in America.

-- MatthewCollins - 11 Apr 2012

Kipp says,

"I don't know really what "white comfort" is as a concept. But I value my own integrity and right not to be discriminated against. And while the speaker may have thought that the policy was primarily race-based that he was discussing, that doesn't justify in my opinion calling all white people "greedy" or oppressive. He didn't put it as eloquently as race "being the salient issue at play". He told me I was greedy and oppressive. Needless to say, he had never met me. He didn't know my passions, my commitments. I was now greedy and oppressive in that room."

Sanjay says,

"Kipp is invested in trying to help the poor, but a history of white supremacy means he operates in an arena where the upper class is predominantly white and the lower class is predominantly minority. I don't see why he's not allowed to feel alienated when he's framed as the problem (because of his race) when he's working to help solve it."

Toma says,

"From what I understand, Kipp is not positing that the conversation about race should be tailored to avoid offending the fragile sensibilities of white people. His proposition is much broader. He is saying: let us not "other" needlessly."

Meagan says,

"if we do not consciously work in our day-to-day social interactions to refrain from “‘othering’ needlessly”, and to encourage others to follow suit, the power of social forces will inevitably eclipse and make hollow any ‘legal’ reform we achieve."

I think all four of these statements share the common assumption that when someone levies a criticism of "whiteness" as a social force that increases and sustains class stratification, he/she otherizes and "unnecessary" alienates white people in a discriminatory way. The implication seems to be that when people discuss class stratification, they should not otherize white people because some white people are very passionate about the problem of white supremacy so such criticism is unfair to them and makes reform more difficult. Instead, the critic should be careful not to frame things in a way that alienate white people. Here is my objection:

The notion that we can separate whiteness from any discussion of class stratification in America is frankly ridiculous. On this assumption, in any serious discussion of class stratification and its sources, one cannot escape a discussion of whiteness, which means that ALL white people are NECESSARILY going to be negatively implicated. Even those that are very passionate about ending race and class privilege. They are also participants in that they benefit from the structure, and inasmuch as they continue to benefit from it rather than throw it off their shoulders entirely, race and class privilege will continue to exist. This is not discriminatory - the fact that they are negatively implicated by the criticism is not due to their whiteness simpliciter, but because of the empirical reality that whiteness is a powerful social force that reinforces hierarchy. The fact that white people are alienated when they are negatively implicated by a discussion of white privilege is not because they have been discriminated against but because they have reacted to the discussion by choosing to feel otherized.

But this doesn't have to be the case - instead of modifying the criticism, white people should modify their reaction to the criticism. Instead of feeling alienated and invoking some "right against discrimination," white people should admit complicity, work towards ending white privilege, but at the same time understand that insofar as white privilege continues to exist, they will be negatively implicated by criticism of it, no matter what they do. Let me analogize - in criminal law about a month ago we started to discuss the relationship between sex crimes and rape culture. One point made in our casebook was that the law privileges male definitions of "force" and "consent" such that women are sexually terrorized on a regular basis without legal recourse. This reflects a "culture of rape" that creates and reinforces gender hierarchy. As a man, I am a participant in this culture. I benefit from male privilege. So when feminists criticize "male hegemony" a source of oppression, it negatively implicates me. The fact that I believe in what they have to say does not give me a get out jail free card. The fact that I actively resist male privilege does not mean that I get to invoke a "right against discrimination" when women levy criticisms against "maleness." This is not essentialist because all men in fact do participate in rape culture by virtue of their maleness. But even if it is essentialist, essentialism is often a powerful tool of deconstruction. The point is, saying that you feel alienated by a criticism because it is otherizing is self-fulfilling. It is my obligation as a man to admit complicity, do whatever I can to reject the system, and suck it up when I listen to criticisms of maleness. I realize that this is a difficult task because one gets criticized, it is only natural to get defensive. But everyone in this discussion is very intelligent and therefore very capable of getting over that initial reaction.

I think Rumbi really hit the nail on the head when she said, "I guess my feeling is that when you say you feel “alienated” because the debate wasn’t framed the way you felt that it should be framed, or because discussions about poverty will often times implicate your identity by, simultaneously, also being discussions about race, it sounds like you expect something to be done about it." The critic shouldn't have to do something about it. You should do something about how you react to the criticism.

-- PrashantRai - 11 Apr 2012