Here we encounter something quite strange: figures such as Sanders, who tend both to prioritize the fight against economic injustice above that against racial injustice and to believe the latter to be largely a consequence of the former than a separate species of its own, end up defending that view by speaking in a way that contradicts it. Indeed, if we believe that economic systems oppress people by sorting them into social classes, then how can an entity such as the white working class even exist? By distinguishing the white working class from their non-white counterparts, one admits that racial identity and power trumps class position, even though one intends the exact opposite.
The class reductionist approach undermines itself in another way. Typically, those sympathetic to this view would respond to my critique by describing the purportedly high rates of racism among “working class whites” as a scheme concocted by upper class capitalists to prevent poor whites from realizing that their economic interest lies in solidarity with non-white people. One eradicates racism therefore not so much by denouncing racism but by explaining to working class whites why voting Republican or supporting the economic status quo would be bad for their pocketbook. For this reason, class reductionists believe that Democrats lose the working class white vote because they do not know how to talk to them; they are patronizing, removed, and smug.
However, while this approach positions itself as the ally of the neglected and race-shamed white working class, it ironically perceives poor whites as too stupid to know what’s good for them. It differs on this score only in relying upon a different set of “elite” saviors to come to their rescue.
Here is the pivot:
We need to stop repeating this lie that white supremacy is not in the self-interest of any class of white people. We further need to ask ourselves why we cling to it so dearly and why it provides us such comfort. In truth, white people have not been duped; our support for white supremacy reflects not just a flaw in our thinking, but a perversion of our wills. We do not endorse white supremacy because we do not know any better; we believe that white supremacy is good because we want to believe it so. Misinformation and poor logic qualify more as consequences of our attachment to white supremacy than its underlying causes.
Commitment creates its own reality.
Vanderbilt is a historically Methodist divinity school, having been founded in 1875 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
And this commitment to white supremacy is equally held in Northern unions as it is in Southern churches. Thus the FOP.
