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Capitalism, Race and the Upcoming fragmentation of USA
by Masadi
The U.S. ‘racial project’ post World War 2 (that prevented the economic development of Blacks) was globalized in the form of underdevelopment of the (‘colored’) “Third World.” It required that all Whites within the U.S. be collected within a single White category, to be institutionally separated from Blacks (without the explicit overt racism of the past). Whites were deculturized and de-ethnicized, through structural assimilation (and the resulting primary relationships among White ethnic groups) caused by programs like the GI Bill etc, from which Black were excluded in the most part. Together with White upward mobility post World War II, segregation was implicitly enforced through ‘redlining’ of Black neighborhoods which made loans for home repair and buying impossible, supplemented by practices of the Federal Housing Administration. Destruction of ethnic European neighborhoods (Lipsitz 1995), whose residents were allowed a one way move to the White suburbs, a move denied in total to Blacks, further strengthened racial boundaries. A very close international parallel was the development of war-devastated European nations through Marshall Aid from which the “colored” nations of the world were largely excluded.
Blacks can never gain full equality in the U.S. because that would imply that the underlying class-conflict would be exposed that is kept hidden through implanting race unto the class structure. The U.S. ‘racial project’ proceeded concomitantly with the development of capitalism. The bourgeoisie understood that if their privilege was to be preserved ‘class consciousness’ of the proletariat had to be prevented at all cost because the proletariat were the ‘many’ that in case of rebellion could not be controlled coercively. Therefore if the ‘many’ among the many could be made to relate to the system by relative privilege (White over Black) within the developed countries, and the few among the ‘many’- i.e. minorities, could be coercively controlled in case of rebellion, the system could be preserved. For Blacks to gain full equality therefore, the underlying class conflict needs to be addressed and that can never be resolved without an elimination of the capitalist mode of production based on private property relations that inevitable result in class conflict. As long as the U.S. retains its capitalist structure, and dominates the World System, neither can Blacks gain full equality, nor can there be equitable development in the world. The bourgeoisie’s ‘possessive investment in Whiteness’ (Lipsitz 1995) is for ulterior motive, a motive that masks the very question of their survival.
Only by ignoring the social structure and relying on simple translations of history to the present, i.e. presenting the current day racism as an extension of the relationships of slavery (the claim that history repeats itself) obfuscates the reality underlying the U.S. ‘racial project’ post World War II. The result of such obfuscation is that individuals (whose cumulative activities are erroneously termed ‘society’) are blamed for racism when the structure into which the individuals fit-in, preexists and post-exists them. Individuals are shaped more so by a social structure that reflects altered and changed material conditions post slavery and therefore changed relationships as well. These changed relationships of production based on the evolution of capitalism were masked by grafting race unto the class structure and then through such fictive definition incorporating them into the workings of social institutions and relationships. However as it is an alien addition to the underlying mode of production, an abnormality, it is unauthenticated by the substructure and requires continual conspiracy (and the resulting manipulations and changing definitions) to mask the underlying material conditions of production. Race grafted onto the class structure represents a conflict within conflict incorporated for the prime purpose of masking the mountain by a mole-hill, a form of false consciousness that keeps the oppressed busy with each other as the oppressors watch the puppet show they have set in motion.
One way of masking the substructure is to blame individuals for racism and then try solutions that deal with individual pathologies rather than a pathological system that like a dying body rejecting an implanted organ has to be fooled into believing it is part of it, so is race reified in the United States. Capitalism is dying, the bourgeoisie (working with the political and military institutions as the power elite) are trying to keep it alive by mitigating class conflict by implanting ‘race’ unto it to pacify the White masses, but the underlying material conditions are rejecting it leading to new manipulations to fool the masses into accepting it as ‘real’, but with every manipulation, adaptive reactions to counter race based denigration lead to newer pressures for change. Eventually the body will reject the implanted organ, and by doing so it will die. Racism in the U.S. and the racially oppressive structure of the world can never end as long as capitalism survives, on the flip side, as long as capitalism survives Blacks can never gain full equality, neither can the majority world develop economically. In the final analysis it is either capitalism or racial justice and there can never be both together.
Once we locate the cause of racism in the manipulations of the bourgeoisie to hide the underlying class conflict inherent in a capitalist mode of production, all historical translations (or religious explanations or varied treatment of slaves etc,) that try to explain difference between how race is understood in South America and the U.S. emerge as disingenuous. Whereas historical remnants of race based privilege might be found in South America, and can be easily overcome because of the resulting fluidity, the U.S. ‘racial project’ post World War II was based on physical-marker exclusivity, which required that previously those groups considered ‘non-White’ like the Jews were to be given equal access based on ‘pigmentocracy’ (Rodriguez 2000), through ‘Affirmative Action’-like programs of the New Deal variety or through programs like the GI Bill post World War II. No such exclusivity is to be found in the difference based on skin color in South America between White and non-White, thereby providing further evidence that race and racism is neither biological nor an ‘individual’ problem but rather is based on definitions that get incorporated into material conditions in a social structure (Oboler 1995), that are a capitalist manipulation. The almost equal split between White and non-White populations in South America making any U.S. style ‘racial project’ futile is something that needs to be considered with its implications for the US as minority populations become a majority in the future.
There would be no utility of a U.S. style ‘racial project’ in South America, one that requires a minority that can be coercively controlled, not one that is of the same size as the “normal” designated group and can challenge its 'normalness' by sheer numbers alone. It is because of the size of the ‘other’ in the amalgamated continent that we see greater class consciousness and a move towards the left, which weakens race based boundaries. How greater numbers of non-White in the U.S. will affect race relations in the future would depend on how the power elite (if their system survives) will try to control this population to maintain boundaries. If capitalism doesn’t survive then this question need not be asked because racism will end with it, but if it does, then they might be forced to subdivide the U.S. into various nationalities through physical boundaries, underdeveloped like the rest of the “Third World”. A falsifiable prediction that some of those alive today might witness in their lifetime.
References:
1. George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: Racialized Social Democracy and the "White" Problem in American Studies. American Quarterly, Vol. 47, No.3 (Sep., 1995),369-387.
2.RODRIGUEZ, Clara E. 2000. CHANGING RACE: Latinos, the Census, and the History of
Ethnicity in the United States.New York: New York University Press.
3.Oboler, Suzanne. 1995. Ethnic Label,Latino Lives: Identity and the Politics of (Re)Presentation in the United States. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Have a nice day and take it easy,
TNI Masadi
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