Among the central arguments of Critical Race Theory — the much-maligned but misunderstood school of legal analysis serving currently as the right’s principal bogeyman — is the idea that progress towards racial equality and justice in America has only happened in moments of “interest convergence.”
By this, scholars who operate from a CRT framework mean that only when the interests of Black people have dovetailed with those of white Americans (or the nation as a whole) has progress occurred.
Reforms on the road to equality haven’t resulted from some grand moral epiphany for those who had been collaborating with or perpetrating injustice.
They made changes because they felt they had to.
This isn’t an especially radical notion.
It stands to reason that in a nation where political power rested entirely with whites for most of its history, and Black people were subordinated by law for most of it as well, advances for Black folks were not likely to have flowed from moral suasion.
Simply put, had white leaders been operating from morality, they would never have codified enslavement, segregation, or other forms of racist abuse in the first place.
Practical necessity was always the more logical explanation for why certain shifts — even tectonic ones — sometimes happened in relatively short periods.
Interest convergence theory is demonstrably true
For instance, Lincoln went from saying that if he thought the Union could be preserved half-free and half-slave, he would have supported that to the Emancipation Proclamation in just a few short years.
How should we understand that shift?
What’s more logical?
To assume it was a political decision driven by wartime strategic considerations, which also happened to have a salutary moral upside?
Or to believe it was a decision rooted in some sudden moral awakening, which just so happened to be good politics?
To ask the question is to answer it.
So too, the rapid shift in 1954 by the Supreme Court to strike down segregated schools in the Brown decision. Weeks before that decision, it was expected the Justices would uphold separate but equal. At no point had they signaled in their private or judicial lives a revulsion towards racism.
But as Derrick Bell — the father of critical race theory — explains in his book on Brown, the Justices were still political creatures despite the notion of judicial independence. They understood the tenor of the times.
One thing they knew, coming out of the McCarthy era anti-communist witch-hunts, was the Cold War context for the civil rights struggle.
They knew, as did lawmakers, how the Soviets were using anti-Black oppression in America for propaganda purposes.
At that moment, nations of color were fighting to throw off the shackles of colonialism, and the ideological war between East and West was at its zenith. With that background in play, the Court and Congress made decisions they likely wouldn’t have but for the need to put on a better face to the Black and brown nations of the world.
Interest convergence says political actors make political decisions for political reasons. So when a decision makes political sense, it will be made, and when it doesn’t, it probably won’t.
Again, it’s not that radical a notion: this is usually how political change happens — when it’s seen as being in the interest of a broad majority and not just a smaller constituent group.
Conservative indignation at interest convergence theory doesn’t refute it (and it’s kinda racist)
But to conservative critics of CRT and the anti-racist movement, this insight is a cynical heresy.
In their war on CRT in public schools (which is like waging war on unicorns in those schools, because neither are present), the right has blasted anti-racist theorists for suggesting progress for Black people only occurs when it serves white interests.
They are appalled — truly aghast — at our refusal to accept that white people might do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do.
But we’ve never denied some white people might be moved by morality. The claim of interest convergence theory is simply that the numbers of such persons would be insufficient to move the needle much in terms of legislative or judicial reforms.
One is certainly free to disagree with the interest convergence thesis.
But rather than refute the framework or the historical record to which one can point to confirm it, the right acts as if their moral indignation at the suggestion is itself a rebuttal.
It is not.
What’s more, in some regards, conservative anger over the interest convergence explanation for racial progress is racist.
Think about it.
To be angry at the suggestion that white leaders only do right by Black people when it’s in white interests implies that white people should be viewed as agents of super-righteousness who make political decisions for non-political reasons, unlike any other people on Earth.
After all, Black people don’t fight racism or seek to end it out of the goodness of their hearts.
It’s not altruism that motivates people of color to seek equality. It’s not charity — it’s an urgent desire not to die or have one’s dignity ground underfoot.
But with their hostility to the idea of interest convergence, these conservatives are saying, in effect, that while it might be fine for Black people to fight racism for selfish reasons, we as white people operate from more high-minded motives.
Because, ya know, we’re just more selfless and awesome that way.
Which is both incredibly stupid and an idea steeped in an implicit if not explicit form of white supremacy.
Don’t fear interest convergence theory — it can be a helpful and hopeful framework
Truthfully, there is no reason one should blanch at the central thesis of interest convergence — itself a major part of Critical Race Theory.
Not only is it common sense — progressive change on behalf of marginalized groups is most likely when it benefits more than just that group — but it offers us a roadmap to future progress that is far clearer than one that relies on steadfast moral principles to navigate.
With interest convergence, we need not wait for the emergence of saints; we need only find those points in the present moment where the interests of Black people and the interests of everyone else converge.
Once we find those inflection points, it becomes possible to craft narratives that connect the interests of Black and brown people with the interests of the larger society. By definition, such narratives can lessen division, build solidarity and grow movements for change.
Luckily, we have several modern proofs of racial interest convergence around which to build those narratives:
First, the opioid crisis.
The disproportionate ravaging of white and rural communities by oxy, fentanyl, and heroin has been made worse by the previous war on drugs, which sought to address drug use with incarceration rather than investment in rehabilitation and treatment. And why did that happen? Because earlier drug crises were seen as Black problems.
Neglecting or even contributing to Black pain has now come back to haunt the very communities that voted for politicians who previously treated drug use as a moral failing and criminal issue rather than public health matter.
Second, the COVID pandemic.
COVID has been worse than it had to be. Among the reasons? When early reports indicated disproportionate death among Black folks in urban areas, whites in smaller towns and communities began treating the virus with nonchalance. This indifference to Black and brown pain resulted in a cavalier attitude to COVID among conservative whites, resulting in a massive uptick in white and rural death.
Although fewer than 30 percent of the COVID dead were white by April of 2020, by 2021, those numbers were around 55 percent. Now, over 60 percent of all deaths have been to white Americans.
Third, deindustrialization and job loss.
When manufacturing plants began shuttering in the 1980s in large urban areas, disproportionately impacting workers of color, most whites didn’t see it as our problem. We told Black folks harmed by increasing globalization to move to where the jobs were — to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. As a result, little was done to help those displaced by economic change. In fact, programs to help the unemployed or struggling were scaled back.
Now, forty years after the hollowing out of American manufacturing began, the rot has spread to white communities too. Globalization has prompted companies to send jobs overseas in search of higher profits, without regard for the lives — often white and in smaller towns and exurbs — impacted by their exodus. By responding passively to the pain when it was seen as urban and Black, white Americans planted the seeds of their present crisis.
. . .
There are several other ways in which the indulgence of inequality and racial bias ultimately harms whites.
Scholar Jonathan Metzl discusses several of these in his book Dying of Whiteness, in which he examines how inadequate health care coverage, gun violence, and declining school funding can all be linked to racial indifference and inequality.
Inadequate health care coverage — even the refusal of some whites to take advantage of the Affordable Care Act — is connected to racial antipathy towards Blacks and Latinos, viewed as “ripping off” government programs like Obamacare.
Racism, in short, has ultimately endangered white lives.
Spiraling rates of gun suicides — 92 percent of which in recent years have been committed by whites, and over 80 percent by white men — have coincided with rising rates of gun ownership, which have been directly linked to unjustified fears of home invasions by Black and brown criminals.
Racism, in short, has ultimately endangered white lives.
Though even these points of interest convergence may not be sufficient to move most white Americans to a place of solidarity with Black and brown folks, change never requires a majority and rarely results from one.
The question is not, “will most white people act on evidence of interest convergence?” The question is, will enough do so, including enough at the level of political and social leadership?
And that we won’t know until it happens. Indeed, we don’t even know for sure what enough is.
It’s somewhere South of 50 percent-plus-one and North of wherever we are now.
But the only way we’ll get there is by linking the fate of whites with that of Black and brown folks — by forcing those who say “All Lives Matter” to act as though they mean it, even about their own lives, which are being infinitely diminished by racial inequality and bias.
—
This post was previously published on Tim Wise’s blog.
***
***
The Good Men Project now offers Diversity & Inclusion programs for corporations, organizations, and educational institutions.
Download our Diversity & Inclusion Program Overview PDF
Want to set up a live video call, speak to the CEO and team, and learn about our content?
Email [email protected]
You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
 Escape the Act Like a Man Box |
 |
 |
 |
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: Shutterstock
