The beginning days of the Biden administration have been marked with calls for unity. The idea that the country needs to come together is a common theme, from the left and the right. And the “this is not Us”-isms are unending. In fact, for many, the swearing-in of the Biden administration seems to have gone a long way to re-establishing faith in American institutions; serving to further entrench the belief that Donald Trump was the source rather than a symptom, and that the discomfort and dis-ease of the last four years are somehow going to vanish under Joe Biden.
Never mind the extrajudicial assassinations of citizens and brutal immigration policy of the Obama administration. Never mind the Black Lives Matter Movement began during the Obama administration; nevermind that administration’s DOJ refused to prosecute police. Never mind the US-supported coup in Honduras in 2009. Never mind the crime against humanity that was the Iraq war. Never mind the bombing of an entire city block in Philadelphia in 1985. Never mind the assassination of Fred Hampton. Never mind Jim Crow. Never mind lynchings. Never mind slavery. Never mind the Native genocide.
Never mind. Never mind. Never mind.
But this is us. That reality is painfully clear. This. Is. Us.
After the August 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas which saw 23 people killed, Dr. Eddie Glaude appeared on MSNBC and laid the truth bare. He said then, this was us. But he said so much more. In these profound three minutes, Dr. Glaude gets to the heart of the matter. I have no intention of simply restating what he already makes clear. Instead, I want to pick up on two specific points that I believe carry particular significance after the events of January 6,th and will be fundamental to understand if there is any hope of achieving the unity that is now being called for.
First is the indictment of American exceptionalism that facilitates the U.S being “singular in its refusal to acknowledge our sins.” We have never engaged in the requisite truth-telling necessary to begin to reconcile for the harms inflicted via white supremacy. That failure to tell the truth is the lifeblood of whiteness and white supremacy. It is the pulse of America, and it has always been.
America relies on the ahistorical myths it tells about itself to justify the uneven distribution of power, capital, and other material resources. For America to exist white people have to believe it is a meritocracy. And to believe America is a meritocracy requires profound miseducation as well as a strong reason not to question that miseducation. Regretfully, that is precisely what America has crafted.
After Bacon’s Rebellion, it was clear to the land-owning elites that a multi-ethnic (what we would now call multi-racial) rebellion was a clear threat to their wealth and social status. To keep that threat at bay they created what we now know as race. They created the category of white and bestowed legal and social privileges to those that fell under its purview. To make being white mean something they created Black. A permanently oppressed people that would make being white a commodity worth investing in. Writing about race and class W. E. B. Du Bois said:
…it must be remembered that the white group of laborers, while they received a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage. They were given public deference and titles of courtesy because they were white. They were admitted freely with all classes of white people to public functions, public parks, and the best schools. The police were drawn from their ranks, and the courts, dependent on their votes, treated them with such leniency as to encourage lawlessness. Their vote selected public officials, and while this had small effect upon the economic situation, it had great effect upon their personal treatment and the deference shown them.
These psychological wages of whiteness, as Du Bois called them, help us to understand why so many invested in the idea of being white, which leads to the second specific statement of Dr. Glaude that I want to focus on.
Dr. Glaude states we have to free white people from understanding themselves as white. This is not new. Baldwin often framed whiteness in this way saying that whiteness is a moral choice. Baldwin went so far as to say “if you think you are white there is no hope for you.”
The idea that there is liberation in unlearning whiteness is an idea that cannot be overstated. Those of us who are considered white often do so against our own material interests. This possessive investment in whiteness as George Lipsitz named it is so toxic to our humanity that events such as January 6th play out , and worse. The investment in whiteness drives the campaign of racial terror that is fundamental to American history.
The logic of racialized capitalism has us believing that our economy would better serve our needs if it wasn’t for “those people.” Truthfully, our interests lie in class solidarity and an unabashed rejection of capitalism and white supremacy. That is where our freedom lies and until we can fully embrace that reality not only is this us, but it will remain us. If that’s the case then the final words of Dr. Eddie Glaude 2 years ago ring truer than ever today
God help us.
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