From August 7th to the 9th, the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) held its annual meeting in San Francisco, CA. SSSP is an organization of scholars, activists, advocates and students, who apply the principles of social science along with a humanistic perspective to the study and solution of social problems. I had the privilege to hear Dr. Steven Barkan deliver his presidential address on August 8th, and his message is an important one that deserves to be heard beyond the walls of the conference hotel ballroom. Dr. Barkan graciously shared a copy of his speech with me, so I could write about it here.
In his address, Dr. Barkan called for a “new abolitionism.” The United States, he pointed out, as others have, has come a long way in addressing racism, and he celebrated this fact. “We should rejoice that many people of color have made gains unimaginable a generation or two ago . . .” Nevertheless, in 2009, almost 245 years after the Civil War ended, more than 100 years after W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,” and four decades after the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, “the problem of the color line continues,” said Barkan. People of color still deal with racism on a daily basis, both “symbolic racism” and more overt racism.
To illustrate how racial inequality manifests itself today, Barkan used the examples of racial disparities in wealth and health. He cited statistics showing that the median net worth of families of color is only $25,000 compared with a median $141,000 for non-Hispanic white families. With the exception of Asian Americans, the poverty rate for people of color in the United States is more than double – and for some groups, more than triple – the poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites. To these observations, I would add that while the racial wealth and poverty gaps narrowed somewhat during the 1990s, the current economic crisis has once again restored them to their 1970s equivalents. Moreover, as Barbara Ehrenreich recently pointed out, to be black and poor nowadays makes the probability of “being sucked into . . . the ‘cradle-to-prison pipeline’” increasingly high.
In looking at racial disparities in health, Barkan cited statistics on infant mortality (i.e., the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births) that show black infant mortality to be more than double non-Hispanic white infant mortality (13.6 and 5.8, respectively). Life expectancy for African Americans is five years less than the life expectancy of non-Hispanic white Americans. As Arline Geronimus shows in her research on racial health disparities, the stresses resulting from daily life in a racist society “weathers” African Americans, causing them to age more rapidly than their white peers and to suffer more chronic illnesses associated with stress and unrelenting disadvantage (e.g., high crime, inadequate access to health care, poor health care, environmental toxins). Although social class mitigates this disparity somewhat, the “hypersegregation” that African Americans continue to experience in the United States means that they remain nearly as socially isolated from whites in their living arrangements and private lives today as they did under Jim Crow (see Patterson’s commentary).
As Barkan pointed out in his address, these are disturbing statistics, but we must remember that “behind them are the lives and stories of real people.” And so he called for a new abolitionism, “a new movement to end racial and ethnic inequality.” Specifically, Barkan argued that this movement should use all the strategies and tactics that progressive social change movements have used historically, including traditional political activity as well as protests and demonstrations, and these should be “responsible and nonviolent but . . . also constant, loud when necessary, and perhaps a tiny bit uncontrollable just to keep things interesting.” Barkan sees this new abolitionist movement as a coalition of diverse racial and ethnic groups, but it should not be a movement whose members are solely people of color because “racial and ethnic inequality is, after all, a white problem. It was a white problem in the past . . . and it is a white problem today.” Barkan is not naïve. He admits that many white people will not easily relinquish white privilege. But he urges whites, nevertheless, to fulfill their moral obligation by taking “a leading role in the new abolitionism.”
I found Barkan’s address challenging, but inspiring. He made a strong case against the notion of the US as a post-racial society. The complete address will be published in the February, 2010 issue of the SSSP journal, Social Problems. I urge all of you to read it and I urge you even more strongly to take up Dr. Barkan’s call for a new abolitionism.
>He admits that many white people will not easily relinquish white privilege.
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White privilege gives whites the possibility to live decent lifes with their basic human rights respected. Expanding this respect of human rights to all people within a society does not mean for whites to give up their own human rights but it means that People of Color are free from being discriminated against. The potential of entire groups is ignored today, their full contribution to society dismissed, we all would benefit in every way from a society where everybody would get a fair chance in life.
White Americans who are silent now will some day realize that they allowed white extremist groups to come to power which will finally also destroy their white illusional world they have lived throughout white American history.
Whites who try to combat racism should understand that they also fight for their own democratic and human rights. When you allow the discrimination of people who are considered ‘the other’ you allow a culture which will quickly turn against anybody else who is ‘different’. Anti-racism means also to develop new ‘in groups’ that are not based on ‘race’.
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Whites have finally to understand the entire impact of ‘white supremacy’, but this seems too much to demand. Anti-racism is also not just stopping discrimination and ‘allowing’ People of Color to join our ‘white world’, where we still can make the definitions, for me it also means to search and develop a new culture where we can respect the right of self-determination of other people and cultures and where we can find the humility that the Western world and our culture is not the only one. We must stop trying to impose our culture and way of life on everybody else.
Your points are excellent, jwbe. I think many white people look at according members of all groups equal human rights is a zero-sum game whereby any gain by one group is a loss to others. Your point that whites need to understand that they too benefit from human rights for all is very important in this regard. Moreover, I don’t think it is too much at all to expect white people to understand the “entire impact of ‘white supremacy.'” I think it is a necessity. Thanks for your insights!
Hey Claire, Thanks for this post (and sorry I missed seeing you at the meetings)! As I’m sure you know, the call for a ‘new abolitionist movement’ is something that Noel Ignatiev (and others) have been calling for with the ‘race traitor’ movement. Among the strategies they suggest is one that white people should deny they (we) are white when asked about race or confronted with one of those boxes to check on a form. I find much of the rhetoric of this branch of the new abolitionist movement frustrating, to say the very least. This new movement, led by Ignatiev, also features a real and deeply problematic lack of awareness of the role that women played in the early abolitionist movement.
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I wonder if Barkan addressed any of this earlier call in his address? Or, if you’d care to connect the dots for me in how Barkan’s call is different from, or similar to, Ignatiev’s?
>This new movement, led by Ignatiev, also features a real and deeply problematic lack of awareness of the role that women played in the early abolitionist movement.
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Can you please elaborate?
Thanks for your comment, Jessie. No, I am not aware of Ignatiev’s movement, but I will now find out about it. Thanks for alerting me. Steve did not address this at all and Ignatiev is not cited in his address. I’ll email Steve and see if he wants to respond.
And I’m so sorry I missed you at the meetings, too!
Hi Claire, jwbe ~ thanks for your response Claire. I look forward to learning more about what Steve is proposing and how it might differ. As a start, there is this, Ignatiev’s journal, Race Traitor:
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http://racetraitor.org/
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The site and journal look like they were last updated in January 2005, so perhaps it’s defunct now.
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jwbe ~ In answer to your question, the original abolitionist movement was one that gave rise to the women’s movement, in part as a response to men’s sexism in the abolitionist movement. And, at the very least, there were some coalitions – as well as some important fractions between these movements. More about that here: http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/wmhp.html
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My read of that history is that to take up only one ‘axis of oppression’ within what Pat Hill Collins refers to as the ‘matrix of domination’ (of race/class/gender/sexuality) is to begin a doomed journey. I met Ignatiev in the mid-1990s and talked with him some about organizing for the ‘new abolitionism’ as he envisioned it. When I suggested building coalitions with other organizations, such as those concerned with gender equality, he was not interested. And, my read of the literature that he, and his journal have produced, is that they’re not so much concerned with intersections of oppression, but rather with seeing race as a solitary and exclusive form of oppression.
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I guess for me, my glimpse to the ‘new abolitionist’ movement seemed to be repeating the worst elements of the early abolitionist movement. I’m sure Steve has something much more progressive in mind.
thanks Jessie. I personally like the idea of ‘race-traitor’ but I didn’t read enough or know enough, just gave me some new things to think about:-)
For me, women/feminism played a disappointing part in actually also challenging racism, their goal was as I already mentioned somewhere here, to fully participate in white supremacy and not challenging white male supremacy. Race solidarity was and still is more important than equality for all people.
I appreciate Claire Renzetti’s kind comments about my SSSP presidential address. For better or worse, I had not heard of Ignatiev’s argument for a new abolitionist movement and it’s only a coincidence that we have the same name for what we propose. I certainly would not agree with any implication in his writing that women should play a subsidiary role!
Steve
>>I met Ignatiev in the mid-1990s and talked with him some about organizing for the ‘new abolitionism’ as he envisioned it. When I suggested building coalitions with other organizations, such as those concerned with gender equality, he was not interested. And, my read of the literature that he, and his journal have produced, is that they’re not so much concerned with intersections of oppression, but rather with seeing race as a solitary and exclusive form of oppression.>>>
Although I’ve met Ignatiev and talked with him at some length, I have had much more contact with other folks who were in Race Traitor. I don’t believe it is accurate to say Race Traitor politics sees race as a solitary and exclusive form of oppression. Joel Olson was a long-time member of RT and has written about this. His latest book is “The Abolition of White Democracy.” He does not argue for the giving up of personal privilege, but the ending of whiteness. RT also held this position. Olson also holds, as do I, that the fighting of white supremacy is a feminist struggle. I don’t believe that Ignatiev holds that view.
Thank you for the blog.
Thanks for your post, Daniel. This is very helpful information.
>Olson also holds, as do I, that the fighting of white supremacy is a feminist struggle.
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Can you please elaborate or provide a link?