M artin L uther K ing J r .
January 11, 2017
2017 special edition
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O PINION
Calling Working People of All Colors
Our mutual
economic
interests
by e bony
S laughTer -
J ohnSon
A little over
80 years ago,
NAACP founder
W.E.B. Du Bois
wrote
“Black
Reconstruction in America,”
a groundbreaking essay that
looked at the racial politics of
the post-Civil War years.
The major failure of those
years, Du Bois insisted, was that
poor whites and poor blacks failed
to form an alliance around their
mutual economic interests and
challenges. Instead, white elites
doubled down on their efforts to
divide poor people of different
races.
“So long as the Southern white
laborers could be induced to pre-
fer poverty to equality with the
Negro,” Dubois lamented, “a la-
bor movement in the South [was]
impossible.” Though similarly
exploited by white elites, econom-
ically disenfranchised whites and
blacks “never came to see their
common interest.”
More than eight decades
later, we’re still waiting.
In the aftermath of the
2016 presidential election,
the resounding explana-
tion for Hillary Clinton’s
loss to Donald Trump has
been that Democrats failed
to respond to the economic
needs of the white working class.
As a result, this story goes, the
white working class turned to-
wards Donald Trump and contrib-
uted significantly to his victory.
For some, then, the diagnosis
for the party’s malaise is simple:
Bring the white working class
back into the fold.
“If you are going to mention
groups in America, you had better
mention all of them. If you don’t,
those left out will notice and feel
excluded,” Columbia University
professor Mark Lilla wrote. He
sharply criticized Hillary Clin-
ton for “calling out explicitly to”
blacks and Latinos while suppos-
edly neglecting the white working
class.
Bringing those white voters
into the fold would make the
Democratic Party a formidable
force, but not if it means margin-
alizing the concerns of people of
color. That would be an unmitigat-
ed disaster.
The best way for progressives
to realign themselves with the
white working class isn’t to re-
verse this progress. It’s to argue
forcefully that the economic con-
cerns of the white working class
and people of color are more alike
than different.
For instance, working white
people understandably complain
of lower wages and lost jobs. Yet
these economic challenges are
part and parcel to those confront-
ing communities of color.
The unemployment rate for
black Americans is twice that
for the white community across
education levels. Similarly,
the income gap between black
and white households grew to
$25,000 as of 2014, a statistic
due in no small part to the same
wage stagnation, deindustri-
alization, and de-unionization
plaguing many Rust Belt whites.
Trends in wealth have mirrored
those in income. Where the Great
Recession led to a 16 percent loss
in wealth for the average white
family, it led to a 53 percent loss
for the average black family. As of
2014, around of quarter of black
and Latino Americans lived in
poverty, compared to 10 percent
of whites.
The racism that’s worsened
conditions for many Americans of
color needs to be addressed head-
on. But many of the same populist
economic policies that would lift
them up would also help strug-
gling whites.
Instead of erasing race from the
equation, working people and their
progressive advocates should take
their cues from Du Bois and get
to work building what he called a
unified “proletariat” of all colors.
At this rate, we don’t have an-
other 80 years.
Ebony Slaughter-Johnson is a
research assistant with the Crim-
inalization of Poverty project at
the Institute for Policy Studies.
Distributed by OtherWords.org.
The Greater Truth of One Planet, One Humanity
Bending the Arc
towards justice
r oberT c. k oehler
Maybe
this
much is true. Don-
ald Trump, pseu-
do-president-elect,
loser of the real
election, charismat-
ic
stump-speech
populist whose ac-
tual ability to gov-
ern may well be non-existent, has
inflicted significant damage on
America’s political infrastructure.
This is scary, of course, but not
necessarily a bad thing. I say this
even, or especially, if he manages
to assemble a far right, white-na-
tionalist-friendly cabinet and in-
ner circle and starts attempting to
implement some of the promises
he made on the campaign trail. If
the Trump pseudo-presidency is
“normalized” and we-the-people
and the media shrug our shoulders
at the rebuilding of Jim Crow Na-
tion — the Wall, the Muslim regis-
try and God knows what happens
next — then yes, this is a disaster
and moving to Canada is a viable
option. But if Trump, instead, is
the reincarnation of Bull Con-
nor, someone who makes a dark,
hidden ugliness suddenly clear to
the public at large, then his rise
by
to power may be the harbinger of
profound, positive change.
“I do not pretend to understand
the moral universe,” abolitionist
Theodore Parker wrote more than
150 years ago, prefiguring
the words of Martin Luther
King. “The arc is a long
one, my eye reaches but lit-
tle ways; I cannot calculate
the curve and complete the
figure by the experience
of sight; I can divine it by
conscience. And from what
that Trump himself expects. Per-
haps he’s just the trigger.
Consider, for instance, the
idea of creating a Muslim regis-
try, notoriously defended by for-
mer Trump-backing super PAC
spokesman Carl Higbie, who told
Megyn Kelly of Fox News, “We
did it during World War II with the
Japanese.” He proceeded to cite
the internment camps, quasi-pris-
ons in which as many as 120,000
Americans of Japanese ancestry
were forced to live between 1942
Thus: “We need to stand in
solidarity with Muslim people
who are being targeted by Donald
Trump,” “Daily Show” host Trev-
or Noah said to a cheering studio
audience. “If they start registering
Muslims in America, we all regis-
ter as Muslims.”
And slowly the arc of the moral
universe bends toward justice.
“Noah said that if all citizens
stood with immigrants and said,
‘I am a Muslim,’ it ‘would take
away any power the registry might
We pledge to stand together with Muslims across
the country, and around the world. Because when
we stand as one, no American can be singled out by
their race, religion, income, gender identity or sexual
orientation.
I see I am sure it bends towards
justice.”
But the arc doesn’t bend by it-
self.
The Trump era may be defined
less by the damage he inflicts than
by the outrage he incurs: the out-
rage of a public that loves this
country but also manages to love
the whole planet and revere the
principles of compassion and con-
nection. This may, indeed, be an
era of change, but not the change
and 1946, as a “precedent.”
“Look,” he said, “the president
needs to protect America first.”
What does it mean to “protect
America”? This is now a concept
that is up for grabs, thanks to the
non-election of Donald Trump. As
his baldly racist plan to pretend to
protect America gains publicity,
determination to oppose it also
grows, and, in that opposition,
bring deeper values into play in
our national politics.
have,’ according to Huffington
Post reporter David Moye.
And several websites have
sprung up creating this opportuni-
ty, including a site called Register
US:
“Donald Trump has said he
would ‘absolutely’ require all
Muslims to register in a database.
This is just one of Trump’s racist
and Islamophobic proposals that
c onTinued on P age 39
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