White Racism vs. White Resentment

Great discussion going on over at Ta-Nehisi’s new spot at The Atlantic. He quotes Ezra Klein’s response to Andrew Sullivan’s reply to Publius’ statement on white resentment (oh, what a tangled web) and essentially pillories the argument that white resentment — a phrase that has been used ad nauseum since Obama’s speech on race — is explained by affirmative action:

Let’s grant that white people have the right to resent black people because of 40 years of race preferences. But black people suffered through 300 years of race preferences which included, but weren’t limited to–slavery, pogroms, wanton rape, land theft, and wealth transfer. Southern whites (the very people who perpetrated much of that sad history) can have their resentment, unashamed and public–right after they give us the deed to the entire Deep South. Sounds fair to me. What’s that you say? Most whites didn’t own slaves? And your grandfather hated the Klan? My sentiments exactly. Most black people don’t benefit from Affirmative Action either. So what are we saying here?

Racial resentment is just racial grievance—for white people. If it’s absurd to hear Civil Rights era black folks attributing the entire fate of black people to racism, than its just surreal to hear white folks chalking their problems up to Affirmative Action. One doesn’t have to be pro-Affirmative Action to see the hypocrisy in those who says to blacks, heaving under a legacy of hate, “get over it” and then turns to Southern white “resenters,” merely grappling with equality, and says “I understand.”

Is white resentment just white racism in disguise? Though Ta-Nehisi doesn’t, I’d go so far to say yes, it is. There are some interesting responses on the thread from both sides (and of course, a few people who think blacks are just lazy, and they’re taking jobs from hard-working white people).

Shani

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  • LH

    First, is it racism that you’re referring to or prejudice? The tendency seems to be to conflate the two, perhaps understandably so, but I want to be sure I understand what you’re talking about.

    In the interim and for the sake of discussion, I think that white resentment and white racism are also conflated, often erroneously so. I think the two can be distinct and separate, which is to say that no, white resentment isn’t just white racism in disguise necessarily.

    In the macro, America’s playing field isn’t level, but in the micro, there are white people who’ve never done anything to deny a black person a chance at living the American dream and have been penalised because they’re white. This is hardly abstract. This is precisely what Grutter v. Bollinger was about.

    It’s presumptuous and unfair to interpolate that Grutter (and others like her) is racist because she didn’t want to be penalised for being white. If more people were honest, they’d have to concede that they could understand why Grutter would be resentful (if, in fact, she is).

    Leveling the playing field by way of affirmative action shouldn’t be a zero-sum game. When it is, white resentment would seem to be reflexive, no?

  • I think there’s two distinct sorts of white resentment. And for each the answer is different.

    There’s whites who perceive they are personally having a tough time of it in their lives at the moment, and irrationally cling to blaming a cause that they know they can’t fix. This is racism indeed, but not so much bigotry. Just a terribly counter-producive way to think.

    Then there’s whites that who have no particular personal problems going on, but have ominous fear, uncertainty and doubt clanging around in their noggin – and lash out with their resentment because it makes them feel good. This is flat out bigotry that is less correctable, in-grained and problematic culturally.

  • LH: Ok. First off, let me say that I am for class-based, not race-based affirmative action.

    Second, prejudice falls under the umbrella of racism.

    Third, the vast majority of whites suffering from ‘white resentment’ have NEVER been adversely affected by affirmative action. They just don’t want to admit that what you call “penalization” is nothing more than the reduction (not removal, but reduction) of privileges whites have enjoyed for centuries. Yeah, I get it, it hurts, but it doesn’t make their position valid. (Besides, white women have benefited from AA more than anyone. Grutter is an exception to the rule.)

    Your turn.

  • Is white resentment just white racism in disguise?

    Is this even a serious question? Yes, of course it is.

  • LH

    Shanio: If the resentment that some whites feel about affirmative action isn’t justified (to your way of thinking), it’s necessarily white racism?

    So … if the resentment that some blacks feel about their station in life isn’t justified, is that black racism? Or is this too reductive? :-)

  • LH: you’re joking, aren’t you, dear? Those two things aren’t equivalent. But for the sake of argument, my answer to your first question is yes. My answer to your third question is also yes.

    Riddle me this. What do you think causes white resentment? And don’t start talking about how white people are getting penalized, because we know that isn’t true.

  • LH

    Shani-o: How did I know you were going to push the relativity argument? In the aggregate, blacks have been aggrieved from the beginning, so their resentment is unalloyed by racism, unlike the resentment of whites who are penalised in the micro, right? That kind of thinking doesn’t merely open the door to prejudice. It demands it.

    We don’t know that whites aren’t penalised for being white. You’re denying that they are because that impales your argument that their resentment is really racism.

    As many times as I’ve been told on this blog that I can’t tell a group of people (women) that they don’t have the right to be offended by what happens to them, I can’t resist telling you the same thing. Not only don’t you have the right but you don’t have the standing. If you say you do because you’ve been denied based on the colour of your skin, then you should be well able to empathise with the whites you’re discounting as racist.

    I have to get out of here now but later this evening, I will get into what I know causes white resentment.

  • LH

    Shani-o: Let’s begin by stipulating that there is no one thing that causes white resentment.

    Some whites are resentful because they believe they’ve been penalised by affirmative action in favour of a black person. The truth is that sometimes they’re right (Grutter), but sometimes they’re wrong. The conflation of white resentment and white racism ignores the fact that while the people who are right may actually be racists, the people who are wrong may not be.

    There is no data for anecdotes, but based on the conversations I’ve had with whites I’ve grown up, gone to (graduate) school, played sports and worked with, I suspect that a good deal of white resentment is a reaction to the victimisation by association con that says that if one is black, he’s a victim–even if not personally. He is eligible to be a victim by proxy, on behalf of a relative, a friend or an acquaintance who’s also black. That’s nonsensical.

    If whites who haven’t been penalised by affirmative action shouldn’t be resentful, why should blacks who haven’t been victims of racism feel aggrieved?

  • verdeluz

    LH: “…why should blacks who haven’t been victims of racism feel aggrieved?”

    My first thought was: find me this person. I have a difficult time devoting my train of thought to the micro perspective, even hypothetically, enough to ignore the macro reality. The white person who finds cause for resentment in the existence of affirmative action programs suffers from an unfortunately not uncommon myopia; s/he fails to see the myriad instances in which the tables are turned in favor of white people. And maybe, for the average white person, that’s not unreasonable- modern racism is sneaky, frequently subtle enough as to be deniable by the perpetrator and/or witnesses who find it inconvenient to address, and pervasive enough as to seem a fact of life. In the public sphere, it is only rarely that things are put in such blatant “because you are (insert race here)” terms. For people unused to having to deal with questions of race (that would be that macro white privilege), I suppose I can see why the affirmative action question sticks out.

    The ‘white resentment’ discussion is something new for me. If such a distinction exists, it would seem to me to be indelibly linked to white racism in its focus on us-vs-them racial politics. White folks’ difficulty finding a job/buying a house/paying for a ridiculously expensive education is not caused by Black People Trying To Punish You For The Slaves Your Grandparents Didn’t Even Own!. With the understanding that it would be less than advantageous for Obama to push for honest discussion about why the resentment is misdirected, simply acknowledging the phenomenon was inadequate. Labeling it validates it, and by extension, “white resentment” lends itself a little too easily to the touchy-feely rebranding of bona fide white racism.

    Not liking it.

  • LH: What you call penalization, I call reduction of privilege. The playing field isn’t getting tilted in favor of blacks, as whites with resentment pretend to think, it’s being tilted from the favor of whites.

    I’ve never said I was denied something based on the color of my skin. I may have, I may not have. I don’t know, and I don’t dwell on it. I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree, however, on the ‘victim by association con.’ Your argument assumes that victimization is a tangible, I-didn’t-get-the-job-I-deserved deal. My argument rests on the fact that true victimization permeates every aspect of life, from the way one thinks, to what one spends his money on, to what one eats or doesn’t.

    Verdeluz: ‘Labeling it validates it, and by extension, “white resentment” lends itself a little too easily to the touchy-feely rebranding of bona fide white racism.’

    That is very much on point.