Please indulge me on this day of reflection on "Doing the work: The Protestant ethic and the spirit of wokeness," by Bard College Professor Ian Buruma in this July, 2023 piece in Harper's Magazine that I'm sure will get widely read. He blames Protestantism for ostensibly caving in to "woke culture," more readily than might be found among Catholics or Jews. While an interesting hypothesis, I think it is a somewhat misplaced concern.
What I most appreciate about Buruma's piece is just how deeply it made me think not so much about his sensed correlation between weak-kneed Protestantism capitulating to "wokeness" via cancel culture, engaging in forms of public apology, and virtue signaling, but rather about his simple solution of a return to a more tempered and less puritanical mindset that would benefit progressive causes. While this would clearly help, it's insufficient in light of race/ethnicity and class dynamics that I outline below.
Buruma takes aim at diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, essentially blaming "identity politics" for going too far and forgetting about the white working class. This is a misrepresentation of DEI programs as they have in fact evolved to incorporate students with disability, veterans, and persons of rural origins that may be of any race or ethnicity. Plus, race and ethnicity frequently overlap with class background such that the former is often a proxy for the latter.
As importantly, Buruma fails to acknowledge white's identity politics that we may otherwise term, white supremacy politics that you can learn about in Ashely Jardina's (2019) book titled, White Identity Politics that she also maintains, are bigger than the KKK in her Washington Post piece titled, "White identity politics isn’t just about white supremacy. It’s much bigger."
I also think that Buruma is unfair on not only placing the onus for a lack of solidarity across class on people of color when considering long histories as we have enjoyed in Texas of interracial and interethnic coalitions in politics where we actually consistently advocate on issues like school finance and vouchers that benefit the rich and not the poor (see yesterday's post on vouchers, for example). School finance is another area.
Consider, as well, the decades-long work of one of our state's most significant education coalitions of our day, namely, he Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition headed by Dr. Chloe Sikes, a former student of ours in the UT-Education Policy and Planning doctoral program. Consider, as well the storied Texas Organizing Project that is featured in Steve Phillip's national best-seller, How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good.
There are also incredible stories and histories of in Krochmal and Moye's masterful anthology on this very subject titled, Civil rights in black and brown: Histories of resistance and struggle in Texas.
Consider, as well, the divide and conquer techniques that have worked to fracture the working class across time consisting, for example, of a lack of pay equity and wage gaps within the working class. This creates resentment and competition, fostering divisions at work. When inflected by race, this oftentimes doesn't address underlying dynamics of workers' exploitation, but rather gets addressed as a racial, as opposed to both a race and class issue related to working conditions, salaries, and opportunities for promotion. These dynamics play out within the professional occupations, as well, as exemplified by the Independent Equity Committee in their widely-read, highly impactful report recently at the University of Texas at Austin.
We must, in the same breath, be mindful of how as a consequence of the inter-ethnic competition that exists as a result of historic divide-and-conquer strategies, coalition-building is really hard work and often manifest internally via racial power dynamics within both the U.S. working and professional classes, respectively.
Omi and Winant (2014) similarly note in their seminal text, Racial Formation in the United States, that throughout history, the white working class that has historically either broken ranks with the Black and Brown members of the working class or in instances of cooperation, including unionization, still often seeks to rule over their Black and Brown segments.
Context is king, as well. Do note that according to Wilson (2016), by 2032, individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds will constitute the majority of the American working class. Eliminating our understandings of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies as currently getting legislated in states like Texas, Florida and North Carolina, ill-prepare us for an inexorably diverse future.
Last, but not least, I am very proud of our work in Black Brown Dialogues on Policy in promoting awareness of this vitally important work of building interracial and interethnic coalitions of conscience. I encourage you to view our recorded Facebook live event last week at the Texas State Capitol that I also announced on this blog.
I also encourage you to hear the student voices who reflected on their own experiences, as well as on what was shared throughout the day.
The testimonies were awe-inspiring. The students melt my heart.
My friends, this is the precise political work motivates community solidarity across struggles. It is exactly this coalitional work—of the kind that defeated vouchers yesterday—that holds enormous promise for a brighter future in our state and nation.
Sí se puede! Yes we can!
-Angela Valenzuela
References
Jardina, A. (2019). White identity politics. Cambridge University Press.
Jardina, A. (2017). White Identity Politics Isn’t Just about White Supremacy: It’s Much Bigger, WashingtonPost. com, August, 16(2).
Krochmal, M., & Moye, T. (Eds.). (2021). Civil rights in black and brown: Histories of resistance and struggle in Texas. University of Texas Press.
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (2014). Racial formation in the United States. Routledge.
Phillips, S. (2022). How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good. The New Press.
Wilson, V. (2016, June 9). People of color will be a majority of the American working class in 2032: What this means for the effort to grow wages and reduce inequality, Economic Policy Institute.
Doing the Work: The Protestant ethic and the spirit of wokeness
by Ian Buruma | July 2023 | Harpers
Writing about “Woke” has at least two pitfalls. One is that any criticism of its excesses provokes accusations of racism, xenophobia, transphobia, misogyny, or white supremacy. The other problem is the word itself, which has been a term of abuse employed by the far right, a battle cry for the progressive left, and an embarrassment to many liberals.
No one can agree on what woke is supposed to mean. The right has blamed it for everything from the spike in school shootings to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, while many who are described as woke on the left see themselves as fighting a long-overdue battle for social and racial justice. These disagreements are not just political. In fact, they sometimes seem to be antipolitical. Arguments over wokeness are often tests, as the word indicates, of moral and spiritual enlightenment.
This is why John McWhorter, the author of Woke Racism, decided to drop woke as a descriptor of antiracism evangelists and instead call them “the Elect.” This has the right religious and class connotations. The Elect, he writes, are people who “see themselves as having been chosen . . . as understanding something most do not.” Like pre-modern Christians, the Elect must either convert or punish those who have not seen the light.
