The True Golden Rule
Power Dynamics, Rank, and the Preservation of Established Orders
by framersqool:
Academic discussions of race and class, or even race as class, tend to miss the entire point of why class structures even exist. The more important and informative template for understanding the social structures of any civilization is to assess the relationships among both groups and individuals not on the basis of their race or class, but on the more visceral level of rank: who do I have to take orders from, and what gives them the right to be giving them?
Seen in this light it is very easy to understand why the most vicious and pro-active forms of racism come from within those groups which are nearest the bottom of this 'ladder' three white middle-class intellectuals keep referring to here: everyone needs someone to outrank.
One could be proud of being white trash in the Jim Crow South I began life in, not so much on any basis of other races (and there were many others besides those of African descent in this formulation) being inferior, but on the basis of their being of lower rank in the hierarchies which ruled everything. In other words, even poor white trash didn't have to take orders from anyone other than white people who outranked them. Racism only guaranteed that no one else could.
The American aphorism I have heard cited in my decidedly non-academic working life more than any other has always been a version of "The Golden Rule." He who has the gold makes the rules. Both race and class bigotries have as their primary intent preserving a known order where the gold, and thus the power to make the rules, doesn't end up in the hands of those one prefers to continue to outrank.
Tenured academics ought to know full well how crucial rankings are to their own careers, and consequently to their own fiscal well-being and position in overall society: a doctorate outranks a masters' which outranks a bachelors, all of which have the rank to disregard on the whole all those with no more than an associates or a certificate or high-school diploma, and I can guarantee that the social arrangements each of these middling academics circulate within are based on those rankings and many others. Who has published what, in what venues, and how well were these items received? What venues has each been invited to speak in or hold chairs within, and how do those institutions stack up against the rankings of others? To speak at Roosevelt House may well not afford the same weight of credential as to speak at the Kennedy School, and might even be the reason one is not invited to speak at the latter having spoken at the former.
Not to acknowledge the very real and very powerful effect of social rank, irrespective of this vague and transient (and essentially Marxist) notion of 'class', is to see only what one wants to see as a middle-class academic intending to sustain one's own rank. Both above and below those of others, and I already know each of you intends to keep it this way, and extract the benefits your ranks assure you of. (And keep following orders...)
Who gave you the order not to say 'black', for instance, and what would such insubordination cost you if you did?
Solve that one, and you will be on the way to getting my point. This 'class' myth is an intellectuals' blind alley, but in a largely left-of-center academic environment, it's still the safest ground to stand on. Start questioning anyone's rank, and it's likely to cost you your own.
framersqool is an aging bachelor of no particular consequence. He is in command of more opinions than facts (but occasionally the facts, or the lack thereof) and can make a thing seem worth writing about.