White Progressives and Race

Kitty Kelly Epstein, PhD

August 2015
It has been a gripping two weeks for many American whites on
the Left side of the political spectrum
Black Lives Matter activists
did white progressives a favor by making a public issue of our politics
on race. Many progressives have long thought that everyone in the
99% was in the same big boat suffering equally from the greed and
trickery of the 1%. That view was reflected in the initial platform of
Bernie Sanders campaign, calling for tax reform, reversing climate
change, and taking on Wall Street. Tens of thousands responded
enthusiastically believing such a program would help everyone. So
a lot of those folks were surprised when Black Lives Matter members
protested at two Sanders rallies.
The gist of the protestors argument, I believe, is the following:
Everyone does not suffer equally. Hundreds of unarmed Black
civilians, many of them very young, are being killed by agents of the
government without reason or repercussions. This has gone on for
years, it is not happening to whites, and it is not o.k. to talk about a
progressive movement, unless that movement puts these state
sanctioned murders at the top of its agenda
Some white progressives responded to the protestors very
badly, talking about this as identity politics, as though the right to
live is no more important than an interest group complaint
It took him a couple of weeks, but Bernie Sanders made some
improvements, releasing a program on racism and hiring a Black
spokeswoman more able to discuss the issues
However, there is still an aspect of the discussion about
economic issues versus race issues that is just wrong. The
most important racial-economic issue is the fact that there is a 13 to 1
wealth gap between the MEDIAN (not mean) white family and the
median Black family (10 to 1 between Latinos and whites). So most
African-Americans and Latinos are in a very different situation than
most whites, even those whites in the 99%. These wealth gap

differences are the manifestation of a thousand policies, historic and

current: slavery; the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; redlining; the
refusal of loans to Black GIs; the racial discrimination of particular
trade unions; the mass incarceration of potential bread-winners;
banking policies; racially-biased standardized testing used for
hundreds of education and employment decisions and many others.
It is worth considering why white progressives do not bring up
the racial wealth gap more often. I believe it makes us
uncomfortable. 13 times more wealth is not an identity issue; its a
class issue. Most of us are more privileged and have vastly more life
options and flexibility because of it.
.
The answer of most whites is that we are not responsible for
history. Thats true. But we are responsible for dealing with current
reality, and getting defensive about it is not progressive.
The oft-cited easy answers do not work. Education, for
example, is wonderful, but it doesnt change the racial wealth gap
which is increasing, rather than decreasing, even as graduation rates
for all groups improve. So what to do?
First, we could do what the BlackLivesMatter movement has
asked us to do: Struggle to stop police killings. The national
demands created in Ferguson are here:
http://fergusonaction.com/demands/
And I am interested in the resurgent campaign of
Representative John Conyers, rapper Azealia Banks, and scholar Ta
NehisiCoatestocallforreparations. Coates proposal is simple. He
urges white progressives to push for the passage of John Conyers
House Bill to simply DISCUSS reparations which could get some
traction for further action. These might be increased support for
reparations from those directly responsible for slavery and other
demands like repurposing military expenditures to provide a just
distribution of resources to the Black community.