Why "Racism = Prejudice + Power" Is The Wrong Way to Approach the Problems of Racism

Critical Race Theory is a popular pass-time among my comrades on the radical left who ascribe to various positions within the broad political ideology of identity politics. As someone with a vaguely Marxist outlook, it's largely been something that I've ignored given that for the most part it appears to me, from the outside of the social circles where such ideas have currency, to be little more than a self-serving rhetorical tactic of petite bourgeois academics seeking, out of narcissism, to claim for themselves and certain of their peers some of the political currency owed to the working class and won by them through hard graft during the civil rights movements of the fifties and sixties. The basic tactic as I see it is that Theorist A looks on the problems of some segment of the proletariat to whom he is peripherally related via an essentialized category established by historical capitalist precedent and claims that rather than the disadvantages owing to an oppressive economic system, the actual oppressive system is something else which is specifically in place to target whatever group the Theorist can make a case for membership of. Out of this argument falls various alleged systems, the most commonly referenced being "The Patriarchy" and "Institutional Racism." These systems are then used as watch words whereby the theorist gains attention for his or her segment of the proletariat and by association co-opts a little of their plight for him or herself.

As I said, I largely ignore such ideas because their influence in the world is largely limited to academia. The rhetoric of these folks has no real tactical impact on the world because their narcissism more or less limits their view of the world to their own slice of it, and their slice being universities their opinions don't shape much policy-wise beyond the rather childish realm of academic micropolitics. In other words, unless someone is interested in playing the academic politics game, this particular political claim doesn't matter at all because it never comes into play in the larger economic world. There is, however, one bit of leakage from this world into the larger political sphere that does cause me a bit of consternation and it's that cross contamination that I'm going to address here.

I'm speaking of course about the bizarre stipulation by Critical Race Theorists that Racism is the confluence of Racial Prejudice and Institutional Power. Or, to put it in the more pithy slogan form that is mostly favored by the people who use this definition "Racism = Prejudice + Power." This is an idea that appears to be reaching a sort of critical mass among the non-academic left and is endanger of derailing a good portion of radical activism and being extremely divisive among groups that ought to be united against the common enemy of global capital. I will argue that in fact this definition is counterproductive politically and unsound philosophically and as such ought to be eliminated from discourse by the left.

First, though, a bit of history.

As near as I can tell, the formulation "Racism = Prejudice + Power" originated in a book by Pat Bidol in 1970. Titled "Developing New Perspectives on Race," in it Bidol explicitly makes the formulation as stated and then uses this definition as the basis for an argument that in the United States Blacks cannot be racist against whites, they can only be racially prejudiced against them. This makes an important connection that matters as far as this particular nonsense is concerned, which is that this stipulated definition exists as an excuse to defend members of racial minorities against accusations of racism and it has always existed for this reason. The definition was largely popularized by Judy Katz, who referenced Bidol explicitly in her 1978 book "White Awareness" which presented a course of counter racist training for organizations. The book was highly influential and through it the formulation, for those who were searching for such a tool with which to deflect accusations of racism, gained popularity.

Which brings us to the present day, more or less, where the slogan has achieved a sort of quasi legitimacy by virtue of having been repeated so often. Of course, it's of absolutely no use to anyone for anything except what the slogan was intended for initially, and even then it's a very poor tool. Nevertheless, when reading over the tossed out thoughts on race by the left wing of the technocracy in particular, it remains as a sort of gospel despite the fact that as far as I can tell, the arguments for it are either very thin or even non-existent. In the Katz book, for example, it is purely stipulated and the only argument given for it is that without the component of power, any definition of racism looks exactly like prejudice. Why the formulation "racism = racial prejudice," which is much more consistent with the general usage of the term, is problematic is left unexplored by Katz and by all the theorists I have found who take this tactic.

The Problem

As for why it's a problem to take this stipulated definition as gospel, well that requires a little unpacking. To begin with, it's clear that the victims of racism, by and large, are members of racial minorities and those cases where racism has a negative impact on whites are extremely rare. The case might be made that even if the definition is wrong then who cares? I think there are problems on multiple fronts. In brief, 1.) The sloppiness of the definition and the arguments in their favor give ammunition to the right to attack leftist criticisms of racism; 2.) It excuses racism between racial minorities; 3.) It is divisive between working class whites and working class racial minorities because it creates the false impression that their disadvantages are something other than economic and saying to working class whites that combatting inequality is not something that benefits them and therefore disenfranchises them as a group; 4.) It obfuscates the locus of power attributing to race what can only be attributed to class regardless of race.

I will address each of these problems in turn, but in order to see that these aren't just problems that we have to live with in order to understand the nature of race in American politics and the global economic system, it's first necessary to show why the definition is wrong. To begin with we have to ask what it is that gives a word it's meaning.

Semantics and Semiotics in Brief

A word is a sign. Exactly how a sign acquires meaning is studied in the field of semiotics and in particular in the sub-discipline of semantics by philosophers, linguists and semioticians. There are many different theories about how semiosis, or the process by which a sign becomes meaningful, takes place but on one thing most modern theories of semantics are in agreement and that is that the connection between word and meaning is conventional and arbitrary. There is no ultimate reason why the word "racism" as it is said or written means what it does. Put another way, its meaning is what it is solely because that's what the group of people who use the word understand it to mean. Or, as Ludwig Wittgenstein said, "...the meaning of a word is its use in a language-game."

Taken a step further, it's important to also note that meanings are not fixed, nor are the monolithic. It's important to recognize that language occurs as part of what Wittgenstein referred to as the human "form of life." The Marxist linguist Valentin Voloshinov argued, as did Antonio Gramsci later, that meaning is as much a part of class and class struggle and the social formations inherent to them as it is to the wider group of language users. Which is to say, while a dictionary definition is certainly a good guide to meaning of a word, it must also be seen within the context of the social, economic, and political class of its user at any given time.

What this means for the slogan that "Racism = Prejudice + Power" is that it just doesn't work because the very idea that a meaning can be reduced to such a formula is absolutely misguided, in particular for words so semantically loaded as racism, prejudice, and power.

The complex of meaning

So what does "racism" mean? Wittgenstein would counsel that the right thing to do would be to look at how the word is used, to construct cases. Several pertinent ones follow:

1.) "That guy is a racist because he only hires whites."
2.) "That guy is a racist because he only hires blacks."
3.) "The killer was a racist who believed that whites are superior to blacks, and that his white superiority justified his killing of a black man."
4.) "Saying that all white people are racist is racist."
5.) "The Nation of Yahweh promotes racism."
6.) "The Ku Klux Klan are a bunch of racists."

The argument here is that all of the above uses of the word racist are meaningful and that most speakers of English have no trouble understanding what these sentences mean and would agree that they are accurate uses of the word. The reason that "Racism = Prejudice + Power" is an incorrect definition is that if it were true, only sentences 1, 3, and 6 are correct and that the other sentences are incorrect uses of the term. This argument can then become circular if it falls back on the stipulated definition to make it's case.

Of course one might argue that this is an educational matter and that in the face of the fact that most people have a broader definition of racism is akin to the widespread incorrect use of many words. The problem with that argument is that it assumes that there is a prescriptive element to language that can be deployed in a non-political way. However, the use of prescriptive language has a long history as a tool of political oppression. In particular it is a weapon of the upper classes to identify and marginalize lower social classes. As such no such argument can be value neutral, it is in fact an example of political maneuvering and as such collapses in its attempt to defend the indefensible marginalization of some groups in favor of others because of race. As such, the argument itself is racist. Which is another correct usage of the term.

Problems of Race and Power

Which brings me to the point of all this, which is that the formulation "Racism = Prejudice + Power" is counterproductive and even vaguely racist in and of itself and it is in this that problems listed above arise.

Again, the problems with the Racism Formula are as follows:

1.) It gives ammunition to enemies of racial reform

If you go to Google and search for the Racism formula and criticism, while you will find a few leftist critiques, by and large you'll find a great deal of mention among critics of things like affirmative action and other anti-racist legislative programs. Given that the argument's only real use is to defend such programs, that its patent ridiculousness is so obvious is clearly counterproductive. If a conservative like Melvyn Fein can reach for it in defense of an ultimately racist position such as the ones he takes in his book Race and Morality, then clearly the Racism Formula is not the help anyone on our side thinks it is and should be jettisoned because it's unhelpful along with being bad thinking.

2.) It excuses or hides racism between racial minorities;

Clearly there are blacks who don't like latinos, asians who don't like blacks, latinos who don't like asians, and all kinds of different folks with a low opinion of indians. The fact that none of those groups have widespread access to institutional power does not make the racist attitudes of any of their members any less racist. Power is of course fluid, but even in the absence of it, it's clear that the problems between blacks and korean immigrants in many american cities are motivated by racist attitudes on both sides. To call them something else simply to preserve the Racism Formula is patently ridiculous.

3.) It is divisive between working class whites and working class racial minorities

This is probably the biggest problem with the formula in that it takes groups that are natural political allies and pits them against each other. On the one hand, working class whites are resentful of the suggestion that they have some invisible power that is benefitting them all the time when from their perspective it seems like they're always struggling to stay ahead of the poverty curve. On the other hand it makes working class blacks suspicious of white folks, and while this suspicion has good reason, it would be much better for all involved if the real enemy in the bourgeois employers of both could be identified and pursued with the combined resources of labor.

Indeed, racism historically has been a tool used by capital to oppress the working class by dividing them. One only has to look at the history of the Irish in America to see it in action. Working class Irish immigrants, themselves victims of xenophobia and prejudice were give the tool of racism by the political establishment in order to get a leg up in American society. The result was an entrenched racism in Irish communities that further hurt the chances of blacks as slavery ended and still keeps the sons and daughters of many Irish immigrants firmly in the working classes when had the two groups worked together their numbers gave them a good chance at upsetting the established economic order. Instead the status quo was preserved, the bourgeoisie got to keep it's wealth, and the proletariat continued to suffer.

4.) It obfuscates the locus of power attributing to race what can only be attributed to class regardless of race.

Most importantly, the problem with the formulation is that it misconstrues the nature of power. In a capitalist system viewed as a whole, almost all power is economic. Political power, institutional power, police power, military power, all of these are a function of capital and its uses and the extent to which an entity possesses power in a capitalist system is inextricably linked to its ability to manipulate capital. The notion of power that the Racism Formula uses is somewhat different. It asserts power as being a sort of social mechanism that the dominant social group, in this case whites, wield exclusively. Put another way, the Racism Formula assumes that if one is not white one has no access to power because power is monolithic. This is a necessary corollary to the definition's sole purpose for existing, ie, to excuse blacks of racism.

That power is not exclusively social and is not monolithic is demonstrated quite easily. In a fair fight between two equally matched men each man has a fifty fifty chance of victory assuming a stalemate is impossible. Give one man a weapon and he has more power over the other man because all else being equal, the advantage of the weapon assures the victory of the armed man. The unarmend man must do as the armed man says or die. Call this the fundamental principle of power and it is a model of how all power works. In a capitalist system, all power therefore becomes economic because a man can leverage his economic resources to give him the advantage in any such contest, and as a result assure his victory.

It would seem then that this bears out the Racism Formula since whites, as a group, have greater access to capital than all other minority groups combined. The problem is of course that people rarely act as a group and in the vast majority of contests, it is individuals pitted against individuals. As such, there are circumstances where an individual member of a minority group does in fact have much more power than a member of another group, or even many such members. Oprah Winfrey, for example, is the wealthiest black woman in America, possibly in the world. She wields a tremendous amount of power as a result. In most contests, were Oprah Winfrey to be confronted with an overtly racist organization such as the Christian Identity Church, Oprah Winfrey would mop the floor with those scumbags because she's more powerful than they are. This mismatch of power doesn't make the Christian Identity Church any less than they are, nor does it make Oprah Winfrey racist herself. It simply shows that power is much more fluid and individualized than the racism formula acknowledges.

Another example, assume a white man hates black men and thinks they should be murdered if they have intercourse with a white woman. If he acts on those feelings, hunts and kills a black man because he believes that the man slept with a white woman, that is a racist act. In the exact opposite situation, it is ridiculous to say that a black man doing the same thing for the same reasons is not a racist just because the black man has less access to institutional power.

Power simply is not that static or monolithic.