Rev Left Radio - Intersectionality: Identity Politics and Class Consciousness.

Episode Date: March 30, 2017

Brett sits down with two university professors of sociology and a masters candidate in sociology to discuss the issues of intersectionality, the weaknesses of class-less identity politics and of class reductionism, the influence of Karl Marx on the field of sociology, Malcolm X and MLK, the relationship between power structures and identity, segregation and racism in Omaha, and how we can move forward as a global movement (and as individuals) fighting for liberation from all forms of oppression.    Featuring:  - Thomas Sanchez, PhD - Alecia Anderson, PhD  - Kristy Leahy    Follow us on: FB: Revolutionary Left Radio Twitter: @RevLeftRadio   Email us any questions or comments to [e-mail]   Don't forget to subscribe and rate us on iTunes. We are also on various podcast apps including Stitcher.

I don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin' frogs game. Shut up! Will you shut up? Now we see the violence inheriting the system. Shut up! Come and see the violence inheriting the system! Hell yeah, I would. Almost confess to her Marxist's use. Very nice words, but happens to be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, fraud, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. They're smashing the Starbucks windows. They're smashing the Starbucks windows. garbage windows right now. This is complete anarchy. God, those communists are amazing. Welcome to Revolutionary Left Radio, coming to you this time from a barricaded

janitor's closet in the basement of an undisclosed university somewhere on the Great Plains. I'm your host, Brett Day Montaigne, and with me today are three folks here to discuss intersectionality. We have two professors and a master's candidate in sociology

to discuss these issues. Would you guys like to introduce yourselves and maybe your specific areas of interest or focus. My name is Christy Leahy, and I'm the master's candidate. I specialize in inequalities, specifically race inequality. I'm Alicia Anderson, assistant professor in sociology. I specialize in race relations, social theory, social justice, yada, yada. Tom Sanchez, associate professor and sociologist. and I specialize in ethnic identity formation, also sociological theory, and Latino studies. Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for coming on. We're really excited to have you guys here. Let's go ahead and get into it. Did you guys want to start off by maybe putting some definitions on

the table for people that aren't as well versed in the field of sociology, maybe like notions of intersectionality or identity? Sure. I'll start. Intersectionalities, I don't. I wouldn't say it's a new theory. It's a new way of updating some old theories of things like double, yeah, triple jeopardy, that they're saying, well, here's how race affects you, and here's how class affects you, and here's how gender affects you, and here's how sex and religion.

And you can go on and on and on, right, with even including things like attractiveness, fat shaming, all those things come in. And it's impossible really to separate where one begins and one ends because they're all affecting the person and society, and it goes both ways and that way simultaneously and at all times. The only thing that I would stress is interdependence on intersectionality. All of these things work together to create identity.

And for us to understand how these things work together, is essential because you can't really understand these problems by looking in one singular lens. You've got to look at all of these different identities and how they work together. Absolutely. I mean, I agree with Tom and Christy. The only thing I would add is the essentialness that people are entities that have varying identities and to ask them to parcel out one over another is what intersectionality is trying to address. So older studies, at least in the discipline of sociology, we're doing that parceling out one identity or, you know, separating them. And intersectionality is the idea that

you can't separate them. I see. In what role do you think intersectionality plays in the broader field of sociology? What do you guys use that for? How does that come up in classes or how fundamental of a concept is that in the field of sociology? Go ahead. Well, I think, I'm trying to think of in the broader scope of sociology, but I can at least speak about in my own classes. You know, and Tom and I both teach a race and ethnicity course, and I think we teach it a little bit different, but I do get into this intersectionality because even in a race and ethnicity course, you can't forget about things like class, sexuality, gender.

And again, just thinking about the individual as a complete person that has these multiple layers of identities, you know, trying to parcel out just one is just not feasible. And it's not, I don't think it's, you know, I don't think it helps understand how individuals are moving through the society to do that. I think if we can look at the intersections that people are carrying and how those are influencing their behaviors and how society is viewing them, then that's the better way to do the sociology, in my opinion. gives a much clearer understanding of the socio-co-conditions that this human being is going through. I was going to say socioeconomic, but I don't know.

Yeah. Well, that would be definitely part of it. I think it's, and I think most people would agree that it's fundamental to sociology because even, you know, there's a hundred plus different areas of specialization. But even within, for instance, one of the other larger fields of family, there's classes, like American family problems, right, which goes into race and gender and economics. And so I think it's fundamental to sociology. And I think most sociologists, not all, but most would agree to that.

That there's very few places that it doesn't come into play. Yeah, absolutely. I would like to also address what role identity played in this last election. So to take the sociological concepts of intersectionality and identity, and do you have anything to say as far as how identity or maybe white identity politics played a role in this last election of Donald Trump as, sadly, our president? It played well. So in 2008, people were saying that this was the first election where this was the first election about race and this was the first election about gender with Barack Obama being nominated for the Democrats and Sarah Palin, thank you, being nominated as the vice presidential candidate for the Republicans.

And my rejoinder to that is that when most of the candidates and most of the viable candidates are white males and you can add wealthy and all kinds of other things in there. there, that is about race and gender. It does in most elections, but play a huge part in this election, not just on that side of white identity, but also in all the other parts where that happened so that, you know, a small number of Latinos voted for Trump, right? And even what that number is, is hotly debated, right? The exit polls say it was a third year, 35% Latino scholars are saying it was closer

to 18 to 20% and that the exit polls and we know that the polls got a lot of things wrong but that

one of the things the exit polls don't get is people who vote early, right? They're not there to take those exit polls.

So I think identity played a huge part on all sides and in all ways including the minor candidates I don't know if

minor is the best word to put there but the candidates that garnered less attention in Jill Stein, right? It's not a racial, ethnic identity, but that identity as maybe the environmentalist,

libertarian, whatever those identities are. Yeah, she really also poised herself as a woman, but as a woman that was more all-encompassing than Hillary Clinton, who's often seen as a corporatist or a war hawk, Jill Stein was like, yes, I'm a woman, and I'm also good on issues that affect women all over the world, not just a small neoliberal elite cadre of women.

Did you want to say something? Yeah, I think the other interesting thing about the intersections of identity in this particular election was it wasn't so much about the identities of the candidates. I mean, of course, that was a big part of it with Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee. But I think, you know, at least in the circles that I'm in, a lot of the discussion was about what was being the behavior of the candidates and how those pointed to specific identities and ostracized a lot of identities. So, you know, when you have a political candidate, you know, running for president

who's talking about grabbing women in their genitals and some of the other things that we heard. Well put. Yeah, but, you know, some of that and, you know, also, you know, the Donald was a fan of doing more, was the stop and frisk, because I think it was something that he was promoting. and, you know, and obviously his, you know, notion of what we should do with immigrants from a variety of different places. But Brown immigrants, for the most part, is very telling as well. So it was the issues even more so than, maybe in this case, more so than the identity of the candidate himself.

I would say it really points to social categories. I thought that when a lot of people voted, they probably tended to vote based on the social candidate. that, or the candidate that they felt represented their social category. I think there were a lot of votes for Trump because people felt that their honor had been questioned somehow in this, in recent changes. They wanted to make America great again wasn't an accident. That really says what they wanted to promote. And that was a rejection of some of the circumstances.

social movements and change that have happened recently by the dominant groups. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And I think, again, it goes, and hence go back to the intersectionality, we come back around. It's even beyond race and class and gender, too. I was at a conference last week, and someone asked me if citizenship is performance. And I had to think about it, and I thought absolutely it's performance, right? It's that performance of this person gets to vote and this person doesn't,

and this person's more worthy and this person isn't, right? So, and I think that's the discourse. It's easy to buy into that. I used to buy into it myself where saying, you know, giving lectures and talking about things and trying to make maybe excuses for people that weren't citizens, and then finally had to realize it doesn't, it matters, but it shouldn't matter if they're citizens or not. their human beings, right, to really get down to it. And it's that discourse.

Well, here's the Constitution, and the Constitution is the Holy Grail, that everything goes back to the Constitution. And we know that history of who wrote the Constitution and who approved the Constitution and who fought 600,000 Americans died from 1861 to 1865 to uphold the Constitution, and on and on, right? You could go through the history. And every 10, 15, 20 years, there's some major upheaval. evils in our country related to that.

And that all goes back to that who's a citizen, who's not, meaning who's worthy and who's not, which becomes crazy with globalization and all the migration that it engenders because you have these large groups of people. The United States is a kick in the bucket compared to other areas of the world where you have, the categories become citizen and non-citizen. And if you're not a citizen, you're screwed. And one of the identities, you know, you have women's, identities and white men's identities, but like you said, nationalism, nation of origin, that's

an identity. And it's, and it was so prevalent in this election because, you know, neoliberal globalism kind of blurs those borders. And as a reaction against that, you know, people instead of, it might have been more helpful for people to pick up their class identity, right? Which was Bernie Sanders is pushing that notion. Your class is what the identity that you should maybe focus on here and that could unify us. But people recoiled into their national. national identities as a reaction against globalism. It's a way to socially distinguish yourself. Yeah, and then it also helps to dehumanize others.

So horribly immoral acts like ice raids and forced deportation, splitting up families, that would never be okay if it was your neighbor, you know, or your family. But if it's them, if they're illegal aliens. It's the out group. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it really is.

It boils down to the in-group and the out-group. You know, who's the dominant power? in the country. I think that's a vital question when you look at this. Well, and then some of the categories that aren't raised often but are very important. Like, we know this one's important now, rural and urban. Yeah. Right. That people don't think of it, you know, we have whites, blacks, and Latinos and Asians, and then others and some, I'm not saying that I buy into that, but that's what it is.

And then age, right? There's these huge differences in age where the median age, which is the age at which 50% is older and 50% younger. For white people in America, it's 40. For African Americans, it's about 30. For Hispanics, it's 27. And for Mexican origin, Hispanics, it's 23. Wow. And so when you look at all kinds of things like education, social security, childbearing,

health care, all those things, you're looking at these massive differences in terms of, you know, tens of millions of more white people are going to need health care as they get older in these next few years and tens of millions of of of for lack of a better term brown people are going to need are going to need education and and and and and who's going to work to pay the social security and and so I think these differences that we're seeing I'm not optimistic I think these differences that we're seeing now um is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of um social discord and and and I'm not I'm not preaching doom and gloom here but but I think the problems don't get better from here they get worse and harder to tackle and if we're going to if we're

going to tackle them effectively we have to understand them and that's an important part it might not be super optimistic but it's the reality of the situation yeah absolutely I totally understand that so I guess we could go into a question since we kind of touched on it but maybe we can address who does hold power in this society what are the power structures that are in place that oppress certain people based on identity I mean we you touch earlier on the fact that, you know, this was a white supremacist nation. It was founded as a white supremacist nation. And not only that, but a rich white supremacist property owning. So identities have

been integral from the beginning of American history. So maybe we can touch on how you'd identify those power structures. Well, I think the, you know, in the 21st century, it's, it hasn't changed a whole lot. So it's, you know, it's cisgender, heterosexual, Christian. white men who are able-bodied and citizens and handsome and yes and good looking that's true um i mean did we get all the intersections um you know and everyone else is the out group as christie mentioned so you know and they're obviously you know there's not just white non-white or you know man not man but um you know there's these other identities that should be respected and understood and valued, but when it comes to power structures, I think that's what

you're looking at is, you know, in-group, out-group is what I described and everyone else. I was going to say, and sometimes that's arranged via a hierarchy. So, you know, as close to that perfect ideal of that cis-white man that you can get. So I think, you know, the wider you are. the richer you are, the more attractive you are, those things matter, the more cis you are, the more, you know, everything. So, you know, you do have a power structure that kind of trickles down a bit. Why do you think that people that are white, cis, and male, or, you know, all the things we've covered are so reluctant to admit that there are some advantages that come with those

identities. So the demographics are changing and all those realities are changing at the same time that the economy is in a tailspin, right? So they're losing their homes and losing their jobs and losing their opportunity and losing futures at the same time that issues like transgendered persons and sexuality are, I wouldn't say they're at the forefront by any means, but they're coming up. The Census Bureau predicts that white people will be less than 50% by 2043, and then that number keeps changing so that it's coming earlier and earlier and earlier. So they're afraid. The reality, they're looking at their material reality. Here's material reality. My opportunities and the opportunities for my children are fading while these other people, their populations are growing.

So what do we do? We have things like voter suppression issues to try to support. press votes. One of the things you mentioned, you mentioned, Christy, I saw some research. It wasn't sociological in the sense that it wasn't scientific, right? It was the Orange County Register, but they pulled some of their readers, and Asians were more acceptable than Latinos, because Asians are closer to the white norm, skin tone-wise, education-wise, income-wise, than Latinos. So I was kind of shocked that people in these polls would admit those things.

But, yeah, it was okay to have, they didn't want the Asian names. Don't get me wrong. They wanted white neighbors. But if they had a choice between Asians and Latinos, they would choose the Asians. And that's that hierarchy that you're talking about. It's actually a weird reversal of stereotypes. Like white men that are on the right reactionary in some sense. will throw out like sort of that we're okay with Asian sort of thing and then they'll play up

these stereotypes about they're good at school you know they're good parenting stuff like that and that's a way to also push down other identities that aren't like that and say come to our standard which is highly mythologized and you know bullshit and large degree but it's still something that's pushed you know right but I think Tom hit on something that's really important our economy is changing and we're switching from an industrial economy to a service economy and I think one of the things that's happening is these white patriarchal men don't want to do women's work you know they don't want to go serve out there they and that that's beneath it so you do see a shift in their economic reality they are losing income they are having a

difficult time with jobs and it's easier to blame someone else than it is to say say, hey, what's really happening in our economic structure, you know? Absolutely. Is capitalism really working? We're not going to get them to say that. So it's much easier to say, well, it's those darn immigrants. You know, they're coming and taking our jobs, you know. That's an easier thing to say.

It's an easier thing to believe. And it reinforces the same power structure that has supplied them privileged this entire time. So I think that's very important. So I agree with both Tom and Christy, but I think the other slice of the pie is this idea of white guilt that I think, you know, this is kind of, you know, if we go back to social theory, the colorblind racism, Benia Silva, if you've not heard of that term, he's the one who kind of coined it and has several studies that looks at colorblind racism. And the idea there is that, you know, white people want to distance themselves from atrocities of the past. you know, you know, I didn't have any slaves, that kind of rhetoric. But, you know, that there's a knowledge that something's not right, but don't blame me for it. I mean, that is kind of, you know, part of while they may be blaming other people,

but also just that, you know, that people want to be guilt-free. Like, I didn't do it. Like, this is not my fault. And I think that's part of the distancing from white people who don't want to admit that there's privilege. But one other thing that I want to add in here is that I think, that our culture has something to do with that. I think that when you look at white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture from the very, very beginning, you're told as an individual that you can do this. Yes. All by yourself. I did this. Trump says it all the time. I open this business

by myself. I mean, Daddy gave me some... A small loan of a million. Right? But that this belief that everything you've achieved is by your own merit is very important when you start talking about a lack of access for other people because then you do have that white guilt where you're like, well, wait a minute, did I step over other people to get? Did I get what they should have? And I don't know that that's the way to look at it, but I think that that's the initial way that people do and they reject that out of hand right away. Because this individual identity is so embedded in everything in the United States, everything. From the way we raise our children to the way that we conduct ourselves, the way we have friendships,

everything just boils down to this white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. That individualism is also the very philosophical justification for capitalism itself. Right. And that creates problems for people, but it doesn't give them the class analysis, by which to analyze their situation, and so they do turn to scapegoating and whatnot. There's a bit of a contradiction in it, though, that the success is mine, but the failure is theirs.

Exactly, exactly. It wasn't my fault that I failed. It was the immigrants coming in, or it was because a married gay couple live next door to me, or again, and those lists can go on and on and on, right? So I see that contradiction. But if they personally fail, you're right somebody else's fault if somebody else's fail pull yourself up by your bootstraps you're lazy

you need to fix your culture your community then it's the preaching so yeah it's very contradictory in that sense so let's just pivot real quick to to class and maybe a good way to get into that identity would be maybe to quickly touch on carl Marx's influence on the field of sociology well well we have already we have already right we just didn't call it that christie brought up and and Alicia you brought up in terms of looking at people's material reality right that's so so people think of Marx and they say well Marx is all wrong because there wasn't there's been no revolution and there's not going to be a revolution and you know what he's probably wrong about that but what they don't understand is that almost every way that we look at economics including

the way that the right looks at economics comes from Marx's analysis and partly from that material reality that affects identity the failure of capital we've we've raised those kinds of things that that comes from that reality of not the not the reality of ideas that the the material reality uh i live in this place and i and i and my economic future is doomed that becomes the the discourse in terms of how my ideas get formed and and that's very marxist uh terminal ideas those are very marxist that was his split between idealism and materialism history is not driven by ideas people thinking things history is driven by the productive forces

and how human beings replicate their well-being. Did you want to touch on how? I just wanted to disagree with Tom. I think the revolution's coming. And I don't think it, I don't, I agree. I think it's happening in spurts, you know, constantly. So, but it's, I know, I'm pushing for it. Yeah.

I mean, I think the one thing that Marks never said, he never set a limit on, you know, he never said an outline of it has to happen in this country or this, you know what I I mean, so I think, and my interpretation of that has always been that's going to take a global revolution. So as long as there's a proletary that can be exploited, then we're going to, you have to reach the ends of the earth, you know, before that proletary can come together. So that's, I don't know, it's just my thoughts. I would even, I would even add real quick that he always talked about the radical change in the, and the productive forces of a society spur on these other political, social cultural changes. And he was looking at the industrial revolution, and you're right, that, that revolution did not come to pass.

He predicted that the industrial revolution was the change in productive forces that would create this revolution. But what we see ourselves now in the 21st century is on the verge of a hyper-automation revolution of even more radical alteration in the way that we, you know, recreate the material by which we live, the productive forces. That could be that could be the thing that. So this takes it out of that dichotomy because I can be right. Yes, yes, yes. As you just pointed out, Marx was wrong about that happening in the day. industrial revolution and still be wrong that it's it's still it's it's it has yet to pass true yeah

i think he you know he he really talked about a dialectic a lot you know and and so i think we're still in it i don't think it hasn't passed yet i i don't i think we're still in it i think we're still going through that process of you know um of a of the i don't know of the haigel's dialectic turned kind of upside down. I mean, we're still doing it. We're still doing it today. We still see it. We're just still compromising. And that's the part that we're stuck in. Yeah, and part of this podcast is trying to raise class consciousness so we can put that identity as the unifying thread between all identities. And that could hopefully give us the unity needed to come together. Because as long as we're split, I think the neoliberal global order benefits from identity

politic that excludes class because then you do have the racial scapegoating you have you know the cultural chauvinism you have the nationalism um when you look at it from a marxist perspective of internationalism of the proletariat as a global force that's an identity that we want to we want to entrench in people's minds you know yeah and i think that so you know and to tie back to marx me marx pointed that out explicitly that you know we're all part of this proletariat but the bourgeoisie is going to put these, you know, these various distinctions in to separate us. And so if we can all come back to that class consciousness, then, you know, then we got something. And even, you know, thinking about, you know, the narratives of history and just even something is very clear as

Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement, you know, that was all well and good if, you know, blacks were marching around in the South. But as soon as he tried to get the poor people's movement together and started garnering support from whites and other, you know, other identities than all of a sudden there's no more Martin Luther King Jr. And, you know, I get my thoughts on that too. And please, if you heard that, please go look up the poor people's movement and see how that was at the very end of Martin Luther King's life. And that was the step he took that was too far. Yeah, absolutely. And if you want to look at Marxism from the sociological perspective, I think it's important to just understand that it's really a lens through which you can look at economic

class, class exploitation, and how cool. culture and class and identity and all of this stuff works together. I think it's a way of looking at it. As opposed to a dogma or a doctrine or some lusty, old 19th century. Right. Yeah, yeah. And then so you can go out and look at literature where people have taken Marx's ideas and updated them in that way, right?

Marx didn't write about, you know, he wrote on the Jewish, question and he touched on the edges but he didn't write about race and he didn't write about gender by writing all about men right but he didn't write about about those issues but people have taken Marx and saying and said okay here's where we can use as Marxist theory and talk about gender and talk about some of the other issues that we're addressing here with intersectionality although he did kind of talk about it he did he did mention women and he talked about him and Ingalls talked about women, they talked about slaves in the United States, not in any great length, but they're there. And he definitely mentions it, and he points to it, and he elaborates

on how these are failures in this system. So I would disagree that he does talk about it. Well, and this is a good thing to point out that Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, right? It wasn't, Engels always gets left out. Poor guy. And all these, you know, angles wrote extensively about the family, right, and family structure. So when people leave angles out, a lot of that literature gets left out. And my understanding is that they kind of moved off each other and improved each other's

ideas in writing. And so it's hard to talk about marks without including angles, even though we try too often to forget angles. Yeah, and Ingalls was amazing. He was an amazing guy. So it's really sad that he got left out because he was the real revolutionary. He was really on the front lines. He was, and he helped without Ingalls there would be no marks. That's absolutely true. Yeah, one time he masked up and rode in with horses and robbed an armory so they could the working class. I think it was in maybe France or maybe even Germany. They could barricade the streets to fight the police and stuff. So Marx is sitting in his den writing these screeds and. Angles is out there at fighting, you know. Yeah. So that's a good point to transition to a question we actually have,

and it touches on a lot of the issues we've talked about already. This question comes from Barry DeFord. He's a schoolteacher in northern Alberta. Alberta, sorry, I'm an American. Speaking of identity. But he wanted to know, and I think this is really important, should being class conscious also include the factors of race and ethnicity, or could too much awareness of race have a negative impact

and wind up justifying racism? So the question here is basically one between class reductionism on one hand and a classless identity politic. I wonder if you guys could touch on that. I think, again, I think we have already in terms of the intersectionality. Alicia and I both teach, and we do teach it differently, but we both teach a race class, race and ethnicity. and the title she doesn't use the textbooks that's one of the ways that hers is different

but but the title of one of the textbooks I use in there is race class and gender right um so again I don't think there's any way to talk about ethnicity race gender again go down the list without talking about class but but to take that question the answer that question further this is one of those things that comes up often where people say we don't need latino studies latino studies or black studies or women's studies. All that does is create divisions, right? It's saying it's that old refrain that if you teach, you know, 14 or 15 year olds about sex education, they'll start having sex, right? So it's that thing. Raising awareness does not create those divisions. Those

divisions are there. Yeah, and by ignoring them, you perpetuate them. Right. You certainly can't understand them unless we have this discourse and this dialogue. And you can't separate them. I mean, that's the nature of intersectionality. Absolutely. And I think that, you know, even, I like the question, but because it's one that, you know, I can see, I can think of multiple occasions where that debate has happened, but at the same time, I think that that debate is, we lose something with that. I think that we could have both, and it's not inconceivable to have really high awareness

of the identity differences between us, you know, whether it's race or any of the other identity markers we discussed, but still be able to come together on common ground, recognizing that the common thread that lies between us is, you know, the oppression that we're feeling by the hands of, you know, whatever the dominant, powerful group is. And so, you know, it doesn't matter if, you know, we're black or white or, you know, if I'm Christian or Muslim or Jewish or whatever it is, you know, we can come together and if you know what, what is oppressing you, and you really understand and have that class consciousness, then you can still be your, you're your snowflake, but be in the group of snowflakes to build something.

A snowball. Yes. Snowman. Right. Or woman. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I would just say, add my two cents on this, there's errors in both directions. So there are people on the far left that are class reductionists.

And what they do is they reduce identities to class. Like you were saying earlier, people like, well, we don't need women's study that just further divides us. You know, racial studies further divides us. so that erases identities in favor of just class the opposite error in my opinion is what i would refer to as just liberal identity politics um which is kind of like the i'm with her um sort of identity politics where class is not present at all and so all you have is these competing identities dividing amongst each other fighting amongst each other oh you're a white male i don't even want to hear your fucking opinion sort of stuff um that also undermined solidarity and it creates

more divisions and it actually ends up benefiting you know the ruling class because as long as we're fighting amongst ourselves you know we're screwed absolutely bring them together like you said bring them together put them together we need both at the same time and they only strengthen each other and let's be honest just to name probably one of the most obvious examples Barack Obama's in the ruling class absolutely so is Hillary Clinton yeah yeah yeah and that's What class consciousness might help with is, like, they fundamentally serve their class above their personal identity as a woman or as an African American. The class loyalty is there, even if it's obscured by other identities. Absolutely.

So is there anything you wanted to touch on as far as Omaha, our location, our city? Can we talk about the, I mean, we're one of the most segregated cities in the country? Anybody want to go off that and you can say whatever you want on that topic? I'll just, you know, just add to that. the segregation. In 1973, when the federal courts ordered Boston and all these other, Boston was probably one of the most famous, but we had busting in Omaha from 1973 until I want to say 98 or 99. So, yeah, the segregation is historic and it's deep. I'll just stop there and let someone else comment. Well, Omaha does have the fifth highest African-American poverty

rate in the United States, among the nation's largest 100 cities. Let me clarify that. And its third highest for African American child poverty. Right. That's it. One in three black residents in Omaha live below the poverty line. So this is a truly catastrophic situation here in Omaha. It's very segregated. There is an absolute lack of to, of access to education, health care, jobs, the unemployment rate is, I believe, 23%. I'm not, not quite sure, which is well above the national average. It's a real issue that nobody's talking about. And it is historic. It's something that's that happened quite early on in Omaha.

history and unfortunately has been perpetuated by all these different policies that are put in place. Our busing routes is an obvious one. We don't bus to and from North Omaha, the area that is in question. We don't have those busing routes. Or it's very difficult. So, you know, you have to change lines five times rather than the routes within white spaces that go from point A to point B. So there's a million little things that keep that area quite segregated. Redlining was a huge problem here. Can you explain that for people that might not know what that term means? Redlining is a specific policy that is put in place. A lot of people think of it in terms of financial policy, and that's definitely true, but it can also be

something like supermarkets. And it's something in which there is a, I don't know how to describe it well. Well, the way that I heard it was that banks, to go back to, and you can expand on it, but the financial part of it, that banks would literally take a red pen and draw circles around neighborhoods and wouldn't give any loans to the house. So the housing stock deteriorates. They're not only not giving, not giving loans to improve the housing, but they're not giving loans for people to buy the houses, especially people that aren't part of that group, historically happened most often with black people. Right. And there were race-restrictive

covenants that happened here. So if you were, black you were not allowed to rent or buy in certain areas, you were rejected for loans. We definitely have food deserts here. And I think just to go back a little further and think about you know how this all started a lot of like the northern and western cities that kind of cropped up in terms of at least you know my knowledge about black populations black communities you know Chicago here in Omaha were people leaving the South black people leaving the South

to resettle and Malcolm X who actually is from here from this area if people weren't already aware made a really I think important declaration of the difference between separation and segregation. And so when people come and build communities, that's separation. But when they're forced to remain in a particular portion of the city or of the area, that's segregation. And so when black people started coming to Omaha, it was more of a situation of separation. And actually there was a thriving black community here until the early part of the 20th century. And this happened in cities across the nation, really. After the Civil War, there was a lot of some of that backlash that we were talking about earlier from whites about, you know, black people entering the,

you know, job markets, gaining land and jobs and money and resources. And so the pushback was, well, you know, there were several ways that they pushed back with incarceration, with lynching, And in 1919 here in Omaha, Willie Brown was a black man. It was lynched for supposedly raping a white woman. And that sparked some race riots. And ever since then, the legislation, that's when, you know, the redlining and some of these other tactics started up. And it turned from separation of that black community to segregation of a portion of the city for, you know,

that black people were then stuck in. largely in response to the race riots. Is that right? Or at least it's on the run the same time. It's more, the race riots were a part of, were I think of the kickoff for this, right? So the pushback was coming and, you know, how do we preserve from whites,

how do we preserve the system, the privileges, I guess, that we've had? And it was done it a lot with a lot of different tactics. But that race riot and the lynching made a lot of those sour, kind of interactions, you know, it gets exploded, you know. And so that's when, you know, there was a lot of tension between different races here in Omaha. Specifically, whites that came into North Omaha and rioted.

And as a result, because... Whites came into the black part of town to get revenge and be aggressive and violent towards... And there were mobs, buildings, were damaged and burnt and destroyed. The police came in to quote-unquote protect the citizens. You know, African-Americans were not allowed

out after dark, for example, which really seems, right? Pick your term, yeah, ludicrous. Patronizing in the extreme and it's like we have control over you. Right, and very, I mean, victim blame me, If you want to use that thought process, I mean, we're coming to hurt you.

So, why don't you stay inside your house, inside your area that we are no longer going to finance and allow you? And we're going to let the neighborhood deteriorate. Absolutely. And when you have low property values, you have low tax basis for schooling and all that stuff. And it's worth noting, real quick, that we mentioned Malcolm X, you know, it's worth noting that he was chased out of Omaha by the clan when he was a toddler. His windows were bashed in when his father, I think, was at work. They terrorized his house, broke all his windows. And when his dad came home from work, they said, we've got to get out of here.

So that's a really sad historical fact. You're proud that Malcolm X is from here, but then you're immediately deflated with the while he left. Right. And I think it's important to note that throughout this entire time, there were newspapers that controlled discourse to mainstream Omaha. And the discourse was highly inflated, you know, the same narrative we hear today, black men are criminals, we are in danger, and it's the same criminalization, the same rhetoric that is happening today. And that is something very important

to understand, I think, because when you're talking to someone who doesn't want to see the problem and you're feeding them through their mainstream sources, what they want to hear, it's even harder to reach them with the truth. And that's important because part of that history that people don't understand has to do with identity, right? So identity is this dialectic of self and society. You can call yourself whatever you want, but society's going to treat you however you want. So when those white mobs went to the blackheads of town to riot, they included Italians

and Irish and Czechs and Germans who were white then, but in other instances were not white. And so... Whiteness is a social construct. A social construct. It's not even about the color of your skin. My, yeah, my ancestral surname is O'Shea. They came over as the O'Shea's from Ireland had to drop the O to avoid discrimination. But it's important to note because a lot of times when we talk about slavery and stuff like that,

they bring, well, what about Irish slaves? It's not all about race. That's bullshit as an Irish man. Right. Because we were absorbed into whiteness, you know? And in this case, I know that the Jewish population, as a Jew I want to go ahead and call this out because I'm not happy with it

but the Jewish population was very embedded in North Omaha and were a large part of the economic structure there and the Jews had an opportunity to quote-unquote become white and take flight and they took it and they got further and further and further along that hierarchy so that now they're in the top places here as far as, you know, the place to be, the place to live, right? The higher class areas, really abandoning every, every route that they had in North Omaha

right around the same time that this is happening. So that's, I don't think, coincidence. Well, and then also looking about one of the things that's come up a couple of times here of criticizing immigrants and blaming immigrants for all the personal and societal problems, this was happening at the turn of the 20th century, except the immigrants were those Italians and Jews and Irish and the Germans a little bit less so, but yes, and the Czechs and mostly from southern and eastern Europe.

Right. Yeah, and I was going to ask you, maybe you could touch on South Omaha, which is very full of people that immigrated from Central and South America, and you could tell that history about Omaha. Yeah, so South. Omaha, again, historically had these little, these small pockets, and we still have some of the vestiges, which, to kind of do a comparison nationally, St. Louis has some of that same history

and other towns of similar size, cities of similar size have that same history, and Mexicans were just one of those populations. And then it was probably into, maybe in the, as late as the 80s and 90s, where South Omaha started to be identified as this, you know, Hispanic or Latino side of the city of Omaha, to my knowledge, it's still not majority Hispanic or Latino. The kind of the flavor and the flare is because of the businesses and because of, well, mostly because of the businesses that are in that area of town.

But the, so I don't remember how long ago it was when Ernie Chambers, a state senator proposed to divide the Omaha public school district into three districts North Omaha which would have been majority black West Omaha which would have been majority white and South Omaha which would not have been a majority

Hispanic it would have been only a plurality they would have been the largest group but not more than 50 percent and I remember going to a conference during that time of people were saying what's going on with Omaha why is this black senator trying to reintroduce segregation

and it becomes really kind of those alternative facts kind of thing where Ernie Chambers' proposal would not have moved a single student from a single school. Again, the segregation is there. It wasn't a ploy to do it. It was really about when his idea was local control. If we're going to have this massive school district of 50,000 students, why not have rich white people control West Omaha and black people control the schools in North Omaha, et cetera, et cetera? but the accusation was including from Latinos and black people

you're reintroducing segregation no we're just trying to look at the reality of these already segregated places and put the local control where it should be right because if you if you don't do that then what you end up getting is basically simplified but mostly true west Omaha white people dictating the communities in the south and north of the city and so it's just another way to reinstate basically white supremacy here in Omaha So we've talked about class, we've talked about identities, we talked about intersectionality.

We're getting close to probably the end of this podcast. Before we go, though, let's talk about some ways that individuals can start to maybe address these issues. If I'm an individual person, I feel weak in the face of all these things that we're talking about. So many issues, it can be very overbearing. What would you guys say are ways for people to kind of start to address this, whether in their personal lives and their personal lives, and their personal spheres of influences, or maybe broadly as activists or organizers? I think this is always the toughest question.

Absolutely, absolutely. But I think the first step is to educate yourself about, well, about yourself, your history, about other people and their histories. You know, I think the one thing you don't want to do is go out half-cocked, as I say, and, you know, and start to do things when you don't have the full set of information And so I think that's the first part. And, you know, lots of communities have organizations that are welcoming and having, you know, town halls. They're having meetings.

They're having, you know, other types of events that you could go out and check out, have conversations with people, try to understand what it's like to be, you know, whatever group you don't identify with and find out more about them. And then you're better prepared, at least, to take some other steps, I think. I think representation is extraordinary. important. So I think we need to start pushing for our representatives to truly represent us. And I don't know about everyone else, but Rich Whiteman don't necessarily have my best interest to heart in my opinion. So I think we need to start promoting local politics, start getting involved in our city council, start getting involved in our education, start getting involved in

our, even in our utilities. Let's look at who's representing us in these positions. That's a great way to start looking at power. Locally, grassroots in your area. That is a great way to start changing that representation. Yeah, and I think, Alicia, you said it best because the question was about personally and then society also so so find out about your own history find out about other people's history but then some of it's kind of those cliches right vote right letters to the editor this goes back to what christie's saying call your call your senators run for office right we have a colleague that if i'm not if i'm i mean i could be wrong about these numbers but this person was voted this person the first trans person on the is it millard public school wellston well

Well, the first trans person to be elected, my understanding, in the state, public office in the state of Nebraska, right? And again, I could be wrong about this, but the person that was on the ballot, for some reason, was dropped out. And so it was two rioting candidates. And I think he got 14 votes and the other person got nine or say. I don't know if it was that low. That's the margin we're dealing with. But we're talking about 14 votes, right? So run for office.

Run for office. Absolutely. Yeah. And I would say, you know, being a revolution. or having a revolutionary, you know, approach to the world does not mean that you need to dismiss the importance of electoral politics and of reform. You can be a revolutionary and a reformist, you know, at the same time. In matter of fact, that's the best way to go about it.

Diversity of tactics. Diversity of tactics. Do everything you can in your power to, you know, raise the material conditions for the people around you. Another thing to do is, you know, realize that you're a human being. And these are other human beings. don't be don't let the mainstream media and the cultural narratives tug you by the by the leash and point you into directions that you don't want to go

think critically about yourself have compassion for other people and be self-aware you know it's uncomfortable it's uncomfortable to face these issues and i think that you know one of the simplest things for me is get to know your neighbor so that this goes back to the economics where people drive into their driveway they hit the the garage door opener they drive in and they might not And I have been historically guilty. I have a five-year-old daughter now that makes it easier for me to get to know the neighbors or impossible not to get to know the neighbors. But a lot of people don't know who their neighbors are.

And I'm talking about, you know, white people getting to know their white neighbors. And all the other things, you know, to use the extreme, all the other things in between. But part of that also is who's issue is it, right? I was listening to NPR. It was a number of years ago, and they're talking about black poverty. And one of the questions was, what can we do about black poverty? poverty and the answer started off with well the black leaders need to do this and I'm thinking why is why is why is why is black poverty a black parliament should be an American problem right

on September 12th 2001 I don't know anybody I know people that were undocumented that were depressed and sullen and mad and angry nobody said like oh just a bunch of rich white people died so fuck them right I mean everybody was concerned about that problem that was a a U.S. issue it wasn't it wasn't confined to any particular group. And I've seen a lot, I shouldn't say a lot, a little more lately of Latinos going to some of the community meetings and the black community and vice versa. So it's not even just like this white, non-white kind of thing. It's all these, again, full circle back to the intersectionality, all these different groups

being concerned for their society, for our society. I think one thing that one time I was reading a book by, Angela Davis. And she talked about the rape of black women back in slavery. And I think one of the biggest moments for me was when she was talking about these white rich women that were allowing their husbands to go out and rape other women, right? And then who's crawling in your back into your bed. The idea that it isn't a black problem, this is, this is our problem. This is something that affects us even directly. So you might not be being raped, but that brute is your husband. It does affect you. And if you don't care, then what does that make you as a human

being? Yeah, as a human being. Absolutely. All right. Well, I really, really, really love that you guys came. This is a great conversation. This is very informative. I couldn't be happier with how it went. So thank you so much. Before we go, is there any thing you would like to plug? Any sources you'd like to point people towards for delving deeper into these issues by chance? I think one of the ways for, again, I'm in Latino studies. So the University of Nebraska at Omaha, I'm going to say the long term and then the short, But the University of Nebraska at Omaha Office of Latino and Latin American Studies. So Ojas at UNO has a lot of great research on their website, dealing with politics, economics, religion, in the Latino community.

But if that's one of the things that you're looking for, there's a lot of great stuff on that website that you can download into a PDF or just look at it there. Cool. I'm going to go a different direction and if anyone is interested in fiction reading there's a book by Bibi Moore Campbell called Your Blues Ain't Like Mine and it's all about these intersections there are these intertwining characters it's set in the south it actually runs through well through at least the early to mid part of the 20th century through the latter part and you can see how these people who have very varying identities are intertwined and interacting with each other. And it's like really written well so that you can identify with more than one character.

And you find yourself even identifying with those who don't have the same identities. And so I don't know. It's just one of those books that for me was kind of inspirational when I was young and, you know, still trying to figure all this out. So your blues ain't like mine by Vivie Moore Campbell. I'm going to go with some critiques on capitalism. I think that if we're looking at these issues and we're looking at that thing that ties us all together, that class that intersects all those identities, I think we need to understand what capitalism is. And I personally would recommend Marx. I know he's a hard, he's a hard one to read sometimes. He likes to be very thorough.

but I think it provides the best look at the structure that we're in. Sometimes we fight a lot about, you know, those commies or those capitalists. But really, these are just, this is just a structure. And this structure clearly isn't working very well. It's not working very well for a lot of people. For most people. It is for a few people. For those rich, white people, it works great.

But for the rest of us, and we're the majority. it's not working so great it's okay to change the system you wouldn't think twice about rearranging your living room if the living room wasn't working out it's just a system it's just a way to organize

we can organize differently and it'll be okay so I think if we pull back a little bit and actually look at the system that we're in because one of the things that we do is we objectify this system we reify it

becomes something outside of us us. And truly, it's just a system. It's not that big of a deal. When I hear people going off on commies, I'm always just like, it's just so weird. It's just an economic system. Why are you so scared? What's wrong with equality, right? And then one thing, and I think, Lisa, you'd agree with me. You said back when I was still trying to figure all this stuff out, that we're all still trying to figure all this stuff out. I'm 51 years old, and I've been doing this for a few decades. I liked it when I got old enough to say, you know, decades ago. But it doesn't end that struggle to figure it out for yourself and trying to share it with other people, which is, I think,

what we're all trying to do here. That's a primary purpose of this podcast. I'll have one recommendation as well. I'll play along. I would really urge everybody to go see I am not your Negro. The James Baldwin film. Excellent. It's still in theaters. I know it was at film streams. I don't know if it's still there. I'm sure you can find it. if you try hard enough. I was sitting in the theater. At times I'm crying. At times my fists are clenched.

It just gives you a perspective, the history of racial relations in this country, and we're historical animals. We live in a historical legacy. You cannot separate the present from the past. And by better understanding the past, you can better understand the present. So anything as far as observing history

and trying to critically analyze it is important, but especially that film because it does a great way of using art and emotions to get intellectual points through. And I think it's really important that when you're viewing it, you understand this is still the lived reality for so many people. Nothing has changed. I am not your negro.

Negro is, yes, historical, but it is modern. It is relevant today. It's here, yeah. All right, well, thank you guys so much for coming on. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank everybody out there for listening. Oh, my God, you know, I'm going to be.

Oh my gosh. Christy's on nervous. The whole time. The whole time.