Victims of equality: Reaganism - the new racism

The issue of race in contemporary America is extraordinarily complex, and far more difficult to describe than it has been in the past. This is characteristic of the “post-modern” era, where everything, race, gender, colonization, etc. is in some sort of ambiguous “post” stage. Our “post” world is hard to define because it seems (to me, at least) to be in the midst of an ongoing transition and restructuring of the world order in which traditional structures have been challenged, but continue to form the underlying base of our values, making our culture a battleground for old and new ideologies.

In the past, when open discrimination and segregation was considered the norm and racist principles were written into law, it was much easier to point out what exactly was the racial ideology of the time and what specifically was wrong and needed to be changed. Now that overt racism is no longer considered appropriate and the notion of equality is embedded in our laws, it becomes far more challenging to describe the current state of race in our society.

Because of its implicitness, modern racist discourse is more insidious than before. One can make a racist comment without actually mentioning race, disguise it as a criticism of “un-American values,” and claim to be an ardent supporter of equality, making any accusations of racism easy to refute. This was clearly demonstrated by the clip we watched on Wednesday where Andrew Breitbart tried to defend Rush Limbaugh because he supports Clarence Thomas, and took offense at Limbaugh being called racist. Breitbart’s statements are perfect examples of two aspects of Reagan-era racial discourse that Gray discusses in the following quotes:

“People such as former head of the US Commission on Civil Rights Clarence Pendleton or US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas were seen by conservatives as possessing the requisite moral character, individual responsibility, and personal determination to succeed in spite of residual social impediments. These were the kinds of “moral minorities” that neo-conservatives celebrated and presented both to counter the dependence of the underclass and to affirm their commitment to racial equality. These African Americans were just like whites, loyal to the ethos of capitalism and bourgeois individualism, an that loyalty rewarded them with the same middle-class privileges as whites (19).”

“Resurrecting the nativist language of reverse discrimination, traditional values, and anti-immigration, whiteness in the discourse of Reaganism no longer operated as a sign of victimizer but was repositioned as a sign of victim (17).”

The first quote addresses the notion that by supporting individual African Americans who are essentially the prototypes of “ideal minorities” who fully adopt white values, one can claim this as evidence of his/her tolerance and colorblindness and then safely continue making racist comments about the rest of the Black community. This is exactly what Breitbart does when he “proves” that Rush Limbaugh is not racist simply because he has voiced support for a single (very conservative) Black person.

The next quote explains how Reaganism framed certain policies and societal problems to position white people as the victims of Black people, feminists, basically anyone who demanded equality during the civil rights movement, and poor people. Breitbart appeals to this absurd logic when he “finds it offensive” when Bill Maher states that Rush Limbaugh is racist. He says that there “is nothing in this country that is a worse accusation” because the person being called racist is burdened to “disprove that,” therefore calling someone a racist “is un-American.” Now it is poor Rush Limbaugh who is a victim of evil “Black-studies intelligentsia” whose aim is to wrongly accuse people of the most grievous sin in America and force them to prove their innocence. Reaganism made it possible for middle and upper class white men to routinely announce that they are the victims of inequality, racism, and sexism.

My own experiences with race, and gender and sexuality, for that matter, are indicative of the influence of the Reagan-era backlash. I am embarrassed to admit that from the age of 12-18 I was basically a mouthpiece for conservative social perspectives. The fact that I adopted these viewpoints is especially mystifying because I grew up in an extremely liberal household, without a television, and went to progressive Seattle public schools.

I was ardently anti-feminist, and would make such idiotic comments as, “a woman’s place is in the kitchen!” (at which point my mother considered disowning me). I would also make the following racist argument about various groups: “It’s not the race I have a problem with, it’s the culture!” meaning, basically, that I had no problem with someone’s actual skin color, but with everything that it stood for. I firmly believed the idea of reverse discrimination and felt victimized by political correctness.

In college I started to reconsider my opinions, and when I took a Women’s Studies class my old worldview was completely shattered and replaced with an understanding of the realities of race, gender, class, sexuality, etc. The more I study media, ideology, and culture the better I understand where my previous attitudes stemmed from, that they weren’t just me being my typical stubborn self and rebelling against the values of my parents and teachers, but that they were in fact influenced by much greater social forces. My own experiences illustrate just how pervasive Reaganism, post-feminism, neo-conservatism, and similar cultural movements are. I was, for the most part, not exposed to television and mainstream media, and my mother fervently tried to raise me in a gender-neutral manner (to which, in my childhood, I responded by insisting on wearing frilly pink dresses—even when we went hiking—playing with Barbie dolls, and aspiring to be a princess). Yet I was powerfully influenced, much more so than most of my friends, by the conservative discourse circulating through contemporary media and culture.