The very serious function of racism

August 3, 2024 5:59 AM

On 30 May 1975, Toni Morrison, Primus St. John, John Callahan, Susan Callahan, and Lloyd Baker convened for the second part of the “Black Studies Center Public Dialogue" [PDF transcript] at Portland State University. During the dialogue, Toni Morrison said a number of important things, but one piece in particular has stood out in later years [previously; previouslier].

Here’s the quote:

"The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing."

Morrison's quote has resonated with authors in such works as Llewellyn and Packer's Still Breathing: 100 Black Voices on Racism--100 Ways to Change the Narrative and Anderson and Fluker's The Black Speculative Arts Movement: Black Futurity, Art+Design. It has also resonated strongly across the United States in recent days, associated with the presumptive presidential candidacy of current Vice President Kamala Harris [barely even previously].

Morrison on PBS News.

"We Been Knew: A Reflection on the Reproduction of ‘Knowledge’, People as Subjects, and the Role of Academia in Dismantling and Rebuilding Itself as an Ally for Justice"

"Racism as Distraction: Aminatta Forna Writes about Toni Morrison"

Africentric Engineering By Dr. Kwadwo Osseo-Asare at Alliance for Education, Science, Engineering and Design with Africa

Note: both recording and transcript have previously been posted in an intense MeTa that you might or might not wish to revisit [CW: rape, sexual assault]

posted by cupcakeninja (15 comments total)

I've been reading the 1619 Project lately and have been struck repeatedly by the small role played by racism. Slavery was more about capitalism and the desire for cheap labor; racism was just the rationalization provided by the wealthy to "justify" their abuse of other people.
posted by SPrintF at 6:28 AM on August 3 [4 favorites]

@SPrintF

Yeah plausibly (US style) white supremacy is mostly about the legacy of slavery. In a world where there was no history of race-specific enslavement, black Africans became not only Roman citizens but Senators, and as far as we can tell there was no special reaction to the "black" part.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:34 AM on August 3 [4 favorites]

Karl Rove is thought to have said:

"That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
posted by AlSweigart at 6:47 AM on August 3 [9 favorites]

Thank you very much for the inclusion of the quote, DirtyOldTown. I missed it as well and my inference capabilities are objectively terrible prior to the morning coffee being mainlined.
posted by discardme at 8:12 AM on August 3 [6 favorites]

The function of racism today is to provide a target for the plebs to focus on instead of the oligarchs.

Oligarchs promise racial solidarity in prosperity but never deliver but at least you can feel like you're at the top of a socially constructed hierarchy.

That socially constructed hierarchy, depending on your locale, has been/is being dismantled by a multiracial democratic electorate and that's what MAGAts are terrified of. They know they can't compete if they're not the "safe", default choice. They know they can't do anything against the oligarchs. They're desperate for anything that lets them not feel like the complete fucking dupes they are for supporting a white supremacist system their entire lives.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:55 AM on August 3 [7 favorites]

Or, in the case of Kamala Harris, some jerk says you "just became Black a few years ago" and you risk falling into the trap of proving him wrong. So glad she and her handlers have absorbed this wisdom and are using it constructively.
posted by rpfields at 9:11 AM on August 3 [7 favorites]

Mod note: Quote added beneath fold.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 9:22 AM on August 3 [5 favorites]

The function of racism today is to provide a target for the plebs to focus on instead of the oligarchs

^^^^^^^^^
this 10000%

I have not yet RTFA but I did read Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi (highly recommend) and he reports this exact dynamic. Early in the (US) colonies there were not only enslaved Africans but also some white indentured people. At a certain point they started to talk, having a lot of similarities in their circumstances. When the owners saw that happening (and I'm sure they were greatly outnumbered by the people they were exploiting and well worried) they started to talk the white people up, give them small favors and instill in them the idea that they were different from and better than the enslaved Africans. Anything to keep their cheap labor force from rising up and killing them. So the whites got to have a cookie, and gladly accepted their own exploitation as long as they were assured of their superiority. It's still happening today.
posted by supermedusa at 10:18 AM on August 3 [9 favorites]

President Johnson on a Political visit to the South to a young Staffer, Bill Moyers:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/
[snip]
That's the context of one of the most famous statements on race ever attributed to President Johnson, an off-the-cuff observation he made to a young staffer, Bill Moyers, after encountering a display of blatant racism during a political visit to the South. Moyers tells it in the first person:

We were in Tennessee. During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs. "I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it," he said. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
posted by aleph at 12:35 PM on August 3 [15 favorites]

Reminder that urls aren’t automatically turned into links, but can easily be made linkable (thus contributing to site accessibility) by using the “link” button in the quick-access edit buttons immediately below the comment input window. (The link button is the one on the far right of the row of buttons just under the comment box.) Linking urls properly ourselves saves mod time for actual site moderation, too!
posted by eviemath at 1:22 PM on August 3

Sorry. Will do. I tend to do the other so people can *see* the url wo hovering over the link.
posted by aleph at 1:55 PM on August 3

Wow.

I am not going to have the time to dig into this right now, but this looks like amazing stuff, so thoughtful and grounded and heartbreaking, and I really, really appreciate you putting together this excellent, beautifully curated post.

Thank you, very very much, cupcakeninja.
posted by kristi at 1:57 PM on August 3 [1 favorite]

(I tend to do the other so people can *see* the url wo hovering over the link.

Reasonable - but you can also do both! Make the url text a link with the url.)
posted by eviemath at 2:11 PM on August 3 [1 favorite]

Thanks. Will do.
posted by aleph at 2:24 PM on August 3

The function of racism today is to provide a target for the plebs to focus on instead of the oligarchs

As MLK lectured on at length in his Address at the Conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery March, or Our God is Marching On. And sadly, like Morrison's quote, remains relevant today. The full speech is well worth reading, but the part relevant to this post is:

Racial segregation as a way of life did not come about as a natural result of hatred between the races immediately after the Civil War. There were no laws segregating the races then. And as the noted historian, C. Vann Woodward, in his book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, clearly points out, the segregation of the races was really a political stratagem employed by the emerging Bourbon interests in the South to keep the southern masses divided and southern labor the cheapest in the land. You see, it was a simple thing to keep the poor white masses working for near-starvation wages in the years that followed the Civil War. Why, if the poor white plantation or mill worker became dissatisfied with his low wages, the plantation or mill owner would merely threaten to fire him and hire former Negro slaves and pay him even less. Thus, the southern wage level was kept almost unbearably low.

Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. (Listen to him) That is what was known as the Populist Movement. (Speak, sir) The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses (Yes, sir) and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses (Yeah) into a voting bloc that threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.

To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society. (Right) I want you to follow me through here because this is very important to see the roots of racism and the denial of the right to vote. Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, (Yes) thus clouding their minds to the real issue involved in the Populist Movement. They then directed the placement on the books of the South of laws that made it a crime for Negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level. (Yes, sir) And that did it. That crippled and eventually destroyed the Populist Movement of the nineteenth century.

If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. (Yes, sir) He gave him Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, (Yes, sir) he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. (Right sir) And he ate Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. (Yes, sir) And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, (Speak) their last outpost of psychological oblivion. (Yes, sir)

posted by sotonohito at 9:10 PM on August 3 [10 favorites]