{"id":112601,"date":"2018-06-25T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2018-06-25T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=112601"},"modified":"2018-06-08T10:33:55","modified_gmt":"2018-06-08T09:33:55","slug":"roseanne-racism-and-the-problem-of-false-dichotomies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/06\/roseanne-racism-and-the-problem-of-false-dichotomies\/","title":{"rendered":"Roseanne, Racism, and the Problem of False Dichotomies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: the ABC Network canceled the revived sit-com, \u201cRoseanne,\u201d after its eponymous star, Roseanne Barr, tweeted a grossly racist insult about former Obama administration chief of staff Valerie Jarrett.\u00a0 \u201cRoseanne\u201d was a comedic series about the adventures and mishaps of an American white working class family.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is difficult to talk sensibly and accurately about the role of racism and xenophobia in Trumpland.\u00a0 The latest sign of this is an article in The<\/em> Nation<\/em> by Edward Burmila, who writes that the Roseanne Barr affair gives the lie to media efforts to explain the socioeconomic basis for Donald Trump\u2019s support among many white workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoseanne <\/em>is inseparable from this quest to find evidence that Trumpers are ultimately good, kindhearted people whose fears and economic insecurity are being exploited by a charlatan,\u201d says Burmila.\u00a0 \u201cJournalists and researchers are now finding that the veneer of \u2018economic anxiety\u2019 among Trump supporters is built on a foundation of hate<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 In his view, the masses support far-right regimes like Trump\u2019s because they are authoritarian racists, not because they are suffering economically or in any other way.<\/p>\n

How should a sharp-eyed editor deal with this one-dimensional approach to a complex problem?\u00a0 First, in large red letters, write in the margin the words FALSE DICHOTOMY.\u00a0 People are not either <\/em>racists and authoritarians or<\/em> the victims of exploitation and insults; the problem is that they are both<\/em>.<\/p>\n

American working people have been taught for generations that when things go badly for them, they are expected to exonerate their social \u201cbetters\u201d and blame their \u201cinferiors.\u201d\u00a0 This means seeking consolation and justification in racial, nationalist, and religious solidarity rather than challenging a system dominated by billionaires and their political toadies.<\/p>\n

As Burmila correctly asserts, many Americans are eager and willing to follow Donald Trump\u2019s lead.\u00a0 But this is not because their suffering and insecurity is a mere \u201cveneer\u201d disguising a \u201cfoundation of hate.\u201d\u00a0 Trump defeated Clinton by capturing six industrial and semi-industrial states that Obama won handily in 2012.\u00a0 In all these states, deindustrialization, wage stagnation, job insecurity, and the social ills accompanying a depressed economy were major issues.<\/p>\n

Still wielding the red pen, our editor should then write the query SOURCES? next to the author\u2019s statement that \u201cjournalists and researchers\u201d have discovered that Trump supporters are really racists and xenophobes rather than economic and social sufferers.\u00a0 I have seen no studies that would support this peculiarly angry and despairing either\/or.<\/p>\n

Burmila is surely right to suggest that racism and xenophobia are implanted in American culture.\u00a0 But his take on Roseanne ignores the fact that these feelings are learned<\/em> responses to a social crisis<\/em> \u2013 responses that the Democratic Party\u2019s peculiarly classless brand of identity politics has done nothing to mitigate.\u00a0 Hillary Clinton\u2019s three-point response to the crisis \u2013 defend the status quo, raise the minimum wage, and diss the \u201cdeplorables\u201d \u2013 virtually guaranteed the triumph of Trump\u2019s ugly right-wing populism.<\/p>\n

Learned responses can be unlearned, to be sure \u2013 but only if we find ways to help fellow-sufferers identify the real causes of their suffering.\u00a0 Like the Roseanne show, Burmila\u2019s approach stops way short of this goal.\u00a0 You can\u2019t call out the racists and xenophobes without also calling out the capitalist elite.<\/p>\n

Rosa Luxemburg was right.\u00a0 A century after her death, the choice that confronts us still is \u201cSocialism or Barbarism.\u201d<\/p>\n

__________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Richard E. Rubenstein is<\/em> a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a> and a professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University<\/em> in Arlington, Virginia.<\/em>\u00a0 His recent book,<\/em> Resolving Structural Conflicts, was published by Routledge in 2017<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is difficult to talk sensibly and accurately about the role of racism and xenophobia in Trumpland\u2026 Rosa Luxemburg was right. A century after her death, the choice that confronts us still is \u201cSocialism or Barbarism.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}