Why whiteness is a matter of class

In Whiteness As Property Cheryl Harris nicely spells out Marx’s theory of ideology until her discussion of affirmative action. Harris begins by detailing the history of the United States and its relationship with whiteness as property. Her emphasis is that this construct, and it is a construct, has been supported and maintained economically, socially, indirectly, intentionally and with endurance. 


To me, she seems right about a number of things: From the very origin of the regime of property, the United States have instated operating systems of oppression against people of color, namely, Blacks and Native Americans (1714). They did this through exploitation of labor, seizing and appropriating the land and labor. As Marx writes, the division of labor is how man becomes exploited for his own work. They supported such exploitation through what Harris deems a “racialized conception” of property implemented by force and the law (1713). Importantly, Harris defines the United State’s origin by colonizers to be a racial dominion as it was land taken by white people from people of color and with the thought of racial inferiority (1716). I think all of Harris’s sentiment is valid. The details of whiteness as a right to exclude, the idea of private identity being based on a racial hierarchy, the way in which science, biology and the law legitimated whiteness as privilege. I think she is right about it all, but I think she needs to push further in true Marxist nature, to really understand ideology as a rationalization of class and not just race. She is right that racial constructs are the mechanisms under which sustainable oppressive systems function today; however, further discovery shows that it is the very intersection of class with race that does so. Harris sheds light on this herself, perhaps unintentionally, when she discusses how property functions as a mechanism of facilitating personal economic progress. Therefore, the intersection of race and property created the oppression and economic subordination of Blacks and Native Americans (1716). This explanation right here demonstrates the true trigger of discrimination was the lack of economic ability - stemming from race and consequently so, class.  


For example, I think her solution of Affirmative Action demonstrates the shallowness of her casual theory. If Affirmative Action is to serve as an action platform for “rethinking rights, power, equality, race and property from the perspective of those whose access to each has been limited by their oppression” then the functional basis of Affirmative Action should include class (1779). I’m considering examples where affirmative action quotas can be met and prestigious institutions can operate under the idea that they are removing racial boundaries and acting against racial oppression when they aren’t. Quotas don’t measure the amount of affluent ethnic kids who are meeting the numbers, they just record them. I am not arguing it is not beneficial to have diversity in educational spaces, I am arguing that real efforts to de-legitimize the property interest of whiteness can’t just operate at the institutional level of racial quotas. Should they realize the somewhat Marxist truth, that race cannot be considered without the consideration of class, they would be far more effective. This means affirmative action should consider affluence and income among racial identification. This means low income schools and communities should be receiving funding, tutoring and support from programs that work with affirmative action. This means the collapse of the private and public spheres. I think Harris’s argument can have more power if she goes full Marxist. 

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