Pitting rural against urban, black against white in the safety net work requirement debate

I blogged last week about the high-profile media attention being showered on a proposed Michigan law that would exempt counties with high unemployment rates (8.5% and above) from work requirements being imposed on Medicaid.  Then a related piece was published in the New York Times Upshot.  In "Which Poor People Shouldn't Have to Work for Aid?" Emily Badger and Margot-Sanger Katz quote Heather Hahn, a senior fellow in the Center on Labor, Human Services and Population at the Urban Institute.

The problem, Ms. Hahn and others say, is that geography captures just one kind of barrier to employment. “If you’re taking only the geography as the structure,” Ms. Hahn said, “it’s really overlooking the much more obvious racial structure.” African-Americans who face racial discrimination in the job market are more likely to have a hard time finding work. 

And people who can’t afford cars and live where public transit is inadequate have a harder time. So do the poor with criminal records, or those without a high school diploma, or people with problems securing child care.

Policies that exempt high-unemployment places, but not people who face other obstacles to work, selectively acknowledge barriers for only some of the poor. In effect, they suggest that unemployment is a systemic problem in struggling rural communities — but that in poor urban neighborhoods, it’s a matter of individual decisions.

They then quote David Super of Georgetown Law, who studies public benefits programs.    

The hardships of areas that have seen industry leave are very real; the hardships of rural areas that have had jobs automated away are real.

* * * 

But so are hardships that come from a lack of child care or transportation, he said. “It is troubling that one set of conditions are being taken seriously and another are being scoffed at.”

One thing both Hahn and Super seem not to realize is that public transportation and child care deficits are much more acute in rural communities than urban ones (a point made, with lots of data back up, in my 2007 piece on welfare reform as a mismtach for rural communities."  And the problem of criminal records  looms large for the chronically unemployed in rural places, too.  Employers don't want to hire these folks, even when they are white.  (And I do acknowledge that the criminalization of poverty and the war on drugs have had a disproportionate impact on communities of color).

I agree that we should attend to all of these barriers to employment, but the "rural v. urban" and "black v. white" framing is divisive.  It echoes the "who's worse off" or ranking of oppressions frame that has become too common amidst the proliferation of identity politics.  It fails to seek common ground.  Which reminds me that today is the second Monday in the 40 days of action invoked by the revival of Martin Luther King, Jr., Poor People's Campaign.

Cross-posted to Legal Ruralism.

Unpacking my invisible knapsack

Peggy McIntosh’s essay White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack inspired me to think critically about how privilege affects my life, and the racial privilege I enjoy. Unlike McIntosh, I cannot claim to benefit from white privilege in the way she, as a white woman, does. In fact, if my high school friends were around me, they would playfully remind me that I have a nopal en la frente (a prickly cactus on my forehead), meaning that I’m visibly Latinx. That’s not to say, however, that I don’t benefit from white privilege in certain contexts. Indeed, I benefit from colorism.

I’m driven to unpack my invisible knapsack because I vehemently believe in owning one’s s**t—in taking stock of the ways in which one’s race, gender, economic class, education, habitus, etc., facilitate or hinder one's life outcomes. Indeed, unpacking one's invisible knapsack entails bringing into consciousness the thoughts one selectively disregards to avoid confronting or admitting how they benefit from systems of power. For example, I’ve succumbed many times to the delusion that I made it and deserve to be in law school solely because of my hard work ethic, just like some of my classmates do. But I've made it law school for so many other reasons than a hard work ethic. I wouldn't be in law school had my father not toiled tirelessly as a gardener, or my mother not cleaned up after wealthy individuals in their houses. I get it though: it’s “cute” and psychologically advantageous to think in individualistic ways, but doing so doesn’t make that lie anymore true.

In her article, McIntosh accounts for how she benefits from structural systems of power. In writing, “when I am told about our national heritage or about ‘civilization,’ I am shown that people of my color made it what it is,” she acknowledges that she benefits from history's Euro- and Anglo-centrism. Her personal confession helps disrupt toxic assumptions about history and knowledge as operating outside the reach of power, when in fact both are forged by and are a source of power. (See Discipline and Punish, by Michel Foucault.) And when she writes, “I can, if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time,” she draws attention to structural systems of power, such as social networks, employment, and housing practices, that make it easier for whites to associate with only whites.

Whereas McIntosh listed conditions that “attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location,” I'm hesitant to draw lines among the intersecting axes oppression that shape my life. I’m not just a broke immigrant, Latinx, femme-bear joto; I’m all of those things at once.

Here is my evolving list:

(1) Despite being born into a low-income Latinx family, I have a better chance of ascending to a higher class than some other ethnic/racial groups.

(2) When interacting with the police, I'm less likely to be shot by them if I'm unarmed.

(3) As a lighter-skinned Latinx, I can walk into a room knowing that others will not demean my intelligence as harshly as they would were I darker.

(4) It's easier to think of Latinx senators in D.C. as vying for and representing my interest since they are lighter skinned like me.

(5) As a lighter skinned Latinx immigrant, I can navigate and access certain spaces more easily (e.g., bookstores, public libraries, movie theaters, public buildings) because whites don’t immediately see me as threatening.

(6) Were I looking to do drag for a night, I could easily find my shade of foundation or powder at various price points.

(7) I can easily lose myself in a good telenovela because the majority of characters are lighter-skinned like me, and tha extends to the majority of Spanish-speaking programming.

(8) ...

As my list grows, I hope it inspires others to question the role privilege (of any form) plays in their lives, just like McIntosh’s essay did for me. And I hope the exercise fosters greater empathy and understanding in them.

Stuff that class- and status-driven individuals like

Back in 2008, I stumbled upon a now-defunct blog that satirized cultural trends that, frankly, many of my college peers and I followed. The blog had a peculiar name: Stuff White People Like. When I started reading the blog, it already had several posts. Some were funnier than others; some were more bitingly critical than others; and some were just meh. The blog's final entry is dated November 11, 2010, but the content remains accessible online. And its sole contributor, Christian Lander, has published the blog's posts in a book titled Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions.

The blog was a hit when it came out, as well as controversial. Critics argued the posts were "racists, stereotypical, and conflate[d] race with economic status." Christian Lander, a Ph.D. dropout, countered that he did not intend to demean white people, nor incite anger. For him, the blog was "fundamentally about class... about a generation and class that values authenticity and credibility more than monetary wealth."

I agree with Lander: his posts primarily satirized class by poking fun at the trends and preferences that people associate with having class. But there's no denying that some of his posts tackled race head-on. In Having Black Friends, for example, Lander wrote, "every white person wants a black friend like Barack: good-looking, well-spoken, and non-violent." Even so, that post merely satirized an American social phenomenon; namely, that certain performances of race are more palatable than others. For example, in 2014, Rawiya Krameir discussed how Lupita Nyong'o's ascent to Hollywood hinged on her "social and cultural pedigree that allow[ed] her to fit into a mold of blackness that America finds acceptable." So what type of racism were Lander's critics concerned about?

His critics were right, Lander erred in conflating race and class, and specifically, in indiscriminately conflating whiteness with class and status. In selecting Stuff White People Like as the title of his blog, Lander committed himself to churning out posts that, while funny, presumed ALL white people liked or enjoyed Priuses, sushi, microbreweries, organic food, and Moleskine notebooks. But these items serve more as cultural symbols of class and status—of bougieness—than of race or whiteness. Thus, a more fitting title for the blog would have been Stuff that Class- and Status-Driven Individuals Like.

And Lander excelled at comically satirizing class and status. In Picking their own fruit, when Lander writes that white status-driven individuals like to go "berry picking" because "they are reminded of pastoral images of farming, working the land, and growing whole natural foods for their family," he's taking aim at individuals who can "work leisurely with no real expectations" and are "able to pay for the privilege to do so." In other words, he's referring to those who can afford to engage in conspicuous leisure, in "behaviors, pursued during nonwork time, that provide tangible evidence of status." And though the racial wealth gap exists, it doesn't preclude non-whites from also engaging in conspicuous leisure, or class- and status-driven activities.

I'm Lantinx, and I've been guilty of splurging and engaging in conspicuous consumption. Most of us have! Why else do we buy "brand" name clothes and products? Or even knockoffs that simulate "real" brands? Indeed, it would make little sense to single out whites for engaging in conspicuous consumption and leisure, when we all engage in them to varying degrees. Lander, thus, succeeded in satirizing the consumption of goods and services that are associated with class and status in the national imaginary, but not whiteness.

It's a shame that Lander ceased updating his blog in November of 2010. But in an effort to promote critical satire, here's a post that I would contribute to Stuff that Class- and Status-Driven Individuals Like.

Paint & Sips 

It's common knowledge that status-driven individuals enjoy having others praise their artistic talents. Art, after all, captures two essences of high-status and class: worldliness, and refinement. So, when the opportunity arises to explore their inner artist, status-driven individuals sign up en masse.

It's no wonder that Paint & Sips are thriving! These sanitized art studios provide status-driven individuals with a safe space-like environment to engage in a form of supervised adult paint-by-number. Brushes. Paints. Canvases. An airy atmosphere with studio lighting. It's all there! But what makes the experience truly classy, is the ability of the soon-to-be, self-professed rising artists, to bring bottles two-buck-chuck along.

Wine and art. Could it get better? The immersive experience into the world of art doesn't end there. Eager novices will have the benefit of a paint instructor, who will walk them through each layer of their pre-chosen image, and who will double as a counselor when the wine's health benefits start settling in. Via words of encouragement, including "just keep it wet," "layer it on", and "it'll get better," the instructor fosters a creative environment where the now budding artists can remain focused and enjoy the "process" that is art.

To the attendees' relief, after an hour, the combination of two-buck-chuck and perseverance pays off, and their Pollocks metamorphose to Van Gohs of sorts. It helps that everyone compliments each other's pièces de rèsistance once they're complete. This validates the attendees' artistic talents, and cements the experience as a "shared journey," to be written about in a Moleskin journal, or a blog post.

Here's my Paint & Sip masterpiece: