Week 4 Notes PDF - Non-Europeans and the Poor White - IB Tabata

Week 4 Non-Europeans and the Poor White Reading: Birth of a nation – IB Tabata ◦ The meaning of the terms and concepts must always be looked at within the context ◦ Social constructs – the terms are designed by the society to make sense of their reality Introduction to reading à Marxism...

Week 4 Non-Europeans and the Poor White Reading: Birth of a nation – IB Tabata ◦ The meaning of the terms and concepts must always be looked at within the context ◦ Social constructs – the terms are designed by the society to make sense of their reality Introduction to reading à Marxism ◦ Observation – when industrial revolution was driven by the capatilist ideology ◦ The profit is for the market ◦ The base is the bottom – factories, force of production – manufacture good ◦ At the top – superstructure – provides the ideas (media, courts, police à instrument of capitalists) – used to control the base ◦ Superstructure – false consciousness – make the people at the bottom accept their position without question (even if they are being exploited) ◦ Once the media, religion and judiciary would design the lie - Collective consciousness – our common enemy is not the boss – the common enemy who is responsible for exploitation – capitalist system itself - Need to come together – challenge the propaganda – rather propose collective ownership TABATA – student of Marxism - Studied at fort hare Link to Biko about black consciousness ◦ Tabata talks about non-Europeans, advocates for mobilisation at the universities, not in the factories, Context à reflects on his experience on conferences ◦ One remembers the day when the separate racial groups of the non-Europeans held their exclusive Conferences, to which delegates came as a social gathering where they had an opportunity to display their varied social accomplishments....the masses, if they came at all, served merely as a background... o Reflects on his experience on conferences where they are supposed to come up with ideas, but he had a poor experience ◦ One remembers yet another stage when the white Liberals occupied positions of honour in the Conferences of the Non-Europeans, where, if it was an African Conference, the chief item for discussion was the "Native Problem". - There was never a serious meeting where there were problems solved - How can be come together and see what makes POC problematic  - Nothing serious comes out of the conference ◦ In other words, during this period the non- Europeans saw themselves as constituting a Conferences are framing black "Problem" in the land of their birth people as problematic - a problem to be solved. Central argument à Page 2: After WW2, there was a striking change of attitude. A maturing process had been taking place and registered itself for the first time on a national scale in 1943, when the All-African Convention issued a call to the people, a call to Unity, not only of the Africans but of all the non-Europeans oppressed. ◦ This was the first crack in the walls of the racial pens. There is a clamour for unity à quote (page 2) ◦ There is an appetite that Africans are disenfranchised and want political freedom ◦ The collective consciousness that provides the liberation cannot be done individual ◦ There needs to be a structure in order for liberation to be successful Change the attitude of mind – the ◦ The system of rule that had been opposed onto the battlefield becomes the “minds” at inferior – there is a realisation and that they need to universities unite The Birth of a Nation. ◦ This conception directs the population along new channels of thought. It signals the beginning of political maturity. ◦ No longer do the non-Europeans see themselves as a "Problem to be solved" - On the contrary, it is they who have to solve the problem of South Africa. With full consciousness of political manhood and the responsibilities that go with it. ◦ Advocating for a new way of thinking – how do we imagine ourselves as citizens of this country ◦ What are the factors that unite us beyond physical differences ◦ Challenge to try think differently of the situation Herrenvolk problem - a particular group can be seen as the most important group - Coloureds are problematised - How can we look at this ideology that makes whites the most important in the country - Ypu are fighting ideas with ideas - Goes to the site – university Page 4-5 It is generally recognised that the non-Europeans are oppressed as Nationalities and most people see the struggle as simply between the oppressed Non-Europeans and the White oppressor. It is not so commonly realised that there is another and more fundamental form of oppression, namely, Class Exploitation. When we consider this last, we find that in the final analysis the conflict is not basically that of colour. This circumstance determines the method of organising our forces for the struggle. ◦ The ideas are weapons with which you cut your path in the barbaric jungle of South African ◦ Society today. We have to fight ideas with ideas National oppression and class exploitation - We have to talk about this - There is an interconnection between race and class – they are intertwined - Non-Europeans are confronted with this SOYA – provide ideas that leaders of society can use to challenge the status quo Page 8 The subjects of any country are made to think in a particular way; from birth, they are subjected to a ceaseless din of propaganda, which they absorb without knowing it. In many various ways it is constantly insinuated into their minds - through the system of education, the pulpit, the press, the radio, the film. Etc ◦ Goes to the site – university ◦ Pulpit = religion ◦ What is the ultimate goal – make them not resist - The propaganda comes from the top Page 10 What is the position of that white youth, the super-man, as HE stands on the threshold of a university? We may assume he has intelligence, and he has had training. But what kind of training? What has it done to his young mind? What has it made of this Youth? Instead of a healthy humility, he has arrogance; instead of an eagerness to learn, he has indifference and impatience instead of an open and inquiring mind, he has an inflexibility, a rigid attitude to ideas, which in fact he dare not examine closely. This super-man, then, puts in his time at the University and emerges un-touched... ◦ Universities also create conditions in which the ruling class idea and racial domination is normalised... ◦ Tabata makes a reference to UCT as an example- Page 11. à as one of these institutions Socialisation – ◦ society indoctrinates people from religion, family, parents - You are likely to accept what they tell you - This is not entirely peoples fault  - Society makes people this way ◦ Herrenvolk needs to be researched (has not yet done so before) Page 12 Even the Non-European intellectual, too, is being contaminated by the same disease, In one form or another all Society has fallen under this blight of Herrenvolkism which permeates it from top to bottom. - 1951 – how we can use ideas to bring fourth a new type of nation - Marx said that the oppressed would need to develop a consciousness and form trade unions for liberation à activism, mobilise We, the oppressed, are the only people who can throw into the struggle all our energies, convinced of the justice of our cause. We go into the struggle, not simply to save the Youth, not only to save the Non-Europeans. It is a question of the preservation of all Society. Our struggle here in South Africa is part and parcel of the struggle of humanity as a whole - We cannot perpetuate the divisions that already exist in our society - He is advocating for the ideology of “not further dividing” – build society based on unity Tools ◦ Tabata uses theory ◦ Theoretical intervention ◦ Introducing new key words and concepts ◦ Challenging old concepts (herrenvolk) Reading 2: Whiteness and racial capitalism: to whom do the “wages of whiteness” accrue? à Zine Magubane ◦ Reading emerges out of the academy and entered the academy in different way ◦ Not meant to be used by universities but became part of the reading packs and part of the framework of scholars ◦ She is not using about the research tools we have been talking about (interview, research or chronology-periodising ideas (Trevor) ◦ She is actually trying to engage theoretically with the argument within the context ◦ Also does something interesting – tools referring to – context, central argument, research tool – using this to frame an argument – important - Makes it a theoretical intervention – another way of engaging with scholarship (not everything has to be instrumentalised - Theoretical interventions started by Tabata - She takes it further by theoretically taking on racial capitalism as theoretical tool à context Zine locates her argument on the debates around Racial capitalism àemphasises it ◦ Theoretical concept around racial capitalism – draws context from 2 people - Alexander and Magubane § A revived interest in the writings of Neville Alexander and Bernard Magubane, this essay argues, can be quite useful in resolving a debate that has grown ever more acrimonious between American Marxist scholars over the analytic purchase of the category "whiteness" and, by extension, the best way to conceptualize the relationship between "the logic of capital" and "racial identity". - Argue with American Marxist scholars – thinking analytical on racial identity Context ◦ She has chosen to focus on the genesis, execution, and the logics of the Report of the Carnegie Commission on the Poor White Problem in SA as a way of exploring how “charity” that is explicitly aimed at the alleviation of poverty amongst person de ned as white must, necessarily, engage issues of identity and consciousness - I have chosen to focus on the genesis, execution, and logics of the Report of the Carnegie Commission on the Poor White Problem in South Africa as a way of exploring how “charity” that is explicitly aimed at the alleviation of poverty amongst persons defined as white must, necessarily, engage issues of identity and consciousness. Middle class Afrikaner reformers framed charity as a means of securing racial dignity and solidarity for the Afrikaner poor while teaching the Afrikaner upper classes how to transform their feelings of distaste and loathing for the poor into feelings of respect and solidarity. ◦ Genesis and location from article written about poor whites - In 1920 – poor whites were key to the discipline - Many were trying to figure out how to deal with this – report was commissioned – she goes into why this is important ◦ When we think about black thinkers in SA – there is an assumption that they draw from black American scholars Why is this done ◦ Particular layer (classifying) - Poor white - Upper class white o Orientation of trying of the upper class Afrikaner of transforming and rescuing the poor Afrikaner in various ways Central argument ◦ the ideologies about whiteness (particularly “white solidarity”) that the Afrikaner petty bourgeoisie promoted in the Carnegie Report were strategically chosen to achieve the following aims: to highlight their cultural authority as “lords of poverty”; promote the idea that they were the true and authentic representatives of generic “Afrikaner interests”; to demonstrate that the interests of mining capital and  the Afrikaner bourgeoisie were in alignment; and (most importantly) to position themselves as the exclusive providers of their unique brand of “poverty management services” to the South African state. - Compete and make sure they are part of the British empire ◦ The question of the poor whites have always been there but it is coming back in certain way – especially in political scale of things - This conversation is ties to the expansion of sociology and part of the discipline ◦ The Report stressed the importance of psychological and cultural factors, particularly as they related to ethnic or racial identity. Volume II, The Psychological Report, contained lengthy discussions of what we might term the "structures of feeling" amongst poor whites. ◦ One of the Subsections of the Psychological Report, "The Consciousness of Being Impotent: The Feeling of Inferiority", described poor whites as having a "fatalistic attitude of mind" and lacking "national and personal self-esteem" - Inferiority complex/ bitterness or hatred - Scared that the poor whites would hate their own white elites - Moment of this idea - There is something around how the poor white question was dealt with à spiritual dimension – has to be rescued so that it can have a sense of pride § The white capitalists needed to rescue and give poor whites a sense of pride as they lack dignity ◦ The Sociological Report connected this fatalism and poor self-regard to the growing class divisions between Afrikaners. “With increasing riches and luxury, the gulf between the rich and the poor is becoming deeper and wider. - Argues that certain scholars from the Dutch reform church became quite important and scholars from UCR – approach operation to give them funds to undertake issue of poor whites - How do we deal with the black when they were free from slavery - The idea of “charity” à type of expenditure ◦ Charity – a type of expenditure that the capitalist class views as simultaneously necessary and unproductive § Argues around how to we give charity without having dependency § Trying to illustrate throughout the argument that they are not talking about black people (they are irrelevant) ◦ She argues they were scared there would be a revolt around the poor Afrikaner ◦ Black people inherently could not vote – only white could – to sustain power in National party – deal with potential revolt of poor whites in various ways ◦ National party would accuse the labour party of buying votes Conceptual terms became important ◦ The scholars and intellectuals form a disdain for the poor but they need to save them (the poor white) rather than a black person (was disregarded at the time of the report) The Economic Report, however, stated the matter plainly: ◦ *Important social legislation has been passed, a great variety of institutions founded, measures are taken to protect the health of the people, education has been furthered, charitable societies supported, child protection undertaken, relief works opened, and settlements established. The expenditure as entailed is gradually bee country taxpayer burden ◦ The fact that white poverty was primarily a matter of "spiritual" dimensions is mentioned numerous times throughout the Report. That "one of the characteristics most readily developed through poverty and one frequently associated with the poor white is a certain spirit of dependence-sometimes described as a lack of some sense of responsibility or of duty or a lack of pride* was typical - Toll of Carnegie – why is this important ◦ She is starting to criticize the Carnegie and asking why they are getting funding of UCT and Stellenbosch - At the core of the logic of this organisation was not necessarily to rescue the poor but rather build another layer of class – ◦ Critique in the central argument about funding the commission Role of Carnegie Americans had roundly rejected the idea that all (or even the bulk of money the state and voluntary organizations collected under the guise of providing aid to the poor should actually go directly to the poor. Rather, Americans argued that as much (if not more) money should be devoted to the paying the salaries of the administrators who oversaw the poor Simply put, the bourgeois social workers set themselves up as the arbiter between the deserving and the undeserving poor, which they posed in racial terms as a difference between "poor whites" and the "white poor". The latter were redeemable and largely among the deserving. "Not every poor person is necessarily a "poor white". A man may be poor and have kept his independence and his ability to improve his position". The former ranged from the irredeemable- mendicants, beggars and criminals ◦ There is a conceptual difference – through idea of being able to be rescued and having the agency to do that ◦ Argues that the conceptual framing Poor White ◦ able to come out of the situation – some agency if given the opportunity – come out of poverty - Reserving certain jobs for white people - State played a crucial role White poor ◦ cannot come out of poor situation ◦ Deemed to be the criminals of the society - Inferior that lacks dignity – lift into duty and sense of The Carnegie Commission Report was produced by the ruling class. By design, it records the opinions and ideologies of elites. To the extent that the voices of the poor and working-class Afrikaners who were the subjects and objects of study are heard, they are mediated through the petty- bourgeoisie. ◦ Another critique in the argument ◦ Humanised the poor whites and not the white poor ◦ Important for white capitalist to preserve being white à enter international white capitalism ◦ Needed to reduce the problem of poor whites hating their white elites ◦ New layer à petty- bourgeoisie - Petty bourgeoisie – doesn’t own a means of production - Still a professional - Middle class - Doctors – don’t exploit others but don’t need cheap labour - Lie between the different layers of class (middle zone of working class and poor) My examination of the Carnegie Report leads me to conclude that it is not. While it would not be fair to accuse Roediger, a com- mitted anti-racist and labour activist, to being numb to social injustice, nevertheless the "wages of whiteness" paradigm does not position scholars or activists to bring about the just world that he has spent the majority of his life fighting for. ◦ What are the key components - Think around concepts – she is highlighted concepts used to negate debates - And how concepts get used by social workers and - There is a distinction by how the Afrikaner elites dealt with the white poor - Remember there is a difference between white poor and poor whites Tools - Uses Carnegie report to make a theoretical point (theoretical framework) o Something about poor whites that needs to be saved morally and spiritually § Goes back to Ashwin and Mbuso and Plaatje Extra notes ◦ Capital accumulation leads to racial capitalism ◦ Afrikaner (agriculture) and British ◦ Trying to find synergies between them because they wanted to compete internationally ◦ When gold was discovered – the Brits became important ◦ The identity of being white like the brits and being an Afrikaner is important ◦ The other layer of poor white gave the white elites a sense of shame and they needed to rescue them bourgeoisie – owns a means of production