Henry Louis Gates: Class, Race and the End of the Social Contract

 

While on CNN, Henry Louis Gates made this statement about his arrest, "What it made me realize was how vulnerable all black men are, how vulnerable all people of color are, and all poor people to capricious forces like a rogue policeman." It’s sad, but unsurprising that Gates said exactly what I’d expect to hear from an out of touch black intellectual. Gates, for most if not all of his career has used race as a means to ascend the American class structure. Gates response shows his sudden recognition of the vulnerability of black males was his attempt to gain affinity with people he really knows nothing about. Henry Gates has about as much in common with the average every day black American as the cop that allegedly racially profiled him. I've asked several working class blacks if they knew who he was, and no one recalls ever hearing anything about him. He’s spent his career quietly nestled away at Yale, then Duke, and Harvard in his Ivory Tower acting as a racial intercessor for Eurocentric Academia. He's married a couple of white women, fathered a couple of bi-racial children. I once had a dark skinned Dominican friend tell me, "You really need to consider dating and marrying a white woman, it’s good for business. You’re less threatening when they see you with a white woman." Gates possibly having followed the line of thought has worked hard to make himself as palatable to the establishment as possible. This kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen to him. For many black middle class, and black elite, accomplishment and class identification are simply ways to differentiate themselves from the masses, from the stereotype of being poor, black, uneducated, and intellectually inferior.

In his book, "Black Bourgeoisie," E. Franklin Frazier wrote this about America’s Black Middle Class:

Having become less isolated and thus more exposed to the contempt and hostility of the white world, but at the same time cherishing the values of the white world, the new black bourgeoisie with more money at their disposal, have sought compensations in the things money can buy. Moreover, their larger incomes have enabled them to propagate false notions about their place in American life and to create a world of make-believe. (Black Bourgeoisie p. 148 -149)

Gates arrest was an affront to his perception of social class and racial ascension. It popped his make-believe class bubble. He'd gotten the degree, the title, the money, a white woman, and to be treated like a common Negro angered him. Yet, he really couldn’t pull the class card, no that would have made him seem too arrogant, too pompous, or as put in the south, a bit too uppity. He needed grass roots support, and this meant pulling the race card, and directing his anger at a cop of a lower class rather than at his neighbor with whom he believes he has class parity. But to gain attention for his affront he needed to show solidarity with the masses.

The class question becomes even more evident when you look at the complicity of the media. Yes, his ego was bruised, but should the media have provided additional coverage. I laughed at his sudden awareness of the vulnerability of the average black male. I never heard his calls for activism recently for the 5 year old black child who was molested and pimped by his homosexual adoptive father who just happens to be a Duke University official. Nor did I hear calls for a possible documentary or blue ribbon panel discussions for the Black Emergency Medical Technician in Oklahoma who was assaulted by a police officer on tape while driving a patient to the hospital.

Gates is using affinity fraud to further his own self interest and the affirmation of class. Affinity Fraud is essentially a scam where a perpetrator attempts to exploit a racial or ethnic demographic by espousing commonality with the targeted group. It’s a way to gain trust and support based on race, which eventually leads to the group repeatedly voting against the own self interest due to racial affinity.

The question is how would supporting Gates in a mass political protest help the average black American? It doesn’t, but it would surely make Gates feel better. The thing that Gates and many middle and upper class Americans don’t realize is the masses don’t care anymore.

Generally, a politician always has to appear as a man or woman of the people. It’s usually a smooth or outgoing individual that kisses babies, and presses the flesh. Among the black elite, it tends to be the Obamas’, Adrian Fenty’, Anthony Williams’, and the Cory Booker types who have hoodwinked the population into continued support of corporatarcy based on racial affinity.

When you look at it from the perspective of race, Obama and George Bush have a lot in common. Obama and George Bush are 11th cousins. Neither is a man of any real accomplishment, both benefited from connections, Bush through his daddy, Obama by being the pet Negro of Zbigniew Brzezinskisince his days at Columbia University. But somehow these two men were able to convince the masses of both poor and middle class blacks and whites, that their fates were intertwined, that since I look like you and talk like you, that I wouldn’t screw you. George Bush even though he’s a blue blood, convinced white America to vote for him twice, simply by speaking in a Texas accent and walking with the redneck swagger. Obama, also a blue blood through his mother, perpetrated the cool brother with the slick-citied countenance of a televangelist. By doing this, Bush was able to hand out billions in no-bid contracts over eight years at tax payer expense. Meanwhile, Obama has been able to dole out almost 24 trillion in bailout funds to banks and corporations under the guise of "Change". Right now, I think Bernie Madoff would be proud of both of them because theyhave the gift, that charisma that all good confidence men need to hook and string along a mark for years if necessary, until they’re bled dry.

But out of the Gates controversy, I also realize that the ability to perpetrate affinity fraud is coming to an end. The faith in the social contract is broken. The idea of the social contract necessitates that the masses submit to the framework of a government in exchange for certain perks. Typically, this would be infrastructure and economic opportunity, or the perception of opportunity. In exchange, the masses abide by the laws and submit to the class structure, with the unspoken idea that with hard work anybody can move up the class structure. It’s comes down to I scratch your back, and then you scratch mine. This usually this came in the form of crumbs, maybe a community center, maybe a park. But now "Then" never occurs anymore, just the promise of change during a new election cycle.

The masses are no longer buying into the illusion of community and upward mobility. For the black population, the black Elite broke the Social Contract in 1964 by abandoning the masses to become racial intercessors for academia, government, and corporations. They didn’t pay attention to the influx of heroin, gangs, crack, cocaine, and unemployment that have festered since Jim Crow ended. The children of these masses now have no commonality with the average Black Elite. When trying to survive in a largely dysfunctional environment, it comes down to every man for himself.

Now when I go to Wal-mart, I realize Black Americans as we like to think of ourselves won’t be around anymore. We’re disappearing into the new beige underclass, a mix of blacks, poor whites, and Hispanics. The upper class fail to realize that race based wedges issues won’t work much longer. In the small town where I live, poor whites, blacks, and Hispanics all live in the same projects, slums, and trailer parks all owned by a few old families. Poor whites, blacks, and Hispanics are waking up to the common culture of being broke. Poor white use to be entitled to factory work, maybe even move up to shift manager it they cleaned up enough, but even those opportunities are gone. Now if they’re lucky all they have to look forward to a job in which hopefully the hours are long, the pay is low, and no health benefits. Not a career, but a job with no inkling of upward mobility, especially if you don't have a certificate of achievement from a local community college in EMT, Law Enforcement, or Nursing Assistant.

In the old class structure, the better educated and better employed were looked up to as default or natural leadership in communities. Back in the day, just having a place within the community was enough, be it being a nigger, poor white, or a spic, they all had a part to play in the community, under a well enforced caste system. This old model doesn’t work anymore. Communities don't exist anymore due to small town fascism in which old money families jump between private ownership in and around town and positions in local government. They carved up towns and cities along socioeconomic lines versus race. When they did this, they let the poor see each other for the first time. They consolidated poverty.

The Beige underclass doesn’t care about race or class so much anymore, they’ve bought into corporate of profit at all cost. It’s all about whose got it, and how do I get it, to hell with social responsibility and community. This is the basis for the growing resentment of class and wealth disparity which will create unbelievable violence in the future. Under the old social contract, the rich at least knew to throw the poor a bone, decent wages, the chance to have what most would call a decent life with human dignity.

Gates is using old-think when crying to a group that really doesn’t know and doesn’t care who he is. In old think, the middle and upper class traditionally lead revolution and change. Now such people are looked at the least viewed with suspicion, if not marks for crime.

The recent murder of Byrd and Melanie Billings in Pensacola, Florida is a prime example of coming class warfare. This hit team of poor whites and blacks executed a well planned home invasion. They didn't care that the Billings were white, well known and respected members of the community. As the Greatest Depression worsens and America falls further into third world status, this type of crime based on class will become more common. As the social safety nets are cut, as is currently being done in California, people will begin to ask themselves the question, why abide by the social contract if you get nothing out of it. If I get caught, I go to jail and at least get three hots and a cot. If I do nothing, I simply live hand to mouth, hoping crumbs will fall. All I have to do is rob and kill rich people who don’t care if I live or die.

The mistake that Gates and many politicians are making is they continue to believe they can call up racial affinity on demand. The gulf between the poor and upper class is now too wide to be bridged by race alone. You’ve either got money or you don’t. What you have forming now among the masses are the foundations of new 21st century barbarians, they don’t care about political activism, social responsibility, or patriotism, or rules of any kind. In the end they’re not too different in thinking from the corporate models that have exploited them for so long. In such an environment, this the probable response he’d get from the average black man, "Player, your struggle ain’t mine, don’t come crying to me when shit changes up on you."