The Global Intersection Of Race And Class

In this interesting piece on the descendents of Confederates who fled to Brazil, there is a passage worth highlighting:

The Confederate flag? Everywhere. On flagpoles and knickknacks. Emblazoned on the dance floor. Clutched by men clad in Confederate battle gray. Decorating the grounds of the cemetery that holds the remains of veterans of the rebel army — the immigrants known here as the confederados.

In a country that has long been more preoccupied with class divisions than racism, the Confederate symbols, stripped of their American context, never registered much notice. But now, as the racial reckoning in the United States following the killing of George Floyd inspires a similar reexamination of values in Brazil, that has begun to change.

Let's leave aside the entire WTF story of a bunch of people celebrating the Confederacy in Brazil and look at the bolded part. Brazil - like the US - is a multiracial society with a legacy of slavery. Slavery ended quite late (1888) but without a civil war. The legacy of slavery in Brazil is not something I'm frankly familiar with and don't want to speak of something I don't understand, but I would be very, very surprised if there was not a high correlation between race and class in Brazil.

Nevertheless, there is a strong tendency in other parts of the world to look past race and see only class. There was this kerfuffle with Trevor Noah and the French government over whether the World Cup winning soccer team was "French" or "Franco-African."  While France and other countries have a long history of dealing with class issues, they really don't want to have conversations about race.  Meanwhile, the US doesn't like to talk about class, but we have been talking about race off and on since the 1830s, and certainly since the 1950s. 

During the primary season, the Sandernistas were so focused on class that they insisted on negating the experience of race. This - in part - explains why Biden crushed it among Black voters.  Sanders - but more so his white supporters - didn't want to talk about race unless it was really about class. This fits broadly into the global Socialist focus on class, with its roots in Marxist academic and political theory.  

Europe was so overwhelmingly white for so long, that European society was never riven along racial lines (except within the broader context of their empires, but that's a different story). The only slightly different ethnic groups present in substantial numbers - the Jews and the Roma - were routinely persecuted. Europe wasn't free from bigotry, it was simply free of large numbers of racial minorities.  As Arab and North African refugees begin to migrate into Europe, Europeans are coming face to face with neo-Nazi and other forms of race-based white nationalist politics, just as America has for centuries.

As we examine race in America, though, it is important to note that intersection between race and class. Racial subjugation of black and brown Americans has been economic as well as social. The legacy of lost and stolen wealth creates a wealth gap between white and black Americans that is real and persistent.

As America looks at ways to repair (or perhaps better stated as 'truly create') our sense of national unity, we need to understand that race intersects profoundly with class.  As the rest of the world becomes more diverse, they will have to contend with issues of race through more than the lens of simple class politics.