In 2008, a man who had an unlikely personal history and background, but one which in some ways epitomizes our country's values and history, led the way in building coalitions all across the country on the way to the White House. He spoke to Christians about their homophobia in Texas. He spoke to men about women's rights. He spoke to black middle-class people about the problems that white working-class people have, and vice versa. He spoke to gays and straights, men and women, rich and poor, young and old.
But he didn't sacrifice his identity to do it. He brought people together while still remaining the well-traveled son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas.
Unfortunately, many members of the Democratic Party, and I'm not just speaking of its leaders, don't seem to remember how to do that - how to be part of a coalition with diverse needs and backgrounds while still maintaining individual personal identities. Come with me over the jump for a discussion of how Barack did it, and how we can and need to do it again.
During the campaign for the Presidency last year, Barack Obama built a coalition of very diverse groups with one thing in common: they were tired of the way things had been going, and they wanted change. And he brought them together, and seemed to each of them to speak to that person's personal issues, or the issues of their group. They identified with him and what he represented: hope and change.
And yet, despite the fact that he spoke to women, and older people, and gays, he was not female, or old, or gay. Nor did he sacrifice his identity to try to pretend he was. He was not a working-class man. He didn't have the same experiences, background, or history as the people he was leading and bringing together - far from it. But he was still able to build a coalition of diversity while maintaining his own identity. He didn't have to be gay to sympathize with gays. He didn't have to be white to see that the white working class was taking it in the teeth the same way that the black community in the inner city was. He didn't have to be a woman to rage against the way women are treated.
He didn't have to share an identity with them to identify with them.
And his efforts succeeded. Spectacularly. He's in the White House now, largely because of the coalition he built.
But in the last year, we've forgotten to do what he did. Once again we're starting to fragment into the various groups that made up that coalition, and forgetting the central message that went with it. So here's a refresher course.
Since the Question 1 debacle in Maine on Tuesday, a lot of the old angry arguments from the Prop 8 debacle in California last year have been brought back up and aired. A lot of people are once again blaming blacks and Mormons and Catholics and straights for the success of Question 1, the same way they blamed them for the success of Prop 8.
And a lot of infighting has happened among these groups, as well. Blacks are once again offended by gays comparing the black civil rights struggle to the gay civil rights struggle. At least one poster here on Kos insisted to me that any time a gay person does this, they're claiming that blacks somehow have it better than gays and that the gay person is telling the black person to suck it up and deal. And this poster also insists that it doesn't matter that the hate is the same, the effects are different and to this poster, the difference in effects is what's important. It also seems that this poster feels that their identity would be sacrificed if they had to admit that the effects aren't the real issue.
I know that this poster is not the only one who feels this way. I know gays who think that women have it easier than gays do. Certainly I know blacks who think that gays have it easier than blacks do. Put any X into the first noun position in that sentence, and any Y into the second, and you'll find someone who is part of an oppressed group who is convinced that they have it the worst of all the oppressed groups in the nation or in the world.
And maybe they do.
But I ask you: is this the way to build a coalition? Is this the way to achieve our goals?
The reason that the Democratic party looks so scattered and fragmented is because it is scattered and fragmented. Unlike the monolithic GOP, which censures anyone who deviates from the party line in any way, the Democratic party is a combination of different racial, ethnic, gender, orientation, religious, and other interest groups that, somehow, sometimes, manage to hold it all together and run with it. And sometimes we achieve tremendous things - like electing President Obama.
And sometimes we fail at achieving tremendous things - like preventing the stripping of civil rights from a population by popular vote. And sometimes we fail at it twice.
What's missing in our coalition today that was present in Obama's a year ago? Why is it that we now have such a hard time achieving the noble progressive goals of universal health care, equal rights for gays and women and persons of color, the equalization of wages, and so forth? Why are we once again devolving into a fragmented bunch of interest groups, sniping at each other and, in some cases, playing the my-pain-is-worse-than-your-pain game?
Obama had two things going for his campaign that we must learn how to do as members of this party. First, he had an understanding of the particular effects of hate, bigotry, and classism on each particular group he was bringing together under his big tent. He knew that blacks in the inner city face crime and violence at a much higher rate than working-class whites whose manufacturing jobs have just evaporated. He knew that women face one flavor of sexism and gay men face another kind. So he was acquainted with the history and the particular effects that each group was facing. And he acknowledge those histories and those effects.
But the second thing that Obama had going for him, and we overlook this at our peril, is that he was also able to see the similarities among all the effects that each group was facing, and he was able to bring those similarities to people's attention. In one spectacular speech to a group of Christians in Texas, he reminded them that gay rights are also an issue we need to address, the same as rights for people of color and rights for women. Sure, there was some uncomfortable shifting in the crowd, but they began cheering for him again as soon as he finished teaching them the lesson he had to teach. In another speech, in another time and place, he dealt with the issue of his blackness. He reminded his fellow blacks that many whites are also facing economic hard times and worrying about where they're going to find the money to feed their children. And he reminded them that, if he was elected, he would be addressing the needs of those whites as well as those of his fellow blacks.
By doing this, he pointed out repeatedly that the issue we need to face is not the specific issue of blacks who have to live in inner cities, or whites who have just lost their manufacturing jobs, or gays who don't have the right to get married, or women who are being beaten up by abusive partners. The issue we need to face is bigotry. The issue we need to face is our innate desire to make the other group an Other - one that can be demonized, blamed, and persecuted - a desire which is the essence of bigotry.
There's a saying among my friends: "Scratch a sexist, find a racist." Well, scratch a homophobe, find a sexist (or a racist, or a classist). Scratch a bigot and you'll find another bigot lurking just under the surface. That's because the underlying dynamic of all the effects that all our various oppressed groups are facing is bigotry. Sexism is bigotry. Racism is bigotry. Homophobia is bigotry. So is classism. They're all just the same kind of hate with different targets.
Here's the core issue: demonization of any group as Other is the fundamental sameness across all bigotries. And the more we emphasize the differences instead of the similarities in these bigotries, the less effective our coalition of Others will be against discrimination, hatred, and bigotry. So if you are emphasizing how your pain is so much worse than my pain just because you're black and I'm gay (or because you're a woman and I'm a man, or because you're an X and I'm a Y), you're contributing to the problem.
Am I saying that the gay marriage issue is the same as the slavery issue? Hell no. They're two completely different animals. But am I saying that there's not a lot of difference between being dragged to death behind a truck in Texas because you're black, and being beaten up and hung on a fence to die in Wyoming because you're gay, and being gang-raped in front of at least two dozen people who did nothing because you're a woman? Yes, I am saying that. I'm saying that losing your job because your boss is racist and hates blacks is the same as losing your job because your boss is sexist and hates women, or because he's a homophobe and hates gays. I'm saying that the specific effects may differ, and it's important to recognize that and acknowledge it, but it's equally important to recognize that fighting against the effects is not productive. It's not worth it. It's like trying to fight a flood with a shovel.
What is worth it is fighting against the underlying cause - bigotry. What is worth it is working to educate, to eradicate ignorance, to make bigotry less palatable - by building levees to stop the floodwaters before they hit us. And we can only do that by building coalitions and setting aside our personal anger and rage at the specific effects our groups are facing, channeling that anger and rage towards the general effects that all oppressed groups are facing. Otherwise, we're easy to divide and conquer. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. It's a tactic that has been used by the elites in the United States ever since its founding:
- Demonize some group as Other.
- Systematically abuse that group (whether physically, politically, or otherwise really doesn't matter).
- Create informal and formal resistance to that group becoming Not-Other.
- Lather, rinse, and repeat with another group.
- Set those groups to fight against each other, and your work is done.
So you pit the Irish against the blacks against the Chinese against the Mexicans against the Jews against the Mormons against the women against the working class... fill in your group of choice here. As long as all the oppressed groups are fighting with one another, they won't fight the system - and the people in power will continue to stay in power and laugh up their sleeves at us.
Don't let that happen. Fight against bigotry in the broad sense. Join with others who have suffered similar (though not the same) abuses due to the same kinds of hate. Let go of your need for your pain to be the worst pain. Stop insisting on a victim-off. Stop insisting that your personal and group history - your identity - take precedence over eradicating systemic bigotry.
It's the only way we're ever going to have a chance, folks - as a society or as a political party really doesn't matter. It's time to build that coalition again. Barack did it, and he stayed Barack throughout. You don't have to stop being black, or gay, or female, or working-class, or religious, to join this coalition. You don't have to sacrifice your identity. You just have to see that the other groups facing oppression are facing the same thing you are, even though it may be different in its specific effects. You have to recognize the underlying dynamic, and vow to fight against that.
It's time to build instead of tearing each other down. So let's build a coalition. I'm inviting you: come fight by my side for my rights, and I'll fight by your side for yours.