Alabama Rep’s “War On Whites” Rant Reflects Perceptions Of “White Privilege”

On Monday, Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks (R) touched off a debate on race in the United States that many in his own party wished he would have avoided. While responding to National Journal columnist Ron Fournier’s assertion that the GOP is being seen as “the party of white people,” Brooks said it is the Democrats — not the Republicans — who are using race for political advantage.

“This is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party,” Brooks said during an appearance on Laura Ingraham’s radio program. “And the way in which they are launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It’s a part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare — all those kinds of things.”

In a follow-up interview the next day with USA TODAY, Brooks doubled-down on the sentiment. “It is repugnant for Democrats time after time after time to resort to cries of racism to divide Americans and drive up voter turn out,” Brooks said. “That is exactly what they are doing in order to drive up their vote and they are doing it when there is no racial discrimination involved.”

Brooks added that “if you look at current federal law, there is only one skin color that you can lawfully discriminate against. That’s Caucasians — whites.”

In technical terms, Brooks’ argument is off-base. Federal law gives no race or ethnicity preferential or discriminated status. While equal opportunity employment and non-discrimination statutes create “protected classes” for certain populations, such as black Americans, the reality is that — given any legitimate case of discriminatory action — all American citizens belong to at least one “protected class.”

An example of this is the 2012 case of George Dulin, a white attorney who sued the black-majority Greenwood Leflore Hospital in Greenwood, Mississippi, on the basis of employment discrimination. Dulin argued that he was fired based on his race due to advocacy from the hospital’s black board members to replace him with a black lawyer. Dulin was awarded $82,000, which was upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Despite the fact that the law — as written — is color-blind and has been used to prove black-on-white discrimination as well as white-on-black discrimination, Brooks may not be alone in thinking that whites are increasingly being singled out. A recent Pew Research Center report found that 63 percent of all Americans — including over 80 percent of all conservatives — feel that the difficulties black Americans have in advancing in American society are primarily their own fault and not a reflection of society or discrimination. Only those Pew labelled “solid liberals” feel that discrimination was a significant factor.

This is contrasted by a 2011 Public Religion Research Institute poll that found that 44 percent of Americans — including 61 percent of those identifying with the Tea Party — feel that discrimination against whites is equal to or greater than than bigotry toward blacks or other minorities. A study conducted the same year by researchers from Tufts University and Harvard Business School found that the vast majority of white respondents feel that anti-white racism is now a bigger problem in the U.S. than anti-black racism.

With the Census Bureau reporting that the white population in the U.S. will drop below 50 percent of the national population by 2050, there has been a general sense of fear of long-standing norms changing — particularly, in the more conservative corners of the nation. The Great Recession, in part, played a major role in this. Unlike most economic downturns, the recent one affected both whites and minorities equally, creating a situation in which many whites are on economic parity with non-whites. This is being perceived not as economic equalization, but as minorities receiving an assumed advantage that whites are not.

“For the first time since the Great Depression, white Americans have been confronted with a level of economic insecurity that we’re not used to,” said Tim Wise, author of “White Like Me.” “It’s not so new for black and brown folks, but for white folks, this is something we haven’t seen since the Depression.”

This phenomenon is part of a larger sense that “white privilege” — the largely-accepted notion that having white skin affords a person the privilege of benefiting from prejudices and institutionalized discrimination that would hurt non-whites — is becoming less relevant. With minorities assuming a perceived growing role in American public life — from politics to the sporting world to entertainment — the notion of white influence on American life and identity is waning, much to the shock and frustration to many.

“The very definition of being an American is going through a profound change,” said Wise. “We can no longer take it for granted that we (whites) are the dictionary definition of an American.”

Many, however, would argue that there is no such thing as “white privilege,” as many poor whites have never benefited from the notion. Instead, what is commonly perceived as “white privilege” is actually classism, or the notion that certain individuals, such as the educated middle class, are deserving and worthy of what they have, without consideration of the lower classes. This type of thinking is reflected in polling that shows many upper-income whites saying that hard work alone is enough to succeed. It may be that the collapse of this line of thinking — in light of recent economic turbulence — may explain Brooks’ and others’ notion that their skin color has grown to be seen as a liability.

“Poverty colors nearly everything about your perspective on opportunities for advancement in life,” wrote Gina Crosley-Corcoran in her essay on “white privilege.” “Middle class, educated people assume that anyone can achieve their goals if they work hard enough. Folks steeped in poverty rarely see a life past working at the gas station, making the rent on their trailer, and self-medicating with cigarettes and prescription drugs until they die of a heart attack.”

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