“The Caste System and
the Politics of Moral Fusion” Remarks given by the Rev. Joe Summers at the Poor
Peoples Campaign’s Moral Fusion Summit of January 26th, 2019
When you hear the long
term impact of growing up in poverty in this country that Professor McLoyd just
spoke about, it is simply unacceptable that 25% of our youth are growing up in
poverty. It’s simply monstrous and
here I don’t mean to insult monsters! This has been going on far too long, and it’s something we
are going to change.
My name is Joe
Summers, for over thirty years I’ve been the Pastor of the Episcopal Church of
the Incarnation and a community activist.
The first thing I want to say today is how grateful I am for your being
here today. Your presence here is
making a concrete difference in helping us figure out what should be the agenda
for the Poor Peoples’ campaign as we strive to challenge the racial-economic
caste here in Washtenaw county. We
are in the bottom 8% of counties for income mobility so clearly we have work to
do.
What we are doing here
today has been inspired by the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina where
people came together around a diverse area of social concerns, had people from
each area of concern agree on what should be the primary goals in that area,
and then collectively commit themselves to working towards all these goals. Though they began with far fewer people
than we have here today they can now mobilize up to 100,000 people at a time in
North Carolina. That’s the kind of
thing we are hoping to once again be able to do here in Michigan because we
will need those kinds of mobilizations if we are going to be able to achieve
the kinds of systemic changes that we are needing in this country, in Michigan,
and in this county.
I want to take a few
moments to talk about a couple of the key concepts behind this strategy.
First, is the concept
of a racial-economic caste system because many of us are not familiar with the
language of caste at least when it comes to thinking about our society. When we talk about a racial-economic
caste system we’re talking about a system that on the basis of race and class
works to keep people trapped in systemic poverty, but also works against social
mobility at all levels.
(Chart One) To illustrate how this works--what
neighborhood you live in tends to define where you get to go to school. Where you go to school tends to define
whether or not you drop out (which is a major factor in whether or not you end
up in prison) or whether you go to college and if you go to college what kind
of college you go to. What kind of
college you go to and whether or not you finish your degree has everything to
do with what kind of job or career you end up with. Then what kind of job you have tends to define what kind of
neighborhood you end up living in. So we see in our society how where you start
out so often predicts your life trajectory and where you end up. Within this system things like the
Criminal justice system, health issues, one’s immigration status, and other
forms of discrimination are among the other biggest factors in where and how
one gets trapped.
(Chart Two) It’s
important to recognize that in talking about the caste system we’re not just
talking about a cycle that keeps people trapped in poverty, but a system that
works to keep people stuck at a variety of different levels. Thus at the lowest level in our society
we find the unemployed and the homeless, but just above them we find the
working poor (who may also be homeless) people who because they are working for
minimum wage often cannot afford housing or other vital necessities. Just above them are lower middle class
and then mid-middle class people.
A recent bail bond study found that over half our population would
struggle to come up with a $500 jail bond which says something about how many
are really struggling. Above the
middle class we have the upper middle class—the economically top 20% which is
the only part of our population that has been doing well economically over the
last forty years. At the top are
the wealthy 5%. At the very top
are the 1/10 of 1% who own the controlling interested in our economic
institutions. As you look at each
of these populations you can study where they tend to live, where they go to
school, whether or not they go to college, what kind of college they go to and
whether they complete college (which is often related) and then what kinds of
jobs or careers they have. In a
country that claims to be a meritocracy, it’s striking that the single biggest
predictor of success in college is parental income.
(Third Chart) Third,
it’s important to understand that what allows the domination system to continue
is the fact that within this racial-economic caste system there are a wide
variety of ways that it functions to pit us against each other by privileging
some and discriminating against others on the basis of a wide variety of other
factors besides race and income, factors such as sex, gender identity and
sexual orientation, employment status, disabilities, skin color, body size, religion
etc. Almost any difference can be
made into a way of privileging some over others leaving those above paranoid
about losing their privileges and those beneath resentful of those who have
them. Each of these fault lines become
carved into who we are as they tend to define who we identify with, who we see
as our own, who we see as “the other,” who we trust and who we don’t trust.
Now this brings me to
two other important concepts which are the concepts of a moral fusion campaign
and fusion politics. Both are rooted in the understanding
that that we cannot create systemic change until we come together and work
together across our different concerns and our different levels of
privilege. As Martin Luther King
understood the systemic nature of the problems we face mean we cannot resolve
one area of major concern without addressing the others. That is racism and sexism and economic
discrimination and militarism and the abuse of our planet and the moral narrative
that justifies all of them are inextricably linked in such a way that we can’t
really address one without addressing them all. Thus while each of us is likely to have one or another of
these as our primary areas of concern--unless we embrace each other’s concerns
we are not going anywhere. That’s what fusion politics is about. It’s a
recognition that while identity politics may be the foundation on which may of
us have been organizing, while claiming our base we need to embrace the concerns
of others if we are going to be successful in addressing our own concerns.
But for this to work
it can’t simply about some political coalition. It’s got to go deeper. That’s
the importance of fusion politics and moral fusion. They are about identity and how we see ourselves and each
other and whether we will stay fractured and divided by the system of
domination along the lines of privilege that it has created. There is no successful movement for social change that
doesn’t have to figure out how to bring people together across the levels of
privilege that divide us. The
Black Movement faced the immense challenge of bring people together across the
different ways skin tone had been used to define privilege within the Black
community. The Workers movement
had to overcome the divisions between more skilled and less skilled and higher
paid and lower paid workers. The
same challenges faced the Women’s and LGBTQ movements. Even the homeless community in Boston
has had to face how it was divided between those who were couch surfers versus
those who stayed in shelters, and among those who slept on the street between
those who had premium spots to sleep at night versus those who didn’t. We are thus challenged with both recognizing
the realities of privilege that divide us and the way they make us distrust
each other and figuring out how we can build trust by working together for a
more just, equitable and compassionate society for all.
Here it seems
important to note that just as history shows us how oppressed peoples will
often choose to hold onto some form of privilege over engaging in greater
justice for all, which way they choose has everything to do with how they see
their options. At this point, even
rich people have a stake in our finding a new way of living together because we
will not be able to address global warming without simultaneously addressing
our extreme social inequality and how we collectively understand who has the
right to do what with our commons like the air and the water and the land. This means that if they wake up they
will discover they too have real stake in this struggle.
Finally, it’s
important to understand Martin Luther King’s vision of the beloved community,
the community of those who claimed their belovedness, their worth and their
dignity, and who were willing to struggle and sacrifice for the liberation of all—as
the antidote to the politics of divide and conquer.
This means that what
we are doing together today is not just about addressing issues. It’s about how
we relate to one another, whether or not we can listen to one another, whether
or not we can honor each other by taking to heart each others’ concerns despite
our difference perspectives.
Though our gathering today is about clarifying our agenda, it’s even
more about building a community, building a movement, committed to pursuing the
kinds of systemic changes that we are needing. We won’t be able to build this community, this movement, unless
we learn how to honor each other and work together across all our differences.
This will not be easy as given what’s at stake and all our differences we can
be easily triggered. That means we need to have mercy on each other and
ourselves.
Today is going to be
chaotic. It would have been great
if we had had six months to plan what we are doing today, but we felt we couldn’t
wait. This means you’ll
undoubtedly encounter many things that could have been done better, but I’m
asking you to be as gracious as you can be as we’re all trying our best and we
want to make the most of our time together as we work to bring an end to the segregation
that defines our lives in this county through building this new moral fusion
movement. Thank you!
Postscript:
We are now going to be
splitting into working groups focused on some of the areas where we see
inequality being perpetuated including: housing, employment and wages,
healthcare, education, criminal justice, policing, immigration, and
environmental justice.
In these groups you will have
an opportunity to very briefly share your ideas for how we can overcome the
barriers of discrimination and create a more just redistribution of resources
within that area.
Remember, in this moral
fusion process it is as important to listen as it is to talk. Maybe more so.
Once everyone has presented their ideas, there we will then be a process for
prioritizing the idea that most needs immediate action and what other top three
priorities for action in that area. We will then tally the results which will
be presented after lunch to the larger group so we can begin the work of
creating a common agenda that will allow us to work together across our
different concerns to create systemic change in Washtenaw County by making each
of these concerns the concerns of us all!