An interview by Vox reporter Sean Illig with political scientist Ashley Gardina discusses evidence that social unease, tinged with some racism, has fueled the rise of white identity politics among about 35% of white Americans. Vox writes:
When people talk about “identity politics,” it’s often assumed they’re referring to the politics of marginalized groups like African Americans, LGBTQ people, or any group that is organizing on the basis of a shared experience of injustice — and that’s a perfectly reasonable assumption.
Traditionally, identity has only really been a question for non-dominant groups in society. If you’re a member of the dominant group, your identity is taken for granted precisely because it’s not threatened. But the combination of demographic shifts and demagogic politicians has transformed the landscape of American politics. Now, white identity has been fully activated.
This is the argument Duke political scientist Ashley Jardina makes in her book White Identity Politics. Drawing on a decade of data from American National Election Studies surveys, Jardina claims that white Americans — roughly 30 to 40 percent of them — now identify with their whiteness in a politically meaningful way. Importantly, this racial solidarity doesn’t always overlap with racism, but it does mean that racial identity is becoming a more salient force in American politics.
Sean Illing: You open the book with a great quote from James Baldwin about how identity is “questioned only when it is menaced.” What’s the significance of this quote?
Ashley Jardina: It was so fitting when I was thinking about what gives rise to an identity like white identity, or really any dominant group identity. The important thing to note about dominant group identities is that we often think of them as invisible — and part of the reason is because dominant groups like whites in this society typically haven’t been forced to think about their identity.
Prior to a couple years ago, whites felt secure in the belief that they held a disproportionate share of economic and political and social resources, so their lives weren’t over-determined by their race. But now white identity has become salient as white Americans feel more and more threatened, and that fear has activated identity in a way we haven’t seen for some time.
Jardina argues that her research is showing that demographic change is fueling white social unease: “At this point today, it’s projected that whites will cease to be a majority by the middle of the century. This fact, which was brought into sharp relief by the election of Barack Obama, ignited a wave racial awareness among white Americans, and I think we’re still reckoning with the political consequences of this. . . . . In many ways, it’s about feeling that the privileges and status that whites have by way of their race are somehow being threatened or challenged.”
Is it social unease, economic complaints or both?: Shortly after President Trump won the electoral college in 2016, most commentators pointed to economic complaints grounded in decades of slow wage growth. After that, some research suggested that the most important factor was social unease in view of the impending white majority to minority majority demographic change. Currently, some evidence is accumulating that suggests the social unease may be easing, maybe significantly due to Trump's efforts at immigration control, and economic concerns are now coming to dominate.
At the moment, it is hard to tell whether social unease or economic complaints dominate with white identity voters. That uncertainty aside, demographic change-fueled white identity politics does seem to be a real phenomenon. If so, it is a lesson in how sensitive societies can be to demographic change.
B&B orig: 4/26/19
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