Symbolic Activism, Police & The State, Poor Whites

The later part of my college life was centered around racial politics. In the South, there are still many symbols of slave owners and sympathizers, especially those of the Confederacy. I was part of a group that toppled a Confederate statue and renamed slave-owner buildings on campus.

Our coalition fought hard: we protested in front of the Chancellor’s house, marched many times across campus, and created a campaign for a building to be named after Zora Hurston. The movement gained a lot of momentum as supporting crowds grew bigger and bigger. 

The most prominent win was when we toppled the Confederate statue on campus, following the Durham organizers. This action angered the Daughters of the Confederacy group, leading to a clash between campus students and members of the group. 

I was there at one protest handing out legal support phone numbers to organizers. It was clear from the start the anti-Confederate side was bigger. Though made up of mainly students, the anti-Confederate side also had community members and campus staff. The other side only had a handful of people. 

Of course, campus police were present. They were on the side at first, watching all of this go down. At the climax of the protest, students almost surrounded the DoC group. I saw flashes of fear in their eyes as it happened. They were actually not aggressive and nasty like the usual depictions of Confederate supporters. 

At this point, chaos ensued. As the protest escalated, police only added fuel to the fire. One of the younger students, probably only 15 or 16, was taken by the police to a nearby building. He was supposedly “instigating violence”. I, along with some fellow organizers, swiftly followed them. The police locked the door after them, so we decided to go around to the back to see what was happening to the kid. It was a disgusting sight: police purposely hid behind a couch and searched the kid. We couldn’t see where they were touching him as they patted him up and down. We made sure to keep watch in case something terrible happened.

As the student was taken from our sight, we went back to the front to see others trying to get in. The crowd clashed with police. At one point I remember a fellow student getting shoved hard against the wall with a bang. Many bodies fell and tripped over one another. The police showed no mercy. 

Several organizers were arrested after this event. I couldn’t remember what happened next, but the look of the DoC members and the police clash stayed fresh in my mind. 

As I reflect on this event and many other ones, I’ve gained some clarity around this type of organizing: Symbolic activism achieves little to nothing concrete, the police will always protect the establishment, and poor whites are not the enemy. 

Let me expand on these three points:

1. Symbolic Activism

I often ask myself this question: What did these efforts accomplish? Did we really “win” by toppling statues and changing the names of buildings? What concrete material gains did we make? 

My answers to these were always lacking substance. So there lies the problem: these actions only achieved a type of symbolic significance, if any. In the statue’s case, it created a spectacle and temporary feelings of winning. In the end, the university added more funding to the police and spent thousands on security cameras. Objectively, it was a net material loss. 

In the building name’s case, it was even worse: The state government passed a law to ban name changes and restricted protesting at BOG (Board of Governors) meetings. On top of that, the university co-opted activist efforts and claimed “progressive” changes to better its reputation.

When we analyze history, these reactionary changes by the institutions aren’t surprising. The Biden Administration, for example, increased funding to the police after the George Floyd protests. The university, despite its liberal and progressive rhetoric, is simply a microcosm of the larger state. 

2. Police

In the event I described, organizers simplified the police as defenders of one side over another. It’s not untrue; however, they miss the key point of which side they actually defend.

Many thought police would side with the Confederates because “they are racist just like them” or “they are both white supremacists”. Sometimes, this manifests. But in reality, there were more instances of the police standing by letting both sides go at each other without intervening. In the above protest, the police actually did not intervene until organizers escalated. In fact, they helped to escalate the situation. If they didn’t take the young boy, would organizers have clashed with them? Who actually hurt the organizers? The police or the Confederate side?

Ultimately, the police are a defender of the establishment. In the case of the protest, the police defended the university. So by extension, students were actively attacked because of the university. 

It’s a hard truth because many organizers did not fundamentally oppose the university. Sure, they may oppose certain aspects such as leadership or professors. But whether they realized it or not, they did not question the institution of the university. 

If they did truly question the university, they would turn against it instead of the DoC group, which was mainly composed of poor whites who lived in rural areas. 

So let’s explore the next question: Are poor whites really the “white supremacist fascists”?

3. Poor Whites

Historically, poor whites have been pitted against other oppressed groups through racial identity politics. Confederate symbols are a big part of the poor white identity, especially in the South. 

DoC was no exception. They wanted to defend the statue because it was a part of that past. Much of the rhetoric was preserving history and family history, and whether they overtly say it or not, white identity. 

The mainstream liberal media has demonized these ideologies as racist and morally repugnant. Because the university is an arm of the establishment, it promotes the same strand of beliefs. These beliefs go unquestioned even in the organizing sphere. I don’t remember much of a critique until later years when a friend of mine told me the history of the poor whites. 

The liberal middle and upper-class professionals love to paint a caricature of poor whites: They are uneducated, racist, violent, and dogmatic, the epitome of white supremacy. Through control of mass media and universities, these professionals have thoroughly convinced a mass amount of people, especially those who are leaning left, that poor whites are the enemy.

Liberal elites, on the other hand, are the “good” whites. They virtue-signal by putting up Black Lives Matter yard signs, and denouncing anyone - even those in their family - who display any kind of racist rhetoric. But when it comes to concrete policies to disarm the police or social programs for poor people, they are cautious and conservative. 

So can we really believe the liberal elites?

Let’s go back to the symbolic vs. concrete discussion. We established that symbolic activism achieves little to nothing in the material betterment of people. We also concluded that real change requires material gains. In order to achieve these gains, we must have some institutional power to change policies, and allocate funds and resources. Currently, institutional power is used against us. Hence, whoever has that power is our enemy. 

So to answer the question of whether poor whites are our enemy, we must answer the question: Do they have institutional power?

The simple answer is no. In fact, historically poor whites have been oppressed by rich whites. Long before America was colonized, Europeans dispossessed poor whites in order to gain the resources to begin colonization. In other words, oppressing poor whites was the precondition to colonization. 

Modern-day dynamics have not changed much. Poor whites seldom hold good opinions of elite whites. They hated the aristocrats in Feudal England, slave-owners in the Colonies, and liberal elites today. 

Liberal elites, whether they are aware of it or not, uphold the state. They are the ones who at the least manage the working poor for the uber-rich, and at the worst make policies that directly lead to poverty. Materially, there is no question they win out on institutional power compared to poor whites. 

Poor whites are not the enemy. We identified the wrong enemy. And that’s exactly what the state wants. 

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I didn’t write all of this analysis to shit on organizers. After many years of organizing in rad-lib spaces, I was frustrated to see the ineffectual outcomes of our efforts. But I didn’t give up seeking the answers. 

After studying more history, keeping up with current events, and reflecting back on my college organizing days, I’ve come to these conclusions: 1. Symbolic organizing not only produces little material gains, but it can backfire. The state will tighten its grip and counter with reactionary policies. 2. The police have, and always will, protect the state. They do not side with those with less power. 3. Poor whites are not the enemy because they do not wield institutional power. They are also oppressed by the state. 

My conclusions are part of my political growth. It did not come to fruition in a day but many years of intentional work. I wanted to collect these thoughts because I believe they are still relevant today. Unfortunately, I still see the US left make the same mistakes (especially as election season comes, smh).

We are losing precious time and resources by identifying the wrong enemy. Even worse, we are giving power to the elites by allying with them against supposed “right-wingers”. It’s a reflection of the weakness of our political and class analysis. We must do better.