Racism and Rankism: We Won't Eradicate the One Until We Take on the Other

Americans are listening to Senator Obama on the issue of race, and recognizing something qualitatively different about what he's saying. That's because he's addressing race-based discrimination in a larger context--that of human dignity and affronts to dignity that are even broader than racism itself.

Racial discrimination is but one brand of a more pervasive and still unacknowledged form of abuse and discrimination--rankism. Other subspecies of rankism are sexism, ageism, ableism, classism, nativism, homophobia, etc. All of these ignominious "isms" denote a situation in which a more powerful group disadvantages a weaker group. These "undead" isms can be seen as discrimination based on social rank, each sustained by an interlocking set of expectations, customs, understandings, and laws.

Despite decades devoted to eradicating them, these isms cling to life like vampires. After a flurry of initial progress, often marked by the passage of "landmark" legislation, successes become rarer. Diminishing returns set in long before the ism has been entirely defanged, and its enervating effects continue to diminish the lives of countless individuals who bear a trait that makes them targetable.

Senator Obama understands this intuitively.

An analogy with cancer illustrates why these isms endure. Progress against organ-specific malignancies was long hindered by the failure to recognize them all as sub-species of cancer. It was only after tumors of the lung, colon, breast, prostate, liver, etc. were seen as varieties of cancer that medicine began to make piecemeal progress against them.

This is the situation today with the familiar isms. After decades of treating them as separate and distinct maladies, Barack Obama is showing us what they have in common. They all involve one group inflicting indignity on another. They are all subspecies of rankism. Indignity makes people indignant and resentful, and Barack Obama understands that no one's dignity is secure until everyone's is.

By recognizing that white resentment has strikingly similar causes to black resentment, Senator Obama has brought us to the threshold of a long national conversation about rank and its abuses. After discussing black anger and its roots, he said:

"In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience--as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor."

Obama went on to explain how the violation of one's dignity leads to indignation--regardless of race.

"Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze--a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns--this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding."

The cause of indignity is not rank itself, any more than the cause of racism is color, or the cause of sexism is gender. Color and gender are merely excuses for putting people down, to our own advantage. Just as it is impractical to combat racism or sexism by eliminating color or gender differences, so too we cannot eliminate rankism by abolishing rank.

Rank is not the problem; rankism is, and we can learn to disallow the indignities that result from abuses of the power signified by rank much as we are learning to disallow color as grounds for discrimination.

Were it not for our partial successes against racism, sexism, and the other isms over the last half-century, the prospect for progress against the social cancer of rankism would be bleak. But increasingly, our tolerance is evaporating for rank-based abuse, whether it takes the form of bullying, personal humiliation, corporate corruption, special interests, elder abuse, celebrity privilege, theological or medical intimidation, animal abuse, environmental degradation, or American exceptionalism. There is good reason to believe that once rankism gets the attention accorded the now-discredited isms, it will become as indefensible as they are.

Obama spoke to the need to see this larger pattern, when he said:

"For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances--for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs--to the larger aspirations of all Americans--the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who's been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family."

It's never enough just to formally disallow an ism. To put it in the doghouse, it must also be made "uncool." To render the familiar isms uncool requires raising our sights from particular isms to the impulse that underpins them all. That impulse is the desire to hold others down so they may more readily be used to our advantage. Whether our motivation is psychological, social, or economic, is beside the point. Typically a mixture of motives is at play. But it's the willingness to indignify others, and the fact that we are still collectively holding our tongues--as previous generations did about racism--that lies at the root of many of the problems that vex us today.

Barack Obama is a harbinger of a dignitarian society, one in which every person, regardless of rank, expects and enjoys equal dignity. The implications of a politics predicated on the principle of dignity for all are profound and far-reaching. Just as all our institutions had to be reshaped as we transformed America from a segregated to multicultural society, so too will we need to transform our schools, businesses, healthcare and religious institutions as we become a dignitarian society. A dignitarian society is democracy's next natural evolutionary step.

Senator Obama is at risk of raising expectations beyond anyone's capacity to deliver on them. There are no quick fixes to the problems now moving into sight. But if the public understands that building a dignitarian society is as complex and rewarding a task as overcoming racism, it may grant our leaders, whoever they be, the patience and commitment that they are going to need to do so.

Previously: Barack Obama and the Politics of Dignity

Robert W. Fuller is the author of All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (2006). He is co-author, with Pamela Gerloff, of Dignity for All: Rankism Unmasked (forthcoming, Spring 2008)

Read more HuffPost coverage and reaction to Obama's speech

Comments

[flatus]

As long as human desire outstrips resource supply you will have those that seek to exclude.

[yowza1]

Well I'm not particularly happy to write below a person with the "flatus" moniker, but I guess that is the sort of bad manners that Republicans want when they want to be able to "do anything" because they are "free" and are "Americans".
Just wanted to say on the article itself, thank goodness for you and your perspective, you covered a lot of previously muddled ground in your clear sighted assay of the American malaise. I agree with your formulations Mr Fuller, just could add on some of my own pet peeves which I won't describe, won't mention, don't want to distract from what you have written here.
Thank you Mr Fuller! May your words be a beacon to others as they have been to me.

[PioneerKing]

You fail to acknowledge that divisiveness is a paradigm that is financially and politically profitable. Bigotry, racism, sexism, classicism, nativism and all the other _____isms will remain apart of the American psyche as long as folks are profiting.

[DrVeruju]

"Jim Rockford" in the TV series "The Rockford Files" once made the observation that being a civilian out-ranks 'all those colonels and lieutenants'. Being human should out-rank all the ways we classify ourselves which serve, too often, as a means to feed our egos and marginalize others.

[mizonglohong]

I think we all want this whether we admit it or not. It's not like I want a utopian society, but just trying to be better than what we are today. I don't think it's too lofty. I believe we are better than war mongers, and oil barons. It's not going to happen in one day, but it's a great start.

[truesoccermom]

I am a passionate Obama supporter who thinks he can be the greatest leader of my lifetime. I am sad about the events with Pastor Wright because as much as I and other enlightened Democrats see Obama's brilliance in dealing with the issue, I fear there are many others (mainly repubs and working class dems) who are still left with the idea that Obama's "mentor" is an extremist who preaches angry sermons about blacks being victims. While I hope I am wrong in this I think the only way to reach these people (and at the same time silence the hateful right-wing witch hunt about black preachers) is for Pastor Wright to come forward (on Oprah or 60 minutes perhaps). He could explain his background and talk about his struggles as a black man during segregation. He could talk about the Christian and religious aspects of his ministry and explain how he came to know Obama. And finally, wouldn't it be wonderful if he could admit that he too was touched by Obama's speech and recognizes that his past angry rhetoric (preaching as if the country were "static") is no longer helpful and productive in the black community. He could show that Obama is now his "mentor" and demonstrate what a truly amazing leader Obama will be for this country. I think something like this would turn this whole thing around and truly further the discussion that Obama has started. I welcome your thoughts on this.

[bfuller]

I think it's a brilliant idea! Can you think of a way to get it to Wright and/or to Oprah? She would immediately see the importance of it. In fact, now that you've proposed it, it seems so obvious that I wouldn't be surprised it one of her producers weren't alrady trying to book Rev. Wright on tomorrow's show.

[truesoccermom]

I have emailed Oprah and am trying to spread this idea on the blogs. Maybe others should email her as well. (Oprah.com)

[myjs]

Go to Oprah's message boards. Filled with racist rants against Obama!
Quite disgusting!

[ronday]

I could not agree more. Where is his friend and mentor when he needs him! He is the one that got him into this mess and he needs to do the right thing and come forward to make things right. I do not hold it against Rev. Wright for speaking in anger, I understand that anger is not racism and the anger is not hate. The difference is obvious and substantial.

[constantflackery]

I hear what you're saying, and you raise good points, but I disagree. Here's why: 60 Minutes is about conflict and controversy. They'll egg Wright on into saying some that will freak people out even more, confounding the issue and keeping it in the public spotlight for even longer. As for Oprah, that will, unfortunately, just remind people of the race divide and turn into fodder for HRC and republicans to subtly suggest that the black community agrees with everything Wright says ("see, even Oprah agrees with him, and we liked Oprah!"). As much as I wish America could have an intelligent dialog about this, I'm cynical enough to know that political expediancy will trump long-term national health any day. HRC or McCain's proxies will continue to fan this flame until Obama is, to the uneducated and xenophobic voter's eye, another Jackson/Sh­arpton/Far­rakhan, i.e., someone we should be afraid of.

[GonzoBum]

if obama is nominated and elected, this will be his ultimate downfall. he is raising the bar too high, which is a the morally right thing to do, but living in the fast food nation we do, people will be quick to judge him and rant against him in his failure to restore hope immediatley. obama seems destined to fall in the jimmy carter class of cyncism prevailing over optimism, however, that alone is reason enough to support a person who is willing to sacrifice one's self for the greater good of a society lost in the maliase of an almost orwellian society

[usna73]

Gonzo, while your point is well taken,may I respectfully disagree in several parts.

Obama must provide leadership in directing societal effort towards the ultimate "ism."

Idealism. There would be no Republic called America without it.

I think Obama epitomizes this neccessity. He is a natural.

This is our last best hope in our country which suffers from corporatism, one step from the final and destructive "ism", known as Fascism.

You also owe Mr. Carter an apology. He is unquestionably has done the greatest work of any ex-President in the nation's history. As a fellow alumni of Mr. Carter, I can tell you that he is no cynic.
Nobody with his training is anything less than an optimist about mankind.