When word of a huge, star-studded Zoom fundraiser for white Kamala Harris supporters hit the internet, it certainly raised eyebrows.
Fundraisers from groups like Winning with black women And South Asian women for Harris Perhaps to be expected, since Harris is a racialized black and South Asian woman. A fundraiser for Winning with black men was equally intuitive. But is fundraising just for white people?
“I believe the scientific term is actually a women’s gossip,” Crack Jon Stewart on The Daily Show After learning that 100,000 people attended a fundraiser titled White Women: Answer the Call. “‘White Dudes For Kamala’ Was More Than It Sounds” Conclusion cut.
The fundraisers were hugely successful. White Woman: Answer the callwhich is characterized by Celebrities like Connie Britton, PNK and Megan Rapinoe Among its more than 160,000 participants, the Harris campaign last week raised $11 million and sent 30,000 volunteers to Women for Harris. White dudes for orangewhich featured appearances by Jeff Bridges, Mark Hamill and Pete Buttigieg, raised $4 million after calls on Monday.
“The idea was: How can we use our platform and our privilege to do what black women and men have done in their calling?” The call is hosted by Shannon Watts And a prominent gun violence prevention activist explained in an interview with The Cut. “It was more like a reckoning than a rally,” he added.
Still, some viewers felt conflicted, even contemptuous. Many progressives agree that it is worth treating whiteness as a distinct identity group rather than a default. At the same time, something about a call for white people only can feel disorienting. Why not set up a fund for Harris supporters of all identities?
When thinking about how white feminism intersects with the act of electing a woman of color to office, no one is better positioned to tease out the nuances than legal scholar and activist Kimberley Crenshaw. Crenshaw is one of the founding scholars of critical race theory, the legal concept that ignited conservative minds years ago, and he developed the concept of intersectionality, or how multiple modes of oppression can work together. So I called him to find out what he thought about Harris fundraisers for white people.
Crenshaw spoke to me from Nashville, Tennessee, where the African American Policy Forum, of which he is co-founder and executive director, is holding its fifth annual Critical Race Series summer school. Together, we discuss how today’s organizers are taking their cues from the triumphs and failures of the civil rights movement and why those who want to protect democracy should start thinking intersectionally. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What was your first reaction when you saw fundraising events like Harris and White Dudes for White Women: Answer the call to mobilize?
What really tells us the difference between this candidacy is the first black woman to run for president, Shirley Chisholm. I mean, Shirley Chisholm couldn’t get any constituencies to support her, including the Congressional Black Caucus. So we are in another world.
You don’t just have black women — who have the power to raise millions at this point — but white women, black men, white men, and then South Asians taking it up: that suggests to me that there’s a greater awareness than ever before of our democracy. To ensure some protection against further isolation, people must be willing to organize into their own communities. They have to be willing to deal with the dynamics that they worry could prevent their community from supporting Kamala Harris for president.
In black men’s groups, they’re talking about sex. I mean, it’s a huge moment. In groups of white women, they are talking about racism. So yes, this could be it [legal scholar and civil rights activist] Derek Bell says Interest Convergence. Those of us who think, talk and write about intersectionality and those who want to save this democracy have a common interest. They now have to think interdisciplinary. And that means white women are thinking about racism, black men are thinking about sexism, white men are thinking about these two things. It’s a remarkable moment to see these formations come together and have the conversations they feel are important.
I think a lot of people, when they first saw these events emerge, they thought, “Oh, it’s like having a White History Month. White people are so often the default. Why even call out a specific event just for them? Why? Not having an event open to everyone? So I’d like to know your thoughts on whether this is a viable choice and if so, if it worked.
This is a misreading of the moment, and I think it’s an under-reading that stands out in the attempt to structure around such categories that are often not identified or noticed. Look, a lot of people had a lot to say about white women voting for Trump. So what is the solution? The solution is for white women who are not for Trump to organize other white women to talk about this: What is it that people are thinking and saying that they are not? What do they have to do to unite that particular political party?
“Look, a lot of people had a lot to say about white women voting for Trump. So what’s the solution?”
This, I think, is not a particularly sophisticated response to say, like White History Month. Actually, I’m kind of silly about it. It recognizes that race and gender and other factors form a consistent political axis in our community, and it’s important to find ways to speak to those constituencies and to speak to them in a way that doesn’t affirm the worst aspects of this historical division. It enables the best integration, the best ways of speaking internally, so that we can protect our democracy.
We saw the possibility of raising consciousness, creating tension, and raising resources so that this tension actually had a chance to turn into a politically strong coalition that could put a non-authoritarian in the White House.
So would you say that this kind of identity-based fundraising is a good strategy to continue throughout the election cycle or even going forward?
Well, no one can tell what will happen throughout the election, right? So we’re in a period where obviously a moribund campaign has excited people. Clearly, depression has turned into excitement. It is a fluid state.
But let’s be clear about another issue: the race, gender, class issue. They have been around for the entirety of this country. It is a mistake to think that they will suddenly disappear at some point, no matter what happens or if Kamala Harris is elected. This was a mistake that many people made when Obama was elected. And I hope it’s not a mistake people make again. They are deep grooves in our society, and since most of the time they have been used in a negative way, people think that they are inherently capable of producing only exclusion and power.
But there are plenty of white people who have organized as white men to defend democracy and racial justice. I mean, the whole civil rights movement, one of its most important conventions is that white people put their bodies on the line, knowing that as white people, their ability to mobilize for a truly multiracial democracy will get disproportionate media attention. . It is using whiteness to break down exclusion. And we need to tell more of those stories.
We are talking about this because these stories are not part of the history taught in our schools. Parents attack teaching about our racial past because they say it’s divisive or they say it makes their kids feel bad. Evidence of what we have not been taught about those who have organized around their whiteness to advance and promote racial inclusion, democracy and true multiracial democracy.
