Johnson Chapter 3

The thesis of Chapter 3, “Capitalism, Class and the Matrix of Domination” is that capitalism brought white privilege to us and it isn’t going away for quiet a while.
Throughout Chapter 3, Johnson talks about how and why capitalism plays such a large role in white privilege. Starting off with what capitalism is Johnson tells us that, in a nutshell, all capitalists want is to make money and they do that by using the cheapest ways possible to make the most amount of money possible. The most popular way of getting cheap labor and continuing to make a good profit is by taking the jobs to those who will work for less than Americans do. This “outsourcing” of jobs and the oppression of the freed slaves fuels racism. And this racism that “whites” had over the “blacks” after the Civil War led the “whites” to create a system that said, to be human was to be “white,” otherwise known as Manifest Destiny.
The capitalists use this racism to keep their white workers pay low and have the same production rates, if not more and threaten them with the possibility of job loss if more compensation is requested. So, to make it easier on themselves the capitalist use “migrant workers,” who will work for less, just so they can work. Then this angers the white workers who then take it out on the migrant workers proving that capitalism fuels racism.
Capitalists are even racist against those with disabilities and women. And women are the ones who raise the workers that fuel the capitalism, and they are still discriminated against.
Privilege is confusing in and of itself, then add capitalism to the mix, its even more confusing. After reading chapter 2, we know what privilege is and how it works. Here we just clarify that the social class that you are privileged or unprivileged as, is made by capitalism. You are put into a social class by how much your income is and income is controlled by the capitalists who are controlling the jobs and what people earn at that job. However, privilege is by more than just your social class, it is also effected by your sexual orientation, gender and race. Also as we learned before you can be privileged in one area and not in another. In this chapter we learn that one privilege can reinforce another, having access to one privilege, effects access to other forms, and one form of privilege can serve as compensation for not having another. The most important connection of race and privilege is that when the minorities are competing with each other over jobs, it distracts them form the more pertinent issue of privilege. And as Johnson put it “we cant get rid of racism without doing something about classism and sexism because the system that produces one also produces the other, therefore connecting them.” The moral of the story here is that capitalism fuels all of these “isms”
racism, classism and sexism. Until the capitalist system vanishes our society will continue to have all of the above.
From seeing all that I have in today’s world all of Johnson’s findings are correct. All of Johnson’s findings support the sexism that females receive, the racism that “minorities” receive and so on. I know that his findings support this because it is very well documented of the struggles that minorities and women endured, and still are. It is documented in movies, books and from leaders in the past, like, Martin Luther King Jr. and Susan B Anthony.
I felt that his article was very informative. Most of the parts about sexism I knew but that is only because I am a female. I was very surprised to learn that capitalism fuels all of this racism and sexism though. I guess it makes sense, but I never really thought about it until I read this article.