How Wealthy People of Color Co-opt Identity Politics For Their Own Gain

One the most reality shattering experiences of going to both undergraduate and law school is realizing that my low-middle class existence was actually closer to poor than to middle-class.

In both law school and undergrad, I was bombarded with other Latinx folk who shared my identity, but did not share the same constraints on my bank account. At first I didn’t pay it much notice. Who cares who has more money as long as we’re all treated as equals! But as I began to navigate the inherently political spaces that are affinity groups, I realized that wealth and power tend to go hand in hand.

The playbook was simple. First, there was an insistence from everyone I knew that they were not “well off.” We see this outside of affinities groups and more generally in normal everyday America, where millionaires insist they’re “middle class” and that they are just trying to “provide a living” for their families like anyone else. The insidious thing about this farce when it's done by people from your own affinity group is that as a low-middle class kid you’re taught not to question it. It isn’t until you start seeing the subtle indicators of wealth that you realize maybe they had a drastically different experience than you did growing up.

But once the playing field has been “leveled,” we move on to the second step, shifting priorities from the objective to the theoretical. For example, instead of actually helping the Latinx community right on their door steps, they’ll throw terms around like latinidad or argue over the conception of the Latinx identity more broadly. Any push for direct action that would impact communities right next to them is met with red tape and lack of enthusiasm. Instead symbolic, one time endeavors are preferred. They allow just the right amount of performance without any of the messy attachments actual partnerships would bring. It also enforces the strict divide between the poor communities of color neighboring their institutions and them.

Finally, we get to the third and final step: consolidating power by insisting on hierarchy. It never made sense to me why many of these affinity groups, which would at times have only 15 to 20 members, insisted on using a strict hierarchy to achieve their goals. It wasn’t until I had the pleasure of going to law school that I realized why hierarchy exists most of the time: to signal who has power. This is true in these spaces. These hierarchies are often solidified over nights of going out or over cultural exchanges of conservative politics typically reserved for people who had a middle class upbringing. The beautifully abrasive and blunt truth espoused by working class people of color is treated like bitter black coffee, only palatable if one adds a little cream.

And so some of us do. Some of us will tone down our socio-economic identities to get power and by doing so we alienate ourselves. I have talked to several leaders of affinity groups who had a similar upbringing to my own and the one common theme I get is alienation. The sense that they have all this power, but no way to operationalize it to make the change they believe in. Instead they get assimilated into the majority culture and really just serve as gatekeepers for other poor Latinx students.

You may be angry at reading this because some of the things I described also describe things you have done. You should be angry. I know I am, both for being a gatekeeper and being kept out. I know there are times where my wealth gave me a distinct advantage over my peers and I know there are times where my lack of wealth left me sorrily behind in the race. Now I just have an inherent distrust of all of it. I see these affinity groups for what they are: organizations that consolidate power for Latinx folk, but then proceed to disperse that power based on class and ethnic politics.

These folk will be our future leaders of the Latinx community. They will be the ones manning nonprofits and foundations, insisting that they support low-income communities of color, while happily leapfrogging over poor students to get to their position of power. They will be the ones with houses and 401Ks. They will be the ones bankrolling gentrification as they move back to their own neighborhoods, but instead of improving it, they carve out sections of the neighborhood for themselves. They give portions of the neighborhood a facelift, while neglecting to support its cultural underpinning. All of a sudden the cuchifrito cart isn’t enough, instead they insist on upending these institutions in favor of what they find comfortable, avocado toast and vegan alcapurrias.

And they do this all silently. They do it all with the coercive power of their bank accounts because in a society where consumption rules everything, those with money have a voice even when they are not speaking.