Leaky Designs & Superfluity

Part II.

In this essay, I will focus on black-white racial stratification in America, and I will take as my primary example the manner in which the “white progressive” perpetuates racial stratification.

The white progressive believes that “there are poor blacks who deserve better”, and the white progressive endeavors to create pipelines that convey “poor but deserving blacks” to institutions of “higher learning” and to “lucrative” careers. Thinking with and through schizoanalysis, I am struck by the fact that the white progressive’s “noble” endeavors effectively reinforce stratification by race, by education, and by wealth. The endeavors of the white progressive effectively maintain the filters and channels that generate pools of poor blacks and, taking these pools for granted, the white progressive endeavors to filter out “deserving blacks” from these pools and channel these “deserving blacks” along pipelines to privilege, leaving “undeserving blacks” to stew in poverty.

Going one step further, the white progressive also endeavors to filter out “undeserving whites” from pipelines to privilege and to channel these “undeserving whites” into poverty alongside “undeserving blacks”. The results of these endeavors are perverse. The “undeserving whites” being filtered out of pipelines to privilege and into poverty watch as “deserving blacks” are filtered out of pipelines to poverty and into privilege, and these “undeserving whites” become resentful of “deserving blacks”. Meanwhile, “deserving blacks” become self-righteous at being found “deserving” and, here’s the rub, white progressives become doubly self-righteous for being counted amongst “deserving whites” and for being the benefactors of “deserving blacks”.

America’s leading political parties devote a great deal of attention to the pipelines that are supposed to channel “deserving blacks” from poverty into privilege. The Republican party appeals to the resentment of “undeserving whites” who have been filtered and channeled out of pipelines to white privilege. Republicans demand the narrowing or the elimination of the pipelines channeling “deserving blacks” to privilege, arguing that too many “undeserving blacks” are being “mistakenly” channeled from poverty into privilege, taking the place of more deserving whites. The Democratic party, by contrast, appeals to the hopes of poor blacks, the self-righteousness of white progressives, and to the gratitude of “deserving blacks”. The Democratic party wants to broaden and multiply the pipelines to privilege for “deserving blacks”, arguing that there are more “deserving blacks” than the existing pipelines can presently handle and, what’s more, there are too many “undeserving whites” still being pipelined to privilege. Both the Republicans and Democrats, in spite of their differences, take racial stratification for granted. The question for both parties is how best to deal with “deserving blacks” and “undeserving whites”: neither party cares to actually disrupt racial stratification.

Thinking with and through schizoanalysis, I am struck by the fact that those who would make artful reparations and disrupt racial stratification are those who would deconstruct pipelines in order to (re-)create leaky designs. The filters and channels that lead to stratification are precisely those that aim to prohibit or preclude leakiness: these filters and channels develop into pipelines so as to keep segregated flows from polluting and being polluted by one another. But whereas a pipeline (or streamlined design) prevents pollution by maintaining segregation, a leaky design dilutes flows in order to undermine the conditions of possibility for pollution. Recognizing that over-concentration is the process that turns an otherwise benign element into a malignant pollutant that must be separated from others, leaky designs are filters and channels that are (de)constructed so as to dilute over-concentrations, enabling determinate flows to course openly and confluently, to spill over into one another, and to (re-)mix together and back into indeterminate flows. In so doing, leaky designs deconstruct fixed social strata and (re-)construct fluid social distinctions in their place.

Returning to the issue of black-white racial stratification in America, both the Republicans and the Democrats haven’t simply failed to prevent over-concentrations of wealth and privilege, they have promoted over-concentrations of wealth and privilege. Hence their fear of leakiness and pollution. On the one hand, they are concerned that the flows filling the pools of the privileged will be polluted by the “undeserving”, both white and black. On the other hand, they are concerned that the flows filling the pools of the poor will be polluted by the “deserving”, both white and black. What’s more, both Democrats and Republicans take it for granted that it means one thing for blacks to be “deserving” and that it means something different for whites to be “deserving”, which, in turn,  means that there ought to be different pipelines for “deserving blacks” and for “deserving whites”. The two political parties mainly differ with respect to their definitions of “deserving blacks” and “deserving whites”; they do not differ on the point that the “deserving” need to be pipelined to the pools of the privileged and that the pools of the privileged mustn’t be polluted by the “undeserving”. The two parties both rally against leaky designs that allow the deserving-and-undeserving, black-and-white, to be (re-)mixed together and back into indeterminate flows, wherein neither one can be strictly distinguished from the other.

The need to strictly distinguish the deserving from the undeserving is, above all else, justified by (the appearance of) scarcity. We are told, “There is not enough to go around, so we need to know who deserves a livelihood and who is undeserving. The right resources need to go to the right people, to those who rightly deserve them.” This logic tells us that leaky designs are to be disparaged for squandering scarce resources on the undeserving. Thinking with and through schizoanalysis, however, I believe that we should disparage (the appearance of) scarcity as opposed to leaky designs. Those who endeavor to fight against leaky designs but don’t bother to fight against (the appearance of) scarcity are not to be esteemed: they are friends of scarcity and the champions of stratification. Indeed, the Republicans and the Democrats are but two factions of the friends of scarcity, two factions of the champions of stratification. By contrast, the champions of leaky designs are, above all else, the enemies of scarcity. The champions of leaky designs want, above all else, to create a superfluity of livelihoods so that there is no longer any need to strictly differentiate the deserving from the undeserving.