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Selling Social Justice: Why the Rich Love Antiracism
The national racial reckoning that began in 2020 promised to radically restructure American society from the bottom up. But five years on, it has mainly served to strengthen the ruling class and deliver the rich an opportunity to rehabilitate a profoundly unequal economic order precisely at a moment when the stability of the system and the public's trust in it are drastically deteriorating.
Corporations have used antiracism to consolidate their political power and evade government regulation. Employers have surveilled and undermined workers through counterproductive diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings. Affluent professionals and Democratic politicians have exacerbated a stark class divide by pushing half-baked "racial equity" policies that come at the expense of the majority of working people. And the right has reacted to these developments by stoking a toxic culture war against "wokeness" that serves only as a distraction from the increasing economic hardship faced by Americans of all races.
Selling Social Justice investigates the rise and spread of contemporary antiracist ideology and shows how the rich came to embrace this particular form of justice. In this provocative and thoroughly researched account, Jennifer C. Pan explores why, in a twenty-first-century economy of increasing scarcity, antiracism is the wrong frame for understanding and fighting inequality.
Corporations have used antiracism to consolidate their political power and evade government regulation. Employers have surveilled and undermined workers through counterproductive diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings. Affluent professionals and Democratic politicians have exacerbated a stark class divide by pushing half-baked "racial equity" policies that come at the expense of the majority of working people. And the right has reacted to these developments by stoking a toxic culture war against "wokeness" that serves only as a distraction from the increasing economic hardship faced by Americans of all races.
Selling Social Justice investigates the rise and spread of contemporary antiracist ideology and shows how the rich came to embrace this particular form of justice. In this provocative and thoroughly researched account, Jennifer C. Pan explores why, in a twenty-first-century economy of increasing scarcity, antiracism is the wrong frame for understanding and fighting inequality.
190 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 6, 2025
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November 17, 2025This book will surely piss off a lot of people, so I am proud of this journalist for doing it anyway. The first half is a no holds barred breakdown of the reasons corporations flocked to develop equity programs. No matter your beliefs on this subject or how firmly you hold onto them, it is a worthy question why, say, Amazon or Target was so concerned about racial inequities and justice all of a sudden.
It’s a simple question - if the bad guys embraced something so readily, couldn’t we ask why, and how it served their interests, and perhaps did not serve real people?
She quotes a union busting letter from Amazon that begins with a land acknowledgment. I mean…
The second half of the book may be politically where my heart lies: that we need universal, not means-tested programs, in order to make things better. As a person who has been tangled up in means testing for years I know that’s true. God damn if I had every hour back that I spent on means tested insanity, I could have done a thousand other things with my life you know. When Hilary Clinton lambasted Bernie Sanders for suggesting tuition free college, “I don’t want to pay for Donald Trumps’ kids to go to college!” That should trigger the same sort of question as the big companies adopting equity programs, I think. Like, Hil, you are saying look over there! It sounds populist, but it’s a magic trick.
Much as I warm to any politics of universal programs that decommodify the good, the necessary, and the humane, I could relate to any reader of this book who tired of seeing excoriations of basically pretty great academics and journalists. One line quotes from these people feel a bit like mean spirited snacks. I would have rather heard more affirmative quotes from, say, working class people who have figured out that means tested programs pit us against each other, rather than some self-satisfied thing Joy Reid said on TV a couple years ago.
It’s a simple question - if the bad guys embraced something so readily, couldn’t we ask why, and how it served their interests, and perhaps did not serve real people?
She quotes a union busting letter from Amazon that begins with a land acknowledgment. I mean…
The second half of the book may be politically where my heart lies: that we need universal, not means-tested programs, in order to make things better. As a person who has been tangled up in means testing for years I know that’s true. God damn if I had every hour back that I spent on means tested insanity, I could have done a thousand other things with my life you know. When Hilary Clinton lambasted Bernie Sanders for suggesting tuition free college, “I don’t want to pay for Donald Trumps’ kids to go to college!” That should trigger the same sort of question as the big companies adopting equity programs, I think. Like, Hil, you are saying look over there! It sounds populist, but it’s a magic trick.
Much as I warm to any politics of universal programs that decommodify the good, the necessary, and the humane, I could relate to any reader of this book who tired of seeing excoriations of basically pretty great academics and journalists. One line quotes from these people feel a bit like mean spirited snacks. I would have rather heard more affirmative quotes from, say, working class people who have figured out that means tested programs pit us against each other, rather than some self-satisfied thing Joy Reid said on TV a couple years ago.
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