I have published a couple of essays on the situation in Springfield, Ohio (The Racial Politics of Safeguarding Companion Animals; Is This the Second Coming of Hunter Biden’s Laptop is a Hoax?), and several on the issue of immigration more broadly (too many to list here). I have also published numerous essays over the years on the problem of conflating culture and race (again, too many to list here). The Springfield story has legs. And the conflation of culture and race has only grown worse in its wake. We’re in the final weeks of a presidential campaign, and one party, the Republican Party, has championed working class interests in addressing the mass immigration crisis, while the other party, the Democrats, has sought to delegitimize working class concerns by smearing them as “racist.”
This was not always the case. Democrats used to speak to working class interests. In this area, at least. In his 1995 State of thew Union address, Bill Clinton presented to Congress his administration’s position on the mass immigration problem in terms nearly identical to those of Trump. Clinton was also concerned about the high rates of crime ravaging the nation and he recognized that mass immigration plays a big role in driving up crime and disorder. (In the 1990s, responding to extraordinarily high rates of gang violence, the Clinton Administration and local law enforcement authorities pursued large-scale deportations of illegal aliens with criminal records.) Barack Obama presented similar views during his presidency.
Why the Democratic Party has shifted so drastically since is a question the media appears to have no interest in answering. This is because the role of the media is to represent the interests of the corporate elite, which has pursued globalization for decades. The Democratic Party enables globalization, so it was inevitable that it would embrace mass immigration. How they enable mass immigration is the problem I address in this essay.
The first part of this essay will examine the fallacious nature of this confusion (which is strategic). The second part will explore how this conflation obscures the establishment of a racialized split labor market. In Springfield, Ohio, for instance, Haitian migrants are exploited through a leasing system where temp agencies contract with local businesses in a way that resembles indentured servitude—but with a racial dimension—thus creating split-labor market situation that hurts native-born workers. I provide other examples of split-labor market exploitation. I will argue that the progressive conflation of culture and race serves to obscure the longstanding capitalist practice of exploiting racialized labor from the Global South. Indeed, it is not the residents of Springfield who are racists, but those who have imposed upon them the burden of Haitian migrants.
Culture and Race
As noted, criticizing someone’s culture often leads to accusations of racism, and many accept the smear as justified; however, this conflation is flawed—culture is not race. Culture is the set of shared artifacts, beliefs, customs, norms, and values that members of a society use to interact with, interpret, and negotiate the world around them. It encompasses tangible aspects, such as art, food, language, and music as well as intangible elements, like norms, ideology, religion, and traditions. Culture is a worldview, often coextensive with ethnicity, that motivates action and shapes attitudes and thought, passed down from generation to generation through enculturation and socialization, shaping the identity and practices of communities. It is, however, a non-genetic inheritance.
Race is, on the other hand, is a genetic inheritance. The concept refers to constellations of phenotypic traits, such as eye color, facial features, hair texture, and skin color, resulting from ancestry with intergroup variation that differentiates human populations. The resulting clusters show patterns related to geographical and historical contexts. Crucially, all races belong to the same species, Homo sapiens. The idea of race may carry significant cultural and social weight, affecting individuals’ experiences and opportunities in life, including discrimination and systemic inequality, but cultural and social weight do not make race cultural nor reduce it to a social construct.
There is no evidence that cultural practices and systems reflect genetic differences between the races (although they can affect genetic differentiation). Two descendants of black African slaves may share a phenotype, i.e., the observable physical characteristics of an organism, which result from the interaction between genotype and environmental influences, but not share a culture. The fact that there are African and Asian cultures in which it is permissible to eat cats and dogs, practices that modern European cultures abhor and condemn, doesn’t mean that eating cats and dogs is inherent in a given racial type. Europeans are not missing the cat-eating gene. Europeans don’t eat cats because of a cultural prohibition against the eating of companion animals.
Progressives have deliberately fostered a confusion that frames criticism of culture as racism. The intent is to delegitimize the complaints of those who bear the consequences of mass immigration and capitalist labor practices. The conflation also functions to marginalize those who advocate for the assimilation of those who are allowed to stay. Individuals who assert the dominant cultural values of their nation—those recognizing the vital importance of shared heritage, language, legal systems, and social norms—are cast as bigots opposed to those who appear different rather than as citizens concerned with preserving their national culture and charting their own collective destiny. As I have noted in past essays, multiculturalism conflates criticism of cultural pluralism with opposition to multiracialism, discouraging any critique of culture by associating it with white supremacy.
One strategy social programmers use to instill this conflation in Western collective conscience is the promotion of cultural relativism in public education and popular culture. Cultural relativism subtly cultivates support for moral relativism, i.e., the belief that a person’s attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, and values should be understood and evaluated based on their own culture rather than judged by the standards of another—or by a universal standard. Judge a culture by your standard and you’re a chauvinist. Objectively, whether you are a chauvinist depends on whether your cultural viewpoint is aligned with universal standards. But relativism insinuates—and postmodernists insist—that there is no universal position from which to assess the adequacy or worth of any given culture.
One familiar with the woke rhetoric of our times will note that there is a paradox at work in this discourse. Those hailing from critical race theory (CRT) and postcolonial perspectives depict European or Western culture as imperialist and white supremacist due to its historical role in colonization, global power imbalances, and racial domination. These perspectives argue that Western culture, far from being one culture among many, has imposed its norms, values, and systems of power and right on much of the world, shaping global structures of inequality while corrupting indigenous cultures. Western culture is exempted from the terms of cultural and moral relativism. Europeans are not entitled to cultural and ethnic integrity. Indeed, one signals their virtue by condemning Western culture. This, too, is strategic—it seeks to justify the opening of borders to bearers of other cultures.
The condemners of Western culture content that European populations are not treated relativistically because whites are the architects and beneficiaries of systemic racism. According to this view, Western norms have been historically constructed to maintain white supremacy, an ideology that privileges whiteness while marginalizing non-white people. Western culture is critiqued for producing and perpetuating legal and social norms that uphold racial hierarchies, making it a proper target of scrutiny rather than a culture to be treated equally within a relativistic framework. In effect, this is a twist on Western exceptionalism. The West is not exceptionally good and right. It is exceptionally bad and wrong. A contradiction is thusly rationalized.
This makes mass immigration appear as a boomerang. From a postcolonial standpoint, Europeans, having globalized their practices and values through centuries of colonization, subjugating non-Western cultures by socializing the virtues of modern life (individualism, liberalism, rationalism, secularism), have reparations to pay—they have it coming to them. The imperialist legacy means that Western culture is not a source of enlightenment but of oppression, responsible for appropriating resources, dehumanizing colonial subjects, and imposing its worldview on indigenous and non-European societies. Treating Western culture as just one culture among many ignores the lasting impact of colonialism and the continued dominance of Western cultural, economic, and political power in a supposedly post-colonial world. Europeans are therefore justly subject to special disapprobation, one that requires the repayment of debt, both in the sharing of wealth and space. Foreigners to the West claim the value and wealth of the West for themselves (Reparations and Open Borders).
Of course, there is a universal positions from which to judge the adequacy and worth of culture: human nature determinable by science. What science determines about human nature, or what Karl Marx calls “species-being” (Gattungswesen), indicates that morality is a natural occurrence, its attributes common to all races. Species-being refers to the unique nature and potential of humans as a special mammal, particularly our capacity for consciousness, our creativity and inventiveness, and penchant for complex social interaction, including symbolic interaction. In Marx’s view, what distinguishes humans from other animals is our ability to shape and transform our environment through labor in a way that reflects conscious intention and shared interests manifest in cooperative action. This creative, purposeful activity is central to our essence as human beings.
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs parallels Marx’s concept of species-being in that both emphasize the fulfillment of human potential through self-actualization that depends on the development of the individual’s abilities amid the conditions provided by their socio-economic environment. Maslow frames self-actualization as the highest level of personal development. Similarly, Marx argues that under ideal social conditions, free and cooperative labor would allow individuals to fully realize their potential. Human beings, in this sense, are inherently creative and social creatures, mammals capable of shaping social and natural history. Labor, in its ideal form, is not merely a means of production for survival, but an expression of our human essence, where individuals find fulfillment in creating something meaningful for themselves and others. In this light, cultural relativism, and the moral relativism the doctrine conceals, is but a vulgar form of romanticism that justifies practices that violate universal human rights.
What Cultural Pluralism Allows
Cultural relativism is what lies behind the underreporting of stories and the downplaying of foreign practices in the West that should scandalize societies that have enshrined, for example, women’s rights. Nearly all women living in Somalia have been circumcised, a practice referred to the international order as female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C). The United States forbids the practice. However, while the percentage of Somali girls in the United States who have been mutilated is significantly lower than in Somalia (precise figures can be difficult to determine due to the private and “sensitive nature” of the practice), estimates from studies and reports suggest that FGM/C affects between 25 and 40 percent of Somali girls and women in diaspora communities in the United States.
Those who defend cultural pluralism will often initially deny that FGM/C is happening in the United States. When cases are confirmed, they will say that many Somali families in the US have moved away from the practice due to increased awareness of health risks and legal prohibitions. It happens, but only on the margins. Yet the tradition persists, and this is due to cultural pressures and religious beliefs that cannot be fully suppressed without assimilating Somalis into Western culture. At some point the progressive will admit that it is happening but thinks this is okay because it’s the custom of another culture, and to criticize or interfere with the beliefs and practices of others is racist. In other words, once admitted, FGM/C is not really wrong. The conflation of culture with race thus harms girls and women by negating the criticism of Somali religious beliefs and ritual practices that oppresses them.
Women are disproportionately affected by cultural pluralism. Consider the veiling of Muslim women in Western societies. Muslim dress varies widely. The hijab is a headscarf that covers the hair, neck, and sometimes shoulders, leaving the face visible. The abaya is a long, loose robe covering the body from shoulders to feet, often worn over other clothes. The jilbab is a loose, long coat or outer garment that covers the whole body except the face, feet, and hands. The chador is a full-body cloak that covers the body but leaves the face exposed. The niqab is a face-covering that leaves only the eyes visible, paired with other head coverings. The burqa is a full-body covering with a mesh screen that hides the face, worn in some conservative regions. Confronted with the more extreme end of the dress code, the social programmers tell the public that the niqab and burqa are garments worn primarily for reasons related to Islamic principles of modesty and privacy. The niqab is worn to adhere to the Islamic belief that women should shield their beauty from non-family members, maintaining privacy while still allowing for interaction. The burqa offers an even more comprehensive form of coverage, worn to ensure complete anonymity.
But what underpins these cultural and religious interpretations of modesty? The male gaze—the same gaze Western liberal feminists decry—only this gaze is deeply opprressive. The niqab and burqa are signals of patriarchal control rather than mere expressions of cultural tradition or religious modesty. It is not as if Western feminists don’t see the problem in supposed future or imagined scenarios. After all, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tail has supplied the images used by feminists to portray conservative Christian beliefs about gender roles in the most authoritarian light. Yet when it comes to girls and women in Islam, they cannot see the signal of subjection.
These garments reflect and reinforce gendered power dynamics that restrict women’s autonomy and enforce strict norms about female appearance and behavior. The emphasis on covering women’s bodies is a way to control their movement and visibility in public spaces, indicating that women’s honor and worth are tied to their sexual being, conceived of in highly reductive form. It’s a form of extreme objectification and sexualization. Rather than empowering women through autonomy and choice, the imposition of such garments perpetuate the idea that women must adhere to male-defined standards of conduct and modesty, limiting their freedom and reinforcing patriarchal structures that regulate and constrain their roles in society—oppression sublimated as divine commandment.
For readers who may object that my interpretation of what these garments represents is one of many possible ones, let’s return to the example of circumcision, which is driven by the same species of gender ideology with fewer, if any, alternative interpretations. Viewed through the lens of bodily autonomy and gender equality, circumcision, particularly when performed on infants or young children, involves irreversible alteration of the body without the individual’s consent, raising concerns about the ethics of non-consensual medical procedures. Like female circumcision, male circumcision is justified by cultural or religious norms, as well as a medical practice, (which generates several hundred million dollars annually).
Both practices, regardless of gender, represent a form of control over the body that reflect broader issues of gender roles and norms and power, with the key difference having been until recently that male circumcision is typically performed under the guise of health or religious benefits.
Today, that difference has disappeared. Recoded as “gender affirming care” (GAC), FGM/C performed on girls and women has been legalized in many parts of Western society, a reflection of influence of the neo-religion of transgenderism on law and policy. It is also a reflection of corporate power and the insatiable appetite for profit. One suspect that this explains in part the affinity we see between Islamists and transactivists in recent protest actions against Western civilization.
Or consider that, in the United States, certain food practices from other cultures are disallowed or heavily regulated due to concerns related to animal welfare and public health. The consumption of cat and dog meat is illegal across the US, reflecting a broader cultural and ethical stance against eating pets that is not universally shared but legislatively enforced. Additionally, the slaughtering of animals without prior stunning, such as with halal and kosher, is subject to strict regulations to ensure compliance with humane treatment standards. While these religious practices are permitted, they must adhere to specific guidelines to align with broader animal welfare laws.
But should these practices be permitted at all? These examples highlight the tension arising between respecting cultural diversity and upholding universal human rights and concern for animals. Critics argue that some rights are fundamental and should be protected regardless of cultural context. Not allowing the genital mutilation of girls is a prime example. Banning the burqa seems reasonable in this light, but not the hijab. The question is whether the cultural practice in question violates civil and human rights or public safety. Even if we acknowledge that cultural understanding is important, it should not be misused to excuse or perpetuate practices that infringe upon the basic rights and freedoms of individuals.
We can have out these arguments. Some of these examples are edge cases. A woman wearing Islamic clothing may be a choice of self-expression protected by the First Amendment. Mutilating the genitalia of a young Muslim girls is not protected by the Constitution. However, criticizing practices such as genital mutilation, the eating of cats and dogs, and the imposition of certain forms of modesty clothing is not inherently racist, despite the complex cultural contexts in which these practices occur. When people note and object to the ritual practices in Haiti of sacrificing cats to manifest the protective magic promised by Vodou, or of the taking of ducks and geese from public ponds, they are not racist for doing so. They are objecting to Haitian culture (just as woke progressives object to American culture).
Cultural relativism is problematic because it obscures the fact that not all cultural norms and practices are equally beneficial or equitable. Some practices, such as imposed gender inequality, can be harmful or oppressive. By prioritizing cultural respect or diversity without critical evaluation, cultural relativism permits destructive practices to go unchallenged. Accepting all cultural practices as equally valid impedes efforts to address and correct those harmful practices. Instead, a more critical approach is needed, one that evaluates cultural norms against universal human rights standards. By focusing on protecting fundamental rights and ensuring the well-being of all individuals, societies can better uphold the dignity and respect every person deserves.
What is Racism
Since culture is not race, cultural criticism is not racism. But what is racism? Racism is the belief that some races are inherently better than others, grounded in the idea that certain races possess traits that make them naturally superior. When it is claimed that genetic or physical characteristics such as body structure, facial features, and skin color are linked to differences in behavior, intelligence, and morality, and that these differences are said to express intrinsic capacities and proclivities, this is evidence of racist belief. Racism has been used historically to justify discrimination, exclusion, and inequality. As the reader can see, most accusations of racism don’t work with respect to immigration because the speech or actions being condemned as such are not based on race but on culture or economics.
If saying that one culture is better than another is not racism, then what is it? It’s cultural criticism. The critique is either valid or it’s not depending on the facts presented in light of the universal standard. Whereas we cannot say that one race is better than the others, we can say that one culture is better than another because this is an objective matter. Is the culture in question is adequate to human dignity and thriving, or does it fail these demands? Does the culture uplift the individual, or does it degrade her? Those elements of cultures that uplift should be protected and promoted. Those that degrade should be dissuaded; if bad enough, forbidden. Telling an African migrant residing in Dayton, Ohio, that he cannot feed his family cats is not an instance of racism by an act of asserting cultural value. The community is not discriminating against the migrant; it is demanding that the migrant align his behavior with the superior culture.
The Split Labor Market
Progressives, who represent the spirit of the corporate state, conflate race and culture in order to advance the capitalists strategy of superexploitation through, among other things, the split labor market. Split labor market theory, proposed by sociologist Edna Bonacich, explains how class divisions and economic competition contribute to racial and ethnic tensions in labor markets. Bonacich focuses on how the labor market is divided along racial or ethnic lines, creating a situation where different racial or ethnic groups are paid differently for the same work. These divisions often benefit employers who exploit the cheaper labor of marginalized racial groups while keeping wages low for all workers by fostering racial competition rather than class solidarity.
In a split labor market, workers are divided into at least two distinct groups: a higher-wage group, typically composed of native or dominant racial groups, and a lower-wage group, often made up of immigrants or racial minorities. Employers benefit from hiring workers from the lower-paid group because it reduces labor costs, as these workers are often willing to accept lower wages and poorer working conditions due to systemic discrimination or economic necessity. This creates resentment among the higher-paid workers, who view the lower-paid group as a threat to their economic stability. Crucially, their resentment is rooted in fact: the presence of immigrants does brings down the wages of all workers—indeed, that is the purpose of mass immigration. It is never the case that governments cannot keep millions of immigrations from crossing the borders they’re charged with defending. If there is mass immigration, it is because the government is allowing it.
The presence of cheap racialized labor undercuts the higher-wage group by diminishing their demand and bargaining power. As employers exploit the cheaper labor, the overall demand for higher-paid workers decreases, pushing them to accept lower wages or risk being replaced. Over time, this drives wages down across the labor market, weakening workers ability to negotiate better conditions. Additionally, employers use the availability of cheap labor to justify not improving working conditions for the entire workforce. This dynamic fosters racial conflict rather than class solidarity, as higher-wage workers resist the racialized labor force as competitors rather than allies. This division undermines collective efforts to secure better wages and conditions, exacerbating economic inequalities and tensions between racial groups.
In systems where workers are controlled by intermediaries who extract surplus value from their labor, economic autonomy is severely restricted, and their vulnerability is exploited. Haitian migrants sent to Springfield, Ohio to work in various industries through temp agencies illustrates this dynamic. In form, if not in substance, this is a species of indenture servitude.
A bit of background on this matter. The once-thriving manufacturing hub of Springfield experienced a sharp economic decline following the closure of its factories, with many jobs shifting overseas. By around 2015, the city’s population had plummeted to under 60,000, a significant drop from its peak of 80,000 during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The shrinking population meant that companies moving to the area would struggle to find labor.
Just as factories offshore to take advantages of cheap labor overseas, so factories bring foreigners to America to take advantage of their cheap labor here. The native born of Springfield, Ohio suffer globalization on both of its fronts. With a city government eager to prostitute itself to corporations, and a federal government eager to change the demographic composition of the nation for electoral and ideological purposes, Springfield was opened to thousands of Haitian immigrants. Estimates are that Haitians now comprise 25-30 percent of this small city.
The immigrants, primarily from Florida, Haiti, and South America, began arriving in Springfield as word spread through personal networks—family members, friends, and acquaintances—about the city’s urgent need for workers in sectors such as manufacturing, service industries, and warehousing. Employers encouraged their Haitian employees to bring others from their communities to Springfield.
Various Christian organizations eagerly participated. Community and Refugee and Immigration service (CRIS) is an independent non-profit organization that serves the refugee and immigrant populations in Central Ohio. CRIS, an affiliate of Church World Service, works with the Department of State to directly receive and place refugees in towns and cities in Ohio. Catholic Charities is another church organization involved in placing refugees in Ohio, as well as across America.
Many of these workers were given for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a federal designation that allows nationals from countries to remain in the US even if they entered the country illegally. This legal status made Haitian migrants particularly appealing to employers, as they could hire them for critical positions while staying within the bounds of immigration law.
This system of modern-day system of indenture servitude depends on an important intermediary in this labor dynamic: temporary staffing agencies. These agencies play a pivotal role in connecting immigrant workers to area businesses. Local firms are prohibited from directly hiring many of these migrants and must go through temp agencies to secure their labor. By contracting through these agencies, businesses avoid direct involvement in immigration compliance issues, as the agencies act as intermediaries, handling the legal complexities of employment authorization. The reliance on these staffing firms allows companies to meet labor needs while distancing themselves from the potential liabilities associated with hiring immigrant workers directly.
Temporary staffing agencies, then, form a critical link in this local economy, ensuring a steady flow of workers into industries that require manual labor rationalized as unattractive to the native population. The fact that temp agencies mediate the employment relationship reflects broader trends in labor markets where contingent and temporary work is increasingly normalized, especially in sectors reliant on immigrant labor. This arrangement allows employers to maintain flexibility in hiring while limiting their legal exposure, underscoring the complexities of labor in a post-industrial/re-industrializing city like Springfield.
Listen very carefully to what Brian Heck, city manager for the city of Springfield, Ohio, is telling the public about the situation in Springfield. He brags about how “our Springfield community is making notable progress that contributes to its growing appeal among new residents, including immigrants.” By progress he means development. “This development is underpinned by our city’s diverse and robust industrial base that encompasses the technology, automotive, food production, and distribution sectors. The growth in our workforce population has supported the expansion of local businesses, contributing to the stabilization of our local economy. Our commitment to promoting a business-friendly environment has attracted new enterprises to our region, and we will continue to focus on collaborating with industry leaders who seek to establish operations here.” In other words, the residents of Springfield are being subjected to chaos (the term “stabilization” here is meant in the neoliberal sense) for the sake of business interests.
Heck elaborates: “Springfield is at the forefront of advancements in aerospace technology, particularly in support of national defense. These technologies are set to enhance daily life in the coming decades.” What technologies are these? Weapons and other systems produced for the military-industrial complex—the war machine. “Springfield’s strategic location between the Columbus and Dayton markets,” he notes, “make [Springfield] a prime candidate for future development.”
Heck talks about “community partners” who the city is collaborating with to face the “challenges,” “strain on [the city’s] resources,” the influx of thousands of immigrants represent. I noted some of those community partners—the area businesses, church organizations, and temp agencies. The city is also “working with developers to increase our residential housing stock…. Over the next few years, we anticipate the addition of over 2,000 new housing units.” Presumably barracks for the migrant work force. Heck does not mention the corporations buying up housing to turn into rental property for migrants, a development that pushes out Springfield’s longtime residents.
In the case of indentured servitude, migrants were contracted for a fixed period, during which they had little or no control over the terms of their labor. They were often subject to harsh conditions, and although they were technically freed after their indenture expired, the system was designed to keep them in a subordinate, economically precarious position. This echoes the way temp agencies operate under contracts that block industries from directly hiring migrant workers, trapping them in temporary, often dangerous jobs. These workers might cycle through low-wage, insecure employment, with the agency skimming off a portion of the value produced by their labor—much like how the overseer in indentured servitude would appropriate much of the laborer’s productivity.
Moreover, both systems involve an external actor (the temp agency or the contract-holder in indentured servitude) controlling access to the labor market. This intermediary keeps the workers from realizing the full value of their labor or from negotiating better terms for themselves. The temp agency’s profit represents the appropriation of surplus value that would otherwise go to the worker, solidifying the analogy to indentured servitude, where the laborer was similarly denied full ownership of their output. In the modern instantiation of the system, the government plays a vastly expanded role, keeping the immigrant in subject by withholding his green card. When the migrant is no longer needed, he will be released to become one among the millions of illegal immigrants the Biden-Harris regime allowed in during their reign.
The exploitation of migrants under these conditions is what political economists called superexploitation, a condition where workers are subjected to extreme levels of exploitation beyond the norm; workers are not only exploited to an excessive degree but also face additional layers of oppression that exacerbate their exploitation. They are paid less than the market value of their labor under conditions where they have little bargaining power or are subjected to precarious employment. They face grueling working conditions, excessive hours, and unsafe environments. And they are forced to supplement their low wages by theft and other forms of criminality.
So what is the racism in this situation? What the Democrats are obscuring and defending: the racist exploitation of Haitian migrants.
freedom and reason 