Let's see if I can explain this clearly.
I agree that
Cynthia McKinney screwed up. She should have worn her lapel pin, she should have at least
mentioned that she was a member of Congress. Failing that, she should have shrieked and shrilled, but held back the punch (or slap, or poke, or whatever it is that the news media have not identified for us). OK. Stipulated.
But for a power-and-status researcher like me, McKinney's response is also wholly reasonable and natural. She is a member of Congress. She has campaigned and won her way to a very high status role in our society. Like most high-status people, I am sure she expects a certain amount of deference from others and an ongoing degree of privilege, freedom, autonomy in her actions and choices. High-status people expect others to grovel, to kowtow, to (frankly) kiss their asses. And although a Capitol police officer is also associated with the hallowed halls of privilege, although s/he has a good deal of
power (to strike, to arrest, or to detain), s/he is pretty low on the status totem pole. It must go without saying--probably without thinking--for members of Congress that the police will defer to them, will make nice to them, will obey their commands and acquiesce to them. After all, the members are the
raison d'etre for the police. The police are the ones who will take the bullet, and the members are those for whom it's taken. This is the status order. This is how it is supposed to work.
On the other hand, Cynthia McKinney is a black woman. A relatively young black woman. And now, a relatively young black woman with a wild hairstyle. She does not look like a member of Congress, according to our automatic associations. Several years ago, to my great shame, I organized a speaking panel (on race, no less!) and invited several faculty members from the University of Colorado to speak. It was all done over e-mail and I had met only one of them beforehand. The day of the talk, I went to the auditorium early, and a few people had already gathered. One was a young (20s-ish) black man wearing a traditional African cap and a black leather jacket. I nodded to him, friendly, and went to greet the one faculty member I knew. While I told him that he appeared to be the first one there, the young black man approached and introduced himself as another of the panel members. I had immediately processed him as
not a faculty member. Sure, there was the leather jacket--but I am also certain that my judgment was influenced by his being a young black man.
And so, Cynthia McKinney. She walks past the police and they do not see a Representative. She walks past them and they see a young black woman walking past. She may be well dressed; she may not be a criminal. But she is not supposed to do that, and they stop her. She may have the status role, but she does not have the status markers. She has earned the status, but it's not automatically given to her every day. Instead, she has to claim it, and claim it again, and wake up the next day and remind people that she has it, and claim it yet again.
In America, we are supposed to pretend that status differences don't exist. Although Donald Trump, or Warren Buffett, or Bill Gates may be ridiculously wealthy and have the opportunity to order and abuse just about anyone, they are supposed to joke about it, distance themselves from it; we are all supposed to proclaim that it doesn't happen. The "good" staff of a hotel serving celebrities is one in which the celebrities don't have to compel attentiveness; the staff is just there, ready to volunteer and anticipate, to satisfy the smallest whim before it must be crassly spoken aloud. Anyone who does demand the benefits of their privilege is privately scorned, seen as declasse.
And there is the bind in which Cynthia McKinney finds herself. She has one form of status, but another form of stigma. Because of the stigma, the privileges of status are denied to her. She can assert and claim them, but to do so is itself a violation of the social order. And so she must choose: be quiet and forego privilege? Be loud, claim the privilege, and get slapped down?
Again, I agree that she could have side-stepped the whole thing. But I also think the discussion has not been accurate. It wasn't about race, and it wasn't about her being "batshit crazy" (that's from Drudge--I won't give him the courtesy of a link). It was about all the undergrounded notions of power and status that permeate--but are kept under wraps in--our society.
