White Care

"Cotten Seiler argues that government investments in physical and social infrastructure constitute a regime of care that he calls "custodial liberalism." The New Deal was such a regime, creating a compact whereby the government's legitimacy derived from what it provided working-class whites. But as other people sought to avail themselves of that care, the regime changed. Whites not only denied that care to people of color but defined the regime away entirely, even for themselves. The rise of neoliberalism, insisting on the social autonomy of the individual, was driven by a racially charged desire to eradicate social responsibilities and society itself"--