Video feature
Dr. Joerg Rieger of Vanderbilt University delivered a keynote titled "Unite and Conquer in Order to Divide and Conquer: Religion, Race, and Class, and the Possibility of Solidarity in the US Then and Now." His message: solidarity isn’t an idealistic moral aspiration—it’s a necessary and materially grounded path forward for those pushed to the margins.
Rieger’s analysis centers on what he calls “unite-and-conquer” strategies—a twist on the familiar “divide-and-conquer” dynamic. Instead of simply breaking apart potential alliances among oppressed groups, he argued, dominant powers have also historically fabricated false solidarities—particularly through whiteness and nationalism—to unite some sectors of society (often white workers) with elites, thereby fracturing broader possibilities for solidarity across race and class lines.
Reflecting on the legacy of slavery in the United States, Rieger made clear that the economic system of the antebellum South harmed more than just those in bondage. Quoting Frederick Douglass, he reminded the audience that slavery impoverished white workers by forcing them into competition with unpaid labor. “Southern white workers earned less than Northern Black workers,” Rieger said, underscoring how the system maintained its power not only through direct oppression but also through fostering illusions of racial superiority among the poor.
These “unite-and-conquer” strategies, Rieger noted, live on in modern forms—from Nixon’s Southern Strategy to Trump-era populism—which use white supremacy to form voting majorities that paradoxically weaken the economic and political power of the very working-class whites they claim to champion.
Rieger’s framing sharply challenges the notion that racism primarily benefits all white people. Drawing on the work of scholars like Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Barbara Fields, he emphasized a vital distinction: white privilege is not the same as white power. “All white people have racial privilege,” he said, “but not all have systemic power.” This distinction, he argued, is crucial for building effective solidarity: while acknowledging the realities of racial privilege, we must not obscure the concentration of power among a tiny elite—often shielded by the myth that privilege itself equates to control.
In Rieger’s vision, real change can only come from what he calls “deep solidarity”—a solidarity rooted not in sameness or guilt, but in shared material interests and the common experiences of exploitation. “Solidarity does not mean being colorblind or erasing differences,” he said. “It means embracing those differences as strengths in the struggle against systems of domination.”
Religious traditions, especially Christianity, can play a transformative role in this rethinking of solidarity. But Rieger warned against the co-optation of faith by empire and nationalism. “The solidarity of the Right,” he said, “offers a theological justification of the status quo, equating the divine with dominant powers.” By contrast, the solidarity envisioned in the teachings of Jesus, the Hebrew prophets, and radical Christian thinkers like Paul subverts the logic of domination. It centers the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized.
In this light, theological solidarity does not demand conformity but insists on justice. Rieger cited Paul’s metaphor of the church as a body in which “if one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Cor 12:26), suggesting that true faith begins in the recognition of mutual vulnerability and shared struggle.
But building such solidarity requires honesty about power dynamics—even within progressive circles. Too often, Rieger warned, well-meaning white allies conflate privilege with the ability to dismantle systems of oppression on their own. This leads to burnout, guilt, and ultimately failure. “We need to shift from allyship to solidarity,” he argued, “which means sharing power, not just checking privilege.”
The presentation ended on a note both challenging and hopeful. Deep solidarity, Rieger asserted, is possible because the working majority—Black, brown, white, immigrant, LGBTQ+, women and men—share more in common than they’ve been led to believe. What they lack in top-down power, they make up for in numbers and potential collective strength.
“The dominant system won’t be overturned by moral clarity alone,” Rieger concluded. “But it can be challenged by a grounded, material solidarity that starts from below—where the pressures are greatest and the vision for change is clearest.”
In a conference filled with calls for unity, Rieger’s contribution served as a stark reminder that not all forms of unity are liberating. Sometimes, as he provocatively framed it, unite-and-conquer must be unmasked before true solidarity—deep, disruptive, and transformative—can be built.
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