I think being able to give good faith critiques to leftist policies and prevailing norms is a great thing (and I say that as someone with both feet firmly in that camp in the first place)....
Exemplary
I think being able to give good faith critiques to leftist policies and prevailing norms is a great thing (and I say that as someone with both feet firmly in that camp in the first place). However, I don’t think this article is a good how to.
One of my biggest problems with it is that it falls hook, line, and sinker for a partisan misdirection that sits at the center of its thesis. It, as nearly every article I’ve ever seen on leftists “going too far”, frames a reactionary right response as a logical, rational conclusion to that behavior. Example:
For example, when teachers at a private school in Manhattan tell white middle schoolers to “own” their “European ancestry,” they are more likely to create racists than anti-racists.
I’ve yet to read an article that reverses the accusation: that the reactionary right’s ridiculous actions are fueling the leftists who are “going too far.” Even when instances of this could be acknowledged, they get handwaved away. It’s not just this author who does this (though he does):
In recent years, parts of the right have started to denounce any concern about racism as being “woke” or an example of “critical race theory.” This right-wing hyperbole has, in turn, persuaded many reasonable people that critical race theory amounts to little more than a commendable determination to teach children about the history of slavery or to recognize that contemporary America still suffers from serious forms of discrimination. Critical race theory, they think, is simply a commitment to think critically about the terrible role that race continues to play in our society.
When the left goes too far, the author alleges, the left is responsible for creating racists. When the right goes too far, meanwhile, leftists are thus misguided and tasked with correcting our beliefs. At no point does any onus fall on the right for correcting their beliefs or being responsible for their own bad behavior. At no point is it considered that perhaps the leftists who are going too far are in fact a product of the right’s behaviors. Accountability is not fairly applied in these situations.
This is the same pattern I’ve seen over and over again in articles like this. It’s especially frustrating to me because the argument it supports — better outcomes will be achieved by the left being better — doesn’t match the environment we live in. Articles like this make lofty appeals to truth and nuance and critical thinking as if the informational environment we live in is one where people just have differences of opinion on the basis of shared facts, and leftists have, either deliberately or by attrition, forsaken that. This is not the case.
It is definitely true that some leftists go too far and play fast and loose with truth. Stories of that type do especially well on right-wing news sites, but what we also see is that, in the absence of stories like that, those same sites are content to just lie and push the same ideas anyway. As of mid-2022, roughly 70% of Republicans in the US still do not believe that Biden was legitimately elected in 2020, for example (if anyone has more current data, let me know and I’ll link it). I’m getting frustrated existing in an informational environment like this while continually being told I’m the one needing to do some soul-searching and self-flagellation. Furthermore, it’s especially frustrating to be told that because my (actually quite mild) beliefs are too extreme, I’m the cause of massive informational and prejudicial discrepancies for the “other side”.
If we leftists behave well and are more thoughtful and considered and empathetic, as articles like this always encourage us to be, we are still not going to change the tides on the right. It is infantilizing to assume that people on the right don’t have their own agency and responsibility as individuals, and framing everything they do as a “reaction” to things on the left is a patronizing yet seemingly omnipresent dodge of accountability for them.
I also, in the way this article accuses us of “creating racists”, think that a big part of what we’re experiencing in leftism is created by what’s going on on the right. Because so many people on the right have “gone too far”, they make milquetoast criticisms of leftist policies seem like they’re rooted in horrible and horrifying ideals. I would love to be able to critique what I see as a misguided antiracist policy without automatically sounding like I’m someone who would have stormed the Capitol, for example. Because so many people on the right have “gone too far”, we have people on the left proposing radical or ridiculous measures because they see that there is such a strong need for immediate and drastic action. I never see the opinion piece handwringing go in this direction though.
I would love to see an article that implores people on the right to be better behaved and then maybe leftists would be less radical. I would love to see someone put the same standards for intellectual honesty and rigor on the right as they do for us on the left. I would love someone to point out at length that it’s difficult to honestly critique leftist ideas in part because of how much pollution the right has pumped into that atmosphere. If these types of articles exist and I just haven’t seen them, please link them (this is not empty rhetoric, by the way: I genuinely do want to read them so please point me in their direction!). I spent a while reading right-wing news sites after being accused by a family member of living in a “liberal media bubble”, and I never saw an article like this one but with reversed perspectives. Everything was just an attack on the left. Everything.
Now, I say all of this out of frustration, but there’s a more important caution here that’s fully nonpartisan and has nothing at all to do with right vs. left but is something we’re all actively living with, all the time (and that will probably get worse):
Once misinformation and disinformation take hold in a group, there’s very little you can do to counterbalance that, because the people who disagree with you are not responding rationally to actual information. Furthermore, when the misinformation activates prejudice, your actions won’t be seen for what they actually are. Ask any trans person in the US about what that’s like right now.
So, while I discarded the idea that we leftists should “be better” for reasons related to the right, I do think the idea of being better on its own is fundamentally sound and crucially important. What happened on the right is a warning sign for us. They became unmoored from truth in part because they lost moderating voices. They gave way to the most extreme voices and policies, and they actively punished those who went against the party line, even when those people had very obvious truths on their side.
The left needs moderating voices not for the right, but for ourselves. This is incredibly hard to do, however, in part because of the general Twitterification of online and political discourse, but also because of all the stuff I mentioned earlier. I also think AI is about to drop us off an informational cliff. We were already watching entire segments of the population become completely disconnected from truth, and we now have extremely powerful, extremely accessible tools that can fabricate extremely convincing information in any form.
I love the idea of critiquing the left, and I think it’s vitally important. I already wish it were easier and less exhausting, but it feels like it’s only going to get harder and more difficult.
Who is the audience for this? Seemingly you are as you want to read it, but other than that, there's seemingly no audience for it. If you break things down into left-right politics, this type of...
Exemplary
I would love to see an article that implores people on the right to be better behaved and then maybe leftists would be less radical. I would love to see someone put the same standards for intellectual honesty and rigor on the right as they do for us on the left. I would love someone to point out at length that it’s difficult to honestly critique leftist ideas in part because of how much pollution the right has pumped into that atmosphere. If these types of articles exist and I just haven’t seen them, please link them (this is not empty rhetoric, by the way: I genuinely do want to read them so please point me in their direction!). I spent a while reading right-wing news sites after being accused by a family member of living in a “liberal media bubble”, and I never saw an article like this one but with reversed perspectives. Everything was just an attack on the left. Everything.
Who is the audience for this? Seemingly you are as you want to read it, but other than that, there's seemingly no audience for it. If you break things down into left-right politics, this type of messaging you're asking about would seemingly target the right. But if such messaging gets no reception, then the messaging will be abandoned quickly. So the only way for the message to exist after that would be if there were another audience for it. I'm not going to get into discussing theories or possible reasons why they aren't receptive to it, but to the extent that they seemingly aren't. Beyond that, I don't know if the right's lack of reception to that messaging precludes the need of the left to have that messaging.
I’ve yet to read an article that reverses the accusation: that the reactionary right’s ridiculous actions are fueling the leftists who are “going too far.”
The only audience for this would seemingly be the left, but then it would be seen as a critique of the left. I'm not sure it would escape the criticism you've approached this with. If the audience of this messaging is the left, it's simply calling out the left as reactionaries. In a way, this article is that, but it's targeting the "moderate" left that become reactionaries to the leftists going too far than it is targeting the leftists going too far as being reactionaries of the right extremism. In a way, some of these things become antithetical to what you'd expect because of the groups one associates with. The moderate left that becomes reactionaries to the extreme left do this because they're in leftist groups as that's what they had/have more in common with.
I don't know if it exists on Tildes, but I've seen very little in the way of right-politicking. I don't know if that's partly a moderation thing, or if it's just reality that there's few on the right who want to participate in the type of conversation styles that exist on here, or if they are here but exist in such small numbers they get drowned out. I guess I say this to highlight our perspective becomes tilted by what we're more exposed to. We're not exposed to extreme right conversation here because it's not tolerated (a good thing if I have to clarify), and moderate right to what extent it exists doesn't seem to have much here, so it seems inevitable that this type of article is what we'd see rather than something else. Is it possible to define moderate right without it seeming extreme or if its not is that a reflection of the right or ourselves? I'm sincerely not attempting to antagonize by meta-ing this, but some of the threads I've seen locked on this site would presumably be more defined as moderate right but the ideas result in antagonized conversations. I'd be curious if there was some meta thread on locked topics, not discussing the content that got them locked but some kind of analysis of patterns between them or if there's consistent messaging in them, but of course that has too much potential to become some other kind of beast that would end up needing locked itself (which isn't fair to Deimos to start such things in part because it could be seen as a critique of what he locks but also because it creates more work for him to create things that seemingly can go off the rails quickly).
To go back to what I was saying, much of our perspective is rooted not in a balanced framing of ideas or other perspectives, but seemingly become relative to other things. I often wonder how much my perspectives are influenced because I constantly have to talk in terms of left-right politics and what the Democrats are doing versus the Republicans, all because the US political system has no ability to support anything else, but at the same time I have no idea what discourse looks like outside the US-sphere, specifically in regions that might have more diverse political systems. In the US political system I feel like I'm often fighting a battle to all political "sides" because there's only two and it's hard to just do anything without having to be reactionary to something, because there's no official group to represent more specific viewpoints. I could be wrong but I feel as if there was more of a coalition based system that centered around distinctly different political parties, it would make it so the representatives have the responsibility of finding common ground and doing more of the fighting, on a personal level I don't need to fight over who represents the left broadly, I just find someone that represents me, and they fight over who represents the common ground among the left. Then I wouldn't feel as though I'm being so reactionary. Couple this with the institutions that are elected by land rather than people, on an individual level it's hard to remind yourself that more weight is given to less popular ideas because of how the system gives them more voting power.
This is the same pattern I’ve seen over and over again in articles like this. It’s especially frustrating to me because the argument it supports — better outcomes will be achieved by the left being better — doesn’t match the environment we live in. Articles like this make lofty appeals to truth and nuance and critical thinking as if the informational environment we live in is one where people just have differences of opinion on the basis of shared facts, and leftists have, either deliberately or by attrition, forsaken that. This is not the case.
I don't think I came away with the same interpretation that the article suggests that. I came away with it more that on an individual level, and individually we create the collective, that we can be better and thus make the collective better by not being reactionary. I think as the article suggests, it was targeting more of a moderate audience because extreme audiences aren't going to be receptive. As it seems there isn't much of a moderate right audience, it might explain why it's targeting moderate left. I think it could have done a better job providing examples of how the right could argue against identity politics to provide balance even if the only audience is on the left, as you did mention that it was rather imbalanced in its criticism. The onus isn't only on the left, but if there's no significant moderate right voices, perhaps the onus is only on the left.
Thanks for this thoughtful response, Grumble. It gave me a lot to think about, and I had to read it several times to really process it and consider it deeply. I think your question about audience,...
Thanks for this thoughtful response, Grumble. It gave me a lot to think about, and I had to read it several times to really process it and consider it deeply.
I think your question about audience, as well as your noting of a hollowing out of the moderate right capture part of why I was so frustrated by this piece. When I'm asking for a piece that reverses the perspectives, I'm wanting to see a thoughtful, moderating voice for the right -- a piece that points to the extremism on their side and says "hey, maybe the reason leftists are responding in such ridiculous ways is because of what we're doing?" Honestly, part of it is just me being petty, but another part of me thinks that we've let the rhetoric of "extremism on one side is the cause of it for the other" go in only one direction for far too long that seeing a reversal would be a simple sanity check on the concept as a whole.
The absence of something like that could simply be my lack of exposure to things, but it's not for lack of trying. I genuinely did read right wing news sources for a while as an experiment in getting out of my own lane to see what I was missing. What I found was disheartening though -- moderating voices on the right were seemingly nowhere to be found. Extremism, prejudice, and malice against others were omnipresent on the right-wing sites I read. Furthermore, they were largely celebrated, and they were almost always framed in a responsive/defensive way to something that the left did, which I believe is just a smokescreen for deliberately bad behavior.
The absence of these voices are, I think, the same hollow that you noted. There's seemingly no appetite for moderating voices on the right. I would occasionally wander into the comments sections on the news sites, and even gentle pushback was shouted down and drowned out. In that regard, what I've done here is effectively wrong. I believe in the need for moderating voices on the left, but I pretty much just shouted down this author when he was attempting to do exactly that.
You question whether we're the ones drowning out the moderate right here, and that's honestly a really good question. It's entirely possible (maybe even probable?) that we are, as I've definitely seen some people who are quick to jump on something that even looks slightly right-aligned. The part of me that loves Tildes and the discussion culture we've created here thinks this is wrong and violates our principles of charity and good faith.
I'll be honest though, there's a beleaguered internet person part of me that rolls my eyes at how naive that sounds. Part of the strategy of the right has been to troll and play shell games with their actual positions online, either because they know the position is unpopular and thus have to mask it, or because trolling the left has been seen as valuable discourse online ever since the alt-right pretty much adopted it as their official strategy. I think a big part of the reason why some people are ready to jump on anything that sounds even mildly conservative is that we've been in countless other situations where we didn't and us and our wider communities have suffered for it.
I would argue that phenomenon is a good example of what I would like to see in my hypothetical moderating op-ed from the right side: someone arguing that bad faith tactics and harboring of hatred are causing a sort of "overfitting" on the left which is destroying the image of moderate conservatives and denying them their say. Maybe by changing those things on the right, the left would respond differently? It's a logical road to walk down if we assume the same framework (which, for the record, I don't, but this is rhetorical). So, why don't we see it?
I don't like the answer that I have to that question, because it sounds extremist to say it on my part, but I honestly feel that much of the American right has become completely disconnected from moderating factors. I also worry that the left is slowly walking down that same path. And, like I said in my original post, I worry that technological advances are about to accelerate the hollowing of moderation like we've never seen before.
You talked about the influence of hyperpartisan US politics on you and how it feels like you're battling on all sides. I feel that pretty strongly. My comment above is the first one of its type in a while, and it's actually the kind of thing I'm ultimately trying to get away from here. There was an article similar to this one two years ago here, and I posted something similar to what I did in this thread. I then came back to the thread and posted a follow up:
This internet landscape is not new, but it used to feel invigorating for me. I've put a lot of time and effort into participating in it.
But I can't deny that right now, being apart from it felt better, and returning to it has made me feel simply tired and unhappy.
I'm going to leave what I wrote above, but I don't know how much more I want to make comments of that type on topics of this type. I feel like I'm worse off for writing what I did despite the fact that I believe in what I wrote.
That holds true now, too, two years later, with this thread. Every time I talk about US politics or even write the words "right" and "left" I find myself deeply tired and unfulfilled and in a way that is cheekily apt given our discussion: feeling hollowed out. For some reason though, I keep coming back to stuff like this. It's like picking at a scab instead of just letting it heal.
Even though I didn't get any negative responses in this topic, the mere idea of them still has subtantial occupancy in my head. I anticipate and mull over potential takedowns, conflicts, and arguments I could conceivably get into, even when they don't actually happen (which they didn't -- at least so far). When I first loaded up your comment and saw its length I had an "oh shit I'm now in a comment war" feeling that I used to get all the time back on reddit, but as I read what you wrote, it quicky became clear that it's not coming from a place of malice at all but of intellectual honesty for you. You wanted to share your perspective, and that you chose to do that with me is valuable and enriching. Thank you for reading what I wrote and taking all of the time that you did to respond in a kind and thoughtful way.
Despite that though, I can't shake the reality that every single time I make a comment like the one I did above, I feel measurably worse, often without reason. Also, that bad feeling persists longer than it should. I had a genuinely wonderful weekend, but I chose to make my comment on Saturday morning and in moments that followed that day, where my brain was quiet or there was some downtime, I found the specter of it poking through and making my wonderful weekend slightly but measurably worse. I had to consciously choose to not check my phone and focus on what I was doing, because there was a non-negligible "pull" to look at responses and the vote count and whatnot. I ultimately wish I hadn't written it in the first place. My weekend would have been better for it.
This has absolutely nothing to do with you or anyone else here -- it's a hangup I have in my head, and I don't know why it's there or what to do about it. I do know I'm tired of the battle you identified -- our shared American conceptual warscape.
Why I keep coming back to it when it makes me feel like shit remains a mystery to me.
In my view, it’s not that the left is “going too far” that is resulting in racists, but this new focus on thinking about ourselves and everyone around us through the lens of race has the effect of...
For example, when teachers at a private school in Manhattan tell white middle schoolers to “own” their “European ancestry,” they are more likely to create racists than anti-racists.
I’ve yet to read an article that reverses the accusation: that the reactionary right’s ridiculous actions are fueling the leftists who are “going too far.” Even when instances of this could be acknowledged, they get handwaved away. It’s not just this author who does this (though he does):
In my view, it’s not that the left is “going too far” that is resulting in racists, but this new focus on thinking about ourselves and everyone around us through the lens of race has the effect of “othering” people rather than bringing us together. That is to say, you can’t be a white supremacist without first having a sense of white identity.
But why is it important that we tell kids that their skin colour or place of origin is an important part of their identity? I think that a sense of racial or national identity, in any form (pride, shame, or otherwise) is toxic. It’s an artificial discriminating concept that is at best benign and at worst a seed around which extreme ideologies take hold.
America is a unique place because our history as a cultural melting pot. It is futile to ignore those differences in culture, because they will persist regardless. An American child from an...
America is a unique place because our history as a cultural melting pot. It is futile to ignore those differences in culture, because they will persist regardless. An American child from an immigrant family will grow up steeped in their family’s culture. It is a part of them.
When I was growing up as a young white man the predominant view among white Americans is that white American culture is the “default” culture of America. The big thing at the time was “color blindness”, you’d often hear people say “I don’t see race.” But in reality, “color blindness” is kind of the ultimate othering. It separates the person from their culture. It implies that they can somehow rise above their immigrant heritage and become a part of the white default culture. This is especially confusing for children of immigrants growing up in America as they have to find ways to balance their American side and their cultural side, and often feel like they don’t fully belong in either.
I am in an interracial marriage with the daughter of an immigrant family and she’s talked to me about this at great length. She’s told me about the shame of bringing her family’s cultural food to school where she was made fun of for it. She’s also told me about the shame she has not knowing her family’s language and how she is left out of conversations at family gatherings. She is stuck between worlds being a part of both and neither.
With time, and hard work, she has come to accept who she is, but it was not easy. Of her entire life she has been bombarded by a culture that never fully accepted her, which also informed her ideas of what it means to be American. She had to unlearn a lot of things that were deeply ingrained in her by growing up in America. She is finally starting to reconnect with her family at home and abroad, and she has pride in herself and an understanding of who she is now. She’s a happier and healthier person.
All of this is to say I think it is naive to say we should just stop looking at things through the lens of race when race is so much more than just the tone of your skin. It is about culture and also individuality. I think it is really easy for white people to say “I wish we could all just stop talking about race” because white people have never really been othered the way that other cultures in America have.
Race is a made up construct. Biologically speaking, we are all basically the same and skin tone is no different than eye color or hair color. But culturally it is a very real thing that has very real effects on people’s lives. We shouldn’t ignore race, or really, culture. Instead we should be embracing it, celebrating it. This is why things like representation in media matter. So we can be exposed to those differences between us and learn not to fear them.
This is still where I'm at, and what I think is the ideal. I'm an interracial person. Absolutely agree. We really should ignore race. Like, really. Because, and that's a problem, that we should be...
The big thing at the time was “color blindness”
This is still where I'm at, and what I think is the ideal.
I am in an interracial marriage
I'm an interracial person.
Race is a made up construct. Biologically speaking, we are all basically the same and skin tone is no different than eye color or hair color.
Absolutely agree.
But culturally it is a very real thing that has very real effects on people’s lives. We shouldn’t ignore race, or really, culture. Instead we should be embracing it, celebrating it.
We really should ignore race. Like, really. Because,
But culturally it is a very real thing that has very real effects on people’s lives.
and that's a problem, that we should be addressing. I think we're going about this in the wrong way, by elevating race into a primary characteristic for people when it should be at best secondary, or tertiary like eye color or being left/right handed.
There is biological “race” (fake; simply different expressions of phenotype) and then there is culture. Unfortunately, the fake concept of race and the real concept of culture are inherently...
There is biological “race” (fake; simply different expressions of phenotype) and then there is culture. Unfortunately, the fake concept of race and the real concept of culture are inherently tangled in modern American culture. But color blindness focuses only on the fake concept of race, and erases the real concept of culture, asking all people to conform to the default white American monoculture. That, to me, sounds like a boring world.
And you do have to ask, is the racists’ problem with other races really more about the skin tone or the culture? I think the fact that you see non-white people participate in white supremacist groups tells us that white racists are willing to accept non-white people if those people are willing to abandon their culture and embrace the white American monoculture.
And so in response to white supremacy why wouldn’t we elevate and celebrate non-white cultures? We shouldn’t ignore our differences, but we should accept them. We need to raise the next generation not in color blind world but instead a gloriously chromatic world where we don’t foster fear of others, or erasure and conformity of culture, but rather acceptance, compassion, and curiosity.
...and as long as they're useful. The more powerful white supremacists become, the tighter the circle of suitable allies become, and non-white allies are the first to go. Non-white people are...
I think the fact that you see non-white people participate in white supremacist groups tells us that white racists are willing to accept non-white people if those people are willing to abandon their culture and embrace the white American monoculture.
...and as long as they're useful. The more powerful white supremacists become, the tighter the circle of suitable allies become, and non-white allies are the first to go. Non-white people are tolerated in these groups at times more because they're useful than because they've successfully assimilated imo.
The rhetoric may be that "if they abandon their culture we'll welcome them", but I have my doubts. History is full of people being shot because they had the wrong skin color and no significant...
The rhetoric may be that "if they abandon their culture we'll welcome them", but I have my doubts. History is full of people being shot because they had the wrong skin color and no significant cultural markers. Or being standing in queue forever waiting to get into a bar just because of their skin color while speaking the local language natively, etc.
What you are proposing doesn’t work. We’ve tried it and it arguably made things worse because it provides plausible deniability for systemic racism and so it gets handwaved away and doesn’t ever...
What you are proposing doesn’t work. We’ve tried it and it arguably made things worse because it provides plausible deniability for systemic racism and so it gets handwaved away and doesn’t ever get addressed. Look at how many people were surprised at how upset people were at the police when BLM came around.
I would strongly recommend reading the book Racism Without Racists by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, which covers this topic in detail.
Bigotry has changed a lot, it's less extreme than it was in the past. I think that, in absence of fostering it, bigotry will fade. However, it is also easy to foster. And there are still plenty of...
Bigotry has changed a lot, it's less extreme than it was in the past. I think that, in absence of fostering it, bigotry will fade.
However, it is also easy to foster. And there are still plenty of bad actors actively doing so.
It takes ever-present vigilance to keep those fostering forces at bay.
It seems a distinction without a difference, but I think it's an important one: Bigotry has a lot less power when you take away the megaphone.
I mean what time period would you like to look at? There used to be literal slavery in America, so I think it’s a given that the post-slavery era has less discrimination. The Ku Klux Klan used to...
I mean what time period would you like to look at? There used to be literal slavery in America, so I think it’s a given that the post-slavery era has less discrimination. The Ku Klux Klan used to be a meaningful organization, and now it’s not. The Jim Crow era ended in the 60s. My family grew up in a concentration camp in Canada — I don’t think that will happen again.
If you want to look at some numbers, 2022 was the lowest level of black poverty since we started measuring it in 1959.
Black high school educational achievement has nearly matched whites.
But the most striking social shift is the shrinking of the high school attainment gap between Blacks and the national average.
In 1940, when the U.S. Census Bureau started asking about educational attainment, only 7% of Blacks had a high school education, compared with 24% for the nation as a whole.
In recent years, Black educational attainment has been much closer to the national average and today, 88% of Blacks or African Americans have a high school diploma, just shy of the national average, according to census data released last month from the Current Population Survey.
Perfect! Thank you for your answer because it gives me a better understanding of what it is you think. The problem I have with your opinion is that your bar of acceptable progress is far too low....
Perfect! Thank you for your answer because it gives me a better understanding of what it is you think.
The problem I have with your opinion is that your bar of acceptable progress is far too low. The first thing you mention is Slavery! And while that's clearly not what your baseline actually is, the fact that you even mention it acts to lower expectations - weather or not you intended it to be that way. And even then, you start off with data that begins in 1959, before the end of segregation and the enactment of the Civil Rights act in 1964, a landmark event that would see huge improvements in the coming years.
Just look at that graph of Black poverty and you can see that it's gone down, but there were many times when it went up as well. And I think this graph is a pretty good refutation of your endorsement of racial colorblindness. That ideology started even before the end of segregation, but perhaps it reached it's peak in 1963 when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech where he produced that famous quote, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." But to get back to the point, the part of that graph that I think is most telling is the tail end, where circa 2015 it trends sharply downward.
Why do you think that it went down? What happened in those years that might have had such a huge effect on black people? I think I've got a pretty good idea of why. In 2013, George Zimmerman gets acquitted for the murder of Treyvon Martin. This spawns the beginning of the twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. The murders of Eric Garner and George Floyd in 2014 and 2020 launch Black Lives Matter as a political movement with demonstrations not only across the United States, but around the globe. Racial colorblindness effectively became impossible, and it caused marked improvements in the lives of black people.
If you'd like to read more about this, Wikipedia does have a rather disputed article on the matter that is worth reading even though it's kind of messy, just as an overview of the ideas, but I would rather you read an in-depth book about the topic such as the one I mentioned earlier or perhaps Ibram X. Kendi's How to be an Anti-Racist.
I have to disagree with your analysis of that poverty graph. It’s evident that the factor resulting in increases in poverty are the clearly marked recessions— in periods of non-recession,...
I have to disagree with your analysis of that poverty graph. It’s evident that the factor resulting in increases in poverty are the clearly marked recessions— in periods of non-recession, reductions in black poverty are steady.
I’m not sure why you would choose 1963 as the peak of colour blindness. That was around the time when it just broke into the mainstream. It only got more widespread after that point.
I wouldn’t characterize my view on this as being “acceptable progress” but rather an acknowledgment that there is in fact progress. I recognize that you feel this is unacceptable progress and you are frustrated. However, I don’t agree that the current course we are on where we are putting undue emphasis on our differences and explicitly emphasizing and celebrating racial identity is an improvement and I think it is going to result in worse outcomes than the previous course.
You’re not quite getting what I mean, but I don’t blame you because writing that was literally the first thing I did this morning and frankly I have more thoughts on this than would make sense to...
You’re not quite getting what I mean, but I don’t blame you because writing that was literally the first thing I did this morning and frankly I have more thoughts on this than would make sense to put into a comment. That’s why I’m urging you to read a book on the matter.
One of the grander ideas I was thinking about but didn’t actually get put into that comment is that the effects of racism tends to get moved around rather than eliminated. That was why I brought up reconstruction. Slavery became illegal, yes, but that didn’t exactly mean that black people became free. Life is extremely complex, and as such no one factor is going to completely explain away the end of racism.
The timeline of progress on racism has been extremely long, and we have seen countless people who have died without seeing it resolved. As far as I’m concerned, there really is no excuse for this. There is no acceptable reason why Black people are facing a legal and penal system that disproportionately punishes them. And of course I’m not saying that you are making the counter argument, but pointing out that we’ve had small, incremental changes that have improved things doesn’t really help the people who are suffering today. And as I’ve already stated, racial colorblindness only serves to make the issues less visible, which means that they are less likely to actually be addressed.
Just want to say reading through it feels like you kind of moved the goalposts on the person you're responding to. Initially you asked them what metrics or timeframes support their prior assertion...
Just want to say reading through it feels like you kind of moved the goalposts on the person you're responding to. Initially you asked them what metrics or timeframes support their prior assertion that discrimination has "vastly decreased over time" and when they mention slavery as a starting point, its used against them in a way that feels disingenuous considering the question that was asked of them. If racism/discrimination was easy to quantify in a way that can't be contested, then sure, it might make sense to pick on them for going back to that point to start, but it isn't that easy. It seems they went for key differentiators from what we see today that are visibly different indications of how society has changed in its treatment of black people to back their prior assertion.
One of the grander ideas I was thinking about but didn’t actually get put into that comment is that the effects of racism tends to get moved around rather than eliminated. That was why I brought up reconstruction. Slavery became illegal, yes, but that didn’t exactly mean that black people became free.
The timeline of progress on racism has been extremely long, and we have seen countless people who have died without seeing it resolved. As far as I’m concerned, there really is no excuse for this.
Ideally that would be true. You previously mentioned MLK, his letter from a Birmingham jail addresses this idea rather pointedly. Yet the slow march of progress is what remains. From what I've learned of history (and I'm certainly not claiming to be a history buff), the only "fast progress" if there is such a thing, results in many dead people. At times when I've read about the American Civil War, and what happened after that, it actually kind of blows my mind how on the one hand it's a huge marker of progress, it ended slavery, but the compromises to achieve that ending resulted in racism being "moved around" as you said. But if we go back to what you said, that slow progress is unacceptable, to achieve something better than that, go ahead and rewrite history as you see it to achieve that. Pick an easy starting point, the Civil War. If it's even possible, it means having such resolute power or enough people in the North who believe this that many of them would willingly give their lives to eradicate the remaining people in the South. Instead of moving racism around post-civil war, rewrite history right here to end racism completely. Of course it's not even as simple or straightforward as all the good people were in the North and all the bad people were in the South, but it illustrates what extremes humans would likely have to go through to achieve this "acceptable" speed of progress.
There is no acceptable reason why Black people are facing a legal and penal system that disproportionately punishes them.
I find it interesting you frame it like this on this particular subject, because the legal and penal system isn't just broken for black people. This isn't an 'all lives matter' rhetoric or anything like that, my point in mentioning that is to showcase how humans can't achieve acceptable progress for anyone. The legal and penal system is so broken it's the anti-justice system in my view. The notion that everyone gets a fair trial doesn't exist, it's a fairy tale. ~95% of people are forced into plea bargains, the system literally could not function without them.
Just to be crystal clear, that doesn't mean we should accept that what progress we have made shouldn't be available to everyone rather than some races being left out of that progress. Everyone should experience that progress.
I'm only highlighting that humanity has numerous phases of "unacceptable progress" and it's not exclusive to racism/discrimination. That tells me humans are bad at progress, not that humans are only bad at progress when it comes to race.
I sincerely didn't mean to employ any rhetorical trickery. When I was asking for what metrics they were thinking of, I meant it more as a way to gauge where they were coming from so I knew where...
I sincerely didn't mean to employ any rhetorical trickery. When I was asking for what metrics they were thinking of, I meant it more as a way to gauge where they were coming from so I knew where to go from there.
I agree with everything you said, especially in regards to the overall justice system being broken for everyone.
I suppose that overall my message is that we should not rely on messaging that causes us to rest on our laurels; we need to continue pushing hard for things that will improve the lives of ourselves and those around us. That is why I am so against the idea of racial colorblindness.
I agree with this, but I don't think it extends to culture. Race and nationality are meaningless and usually used as tools of oppression, while culture is something inherent to humans. I don't...
I think that a sense of racial or national identity, in any form (pride, shame, or otherwise) is toxic.
I agree with this, but I don't think it extends to culture. Race and nationality are meaningless and usually used as tools of oppression, while culture is something inherent to humans. I don't think there's anything wrong with a group of people sharing a set of beliefs, food, clothing, etc.
I think it's okay to be proud of your Irish, Italian, English, Polish, etc. culture, but there's no "white culture". That's what I feel is toxic.
There's white culture, and I can best explain it from the words of the most "colorblindness is good" believer I know. "Black people just need to let go of their culture if they're ever going to be...
There's white culture, and I can best explain it from the words of the most "colorblindness is good" believer I know.
"Black people just need to let go of their culture if they're ever going to be successful in America."
White culture is about feeling superiour about anything another culture does different, and otherizing that culture. Kind of like drawing a dot by placing dots all around a piece of paper except for one area.
The issue with that framing, and I think it's getting at something very important, is just how unreliably it tracks with the "whiteness" of people. Plenty of people of colour have internalised...
The issue with that framing, and I think it's getting at something very important, is just how unreliably it tracks with the "whiteness" of people. Plenty of people of colour have internalised this sort of "Western" chauvinism, and plenty of white people grew up without it. Every other thing we call a culture, in that sense, implies that it's the soil from which all members can be specified by, rather than a diffuse memetic attitude.
People use skin tones as synecdoche for the chauvinism and power dynamics all the time, how does your definition do anything but reinforce that conflation? That's my issue. Edit: Just in case it...
People use skin tones as synecdoche for the chauvinism and power dynamics all the time, how does your definition do anything but reinforce that conflation? That's my issue.
Edit: Just in case it was ambiguous, what you have rephrased here is exactly what I meant was "getting at something very important".
Thank you. I've been struggling to express my convoluted frustration with articles like this, and this puts a large part of it pretty perfectly.
I’m getting frustrated existing in an informational environment like this while continually being told I’m the one needing to do some soul-searching and self-flagellation. Furthermore, it’s especially frustrating to be told that, because my (actually quite mild) beliefs are too extreme, I’m the cause of massive informational and prejudicial discrepancies for the “other side”.
If we leftists behave well and are more thoughtful and considered and empathetic, as articles like this always encourage us to be, we are still not going to change the tides on the right.
Thank you. I've been struggling to express my convoluted frustration with articles like this, and this puts a large part of it pretty perfectly.
The way I remember the 2016 election was that all of the other candidates were going to donors and walking away with big wads of cash as long as they signed off on a long list of issues that were...
The way I remember the 2016 election was that all of the other candidates were going to donors and walking away with big wads of cash as long as they signed off on a long list of issues that were more popular with the donors than with voters. In that situation it was hard for any candidate to really stand out.
Trump did stand out because he wasn't going to those donors for a hand-out so he was free to put together his own platform and he put in one issue, opposition to immigration, that was popular with the Republican base but had been suppressed by Republican elites and that helped him look different from all the others.
Elected Republicans are terrified today of primary challenges and they know the base is loyal to Trump and that the "election was stolen" meme really "rings true" to many primary voters. Even if they were themselves victims of the Jan 6 attack they still don't feel like they can separate themselves from Jan 6.
One of the good things Trump did was he greased the skids for private COVID-19 development and guaranteed that the government would buy millions of doses. Had he gone around the country in 2021, took credit for the vaccine and vigorously supported people getting the vaccine a lot of people in red states might have listened to him and got vaccinated. I think he didn't do it thought because he was afraid of anti-vax sentiment in the same way other Republicans are afraid to disown Jan 6, "stop the steal" and all that.
I'm not sure the Republicans have another person quite like Trump or if they're going to ever be able to succeed in the same way when he is out of the picture. Phillip Bump in his book The Aftermath points out that the population is gradually becoming less white and the strategy of "whites vs everyone else" is not going to keep being a winner. In fact, many Republican strategists thought that Mitt Romney's loss in 2012 was a sign they needed to broaden their appeal but Trump has the charisma to make it work one last time. (We hope)
Republicans might want to make 2024 a replay of 2016 but 2028 will certainly not be that. Republicans are going to be forced to broaden their appeal and so will Democrats in that it is not sustainable that they will do as well with minorities as they have and they will have to do better with working class whites.
You neglect what I believe is very important, the poisoned well. So many engage in overtly bad faith argumentation, and the same issue is rehashed endlessly (a classic media tactic on both sides...
You neglect what I believe is very important, the poisoned well. So many engage in overtly bad faith argumentation, and the same issue is rehashed endlessly (a classic media tactic on both sides but even more so on the right, with its strict adherence to labeling and nicknames and confrontational editorials), that those who may be in an innocent place of curiosity will be met with derision by those who are used to seemingly polite questions coming from or morphing into massively hateful ones.
I believe that the divisive nature of media, but especially offensive-friendly Republican media, poisons the well by being so inflammatory that ordinary or moderate people would rather plug their ears than listen to political analyses. both-sidesism is another goal of this scheme. To exhaust people or otherwise convince them both sides are equally wrongful.
As others have pointed out, this author may not have used the best quotes. Still, I will say that there is some truth in all of this, even if it's hard to pin down. As an example, I have recently...
As others have pointed out, this author may not have used the best quotes. Still, I will say that there is some truth in all of this, even if it's hard to pin down.
As an example, I have recently had a hard time teaching some of what is being written into the curriculum at the school where I teach. They aren't going overboard like you read on Fox News. Nobody is forcing kids to hate white people or reassess their own gender identity. Nobody is allowing kids to use litter boxes at school because they identify as a cat (yes, this was actually falsely reported by conservative news outlets).
But...we do focus very heavily on the struggles of Black Americans when teaching the humanities. Our American History classes are mostly sad and guilt-inducing now. The only time America is seen as good is during World War 2.
I have so many white kids who are living with grandma because their parents are dead or addicted to heroin. The kids often have substance abuse issues themselves, depression, food insecurity, nobody making rules for them or loving them, etc.
Then I have to do our unit on Zip Codes (white privilege) and it just feels bad. Yet, I still think it's so important. I do explain that not everyone has the same privilege, and that privilege is often based on factors other than race. I give Appalachia as an example of a largely white community that has similar struggles to the black communities. But I'm conflicted. And I have heard other teachers I work with get very offended by some of what we are learning. A lot of them are just old/out of touch and I don't care that they're offended. But other times they're just politically neutral people - people who have a problem with the killing of unarmed black men, and who want the world to be better for people of all colors and creeds - who feel their own struggles are just being ignored. Like, "Hey, I went into massive, life-ruining debt to be a teacher because my family had nothing. I had a single mom who had a really hard life. Why am I being told that I'm privileged?"
Those instances do bother me. Perhaps we need to find ways to continue teaching these truths without them consuming the rest of the curriculum. I also think focusing on class/power might be more important than race in 2023 as well. Though I say that cautiously because race is absolutely still a factor.
I always say schools are a reflection of what's going on in society. I think my situation in education reflects what a lot of people are feeling in society as a whole.
I'm British for reference. On the Internet, anytime the Empire is mentioned there is always some absolute trogladite who sits there going "WHY ISN'T THIS TAUGHT IN SCHOOL!?!" as if British kids...
But...we do focus very heavily on the struggles of Black Americans when teaching the humanities. Our American History classes are mostly sad and guilt-inducing now. The only time America is seen as good is during World War 2.
I'm British for reference.
On the Internet, anytime the Empire is mentioned there is always some absolute trogladite who sits there going "WHY ISN'T THIS TAUGHT IN SCHOOL!?!" as if British kids should constantly feel shameful for the past of our ancestors. It gets exhausting having to constantly remind people that history IS massive, nuanced and ridiculous for some places. Or reminding folks that the vast majority of the kids who got taught this? Their ancestors were just as fucked and oppressed by a wealthy elite then as the slaves were in America... There's an island on the other side of the world that we deemed to tear people from their lives and dump them their because they were 'criminals' in the eyes of an establishment. It's not slavery, but my God is it repulsive behaviour. Yet it's seen okay to joke about. People were ground through mills and worked to death, if you couldn't work you ended up in a poor house, destitute or dying on the streets. Did they get whipped to death? No. Did they get their lives broken because of an elite who wanted more capital? Absolutely.
World War 2 is a great topic for the British. "We stood up the Jerries!" said mostly by people in their 60's and 70's these days... Americans get the same issue I think.
Then I have to do our unit on Zip Codes (white privilege) and it just feels bad. Yet, I still think it's so important. I do explain that not everyone has the same privilege, and that privilege is often based on factors other than race. I give Appalachia as an example of a largely white community that has similar struggles to the black communities. But I'm conflicted. And I have heard other teachers I work with get very offended by some of what we are learning. A lot of them are just old/out of touch and I don't care that they're offended. But other times they're just politically neutral people - people who have a problem with the killing of unarmed black men, and who want the world to be better for people of all colors and creeds - who feel their own struggles are just being ignored. Like, "Hey, I went into massive, life-ruining debt to be a teacher because my family had nothing. I had a single mom who had a really hard life. Why am I being told that I'm privileged?"
My own personal experience with this is painfully relevant. I'm a white guy in my 30s with ADHD, I grew up dirt poor in the Midlands of the UK and was garbage at school. I'm the kid that would 'never do well', would be asking if 'they want fries with that?' their entire lives and the such... my prospects were grim. Yet I'm successful and I speak out about DE&I at workplaces and professional settings all the time to help those around me. There's never been a single thing done to help me figure out the world, to help me adapt... or to change the world to help me. If I raise my hand up I get the "Yeah, check your privilidge" stance and it is an exhausting fight to go against (Yeah, Yeah. I'm a white guy in the UK... dead privilidged to be getting fucked like everyone else right now.) It's a fight that has been co-opted by arrogance and ego's throughout the world and by people who've figured out they can make a name for themselves by calling out 'microaggressions' and the such in workplaces and personal lives.
People want a target to focus on and shift the blame, they don't want to create a more equitable world where anyone of any race, colour, creed, diversity can truly live, love and prosper. They want vengence against those they see who have wronged them. Hate begets hate.
Those instances do bother me. Perhaps we need to find ways to continue teaching these truths without them consuming the rest of the curriculum. I also think focusing on class/power might be more important than race in 2023 as well. Though I say that cautiously because race is absolutely still a factor.
I always say schools are a reflection of what's going on in society. I think my situation in education reflects what a lot of people are feeling in society as a whole.
My wife is a former teacher. I hear you loud and clear just how fucked things are and I hope they get better for you.
But the elephant in the room is simple to point at as a source of a lot of problems. Capitalism.
It was the reason for slavery and the privilidged castes that society in the west created. It's the cause of climate change. It's the cause of wasted lives and shattered dreams. Until people raise their hands and say "This system is fucking broken" and do something about it? The guilt, shame, hate and violence against each other will continue.
I have read historical analysis that claims to demonstrate that the reason slavery was based on color was precisely to divide black people from poor oppressed whites, whether working or destitute....
I have read historical analysis that claims to demonstrate that the reason slavery was based on color was precisely to divide black people from poor oppressed whites, whether working or destitute.
Anyone who wants to read up on what it was like to be poor in the UK and the US before the 20th century could start with an anthology edited by Upton Sinclair, The Cry For Justice an Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest.
This means exactly one of two things: The person didn't pay attention in class (if they're school-age or a recent graduate) They've been out of school for long enough that they've forgotten I've...
we were never taught this in school
This means exactly one of two things:
The person didn't pay attention in class (if they're school-age or a recent graduate)
They've been out of school for long enough that they've forgotten
I've never seen it proven true literally, except in people deliberately formulating such a scenario.
Do keep in mind that the US education system is extremely fractured and different counties have different standards, and that’s still assuming those standards are actually met.
Do keep in mind that the US education system is extremely fractured and different counties have different standards, and that’s still assuming those standards are actually met.
“Assuming the standards are actually met” is a major factor, good catch. Even if they are met in later grades, a missed standard early on has compounding effects (though I’m more used to seeing...
“Assuming the standards are actually met” is a major factor, good catch. Even if they are met in later grades, a missed standard early on has compounding effects (though I’m more used to seeing discussions of that in the context of math education).
Two other cases I didn’t think of until now:
The student was out for the week when the standard was taught, especially if it was one of those “I’ve shown it to you, now let’s move on” standards. It’s been long enough that I don’t remember anything quite like this from my K–12 years (though they surely happened); however, my college experience had some science & math profs who openly derided the inclusion of unnecessary material that was there solely for the CS&E departments to maintain accreditation.
Transfer students. It (for whatever it was) was a fourth grade standard in the old district but is a third grade subject in the kid’s new state.
I know the Internet teaches people to tie nice little bows onto our statements like this, but can we not do it on Tildes? Life is far more nuanced than an IF / OR statement.
I know the Internet teaches people to tie nice little bows onto our statements like this, but can we not do it on Tildes?
Life is far more nuanced than an IF / OR statement.
The point of learning history is not to feel good about your country. Our kids should learn what actually happened. And an accurate, non whitewashed, version of American History is largely one of...
American History classes are mostly sad and guilt-inducing now. The only time America is seen as good is during World War 2.
The point of learning history is not to feel good about your country. Our kids should learn what actually happened. And an accurate, non whitewashed, version of American History is largely one of slavery, genocide, theft, and broken promises.
Totally agree. My counterpoint is that history isn't exclusively supposed to make you feel bad either. It's okay to say American history is full of bad and good people, shades of grey, etc. It's...
Totally agree. My counterpoint is that history isn't exclusively supposed to make you feel bad either. It's okay to say American history is full of bad and good people, shades of grey, etc. It's okay to say that we did horrible things in the time where that was the norm and wasn't seen as horrible. It's okay to say we can learn from it and do better, to say that we aren't responsible for the sins of our fathers, but that we are responsible for not repeating them.
We can be proud of American ingenuity while acknowledging that people suffered. We should be just as proud of Americans who fought to end slavery as we should be ashamed of those who fought to continue it.
I'm in the classroom every day, for every core subject. The kids go from learning about slavery in social studies, to the Holocaust in English, to climate change in science. These are all hugely important and unavoidable subjects that need to be taught and taught well. But even as an adult, my mood gets a little bleak after hearing about it all so much.
I want to be clear, I'm only advocating for some restraint here. We could inject a little more optimism and wonder, more love and pride for all of humanity, into the classroom. And I'm suggesting that we should be careful not to invalidate the struggles of some people in favor of focusing on one group or just a few groups. A lot of kids in my class are suffering immensely and they aren't all minority kiddos.
I think part of it (and a thing my one history teacher in the 90s did well), is to highlight the good and the bad. The problem comes when those whom strugggled for justice are downplayed and...
Exemplary
I think part of it (and a thing my one history teacher in the 90s did well), is to highlight the good and the bad.
The problem comes when those whom strugggled for justice are downplayed and whitewashed to make the narrative fit to "America is always doing better."
MLK should be paired with Malcom X. The videos of MLK's speeches should be paired with the KKK and the firehoses. There should be talk of how the government treated both like terrorists.
So yea, if your family was a victim of Jim Crow, you should feel proud for surviving. If your family inflicted and benefit from it, you should feel bad. Especially when so many issues are backsliding these days. And the discussion should be framed as "how can we all work together so we can right the wrongs of the past so we don't have to keep feeling shame."
White kids who don't feel ashamed about their parents benefiting from redlining don't feel outrage when those policies continue with "negro" crossed out and "bad credit" is put in its place.
One problem with traditional "American history" narrative is that the state is treated as a force for good, when the state is often the enemy. Not because it is evil, but because it is a giant rock on a hill. Positve change is an uphill battle against tradition, negative change rolls downhill by looking like the rose-colored past.
People are generally good. Good people fight, and have won, against injustice. But good people whom do nothing support the bad things, because they just make the weight of the state larger.
It is important to learn that to be a proud American, is to side with the people fighting for justice. Not the people fighting for the status quo (whom most often have the dominant voice in the state).
You wanna teach kids to have pride in history? Teach them to treat the state as a hostile force that can be used for good if we work together to overcome the inertia and comfort of tradition.
Why would-- much less should--one feel pride or shame about something someone else did? If my grandfather was a freedom rider, that doesn't imply I've done anything worthwhile. Likewise if he was...
So yea, if your family was a victim of Jim Crow, you should feel proud for surviving. If your family inflicted and benefit from it, you should feel bad
Why would-- much less should--one feel pride or shame about something someone else did? If my grandfather was a freedom rider, that doesn't imply I've done anything worthwhile. Likewise if he was a Nazi, it doesn't mean that I'm a monster. I can condemn him without taking on his baggage, no?
The actual example is even worse than that, because the curriculum (read as a way of promoting pride/shame) has to do with people who superficially look like me, not even people that I'm related to. I should feel pride/shame because someone with similar skin pigment did something great/shitty 100 years ago?
White kids who don't feel ashamed about their parents benefiting from redlining don't feel outrage when those policies continue with "negro" crossed out and "bad credit" is put in its place.
Is there a study on this or something? Or is this just an assumption?
It is important to learn that to be a proud American, is to side with the people fighting for justice... You wanna teach kids to have pride in history? Teach them to treat the state as a hostile force that can be used for good if we work together to overcome the inertia and comfort of tradition.
But you're saying some Americans ought to feel ashamed, because their familial American history is shameful. I don't see how telling some people they belong on team shame is going to make them gung ho for improving things. My reaction, if I were to take what you're saying literally and had a shameful family past, would be to feel brow beaten and disengage.
I think the issue is conflating shame with condemnation with guilt. When all three are treated as the same thing, people resent learning about their own history. You can despise what you're...
I think the issue is conflating shame with condemnation with guilt. When all three are treated as the same thing, people resent learning about their own history. You can despise what you're ancestors did, while recognizing you benefitted from their actions, while recognizing that your are not them and can be a better person. Others can see you as circumstancially being part of a group that has historically caused suffering while not believing you share monolithic values. This implied exclusivity of the concepts is a convenient way to confound the conversation.
That is very true. Yes, you personally are not responsible for the sins of your ancestors. However, one must look inward and acknowledge the advantages and disadvantages that one has due to those...
That is very true.
Yes, you personally are not responsible for the sins of your ancestors.
However, one must look inward and acknowledge the advantages and disadvantages that one has due to those sins. And empathize with those who, do not have those things. And if those wrongs have not been righted, not merely by removing the cause, but also the symptom, then you must fight to fix them.
Otherwise, you should feel some shame for benefitting from your ancestor's sins while others whom suffered are still suffering (indirectly).
Like, I bought a home in a "white suburb" that was built in 1965. That mortgage likely benefitted from redlining, and was granted while the nearby "black neighboorhood" was being denied loans instead.
That home I bought still has immense home value while the area that was redlined is still suffering from poverty and crime . I didn't cause the redlining, but I sure as hell still benefited from it more than 40 years after the practice "ended." I want to see this fixed, because I feel shame about it.
In this case, fixing involves advocating against credit scores, zipcode based school funding, and supporting reparations. As well as trying to educate others on the concept of privilege.
Opposed to another aquaintence of mine that denies that systemic racism exists and they don't have "white privilege," despite quite visibly benefiying from it.
You're deviating a bit from your original claim by saying (I think) you should feel shame only if you do not "look inward and acknowledge the advantages and disadvantages one has due to [past]...
You're deviating a bit from your original claim by saying (I think) you should feel shame only if you do not "look inward and acknowledge the advantages and disadvantages one has due to [past] sins [by other people]."
I don't think this new version is intelligible. Someone who doesn't reflect is much less likely to feel shame in these things, since by definition they haven't placed themselves as having some role in them.
But to the real point: Why should one have the psychological state of shame at any of these past actions of other people? Why do I, the individual, and my emotional reactions to the material matter in these sorts of discussions at all?
It seems to me that a better approach is teaching reflection at a critical distance. There are injustices that persist today, and here are the historical causes. How can we work together to lessen the current injustice, given that we can't change the past?
Framed that way, shame, pride, and other personal reactions are beside the point, and definitely not the goal of education on these issues.
Not an "only," moreso an "especially". And while I get what you're saying, I think it's important to tie the events of the past to the person in the present. We are nothing but history in the...
Not an "only," moreso an "especially". And while I get what you're saying, I think it's important to tie the events of the past to the person in the present. We are nothing but history in the making.
I think if we try to abstract too much, it prevents making that empathetic and emotional connection which is what triggers character changes. It means you have some skin in the game, so to speak.
My wife is a descendent of Robert E. Lee and had multiple branches of her family tree lopped off in the Holocaust. I'm a descendant of early German immigrants that benefitted from the rascism of the Homestead Act on one side and a bit of wealth that let them escape Germany in the wake of WWI on the other. Her parents lost their family business and she couldn't afford college. My dad earned his wages building munitions factories and paid for 4 kid's college educations. Not having college debt is my single biggest privilege.
We are having lots of interesting converstions with our kids about the various complexities at play in our own family history. It makes history more alive, and not some arbitrary academic logic problem, like math proofs.
If your dad killed 100 people and took their land, then gave it to you, should you not feel shame about keeping that land? The only real difference is being a generation or three removed from...
Why would-- much less should--one feel pride or shame about something someone else did
If your dad killed 100 people and took their land, then gave it to you, should you not feel shame about keeping that land?
The only real difference is being a generation or three removed from these things. Not that big in the grand scheme of things.
Yes, I would feel shame about the thing I'm doing. Keeping stolen land from the claimants in front of me. What's the equivalent here? Having grown up in a house my parents bought under societal...
Yes, I would feel shame about the thing I'm doing. Keeping stolen land from the claimants in front of me.
What's the equivalent here? Having grown up in a house my parents bought under societal conditions that advantage them? What exactly would I be doing to merit feelings of shame?
I just don't think shame/pride makes sense here, or is useful in making any progress
The three generations are a major difference. That's plenty of time for the privilege to be split between heirs and/or squandered back down to near-background levels. We're not discussing families...
The three generations are a major difference. That's plenty of time for the privilege to be split between heirs and/or squandered back down to near-background levels. We're not discussing families with Medici levels of wealth here.
Generally, poor zipcodes will still be poor after 2 or 3 generations (outside of gentrification). You don't need Medici levels of wealth to still (directly or indirectly) benefit from a system...
Generally, poor zipcodes will still be poor after 2 or 3 generations (outside of gentrification). You don't need Medici levels of wealth to still (directly or indirectly) benefit from a system that was set up to benefit your great-grandparents.
It feels bizarre to me to be proud or ashamed of American anything, and not just because I’m not American. It just smells like nationalism, which is baseless and entirely negative in my opinion.
It feels bizarre to me to be proud or ashamed of American anything, and not just because I’m not American. It just smells like nationalism, which is baseless and entirely negative in my opinion.
It's hard to read some of these perspectives without assuming they're just saying "it's getting harder to ignore the barbarism we've tried so hard to cover up" White washing reality is not a price...
It's hard to read some of these perspectives without assuming they're just saying "it's getting harder to ignore the barbarism we've tried so hard to cover up"
White washing reality is not a price we can pay for maintaining nationalistic and racial pride. It shouldn't be considered a valid foil against history itself.
I agree there are plenty of positives too that can and should be highlighted when teaching. The revolutionary war and drafting of our constitution, the civil war (one side of it) and the...
I agree there are plenty of positives too that can and should be highlighted when teaching. The revolutionary war and drafting of our constitution, the civil war (one side of it) and the abolitionist movement, WW2 and the reconstruction of Europe and Japan, the civil rights movement, and the labor movements are exemplary moments in our history that should make us proud of our nation.
It's okay to say that we did horrible things in the time where that was the norm and wasn't seen as horrible
Sure but it is also okay to say that at other times our nation's actions were exceptionally horrible. Even by the standards of the time. The Native American genocide and repeated theft of their lands, Chattel slavery, the Jim Crow south, and our imperialist treatment of Latin America are all exceptionally horrible, even compared to the norm at the time. I think we often try to qualify our nations misdeeds as the norm at the time not for the sake of historical accuracy but as a self defense mechanism.
Don't forget the incendiary and atomic bombings of Japan. People like to scrub that out of WWII or rationalize it with whataboutism. (You don't get to justify war crimes, that's the entire point.)...
Don't forget the incendiary and atomic bombings of Japan. People like to scrub that out of WWII or rationalize it with whataboutism. (You don't get to justify war crimes, that's the entire point.)
It's hard to set yourself apart from the horrific things the axis nations perpetrated when you burn out a starving population's cities and then immolate hundreds of thousands of people in a nuclear explosion after they've already surrendered, but you didn't quite like the terms. Oh, and waiting until the time of day when most of the children would be near ground zero is certainly a choice too.
Of all the things nationalists in the US should feel bad about, the atomic bombings and the genocide of the Native American people are still heavily whitewashed, ignored and rationalized. (And, related to that, it's rare to hear about the Geary Act or the later internment and wholesale land theft from Japanese Americans.)
I grew up on the other side of the pendulum swing post 9/11, where nationalist pride was the law of the educational land, and it made me a bad person for longer than I'd like. So, I hate the idea...
I grew up on the other side of the pendulum swing post 9/11, where nationalist pride was the law of the educational land, and it made me a bad person for longer than I'd like. So, I hate the idea of glorifying America for the sake of making us feel better about ourselves. We did horrible things, and we should celebrate the people who ended them, or exposed them. We pretend like the people of the past were more primitive, less human than we are now. That we are incapable of being as cruel and barbaric as them. That it's unfair to compare ourselves to them. It isn't, and we're all just as capable of falling into the same traps they were, being motivated by the same greed or cruelty.
The way to mitigate the guilt we feel is to learn what we can do to avoid doing acts worth feeling guilt over, not by avoiding judgement altogether. If I feel bad about failing a math test, the trick is to study and grow to do better, not stop mathematics testing.
As for invalidation of personal struggles the kids have, there has to be a better way to show scale. Suffering is not a zero sum game. Learning about one person's hardship, or declaring one proportionately worse on an institutional scale doesn't invalidate others. It's a highly conservative notion that only black people or white people can be suffering. Also highly conservative to treat reckoning with one's past as persecution, as it weakens our historic and entrenched racial hierarchy.
All in all, I agree with you. I just hope that in the future we contextualize better for not just identifying atrocities, but indicating what people in the past did to identify and overcome them, so we don't have to feel so inextricably tied to our ancestors sins exclusively, rather than hiding the atrocities to begin with.
Thanks for your service. I'm glad you are stressing the abolitionists along with Harriet Tubman etc. In my opinion, all kids can use figures to admire from all groups.
Thanks for your service.
I'm glad you are stressing the abolitionists along with Harriet Tubman etc. In my opinion, all kids can use figures to admire from all groups.
While I agree that learning history should make you feel uncomfortable... I always like to point this out: You have no choice for what country you're born in, so you at least want to feel some...
While I agree that learning history should make you feel uncomfortable... I always like to point this out:
You have no choice for what country you're born in, so you at least want to feel some pride to say "I was born in a good place". Now if that were changed to "My place of birth is an absolute shothole" and specifically in America, not only do you have no way out AND there are a ton of people who are actively keeping it the way it is... well, the next question is what happens when a superpower nation of over 300 million people becomes COMPLETELY broken? As in, the entire populace finally realized it's a terrible country? My prediction and next question is this: how badly do you want to see what happens when we hit a Great Depression 2.0 AND possible Balkanization of America?
Maybe, just maybe, we can begin to heal. Much of America is still in the "denial" phase. Much like grief, it's a process. And while depression is part of the process, it's also just part of the...
As in, the entire populace finally realized it's a terrible country
Maybe, just maybe, we can begin to heal. Much of America is still in the "denial" phase.
Much like grief, it's a process. And while depression is part of the process, it's also just part of the path to "acceptance".
I’ve always thought that “privilege” is an unfortunate word choice to communicate the concept. I’m assuming it was originally used in situations where everyone had full context, but in the general...
I’ve always thought that “privilege” is an unfortunate word choice to communicate the concept. I’m assuming it was originally used in situations where everyone had full context, but in the general discourse I’m not remotely surprised that a lot of people’s gut reaction is “I certainly don’t feel privileged” - because yeah, the common usage connotation is quite different to what’s being discussed here.
If you have to start off with people on the emotional defensive and then explain your terminology, it’s just asking for trouble (see: “defund the police” - a great concept wrapped in a terrible, terrible slogan from a realpolitik perspective).
A more immediately clear word would help a lot, I think, but the current terminology is fairly well embedded and understood by the people who need to talk about it most, so I doubt it’s likely to change any time soon.
I do wonder if the word used itself wouldn't get twisted no matter the word. Another concept to think about is entitlement benefits like Medicare, social security. It used to mean, yes I'm a...
I do wonder if the word used itself wouldn't get twisted no matter the word.
Another concept to think about is entitlement benefits like Medicare, social security. It used to mean, yes I'm a entitled to those benefits because i paid for them. However it's being twisted into your entitled (spoiled, a brat) of you think you deserve the benefit. Now we've been slowly telling generations not to expect to see any social security payouts when planning their retirement.
Obviously social security is much more nuanced than that but as an overall concept of how words have meaning but people who want to shift that meaning will do it regardless.
So how do we address that as well. I do think we need to shift language when it becomes charged and negative but does that force people to always be on the defensive vs being able to articulate themselves properly.
I think you’re absolutely right, it would get twisted and misused regardless, but I also think this situation is slightly different because the word had a somewhat misleading connotation from the...
I think you’re absolutely right, it would get twisted and misused regardless, but I also think this situation is slightly different because the word had a somewhat misleading connotation from the start.
A neutral term at least has a window of time where people are open to hearing the context, although the words eventually get politicised and people start jumping to conclusions. In the two examples I’m thinking of, it sounds bad right off the bat to someone who’s never heard about the topic before, and you immediately have to defuse that with context. It’s starting off with a rhetorical disadvantage, rather than having one form over time.
For the worse, the term "privilege" has become fundamentally accusatory, due in no small part to its over- and misuse as a mechanism to dismiss what someone is saying. Hell, I know what the word...
For the worse, the term "privilege" has become fundamentally accusatory, due in no small part to its over- and misuse as a mechanism to dismiss what someone is saying. Hell, I know what the word means and understand the sociological concept reasonably well, but every time I read it, even I roll my eyes.
What the term may actually mean is irrelevant to how people respond to it. I think for a lot of people "defusing that with context" comes off as backpedaling in the same way as a motte and bailey type argument or saying "you're one of the good ones" (as in, backpedaling after saying something racially inflammatory, intentional or otherwise).
For years, Black Lives Matter pressed for "reform the police", with almost no effect. The [edit: effect/] calculus behind "defund the police' is to shift discourse such that "reform the police"...
If you have to start off with people on the emotional defensive and then explain your terminology, it’s just asking for trouble (see: “defund the police” - a great concept wrapped in a terrible, terrible slogan from a realpolitik perspective).
For years, Black Lives Matter pressed for "reform the police", with almost no effect. The [edit: effect/] calculus behind "defund the police' is to shift discourse such that "reform the police" seems reasonable in comparison to the more extreme "defund the police".
I recall a friend (who is an academic in protest studies) going to a talk where a leader in the BLM movement told them this. Sorry, it's not a great source (or even a source at all really). Even...
I recall a friend (who is an academic in protest studies) going to a talk where a leader in the BLM movement told them this. Sorry, it's not a great source (or even a source at all really). Even if many people haven't explicitly made this calculus, though, the effect of moving towards pushing for more radical solutions (from repeatedly being ignored and sidelined) has been to shift discourse to a point where police reform seems like a more reasonable middle ground.
My view is that there is a category of things which are upbeat and feel-good – it is called "fantasy" rather than "history" where facts are important. I think it's very hard to get away from the...
But...we do focus very heavily on the struggles of Black Americans when teaching the humanities. Our American History classes are mostly sad and guilt-inducing now. The only time America is seen as good is during World War 2.
My view is that there is a category of things which are upbeat and feel-good – it is called "fantasy" rather than "history" where facts are important. I think it's very hard to get away from the fact that about 15% of the population was enslaved for hundreds of years, and even today is considered to be inferior to the rest. Of course there are some upbeat moments (end of slavery, civil rights movements, Roe v. Wade – until it was repealed), but for a lot of people in America (women, non-whites) they are somewhat few and far between.
Those instances do bother me. Perhaps we need to find ways to continue teaching these truths without them consuming the rest of the curriculum. I also think focusing on class/power might be more important than race in 2023 as well. Though I say that cautiously because race is absolutely still a factor.
If you look at scholars looking at "race" today, they usually don't look at it in isolation; they also consider lots of other perceived characteristics. For example, Kimberlé Crenshaw has written a lot about how inequalities intersect with each other.
As someone who grew up poor, I think of it like this. Imagine you're sorting objects based on material: you want to keep only the copper ones. The silver, brass, and gold ones aren't as desirable....
As someone who grew up poor, I think of it like this.
Imagine you're sorting objects based on material: you want to keep only the copper ones. The silver, brass, and gold ones aren't as desirable. But, the machine that dumps into the bin is designed in such a way that ones with rounded edges don't spill out onto the floor, the ones that are square, triangular, and other non-rounded shapes sometimes do. So, while you'll find more silver, brass, and gold rounded objects, you'll also definitely find far more of the copper ones too... and that offers an advantage to rounded objects.
Definitely. And I've used simpler versions of this explanation for my students. I think they get it. But I fear that some won't and that they'll just walk away pissed off. Especially if their...
Definitely. And I've used simpler versions of this explanation for my students. I think they get it. But I fear that some won't and that they'll just walk away pissed off. Especially if their parents are against it at home.
I actually co-teach all four core subjects, so I consider myself very fortunate to get the whole curriculum for my grade level. We do evolution in science and many kids still walk away thinking a monkey literally turned into a human one day because it was hungry or whatever. So I'm not hopeful that the concept of privilege is getting through to all of them in the nuanced way that it needs to. You know?
Best guess? 20-40% don't understand it fully. They have some idea that animals change but they don't truly understand that it's through random mutation and survival of the fittest. Many walk away...
Best guess? 20-40% don't understand it fully. They have some idea that animals change but they don't truly understand that it's through random mutation and survival of the fittest. Many walk away thinking, no matter what we do to teach it, that we are advocating some kind of "intelligent" evolution where giraffes (or their genes) "know" they need a long neck to survive and so their babies get one.
10-25% straight up think we are saying the monkey will transform into a human one day.
Just rough estimates based on my memory of last year's discussion questions and test scores.
…which itself is a misleading explanation. It should be something more akin to "reproduction of those who live long enough to reproduce." "Survival of the fittest" implies that the arc of history...
survival of the fittest
…which itself is a misleading explanation. It should be something more akin to "reproduction of those who live long enough to reproduce." "Survival of the fittest" implies that the arc of history bends towards ever stronger and faster species while ignoring that it's often the mediocre (with correspondingly lower caloric needs) who inherit the earth—especially after a cataclysm (see: early mammals replacing dinosaurs as the dominant land vertebrates).
There's uneducated, and there's willfully ignorant. One you can teach. I just wanted to throw my two cents in from someone who has definitely had white privilege on their side, even if not...
There's uneducated, and there's willfully ignorant. One you can teach. I just wanted to throw my two cents in from someone who has definitely had white privilege on their side, even if not economically so.
I found this article quite thin, I feel like it complains that there are issues with identity politics several times without clearly stating what those issues are. I found the article referenced...
Exemplary
I found this article quite thin, I feel like it complains that there are issues with identity politics several times without clearly stating what those issues are. I found the article referenced towards the end, by Maurice Mitchell to be much more stimulating. In it, he critiques specifically neoliberal identity politics, which he defines by its focus on the individual.
I am not a fan of the term 'identity politics' because I think it is begging the question: what is your identity and why do you have it in the first place? We must not forget that these are social identities, and that this concept is intimately connected to the concept of communities.
As a resident of my town, I am a member of a community of place. As a non-binary person, I am a member of a community of experience. As a researcher, I am a member of several communities of practice. As my parent's child, I am a member of a community of blood/genes. In each instance, there is something concrete that I share with other people, which brings us into a community, and which allows us to form a social identity. Identity follows community, not the other way around. I propose that it is not useful to speak of a 'community of identity' because I see that as begging the question.
I don't think we should be speaking of 'identity politics', instead there is 'experience politics', 'place politics', 'practice politics'. We have to look at the factors which underlie each specific social identity.
This also works to counteract the neoliberal identity politics that Mitchell describes, because it shifts the focus from a label to the reality of people's experiences. In doing so, it becomes more intuitive to understand why communities and identities of experience are relevant, and how to argue well with them. Mitchell says:
You may hear someone argue, “As a working-class, first-generation American, Southern woman…I say we have to vote no.”
It would be both more persuasive, and more informative for this person to instead draw upon their own experiences and the experiences of others in their community: "I saw this happen before...", "This happened to the women in X...". These alternative formulations do several things which are lacking for me in the 'label-centred' statement: they ground the argument in reality; they create a story; they point directly to ourselves and people we are connected to; and they show where we can learn, so that we can improve our work (praxis!)
I love this take, thank you for it. I think the problem is that the people who use the term "identity politics" are generally the ones opposed to considering these experiences. And it feels like,...
I love this take, thank you for it.
I think the problem is that the people who use the term "identity politics" are generally the ones opposed to considering these experiences. And it feels like, no matter how carefully expressed if there's a term to describe wanting to be inclusive and consider the impact of the experiences of different groups it would be derided the same as every other term. It is frustrating for an academic term like CRT to get thrust out, mis-defined, and become the face of "making kids feel bad". I'm not convinced it could be the same with anything else used.
Yes, this is exactly what happens with other concepts like intersectionality. Authoritarians present this as if it's about atomising people and ranking them on a hierarchy of oppression, when...
Yes, this is exactly what happens with other concepts like intersectionality. Authoritarians present this as if it's about atomising people and ranking them on a hierarchy of oppression, when instead it's about appealing to experience and showing how different communities struggle against the same systems, finding resonances, and building solidarity.
I think optics, specifically the terminology and arguments we use, are really important when discussing our ideas with people who are coming from less radical, slightly-authoritarian mindsets, like centrists. I had a conversation with someone this week about "living below the breadline" and "meeting people's needs", and I learned that some people are very concerned with problems of 'free riders' (what about people who don't want to earn their living?) over and above problems of equality (why can't we provide for everyone?). These people don't lack a sense of fairness, instead they are defining fairness in a different way. In order to understand that, I had to listen to them first, and then explain my positions in their terms. My values are important to me, and I believe in them so strongly because it is like I have seen something innately beautiful but I cannot describe why. Instead I want to find out how to show people the same thing I am looking at, in the hopes that they will see beauty in it too. At a minimum, if we are both able to look at the same things, it makes it easier to talk about them, even if they don't resonate with us in the same way.
So I agree, I do a lot of education as I work with college students and I'm always hoping to help them see a broader point of view, regardless of the topic. However on a political level, I don't...
So I agree, I do a lot of education as I work with college students and I'm always hoping to help them see a broader point of view, regardless of the topic. However on a political level, I don't think you can "win" that way as sound bites are what sells. People who most didn't understand trans-ness but were rather neutral to it, or who could have had systemic oppression explained to them instead get drowned in "grooming your children" and "Critical Race Theory in our schools" propaganda. And while the only work I can do is on an individual level, it's beyond exhausting and frustrating to watch as I feel a large proportion of the country wants to suck my rights away drop by drop and pretend that there are no historical wrongs that lead to present harm.
And I can't "message" against things at that scale.
In some labor-focused retelling of the biblical story of the tower of Babel, they describe the creation of the tower involving so many people that the meanings of words changed to have different...
In some labor-focused retelling of the biblical story of the tower of Babel, they describe the creation of the tower involving so many people that the meanings of words changed to have different meanings, to the point that they were no longer speaking the same language. And I think that we are living through that today. You brought up the different meaning of intersectionality and identity politics, but there are many more terms that have had the same things happen to them; "liberal", "CRT", "woke", "socialism", etc.
I have a lot of thoughts about this, but frankly I can't put them into a coherent argument. It's just so... bullshit, for lack of a better term. There's no way to stop this kind of thing from happening because it's just how language works. I'd like to blame it on the media outlets, and while there's no doubt in my mind that there are some of them that are aware of what they are doing there is no way to prove it. Even if there was, what could we possibly do about it? It all just seems so hopeless.
I haven't done the historical deep dive but I am fairly confident that there are thinkers and activists from the past who created and implemented strategies to fight being vilified by the...
I haven't done the historical deep dive but I am fairly confident that there are thinkers and activists from the past who created and implemented strategies to fight being vilified by the opposition. It happened to the labor movement. It happened to the abolitionists. It happened to the suffragettes. It happened to the Civil Rights activists.
When the conservatives face real opposition they generate and spread and amplify propaganda that demonizes that opposition. It's never been easy but that also means that we have examples of people we can learn from
In addition to the issues surrounding the article's treatment of "identity politics" (which you discussed excellently), it felt quite thin on evidence to me as well. It starts and ends by...
I found this article quite thin
In addition to the issues surrounding the article's treatment of "identity politics" (which you discussed excellently), it felt quite thin on evidence to me as well. It starts and ends by referencing two concrete examples, but the bulk of it is filled with statements like "people worry that..." or "when the left does this, people think that...". I like to imagine what pieces that do this would look like if they were Wikipedia articles:
On the one hand, they [who?] have serious concerns...
So much of it felt like it was crying out for [citation needed] imo.
Sounds real scary, yeah. But let's look at the full quote: I mean, if you want to misquote people by cutting out their central point, don't link your sources.
For example, when teachers at a private school in Manhattan tell white middle schoolers to “own” their “European ancestry,” they are more likely to create racists than anti-racists.
Sounds real scary, yeah. But let's look at the full quote:
Understand and own European ancestry and see the tie to provilege.
I mean, if you want to misquote people by cutting out their central point, don't link your sources.
I don’t know that the full context takes much away from their point. I feel like obsessing over ancestry when it should be an absolute non-issue is actually harmful.
I don’t know that the full context takes much away from their point. I feel like obsessing over ancestry when it should be an absolute non-issue is actually harmful.
what evidence do you have that they're "obsessing" over it? that "Understand and own European ancestry and see the tie to privilege." is one bullet point out of seven listed as goals of a...
obsessing over ancestry
what evidence do you have that they're "obsessing" over it?
that "Understand and own European ancestry and see the tie to privilege." is one bullet point out of seven listed as goals of a curriculum.
also, let's keep the context and the extremely limited stakes in mind here:
this whole controversy took place back in 2016.
it took place at a private school in NYC with 430 students.
and it only applies to grades 1-4, so that's probably around half the enrollment of that K-8 school.
180 school days a year times 6 hours a day is 1080 hours. this entire lesson plan, which again that bullet point about ancestry is only one part of, is less than 1% of what those ~200 kids spent their time learning.
if this was as big a problem as the author claims, it seems like it'd be easy to find a more relevant anecdote than a 7 year old news story about a controversy involving a few hundred schoolchildren and what they spent less than 1% of the school year learning about.
and it sure doesn't seem like any sort of "obsession"
I was speaking more generally about the current state of society than this particular program, but I have to say this particular program is disturbing. Did you notice how it segregates the class...
I was speaking more generally about the current state of society than this particular program, but I have to say this particular program is disturbing. Did you notice how it segregates the class into white kids and coloured kids and teaches them different material in a different physical location? Think about that for a second -- they are physically separating children out by race and putting them in different rooms to learn different curriculum. I find this mind boggling.
[edit: sorry, I replied to the wrong comment; I meant to reply to this one] I think this is something of a fallacy, (and something that is very common in continental Europe); whenever anyone...
[edit: sorry, I replied to the wrong comment; I meant to reply to this one]
I think this is something of a fallacy, (and something that is very common in continental Europe); whenever anyone brings up empirical data relating to ethnicity and discrimination, dismiss it by saying that they are trying to create divisions. I think the logic is sound though
(a) we know that racism is a thing
(b) therefore we should do something to address it
claiming that (b) 'creates' discrimination ignores the fact that the discrimination already exists, in step (a)!!
I've been called a "class reductionist" before but honestly it's a term I'd happily embrace over intersectionalist, because Caitlyn Jenner doesn't need to worry about making rent for next month....
I've been called a "class reductionist" before but honestly it's a term I'd happily embrace over intersectionalist, because Caitlyn Jenner doesn't need to worry about making rent for next month.
The obsession with identity honestly feels antithetical to leftism, as if buying from LGBT/POC/Women owned stores is actually how we solve all our problems.
We talk about lived experience of minorities, but as a relatively wealthy "PoC" I know my wealth has sheltered me from most of the inequality that would be associated with my race. The way I speak and dress, as a product of my class, shelters me from racism.
I'm sorry if I'm more concerned about poor white kids not having enough food on their plate than I am about young black women fighting prejudice at some law school.
I understand that in theory intersectionality isn't supposed to make a hierarchy of oppression but it's often practiced this way.
I'm frustrated that even though it seems you know what the theory states and possibly even agrees with it you're ignoring it and only focus on class just because some other people don't understand...
I'm frustrated that even though it seems you know what the theory states and possibly even agrees with it you're ignoring it and only focus on class just because some other people don't understand the theory. Or that's how I read it anyway. I probably shouldn't be frustrated about this and I guess I can see where you're coming from. It's hard to try and educate every second person you discuss something with. Or is this just about how you label yourself when talking to others? Do you still think racism is a problem, or is it only about class in your mind?
As an addendum, I think that class usually gets too little room and weight in the discussion. But I don't think it's the only thing.
Class tends to supercede other issues which is why grifters like candace owens are so easily adopted by the right wing. I'm just tired of neoliberalism because it frames the problem as...
Class tends to supercede other issues which is why grifters like candace owens are so easily adopted by the right wing.
I'm just tired of neoliberalism because it frames the problem as "disproportionate inequality" instead of inequality. I want to eradicate poverty, not ensure that there is a proportional amount of black and white poverty.
Yeah racism is a problem but class obfuscates it, being called mean names actually isn't that big a problem, not compared to homelessness.
It's not really about "some people" misunderstanding the theory, it's about the theory itself being subsumed into capitalism.
Racism and classism, especially in America, are deeply intertwined. It's a "colorblind" caste system. The actual races are fluid in order to keep class solidarity at bay. See how Irish were not...
Racism and classism, especially in America, are deeply intertwined.
It's a "colorblind" caste system. The actual races are fluid in order to keep class solidarity at bay. See how Irish were not "white" until it proved politically convienient.
See also: How "generic christian" is being used to try to form a cohesive political unit where there isn't one, often to push the agenda of fundementalists.
A left-leaning opinion piece aimed at the "[m]any people who were initially sympathetic to its goals [and] have since recognized that the identity synthesis [aka critical race theory] presents a...
A left-leaning opinion piece aimed at the "[m]any people who were initially sympathetic to its goals [and] have since recognized that the identity synthesis [aka critical race theory] presents a real danger. They want to speak out against these ideas, but they are nervous about doing so. It’s not just that they don’t want to risk alienating their friends or sabotaging their careers. They fear that opposing the identity synthesis will, inevitably, force them to make common cause with people who don’t recognize the dangers of racism and bigotry, push them onto the “wrong side of history,” or even lead them down the same path as Mr. Weinstein..."
These are mine and many other's genuine feelings all while still supporting what society would deem radical leftist social and economic policies. Understand how invalidating, alienating, and...
These are mine and many other's genuine feelings all while still supporting what society would deem radical leftist social and economic policies.
Understand how invalidating, alienating, and unproductive it is to accuse us of bad faith and call us conservatives every time this is brought up, even as we do our best to couch our disagreements in language that is incredibly soft and accepting of your viewpoints.
So, I don't understand the meaning of your first sentence. Do you mean like leftists should be grateful that you support them at all despite their radicalness? As in you are doing the left some...
So, I don't understand the meaning of your first sentence. Do you mean like leftists should be grateful that you support them at all despite their radicalness? As in you are doing the left some huge favor (Even using incredibly soft and accepting language!)? Or do you feel like you hold leftist views which society judges as radical?
Regarding your second sentence... There is no doubt that your opinions are more conservative than mine (you said the article reflects your genuine feelings). That word is not a bad thing in itself, but if you are uncomfortable with it ¿How would you describe your political opinions?
I personally hold those "radical" leftist views as deemed by society, and as such feel rather alienated to be called "conservative" (with all of the terrible implications it comes with) simply for...
I personally hold those "radical" leftist views as deemed by society, and as such feel rather alienated to be called "conservative" (with all of the terrible implications it comes with) simply for holding a singular different view.
If we insist on using incredibly reductive left-right (or equivalent "progressive-conservative") terminology, then yes I'll concede that that singular opinion isn't as prominent among "progressives". But by no means should believing that no one should feel outright shame, be personally judged for the actions of other people, or be judged by their skin color whatsoever be considered a "conservative" view. Calling it so (knowing the implications of that label) is absolutely a strategy only used to try and alienate and shame people with that opinion.
To be told that those of us holding that opinion are "pretending" or somehow delusional in our views is outright offensive and dismissive.
We hold the same goals, vote for the same people, and need to work together to achieve our common end goals. Trying to push people with that opinion out of the leftist label is purposefully reductive, an act of bad faith in itself, and practically counterproductive.
Thank you, I understand you better now, i think. So no one owns these terms or categories, but helpful or not, some people think that your more moderate views are not radically left and are...
Thank you, I understand you better now, i think.
So no one owns these terms or categories, but helpful or not, some people think that your more moderate views are not radically left and are actually unhelpful or reactionary.
You might find it alienating to discover that your political opinions are not on the extreme left, but that is the reality. I am not labelling you or name calling, just pointing out the obvious.
In my opinion, privilege is like bias or ethnocentrism. These are concepts that are absolutely vital to discuss and people should be educated to realize that everyone has these traits to some degree. That's not a personal attack on anyone. Just an awareness that we should be introspective and self-examine.
I'd say anyone arguing for socialism is a radical leftist, you don't get to decide who is/isn't radical based on their opinions on social issues. There are plenty of capitalists that are obsessed...
I'd say anyone arguing for socialism is a radical leftist, you don't get to decide who is/isn't radical based on their opinions on social issues.
There are plenty of capitalists that are obsessed with identity politics. It doesn't make them leftists.
Advocating for LGBT and racial minorities while still maintaining capitalism isn't a leftist position, it's not even a moderate position, you can do both of those things and be a libertarian.
Yeah, I'm not trying to gatekeep leftism, but language is needed to be able to discuss and make comparisons. Maybe the usual spectra between conservative and progressive or liberal, or between...
Yeah, I'm not trying to gatekeep leftism, but language is needed to be able to discuss and make comparisons. Maybe the usual spectra between conservative and progressive or liberal, or between right and left don't allow for accurate description? In regards to being "radical", I think it might be kinda like how when it comes to driving anyone driving faster than you has no regard for safety and anyone driving slower is overly cautious/too hesitant.
I do not think this author has understood critical race theory, and their analysis suffers from this. CRT scholars do not believe that "race" is not an empirical thing with a biological basis (for...
Exemplary
I do not think this author has understood critical race theory, and their analysis suffers from this. CRT scholars do not believe that "race" is not an empirical thing with a biological basis (for some biologists' research on this see e.g. Stephen J. Gould's The Mismeasure of Man or Rutherford's book How to Argue With A Racist). In the literature people tend to use terms such as "racialised" people or the "ethnically minoritized" to highlight that these racial/ethnic categories are constructed, rather than inherentley "there".
Critical Race Theory accepts that race/ethnicity is something that people believe in, and seek to investigate how it shapes our society[^1]. The author believes that critical race theory looks at the (almost) converse, i.e. to look at our society and see how we can make race/ethnicity something people believe in. Critical Race Theory notes that in spite of the Civil Rights Movement, we still see widespread discrimination today.
Some people seek to discredit anti-racist movements by saying "economic inequity is the real problem today" and usually "racism is not as important" is left implicit. This ignores that they are connected! I think a lot of people who argue that "we should address inequalitable resource distribution" don't connect this with "black people in the US have access to far fewer resources than whites". Of course inequality must be addressed, and the left should focus more on this (and material reality more generally), but not if we ignore that economic inequality doesn't mean that racism and/or gender[^2] are unimportant.
[^1]: here they suffer the same kind of problem as radical feminists who would like to move 'beyond' gender, which is difficult as they also wish to attack misogyny, which requires recognising that gender is an important construct in society
[^2]: for example in feminist economics a major topic of research is the unpaid work which women do – this is a big hole in Marxist analysis which focusses primarily on wage labour, and ignores non-wage labour (i.e. care work)
It's really not though. Citing only one of the early thinkers from the 1930s, cited by early CRT academics in the 1990s, and declaring that their views that racism is permanent is the only aspect...
There is a way to warn about these views on identity that is thoughtful yet firm, principled yet unapologetic. The first step is to recognize that they constitute a novel ideology — one that, though it has wide appeal for serious reasons, is profoundly misguided.
It's really not though. Citing only one of the early thinkers from the 1930s, cited by early CRT academics in the 1990s, and declaring that their views that racism is permanent is the only aspect of CRT is just as dismissive as the right-wing lies.
CRT rightly has us look at history and policy through these lenses because people like Bell were correct at their time: Racism is deeply seated in America. The fact we're still having these discussions 90 years later tells me he wasn't far off.
From the article: My reading of the article: You were initially sympathetic to its goals [but] have since recognized that the identity synthesis presents a real danger [because of this article’s...
From the article:
Many people who were initially sympathetic to its goals have since recognized that the identity synthesis presents a real danger. They want to speak out against these ideas, but they are nervous about doing so. It’s not just that they don’t want to risk alienating their friends or sabotaging their careers. They fear that opposing the identity synthesis will, inevitably, force them to make common cause with people who don’t recognize the dangers of racism and bigotry, push them onto the “wrong side of history,” or even lead them down the same path as Mr. Weinstein.
My reading of the article:
You were initially sympathetic to its goals [but] have since recognized that the identity synthesis presents a real danger [because of this article’s argument against it]. You [now] want to speak out against these ideas, but you are nervous about doing so. It’s not just that you don’t want to risk alienating your friends or sabotaging your [career]. you fear that opposing the identity synthesis will, inevitably, force you to make common cause with people who don’t recognize the dangers of racism and bigotry, push you onto the “wrong side of history,” or even lead you down the same path as Mr. Weinstein.
I can’t get behind anyone who writes like this no matter what their message may be. It’s way too manipulative. I don’t need this guy to shepherd my thoughts and (dis)allow me from feeling one way or another.
Right, I said elsewhere ITT that this article frustrated me in part due to its lack of citations when making these "people feel this way" or "people think this" claims. I think your reading may be...
Right, I said elsewhere ITT that this article frustrated me in part due to its lack of citations when making these "people feel this way" or "people think this" claims. I think your reading may be partly why it's written this way (whether consciously intended or not).
A problem Democrats have is that the electoral geography of the Senate and the electoral college is aligned against them. So they have to win not 50% of the popular vote but 50+x%. If they pander...
A problem Democrats have is that the electoral geography of the Senate and the electoral college is aligned against them. So they have to win not 50% of the popular vote but 50+x%.
If they pander or seem to be pandering to some small group, say 2%, at the expense of alienating say 30% of people it advantages the Republicans, particularly if that 2% is too radical to vote (Biden is white, old, male, not left enough) or if that 2% is dogpiled in blue states that are going to vote Democrat anyway.
If that 2% really sees the return of Trump as an existential threat the one thing it can do that would make a difference is move to a swing state.
The article does point out that strange thing about crankishness and that is a good observation, I have seen so many people go through that uncharismatic transformation and can’t really explain it although I do think politics today is full of many movements that have a religious element even if they claim to be atheist. Anti-vax and similar conspiracy theories seem to give people a sense of meaning and purpose. Some religions believe a book is infallible or the pope is infallible but other modern movements believe a certain class of people is infallible, that anyone who disagrees with them is evil, etc.
It sure seems to be infectious and if it crosses party lines it may be very bad for the left because the electoral map makes generalized extremism good for Team Red and very bad for Team Blue.
This isn’t a sure bet because peoples politics tend to be reflective of their social milieu. So if they move to a swing state they’re as likely as not to flip their political orientation. Virtues...
If that 2% really sees the return of Trump as an existential threat the one thing it can do that would make a difference is move to a swing state.
This isn’t a sure bet because peoples politics tend to be reflective of their social milieu. So if they move to a swing state they’re as likely as not to flip their political orientation.
Virtues tend not to change, but the political expression of those virtues and which specific issues people attach salience to will. A radical is not likely to moderate, because moderation partly comes out of things like intellectual humility or reflexive conservatism (as in distrust of dramatic changes). If they had those they wouldn’t have radicalized in the first place, but if they lack those they’re likely to go from a radical leftist to radical rightist and back again. Largely depending on who they’re hanging out with or what contemporary issue is incensing them most.
But that’s only a specific type of moderate. Other moderates aren’t actually moderate, they’re actually just cross pressured where the two parties each have something they really don’t like (like wants to eliminate abortion but also eliminate guns). These people will also tend to either pick up more of the political outlooks of their social circles or drop out. Because if you’re surrounded by people who talk on and on about gun control you’re gonna be steeped in the importance of those issues moreso than the abortion issues. It becomes more salient to you.
This is all a simplified model, obviously a lot shifts based on current events and the charisma of individual candidates and so on. But directionally I think it’s pretty much right.
It sure seems to be infectious and if it crosses party lines it may be very bad for the left because the electoral map makes generalized extremism good for Team Red and very bad for Team Blue.
I think this structural factor is actually why it doesn’t easily cross party lines. Because the Democratic Party has to compete a lot harder to win, the radicals simply don’t. Even in elections the Dems allocate delegates in a more representative manner that isn’t as prone to snowballing early advantages compared to the GOP. Consensus forming is baked into the party apparatus in ways the GOP’s isn’t. This frustrates Leftists obviously, but that’s largely due to their general inexperience working inside the system.
You reminded me of the books that Tom Wolfe wrote about subcultures in the 1960s including: The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby and The Pump House Gang that revolved around a theory...
You reminded me of the books that Tom Wolfe wrote about subcultures in the 1960s including: The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby and The Pump House Gang that revolved around a theory that not everybody can be near at the top of the primary social hierarchy but you can be near the top of the hierarchy in some subgroup you're a part of.
The early adopters in any movement are different from the people who come later: first you get people who are independent thinkers and smarter and more articulate than average, eventually you get people who are following the herd. "Identity politics" might once have been about organizing politically around being black or gay but today online it seems to be about following a tribe so you're very right that people are likely to change their views and perception of salience based on the people around them and that some kind of intervention in group structure might change their behavior quite a bit, just as the social media "experiment" has shown.
I don't think there is much of a line between political and psuedopolitical groups as well as the intermediate forms. For instance, it's implausible that Biden would "defund the police", the slur you could make stick is that he's a fuzzy old liberal who could never defund anything. Certainly there is no line between the shenagins at Evergreen State College and the majority of Democratic elected officials but conservatives would sure like to draw that line.
I'd like to draw your attention to Q22 of this poll
where the top two issues are the economy and jobs that are certainly politicized (somehow many people suddenly think the economy is doing better or worse when the presidency changes just like that) but that the #1 "culture wars" issue is Gun Control and I was thinking that that is something that affects a lot of people directly. I live in rural upstate NY and a lot of people here had yarn signs against the "SAFE Act" and many of them were inconvenienced directly by firearms restrictions. On the other hand I went with my family to the NY Farm Show this year and we planned to go to the big mall in Syracuse to eat at The Cheesecake Factory (plays a role in my misadventures in business so I wanted to check it out) later and when we were going in a crowd was going out because some jackass teenager fired off a handgun in the food court so we were inconvenienced by that.
On the other hand "Wokeness / Transgender issues" scores just 1 percent on this scale which suggests that for all the sound and fury on this issue it is something that doesn't really matter all that much to most people, at least not compared to other things. I tell people "It's your life, but it's their clickbait" and I think that is some of it: The Atlantic and The New York Times opinion page were very quick to get into criticism of "cancel culture", long before conservatives got into it (not least because the people who write the NYT opinions page think commencement speeches are a good gig that they don't want to lose, at least that's what people lower on the totem poll at the NYT would tell you in private), precisely because it has so much clickbait potential.
General anti-establishment positions combined with a belief in redemptive violence and a resentment for “elites” that can easily be skewed into a resentment towards (((elites.))) Most people’s...
General anti-establishment positions combined with a belief in redemptive violence and a resentment for “elites” that can easily be skewed into a resentment towards (((elites.))) Most people’s politics aren’t very well thought out. They tend to float around a lot, especially when they’re younger.
A LOT of generally politically apathetic guys I knew from High school went through a Bernie to Trump pipeline, even calling themselves socialists before drifting into weird conspiracy nonsense.
Don't think alt-right as in "trump." It's more like... radical left view: the US gov is fascist/based on racism and is thus trying to secretly eliminate black people (see: Tuskegee syphilis...
Don't think alt-right as in "trump." It's more like... radical left view: the US gov is fascist/based on racism and is thus trying to secretly eliminate black people (see: Tuskegee syphilis experiment) ----> alt-right view: the government can't be trusted to give us COVID vaccines.
I mean...the Republican party is pretty damn fascist right now (See: 2025 project). And Republicans beat the rascism drum harder than anyone. While the current state of US law is less explicitly...
the US gov is fascist/based on racism
I mean...the Republican party is pretty damn fascist right now (See: 2025 project). And Republicans beat the rascism drum harder than anyone.
While the current state of US law is less explicitly rascist than in the past, there's still a lot of baggage that is still de-facto rascist. Like the drug war. Or credit scores.
I don't know how much I can contribute here but I'm gonna try. As a middle aged transracial adoptee, this topic is so complicated and difficult to speak about. I wasn't too impressed with the...
I don't know how much I can contribute here but I'm gonna try. As a middle aged transracial adoptee, this topic is so complicated and difficult to speak about. I wasn't too impressed with the article. I do feel the article focuses a bit much on the "leftists are making things worse" narrative. But I did agree that moderate voices are needed and that it would only help society to focus more on the commonalities we all share as opposed to our differences.
Having said that, I also admit my life as a transracial adoptee has made this topic complicated because I have experienced difficulties due to not having my ethnicity, my origins, my lack of knowledge about my birth or birth parents/mother acknowledged or addressed. Ever. My birth country was framed as this far away, long lost land you only hear about in storybooks. Nobody looked like me in the communities I grew up in. I was othered, and yet because I was raised as a typical American kid with white parents, I didn't view myself as different. So when I started realizing some people make the wildest and most inaccurate assumptions about me based on my ethnicity, it was both confounding and traumatizing. It has been and still is difficult to verbalize how I've always desired to have my differences respected while also being accepted as an equal. I am of the opinion that some people only accept me as long as I conform to something they feel comfortable with.
As a result of all of this, I have always wondered why the concept of shared humanity isn't the concept that brings people together.
This kind of subject usually gets locked. If you wish for a long-lasting discussion, I advise everyone to be even more civil and respectful than, I am sure, you already are.
This kind of subject usually gets locked. If you wish for a long-lasting discussion, I advise everyone to be even more civil and respectful than, I am sure, you already are.
Having just read through the responses, I don't find the discussion to be inflammatory at all. I'm kinda into it in fact - this is a tough subject and things are going to get a little heated, but...
Having just read through the responses, I don't find the discussion to be inflammatory at all. I'm kinda into it in fact - this is a tough subject and things are going to get a little heated, but so long as theres no name calling, let it happen!
I think being able to give good faith critiques to leftist policies and prevailing norms is a great thing (and I say that as someone with both feet firmly in that camp in the first place). However, I don’t think this article is a good how to.
One of my biggest problems with it is that it falls hook, line, and sinker for a partisan misdirection that sits at the center of its thesis. It, as nearly every article I’ve ever seen on leftists “going too far”, frames a reactionary right response as a logical, rational conclusion to that behavior. Example:
I’ve yet to read an article that reverses the accusation: that the reactionary right’s ridiculous actions are fueling the leftists who are “going too far.” Even when instances of this could be acknowledged, they get handwaved away. It’s not just this author who does this (though he does):
When the left goes too far, the author alleges, the left is responsible for creating racists. When the right goes too far, meanwhile, leftists are thus misguided and tasked with correcting our beliefs. At no point does any onus fall on the right for correcting their beliefs or being responsible for their own bad behavior. At no point is it considered that perhaps the leftists who are going too far are in fact a product of the right’s behaviors. Accountability is not fairly applied in these situations.
This is the same pattern I’ve seen over and over again in articles like this. It’s especially frustrating to me because the argument it supports — better outcomes will be achieved by the left being better — doesn’t match the environment we live in. Articles like this make lofty appeals to truth and nuance and critical thinking as if the informational environment we live in is one where people just have differences of opinion on the basis of shared facts, and leftists have, either deliberately or by attrition, forsaken that. This is not the case.
It is definitely true that some leftists go too far and play fast and loose with truth. Stories of that type do especially well on right-wing news sites, but what we also see is that, in the absence of stories like that, those same sites are content to just lie and push the same ideas anyway. As of mid-2022, roughly 70% of Republicans in the US still do not believe that Biden was legitimately elected in 2020, for example (if anyone has more current data, let me know and I’ll link it). I’m getting frustrated existing in an informational environment like this while continually being told I’m the one needing to do some soul-searching and self-flagellation. Furthermore, it’s especially frustrating to be told that because my (actually quite mild) beliefs are too extreme, I’m the cause of massive informational and prejudicial discrepancies for the “other side”.
If we leftists behave well and are more thoughtful and considered and empathetic, as articles like this always encourage us to be, we are still not going to change the tides on the right. It is infantilizing to assume that people on the right don’t have their own agency and responsibility as individuals, and framing everything they do as a “reaction” to things on the left is a patronizing yet seemingly omnipresent dodge of accountability for them.
I also, in the way this article accuses us of “creating racists”, think that a big part of what we’re experiencing in leftism is created by what’s going on on the right. Because so many people on the right have “gone too far”, they make milquetoast criticisms of leftist policies seem like they’re rooted in horrible and horrifying ideals. I would love to be able to critique what I see as a misguided antiracist policy without automatically sounding like I’m someone who would have stormed the Capitol, for example. Because so many people on the right have “gone too far”, we have people on the left proposing radical or ridiculous measures because they see that there is such a strong need for immediate and drastic action. I never see the opinion piece handwringing go in this direction though.
I would love to see an article that implores people on the right to be better behaved and then maybe leftists would be less radical. I would love to see someone put the same standards for intellectual honesty and rigor on the right as they do for us on the left. I would love someone to point out at length that it’s difficult to honestly critique leftist ideas in part because of how much pollution the right has pumped into that atmosphere. If these types of articles exist and I just haven’t seen them, please link them (this is not empty rhetoric, by the way: I genuinely do want to read them so please point me in their direction!). I spent a while reading right-wing news sites after being accused by a family member of living in a “liberal media bubble”, and I never saw an article like this one but with reversed perspectives. Everything was just an attack on the left. Everything.
Now, I say all of this out of frustration, but there’s a more important caution here that’s fully nonpartisan and has nothing at all to do with right vs. left but is something we’re all actively living with, all the time (and that will probably get worse):
Once misinformation and disinformation take hold in a group, there’s very little you can do to counterbalance that, because the people who disagree with you are not responding rationally to actual information. Furthermore, when the misinformation activates prejudice, your actions won’t be seen for what they actually are. Ask any trans person in the US about what that’s like right now.
So, while I discarded the idea that we leftists should “be better” for reasons related to the right, I do think the idea of being better on its own is fundamentally sound and crucially important. What happened on the right is a warning sign for us. They became unmoored from truth in part because they lost moderating voices. They gave way to the most extreme voices and policies, and they actively punished those who went against the party line, even when those people had very obvious truths on their side.
The left needs moderating voices not for the right, but for ourselves. This is incredibly hard to do, however, in part because of the general Twitterification of online and political discourse, but also because of all the stuff I mentioned earlier. I also think AI is about to drop us off an informational cliff. We were already watching entire segments of the population become completely disconnected from truth, and we now have extremely powerful, extremely accessible tools that can fabricate extremely convincing information in any form.
I love the idea of critiquing the left, and I think it’s vitally important. I already wish it were easier and less exhausting, but it feels like it’s only going to get harder and more difficult.
Who is the audience for this? Seemingly you are as you want to read it, but other than that, there's seemingly no audience for it. If you break things down into left-right politics, this type of messaging you're asking about would seemingly target the right. But if such messaging gets no reception, then the messaging will be abandoned quickly. So the only way for the message to exist after that would be if there were another audience for it. I'm not going to get into discussing theories or possible reasons why they aren't receptive to it, but to the extent that they seemingly aren't. Beyond that, I don't know if the right's lack of reception to that messaging precludes the need of the left to have that messaging.
The only audience for this would seemingly be the left, but then it would be seen as a critique of the left. I'm not sure it would escape the criticism you've approached this with. If the audience of this messaging is the left, it's simply calling out the left as reactionaries. In a way, this article is that, but it's targeting the "moderate" left that become reactionaries to the leftists going too far than it is targeting the leftists going too far as being reactionaries of the right extremism. In a way, some of these things become antithetical to what you'd expect because of the groups one associates with. The moderate left that becomes reactionaries to the extreme left do this because they're in leftist groups as that's what they had/have more in common with.
I don't know if it exists on Tildes, but I've seen very little in the way of right-politicking. I don't know if that's partly a moderation thing, or if it's just reality that there's few on the right who want to participate in the type of conversation styles that exist on here, or if they are here but exist in such small numbers they get drowned out. I guess I say this to highlight our perspective becomes tilted by what we're more exposed to. We're not exposed to extreme right conversation here because it's not tolerated (a good thing if I have to clarify), and moderate right to what extent it exists doesn't seem to have much here, so it seems inevitable that this type of article is what we'd see rather than something else. Is it possible to define moderate right without it seeming extreme or if its not is that a reflection of the right or ourselves? I'm sincerely not attempting to antagonize by meta-ing this, but some of the threads I've seen locked on this site would presumably be more defined as moderate right but the ideas result in antagonized conversations. I'd be curious if there was some meta thread on locked topics, not discussing the content that got them locked but some kind of analysis of patterns between them or if there's consistent messaging in them, but of course that has too much potential to become some other kind of beast that would end up needing locked itself (which isn't fair to Deimos to start such things in part because it could be seen as a critique of what he locks but also because it creates more work for him to create things that seemingly can go off the rails quickly).
To go back to what I was saying, much of our perspective is rooted not in a balanced framing of ideas or other perspectives, but seemingly become relative to other things. I often wonder how much my perspectives are influenced because I constantly have to talk in terms of left-right politics and what the Democrats are doing versus the Republicans, all because the US political system has no ability to support anything else, but at the same time I have no idea what discourse looks like outside the US-sphere, specifically in regions that might have more diverse political systems. In the US political system I feel like I'm often fighting a battle to all political "sides" because there's only two and it's hard to just do anything without having to be reactionary to something, because there's no official group to represent more specific viewpoints. I could be wrong but I feel as if there was more of a coalition based system that centered around distinctly different political parties, it would make it so the representatives have the responsibility of finding common ground and doing more of the fighting, on a personal level I don't need to fight over who represents the left broadly, I just find someone that represents me, and they fight over who represents the common ground among the left. Then I wouldn't feel as though I'm being so reactionary. Couple this with the institutions that are elected by land rather than people, on an individual level it's hard to remind yourself that more weight is given to less popular ideas because of how the system gives them more voting power.
I don't think I came away with the same interpretation that the article suggests that. I came away with it more that on an individual level, and individually we create the collective, that we can be better and thus make the collective better by not being reactionary. I think as the article suggests, it was targeting more of a moderate audience because extreme audiences aren't going to be receptive. As it seems there isn't much of a moderate right audience, it might explain why it's targeting moderate left. I think it could have done a better job providing examples of how the right could argue against identity politics to provide balance even if the only audience is on the left, as you did mention that it was rather imbalanced in its criticism. The onus isn't only on the left, but if there's no significant moderate right voices, perhaps the onus is only on the left.
Thanks for this thoughtful response, Grumble. It gave me a lot to think about, and I had to read it several times to really process it and consider it deeply.
I think your question about audience, as well as your noting of a hollowing out of the moderate right capture part of why I was so frustrated by this piece. When I'm asking for a piece that reverses the perspectives, I'm wanting to see a thoughtful, moderating voice for the right -- a piece that points to the extremism on their side and says "hey, maybe the reason leftists are responding in such ridiculous ways is because of what we're doing?" Honestly, part of it is just me being petty, but another part of me thinks that we've let the rhetoric of "extremism on one side is the cause of it for the other" go in only one direction for far too long that seeing a reversal would be a simple sanity check on the concept as a whole.
The absence of something like that could simply be my lack of exposure to things, but it's not for lack of trying. I genuinely did read right wing news sources for a while as an experiment in getting out of my own lane to see what I was missing. What I found was disheartening though -- moderating voices on the right were seemingly nowhere to be found. Extremism, prejudice, and malice against others were omnipresent on the right-wing sites I read. Furthermore, they were largely celebrated, and they were almost always framed in a responsive/defensive way to something that the left did, which I believe is just a smokescreen for deliberately bad behavior.
The absence of these voices are, I think, the same hollow that you noted. There's seemingly no appetite for moderating voices on the right. I would occasionally wander into the comments sections on the news sites, and even gentle pushback was shouted down and drowned out. In that regard, what I've done here is effectively wrong. I believe in the need for moderating voices on the left, but I pretty much just shouted down this author when he was attempting to do exactly that.
You question whether we're the ones drowning out the moderate right here, and that's honestly a really good question. It's entirely possible (maybe even probable?) that we are, as I've definitely seen some people who are quick to jump on something that even looks slightly right-aligned. The part of me that loves Tildes and the discussion culture we've created here thinks this is wrong and violates our principles of charity and good faith.
I'll be honest though, there's a beleaguered internet person part of me that rolls my eyes at how naive that sounds. Part of the strategy of the right has been to troll and play shell games with their actual positions online, either because they know the position is unpopular and thus have to mask it, or because trolling the left has been seen as valuable discourse online ever since the alt-right pretty much adopted it as their official strategy. I think a big part of the reason why some people are ready to jump on anything that sounds even mildly conservative is that we've been in countless other situations where we didn't and us and our wider communities have suffered for it.
I would argue that phenomenon is a good example of what I would like to see in my hypothetical moderating op-ed from the right side: someone arguing that bad faith tactics and harboring of hatred are causing a sort of "overfitting" on the left which is destroying the image of moderate conservatives and denying them their say. Maybe by changing those things on the right, the left would respond differently? It's a logical road to walk down if we assume the same framework (which, for the record, I don't, but this is rhetorical). So, why don't we see it?
I don't like the answer that I have to that question, because it sounds extremist to say it on my part, but I honestly feel that much of the American right has become completely disconnected from moderating factors. I also worry that the left is slowly walking down that same path. And, like I said in my original post, I worry that technological advances are about to accelerate the hollowing of moderation like we've never seen before.
You talked about the influence of hyperpartisan US politics on you and how it feels like you're battling on all sides. I feel that pretty strongly. My comment above is the first one of its type in a while, and it's actually the kind of thing I'm ultimately trying to get away from here. There was an article similar to this one two years ago here, and I posted something similar to what I did in this thread. I then came back to the thread and posted a follow up:
That holds true now, too, two years later, with this thread. Every time I talk about US politics or even write the words "right" and "left" I find myself deeply tired and unfulfilled and in a way that is cheekily apt given our discussion: feeling hollowed out. For some reason though, I keep coming back to stuff like this. It's like picking at a scab instead of just letting it heal.
Even though I didn't get any negative responses in this topic, the mere idea of them still has subtantial occupancy in my head. I anticipate and mull over potential takedowns, conflicts, and arguments I could conceivably get into, even when they don't actually happen (which they didn't -- at least so far). When I first loaded up your comment and saw its length I had an "oh shit I'm now in a comment war" feeling that I used to get all the time back on reddit, but as I read what you wrote, it quicky became clear that it's not coming from a place of malice at all but of intellectual honesty for you. You wanted to share your perspective, and that you chose to do that with me is valuable and enriching. Thank you for reading what I wrote and taking all of the time that you did to respond in a kind and thoughtful way.
Despite that though, I can't shake the reality that every single time I make a comment like the one I did above, I feel measurably worse, often without reason. Also, that bad feeling persists longer than it should. I had a genuinely wonderful weekend, but I chose to make my comment on Saturday morning and in moments that followed that day, where my brain was quiet or there was some downtime, I found the specter of it poking through and making my wonderful weekend slightly but measurably worse. I had to consciously choose to not check my phone and focus on what I was doing, because there was a non-negligible "pull" to look at responses and the vote count and whatnot. I ultimately wish I hadn't written it in the first place. My weekend would have been better for it.
This has absolutely nothing to do with you or anyone else here -- it's a hangup I have in my head, and I don't know why it's there or what to do about it. I do know I'm tired of the battle you identified -- our shared American conceptual warscape.
Why I keep coming back to it when it makes me feel like shit remains a mystery to me.
In my view, it’s not that the left is “going too far” that is resulting in racists, but this new focus on thinking about ourselves and everyone around us through the lens of race has the effect of “othering” people rather than bringing us together. That is to say, you can’t be a white supremacist without first having a sense of white identity.
But why is it important that we tell kids that their skin colour or place of origin is an important part of their identity? I think that a sense of racial or national identity, in any form (pride, shame, or otherwise) is toxic. It’s an artificial discriminating concept that is at best benign and at worst a seed around which extreme ideologies take hold.
America is a unique place because our history as a cultural melting pot. It is futile to ignore those differences in culture, because they will persist regardless. An American child from an immigrant family will grow up steeped in their family’s culture. It is a part of them.
When I was growing up as a young white man the predominant view among white Americans is that white American culture is the “default” culture of America. The big thing at the time was “color blindness”, you’d often hear people say “I don’t see race.” But in reality, “color blindness” is kind of the ultimate othering. It separates the person from their culture. It implies that they can somehow rise above their immigrant heritage and become a part of the white default culture. This is especially confusing for children of immigrants growing up in America as they have to find ways to balance their American side and their cultural side, and often feel like they don’t fully belong in either.
I am in an interracial marriage with the daughter of an immigrant family and she’s talked to me about this at great length. She’s told me about the shame of bringing her family’s cultural food to school where she was made fun of for it. She’s also told me about the shame she has not knowing her family’s language and how she is left out of conversations at family gatherings. She is stuck between worlds being a part of both and neither.
With time, and hard work, she has come to accept who she is, but it was not easy. Of her entire life she has been bombarded by a culture that never fully accepted her, which also informed her ideas of what it means to be American. She had to unlearn a lot of things that were deeply ingrained in her by growing up in America. She is finally starting to reconnect with her family at home and abroad, and she has pride in herself and an understanding of who she is now. She’s a happier and healthier person.
All of this is to say I think it is naive to say we should just stop looking at things through the lens of race when race is so much more than just the tone of your skin. It is about culture and also individuality. I think it is really easy for white people to say “I wish we could all just stop talking about race” because white people have never really been othered the way that other cultures in America have.
Race is a made up construct. Biologically speaking, we are all basically the same and skin tone is no different than eye color or hair color. But culturally it is a very real thing that has very real effects on people’s lives. We shouldn’t ignore race, or really, culture. Instead we should be embracing it, celebrating it. This is why things like representation in media matter. So we can be exposed to those differences between us and learn not to fear them.
This is still where I'm at, and what I think is the ideal.
I'm an interracial person.
Absolutely agree.
We really should ignore race. Like, really. Because,
and that's a problem, that we should be addressing. I think we're going about this in the wrong way, by elevating race into a primary characteristic for people when it should be at best secondary, or tertiary like eye color or being left/right handed.
There is biological “race” (fake; simply different expressions of phenotype) and then there is culture. Unfortunately, the fake concept of race and the real concept of culture are inherently tangled in modern American culture. But color blindness focuses only on the fake concept of race, and erases the real concept of culture, asking all people to conform to the default white American monoculture. That, to me, sounds like a boring world.
And you do have to ask, is the racists’ problem with other races really more about the skin tone or the culture? I think the fact that you see non-white people participate in white supremacist groups tells us that white racists are willing to accept non-white people if those people are willing to abandon their culture and embrace the white American monoculture.
And so in response to white supremacy why wouldn’t we elevate and celebrate non-white cultures? We shouldn’t ignore our differences, but we should accept them. We need to raise the next generation not in color blind world but instead a gloriously chromatic world where we don’t foster fear of others, or erasure and conformity of culture, but rather acceptance, compassion, and curiosity.
...and as long as they're useful. The more powerful white supremacists become, the tighter the circle of suitable allies become, and non-white allies are the first to go. Non-white people are tolerated in these groups at times more because they're useful than because they've successfully assimilated imo.
The rhetoric may be that "if they abandon their culture we'll welcome them", but I have my doubts. History is full of people being shot because they had the wrong skin color and no significant cultural markers. Or being standing in queue forever waiting to get into a bar just because of their skin color while speaking the local language natively, etc.
What you are proposing doesn’t work. We’ve tried it and it arguably made things worse because it provides plausible deniability for systemic racism and so it gets handwaved away and doesn’t ever get addressed. Look at how many people were surprised at how upset people were at the police when BLM came around.
I would strongly recommend reading the book Racism Without Racists by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, which covers this topic in detail.
I actually don’t think this is true. Discrimination has vastly decreased over time — it’s impossible to argue against that.
What metric are you talking about and how is it measured? And what timeframes are you talking about?
Bigotry has changed a lot, it's less extreme than it was in the past. I think that, in absence of fostering it, bigotry will fade.
However, it is also easy to foster. And there are still plenty of bad actors actively doing so.
It takes ever-present vigilance to keep those fostering forces at bay.
It seems a distinction without a difference, but I think it's an important one: Bigotry has a lot less power when you take away the megaphone.
I mean what time period would you like to look at? There used to be literal slavery in America, so I think it’s a given that the post-slavery era has less discrimination. The Ku Klux Klan used to be a meaningful organization, and now it’s not. The Jim Crow era ended in the 60s. My family grew up in a concentration camp in Canada — I don’t think that will happen again.
If you want to look at some numbers, 2022 was the lowest level of black poverty since we started measuring it in 1959.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/black-poverty-rate.html
Black high school educational achievement has nearly matched whites.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/06/black-high-school-attainment-nearly-on-par-with-national-average.html
Perfect! Thank you for your answer because it gives me a better understanding of what it is you think.
The problem I have with your opinion is that your bar of acceptable progress is far too low. The first thing you mention is Slavery! And while that's clearly not what your baseline actually is, the fact that you even mention it acts to lower expectations - weather or not you intended it to be that way. And even then, you start off with data that begins in 1959, before the end of segregation and the enactment of the Civil Rights act in 1964, a landmark event that would see huge improvements in the coming years.
Just look at that graph of Black poverty and you can see that it's gone down, but there were many times when it went up as well. And I think this graph is a pretty good refutation of your endorsement of racial colorblindness. That ideology started even before the end of segregation, but perhaps it reached it's peak in 1963 when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech where he produced that famous quote, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." But to get back to the point, the part of that graph that I think is most telling is the tail end, where circa 2015 it trends sharply downward.
Why do you think that it went down? What happened in those years that might have had such a huge effect on black people? I think I've got a pretty good idea of why. In 2013, George Zimmerman gets acquitted for the murder of Treyvon Martin. This spawns the beginning of the twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. The murders of Eric Garner and George Floyd in 2014 and 2020 launch Black Lives Matter as a political movement with demonstrations not only across the United States, but around the globe. Racial colorblindness effectively became impossible, and it caused marked improvements in the lives of black people.
If you'd like to read more about this, Wikipedia does have a rather disputed article on the matter that is worth reading even though it's kind of messy, just as an overview of the ideas, but I would rather you read an in-depth book about the topic such as the one I mentioned earlier or perhaps Ibram X. Kendi's How to be an Anti-Racist.
I have to disagree with your analysis of that poverty graph. It’s evident that the factor resulting in increases in poverty are the clearly marked recessions— in periods of non-recession, reductions in black poverty are steady.
I’m not sure why you would choose 1963 as the peak of colour blindness. That was around the time when it just broke into the mainstream. It only got more widespread after that point.
I wouldn’t characterize my view on this as being “acceptable progress” but rather an acknowledgment that there is in fact progress. I recognize that you feel this is unacceptable progress and you are frustrated. However, I don’t agree that the current course we are on where we are putting undue emphasis on our differences and explicitly emphasizing and celebrating racial identity is an improvement and I think it is going to result in worse outcomes than the previous course.
You’re not quite getting what I mean, but I don’t blame you because writing that was literally the first thing I did this morning and frankly I have more thoughts on this than would make sense to put into a comment. That’s why I’m urging you to read a book on the matter.
One of the grander ideas I was thinking about but didn’t actually get put into that comment is that the effects of racism tends to get moved around rather than eliminated. That was why I brought up reconstruction. Slavery became illegal, yes, but that didn’t exactly mean that black people became free. Life is extremely complex, and as such no one factor is going to completely explain away the end of racism.
The timeline of progress on racism has been extremely long, and we have seen countless people who have died without seeing it resolved. As far as I’m concerned, there really is no excuse for this. There is no acceptable reason why Black people are facing a legal and penal system that disproportionately punishes them. And of course I’m not saying that you are making the counter argument, but pointing out that we’ve had small, incremental changes that have improved things doesn’t really help the people who are suffering today. And as I’ve already stated, racial colorblindness only serves to make the issues less visible, which means that they are less likely to actually be addressed.
Just want to say reading through it feels like you kind of moved the goalposts on the person you're responding to. Initially you asked them what metrics or timeframes support their prior assertion that discrimination has "vastly decreased over time" and when they mention slavery as a starting point, its used against them in a way that feels disingenuous considering the question that was asked of them. If racism/discrimination was easy to quantify in a way that can't be contested, then sure, it might make sense to pick on them for going back to that point to start, but it isn't that easy. It seems they went for key differentiators from what we see today that are visibly different indications of how society has changed in its treatment of black people to back their prior assertion.
Ideally that would be true. You previously mentioned MLK, his letter from a Birmingham jail addresses this idea rather pointedly. Yet the slow march of progress is what remains. From what I've learned of history (and I'm certainly not claiming to be a history buff), the only "fast progress" if there is such a thing, results in many dead people. At times when I've read about the American Civil War, and what happened after that, it actually kind of blows my mind how on the one hand it's a huge marker of progress, it ended slavery, but the compromises to achieve that ending resulted in racism being "moved around" as you said. But if we go back to what you said, that slow progress is unacceptable, to achieve something better than that, go ahead and rewrite history as you see it to achieve that. Pick an easy starting point, the Civil War. If it's even possible, it means having such resolute power or enough people in the North who believe this that many of them would willingly give their lives to eradicate the remaining people in the South. Instead of moving racism around post-civil war, rewrite history right here to end racism completely. Of course it's not even as simple or straightforward as all the good people were in the North and all the bad people were in the South, but it illustrates what extremes humans would likely have to go through to achieve this "acceptable" speed of progress.
I find it interesting you frame it like this on this particular subject, because the legal and penal system isn't just broken for black people. This isn't an 'all lives matter' rhetoric or anything like that, my point in mentioning that is to showcase how humans can't achieve acceptable progress for anyone. The legal and penal system is so broken it's the anti-justice system in my view. The notion that everyone gets a fair trial doesn't exist, it's a fairy tale. ~95% of people are forced into plea bargains, the system literally could not function without them.
Just to be crystal clear, that doesn't mean we should accept that what progress we have made shouldn't be available to everyone rather than some races being left out of that progress. Everyone should experience that progress.
I'm only highlighting that humanity has numerous phases of "unacceptable progress" and it's not exclusive to racism/discrimination. That tells me humans are bad at progress, not that humans are only bad at progress when it comes to race.
I sincerely didn't mean to employ any rhetorical trickery. When I was asking for what metrics they were thinking of, I meant it more as a way to gauge where they were coming from so I knew where to go from there.
I agree with everything you said, especially in regards to the overall justice system being broken for everyone.
I suppose that overall my message is that we should not rely on messaging that causes us to rest on our laurels; we need to continue pushing hard for things that will improve the lives of ourselves and those around us. That is why I am so against the idea of racial colorblindness.
I agree with this, but I don't think it extends to culture. Race and nationality are meaningless and usually used as tools of oppression, while culture is something inherent to humans. I don't think there's anything wrong with a group of people sharing a set of beliefs, food, clothing, etc.
I think it's okay to be proud of your Irish, Italian, English, Polish, etc. culture, but there's no "white culture". That's what I feel is toxic.
There's white culture, and I can best explain it from the words of the most "colorblindness is good" believer I know.
"Black people just need to let go of their culture if they're ever going to be successful in America."
White culture is about feeling superiour about anything another culture does different, and otherizing that culture. Kind of like drawing a dot by placing dots all around a piece of paper except for one area.
The issue with that framing, and I think it's getting at something very important, is just how unreliably it tracks with the "whiteness" of people. Plenty of people of colour have internalised this sort of "Western" chauvinism, and plenty of white people grew up without it. Every other thing we call a culture, in that sense, implies that it's the soil from which all members can be specified by, rather than a diffuse memetic attitude.
It's almost as if it's the chauvinism and power dynamics that are the problem, and not the actual skin tones.
People use skin tones as synecdoche for the chauvinism and power dynamics all the time, how does your definition do anything but reinforce that conflation? That's my issue.
Edit: Just in case it was ambiguous, what you have rephrased here is exactly what I meant was "getting at something very important".
Thank you. I've been struggling to express my convoluted frustration with articles like this, and this puts a large part of it pretty perfectly.
The way I remember the 2016 election was that all of the other candidates were going to donors and walking away with big wads of cash as long as they signed off on a long list of issues that were more popular with the donors than with voters. In that situation it was hard for any candidate to really stand out.
Trump did stand out because he wasn't going to those donors for a hand-out so he was free to put together his own platform and he put in one issue, opposition to immigration, that was popular with the Republican base but had been suppressed by Republican elites and that helped him look different from all the others.
Elected Republicans are terrified today of primary challenges and they know the base is loyal to Trump and that the "election was stolen" meme really "rings true" to many primary voters. Even if they were themselves victims of the Jan 6 attack they still don't feel like they can separate themselves from Jan 6.
One of the good things Trump did was he greased the skids for private COVID-19 development and guaranteed that the government would buy millions of doses. Had he gone around the country in 2021, took credit for the vaccine and vigorously supported people getting the vaccine a lot of people in red states might have listened to him and got vaccinated. I think he didn't do it thought because he was afraid of anti-vax sentiment in the same way other Republicans are afraid to disown Jan 6, "stop the steal" and all that.
I'm not sure the Republicans have another person quite like Trump or if they're going to ever be able to succeed in the same way when he is out of the picture. Phillip Bump in his book The Aftermath points out that the population is gradually becoming less white and the strategy of "whites vs everyone else" is not going to keep being a winner. In fact, many Republican strategists thought that Mitt Romney's loss in 2012 was a sign they needed to broaden their appeal but Trump has the charisma to make it work one last time. (We hope)
Republicans might want to make 2024 a replay of 2016 but 2028 will certainly not be that. Republicans are going to be forced to broaden their appeal and so will Democrats in that it is not sustainable that they will do as well with minorities as they have and they will have to do better with working class whites.
You neglect what I believe is very important, the poisoned well. So many engage in overtly bad faith argumentation, and the same issue is rehashed endlessly (a classic media tactic on both sides but even more so on the right, with its strict adherence to labeling and nicknames and confrontational editorials), that those who may be in an innocent place of curiosity will be met with derision by those who are used to seemingly polite questions coming from or morphing into massively hateful ones.
I believe that the divisive nature of media, but especially offensive-friendly Republican media, poisons the well by being so inflammatory that ordinary or moderate people would rather plug their ears than listen to political analyses. both-sidesism is another goal of this scheme. To exhaust people or otherwise convince them both sides are equally wrongful.
As others have pointed out, this author may not have used the best quotes. Still, I will say that there is some truth in all of this, even if it's hard to pin down.
As an example, I have recently had a hard time teaching some of what is being written into the curriculum at the school where I teach. They aren't going overboard like you read on Fox News. Nobody is forcing kids to hate white people or reassess their own gender identity. Nobody is allowing kids to use litter boxes at school because they identify as a cat (yes, this was actually falsely reported by conservative news outlets).
But...we do focus very heavily on the struggles of Black Americans when teaching the humanities. Our American History classes are mostly sad and guilt-inducing now. The only time America is seen as good is during World War 2.
I have so many white kids who are living with grandma because their parents are dead or addicted to heroin. The kids often have substance abuse issues themselves, depression, food insecurity, nobody making rules for them or loving them, etc.
Then I have to do our unit on Zip Codes (white privilege) and it just feels bad. Yet, I still think it's so important. I do explain that not everyone has the same privilege, and that privilege is often based on factors other than race. I give Appalachia as an example of a largely white community that has similar struggles to the black communities. But I'm conflicted. And I have heard other teachers I work with get very offended by some of what we are learning. A lot of them are just old/out of touch and I don't care that they're offended. But other times they're just politically neutral people - people who have a problem with the killing of unarmed black men, and who want the world to be better for people of all colors and creeds - who feel their own struggles are just being ignored. Like, "Hey, I went into massive, life-ruining debt to be a teacher because my family had nothing. I had a single mom who had a really hard life. Why am I being told that I'm privileged?"
Those instances do bother me. Perhaps we need to find ways to continue teaching these truths without them consuming the rest of the curriculum. I also think focusing on class/power might be more important than race in 2023 as well. Though I say that cautiously because race is absolutely still a factor.
I always say schools are a reflection of what's going on in society. I think my situation in education reflects what a lot of people are feeling in society as a whole.
I'm British for reference.
On the Internet, anytime the Empire is mentioned there is always some absolute trogladite who sits there going "WHY ISN'T THIS TAUGHT IN SCHOOL!?!" as if British kids should constantly feel shameful for the past of our ancestors. It gets exhausting having to constantly remind people that history IS massive, nuanced and ridiculous for some places. Or reminding folks that the vast majority of the kids who got taught this? Their ancestors were just as fucked and oppressed by a wealthy elite then as the slaves were in America... There's an island on the other side of the world that we deemed to tear people from their lives and dump them their because they were 'criminals' in the eyes of an establishment. It's not slavery, but my God is it repulsive behaviour. Yet it's seen okay to joke about. People were ground through mills and worked to death, if you couldn't work you ended up in a poor house, destitute or dying on the streets. Did they get whipped to death? No. Did they get their lives broken because of an elite who wanted more capital? Absolutely.
World War 2 is a great topic for the British. "We stood up the Jerries!" said mostly by people in their 60's and 70's these days... Americans get the same issue I think.
My own personal experience with this is painfully relevant. I'm a white guy in my 30s with ADHD, I grew up dirt poor in the Midlands of the UK and was garbage at school. I'm the kid that would 'never do well', would be asking if 'they want fries with that?' their entire lives and the such... my prospects were grim. Yet I'm successful and I speak out about DE&I at workplaces and professional settings all the time to help those around me. There's never been a single thing done to help me figure out the world, to help me adapt... or to change the world to help me. If I raise my hand up I get the "Yeah, check your privilidge" stance and it is an exhausting fight to go against (Yeah, Yeah. I'm a white guy in the UK... dead privilidged to be getting fucked like everyone else right now.) It's a fight that has been co-opted by arrogance and ego's throughout the world and by people who've figured out they can make a name for themselves by calling out 'microaggressions' and the such in workplaces and personal lives.
People want a target to focus on and shift the blame, they don't want to create a more equitable world where anyone of any race, colour, creed, diversity can truly live, love and prosper. They want vengence against those they see who have wronged them. Hate begets hate.
My wife is a former teacher. I hear you loud and clear just how fucked things are and I hope they get better for you.
But the elephant in the room is simple to point at as a source of a lot of problems. Capitalism.
It was the reason for slavery and the privilidged castes that society in the west created. It's the cause of climate change. It's the cause of wasted lives and shattered dreams. Until people raise their hands and say "This system is fucking broken" and do something about it? The guilt, shame, hate and violence against each other will continue.
I have read historical analysis that claims to demonstrate that the reason slavery was based on color was precisely to divide black people from poor oppressed whites, whether working or destitute.
Anyone who wants to read up on what it was like to be poor in the UK and the US before the 20th century could start with an anthology edited by Upton Sinclair, The Cry For Justice an Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65775
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31529116914&ref_=ps_ggl_18382194370&cm_mmc=ggl-_-US_Shopp_Trade0to10-_-product_id=COM9781609808365USED-_-keyword=&gclid=CjwKCAjwmbqoBhAgEiwACIjzENMaoXzwuq4urFvjDqyrRTy9VQC-qVuOadQUWc6JOdHV7aw6dQO8iBoCiQsQAvD_BwE
https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/the-cry-for-justice-an-anthology-of-the-literature-of-social-protest-9781569800690?shipto=US&curcode=USD&gad=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwmbqoBhAgEiwACIjzEHwxBt_uGv9vf3JmZpoAVbV34s2XeZSpvPqggYtDlKgf0rzoyQzM-RoC2PEQAvD_BwE
This means exactly one of two things:
I've never seen it proven true literally, except in people deliberately formulating such a scenario.
Do keep in mind that the US education system is extremely fractured and different counties have different standards, and that’s still assuming those standards are actually met.
“Assuming the standards are actually met” is a major factor, good catch. Even if they are met in later grades, a missed standard early on has compounding effects (though I’m more used to seeing discussions of that in the context of math education).
Two other cases I didn’t think of until now:
I know the Internet teaches people to tie nice little bows onto our statements like this, but can we not do it on Tildes?
Life is far more nuanced than an IF / OR statement.
The point of learning history is not to feel good about your country. Our kids should learn what actually happened. And an accurate, non whitewashed, version of American History is largely one of slavery, genocide, theft, and broken promises.
Totally agree. My counterpoint is that history isn't exclusively supposed to make you feel bad either. It's okay to say American history is full of bad and good people, shades of grey, etc. It's okay to say that we did horrible things in the time where that was the norm and wasn't seen as horrible. It's okay to say we can learn from it and do better, to say that we aren't responsible for the sins of our fathers, but that we are responsible for not repeating them.
We can be proud of American ingenuity while acknowledging that people suffered. We should be just as proud of Americans who fought to end slavery as we should be ashamed of those who fought to continue it.
I'm in the classroom every day, for every core subject. The kids go from learning about slavery in social studies, to the Holocaust in English, to climate change in science. These are all hugely important and unavoidable subjects that need to be taught and taught well. But even as an adult, my mood gets a little bleak after hearing about it all so much.
I want to be clear, I'm only advocating for some restraint here. We could inject a little more optimism and wonder, more love and pride for all of humanity, into the classroom. And I'm suggesting that we should be careful not to invalidate the struggles of some people in favor of focusing on one group or just a few groups. A lot of kids in my class are suffering immensely and they aren't all minority kiddos.
I think part of it (and a thing my one history teacher in the 90s did well), is to highlight the good and the bad.
The problem comes when those whom strugggled for justice are downplayed and whitewashed to make the narrative fit to "America is always doing better."
MLK should be paired with Malcom X. The videos of MLK's speeches should be paired with the KKK and the firehoses. There should be talk of how the government treated both like terrorists.
So yea, if your family was a victim of Jim Crow, you should feel proud for surviving. If your family inflicted and benefit from it, you should feel bad. Especially when so many issues are backsliding these days. And the discussion should be framed as "how can we all work together so we can right the wrongs of the past so we don't have to keep feeling shame."
White kids who don't feel ashamed about their parents benefiting from redlining don't feel outrage when those policies continue with "negro" crossed out and "bad credit" is put in its place.
One problem with traditional "American history" narrative is that the state is treated as a force for good, when the state is often the enemy. Not because it is evil, but because it is a giant rock on a hill. Positve change is an uphill battle against tradition, negative change rolls downhill by looking like the rose-colored past.
People are generally good. Good people fight, and have won, against injustice. But good people whom do nothing support the bad things, because they just make the weight of the state larger.
It is important to learn that to be a proud American, is to side with the people fighting for justice. Not the people fighting for the status quo (whom most often have the dominant voice in the state).
You wanna teach kids to have pride in history? Teach them to treat the state as a hostile force that can be used for good if we work together to overcome the inertia and comfort of tradition.
Why would-- much less should--one feel pride or shame about something someone else did? If my grandfather was a freedom rider, that doesn't imply I've done anything worthwhile. Likewise if he was a Nazi, it doesn't mean that I'm a monster. I can condemn him without taking on his baggage, no?
The actual example is even worse than that, because the curriculum (read as a way of promoting pride/shame) has to do with people who superficially look like me, not even people that I'm related to. I should feel pride/shame because someone with similar skin pigment did something great/shitty 100 years ago?
Is there a study on this or something? Or is this just an assumption?
But you're saying some Americans ought to feel ashamed, because their familial American history is shameful. I don't see how telling some people they belong on team shame is going to make them gung ho for improving things. My reaction, if I were to take what you're saying literally and had a shameful family past, would be to feel brow beaten and disengage.
I think the issue is conflating shame with condemnation with guilt. When all three are treated as the same thing, people resent learning about their own history. You can despise what you're ancestors did, while recognizing you benefitted from their actions, while recognizing that your are not them and can be a better person. Others can see you as circumstancially being part of a group that has historically caused suffering while not believing you share monolithic values. This implied exclusivity of the concepts is a convenient way to confound the conversation.
That is very true.
Yes, you personally are not responsible for the sins of your ancestors.
However, one must look inward and acknowledge the advantages and disadvantages that one has due to those sins. And empathize with those who, do not have those things. And if those wrongs have not been righted, not merely by removing the cause, but also the symptom, then you must fight to fix them.
Otherwise, you should feel some shame for benefitting from your ancestor's sins while others whom suffered are still suffering (indirectly).
Like, I bought a home in a "white suburb" that was built in 1965. That mortgage likely benefitted from redlining, and was granted while the nearby "black neighboorhood" was being denied loans instead.
That home I bought still has immense home value while the area that was redlined is still suffering from poverty and crime . I didn't cause the redlining, but I sure as hell still benefited from it more than 40 years after the practice "ended." I want to see this fixed, because I feel shame about it.
In this case, fixing involves advocating against credit scores, zipcode based school funding, and supporting reparations. As well as trying to educate others on the concept of privilege.
Opposed to another aquaintence of mine that denies that systemic racism exists and they don't have "white privilege," despite quite visibly benefiying from it.
You're deviating a bit from your original claim by saying (I think) you should feel shame only if you do not "look inward and acknowledge the advantages and disadvantages one has due to [past] sins [by other people]."
I don't think this new version is intelligible. Someone who doesn't reflect is much less likely to feel shame in these things, since by definition they haven't placed themselves as having some role in them.
But to the real point: Why should one have the psychological state of shame at any of these past actions of other people? Why do I, the individual, and my emotional reactions to the material matter in these sorts of discussions at all?
It seems to me that a better approach is teaching reflection at a critical distance. There are injustices that persist today, and here are the historical causes. How can we work together to lessen the current injustice, given that we can't change the past?
Framed that way, shame, pride, and other personal reactions are beside the point, and definitely not the goal of education on these issues.
Not an "only," moreso an "especially". And while I get what you're saying, I think it's important to tie the events of the past to the person in the present. We are nothing but history in the making.
I think if we try to abstract too much, it prevents making that empathetic and emotional connection which is what triggers character changes. It means you have some skin in the game, so to speak.
My wife is a descendent of Robert E. Lee and had multiple branches of her family tree lopped off in the Holocaust. I'm a descendant of early German immigrants that benefitted from the rascism of the Homestead Act on one side and a bit of wealth that let them escape Germany in the wake of WWI on the other. Her parents lost their family business and she couldn't afford college. My dad earned his wages building munitions factories and paid for 4 kid's college educations. Not having college debt is my single biggest privilege.
We are having lots of interesting converstions with our kids about the various complexities at play in our own family history. It makes history more alive, and not some arbitrary academic logic problem, like math proofs.
If your dad killed 100 people and took their land, then gave it to you, should you not feel shame about keeping that land?
The only real difference is being a generation or three removed from these things. Not that big in the grand scheme of things.
Yes, I would feel shame about the thing I'm doing. Keeping stolen land from the claimants in front of me.
What's the equivalent here? Having grown up in a house my parents bought under societal conditions that advantage them? What exactly would I be doing to merit feelings of shame?
I just don't think shame/pride makes sense here, or is useful in making any progress
The three generations are a major difference. That's plenty of time for the privilege to be split between heirs and/or squandered back down to near-background levels. We're not discussing families with Medici levels of wealth here.
Generally, poor zipcodes will still be poor after 2 or 3 generations (outside of gentrification). You don't need Medici levels of wealth to still (directly or indirectly) benefit from a system that was set up to benefit your great-grandparents.
It feels bizarre to me to be proud or ashamed of American anything, and not just because I’m not American. It just smells like nationalism, which is baseless and entirely negative in my opinion.
It's hard to read some of these perspectives without assuming they're just saying "it's getting harder to ignore the barbarism we've tried so hard to cover up"
White washing reality is not a price we can pay for maintaining nationalistic and racial pride. It shouldn't be considered a valid foil against history itself.
I agree there are plenty of positives too that can and should be highlighted when teaching. The revolutionary war and drafting of our constitution, the civil war (one side of it) and the abolitionist movement, WW2 and the reconstruction of Europe and Japan, the civil rights movement, and the labor movements are exemplary moments in our history that should make us proud of our nation.
Sure but it is also okay to say that at other times our nation's actions were exceptionally horrible. Even by the standards of the time. The Native American genocide and repeated theft of their lands, Chattel slavery, the Jim Crow south, and our imperialist treatment of Latin America are all exceptionally horrible, even compared to the norm at the time. I think we often try to qualify our nations misdeeds as the norm at the time not for the sake of historical accuracy but as a self defense mechanism.
Don't forget the incendiary and atomic bombings of Japan. People like to scrub that out of WWII or rationalize it with whataboutism. (You don't get to justify war crimes, that's the entire point.)
It's hard to set yourself apart from the horrific things the axis nations perpetrated when you burn out a starving population's cities and then immolate hundreds of thousands of people in a nuclear explosion after they've already surrendered, but you didn't quite like the terms. Oh, and waiting until the time of day when most of the children would be near ground zero is certainly a choice too.
Of all the things nationalists in the US should feel bad about, the atomic bombings and the genocide of the Native American people are still heavily whitewashed, ignored and rationalized. (And, related to that, it's rare to hear about the Geary Act or the later internment and wholesale land theft from Japanese Americans.)
Anyone who wants to read a very readable narrative about the Japanese Americans and WWII could pick up Facing the the Mountain by Daniel Brown.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55920278-facing-the-mountain
I grew up on the other side of the pendulum swing post 9/11, where nationalist pride was the law of the educational land, and it made me a bad person for longer than I'd like. So, I hate the idea of glorifying America for the sake of making us feel better about ourselves. We did horrible things, and we should celebrate the people who ended them, or exposed them. We pretend like the people of the past were more primitive, less human than we are now. That we are incapable of being as cruel and barbaric as them. That it's unfair to compare ourselves to them. It isn't, and we're all just as capable of falling into the same traps they were, being motivated by the same greed or cruelty.
The way to mitigate the guilt we feel is to learn what we can do to avoid doing acts worth feeling guilt over, not by avoiding judgement altogether. If I feel bad about failing a math test, the trick is to study and grow to do better, not stop mathematics testing.
As for invalidation of personal struggles the kids have, there has to be a better way to show scale. Suffering is not a zero sum game. Learning about one person's hardship, or declaring one proportionately worse on an institutional scale doesn't invalidate others. It's a highly conservative notion that only black people or white people can be suffering. Also highly conservative to treat reckoning with one's past as persecution, as it weakens our historic and entrenched racial hierarchy.
All in all, I agree with you. I just hope that in the future we contextualize better for not just identifying atrocities, but indicating what people in the past did to identify and overcome them, so we don't have to feel so inextricably tied to our ancestors sins exclusively, rather than hiding the atrocities to begin with.
Thanks for your service.
I'm glad you are stressing the abolitionists along with Harriet Tubman etc. In my opinion, all kids can use figures to admire from all groups.
While I agree that learning history should make you feel uncomfortable... I always like to point this out:
You have no choice for what country you're born in, so you at least want to feel some pride to say "I was born in a good place". Now if that were changed to "My place of birth is an absolute shothole" and specifically in America, not only do you have no way out AND there are a ton of people who are actively keeping it the way it is... well, the next question is what happens when a superpower nation of over 300 million people becomes COMPLETELY broken? As in, the entire populace finally realized it's a terrible country? My prediction and next question is this: how badly do you want to see what happens when we hit a Great Depression 2.0 AND possible Balkanization of America?
Maybe, just maybe, we can begin to heal. Much of America is still in the "denial" phase.
Much like grief, it's a process. And while depression is part of the process, it's also just part of the path to "acceptance".
Clearly
Why should you feel pride or shame in something that you had no choice in?
I’ve always thought that “privilege” is an unfortunate word choice to communicate the concept. I’m assuming it was originally used in situations where everyone had full context, but in the general discourse I’m not remotely surprised that a lot of people’s gut reaction is “I certainly don’t feel privileged” - because yeah, the common usage connotation is quite different to what’s being discussed here.
If you have to start off with people on the emotional defensive and then explain your terminology, it’s just asking for trouble (see: “defund the police” - a great concept wrapped in a terrible, terrible slogan from a realpolitik perspective).
A more immediately clear word would help a lot, I think, but the current terminology is fairly well embedded and understood by the people who need to talk about it most, so I doubt it’s likely to change any time soon.
I do wonder if the word used itself wouldn't get twisted no matter the word.
Another concept to think about is entitlement benefits like Medicare, social security. It used to mean, yes I'm a entitled to those benefits because i paid for them. However it's being twisted into your entitled (spoiled, a brat) of you think you deserve the benefit. Now we've been slowly telling generations not to expect to see any social security payouts when planning their retirement.
Obviously social security is much more nuanced than that but as an overall concept of how words have meaning but people who want to shift that meaning will do it regardless.
So how do we address that as well. I do think we need to shift language when it becomes charged and negative but does that force people to always be on the defensive vs being able to articulate themselves properly.
I think you’re absolutely right, it would get twisted and misused regardless, but I also think this situation is slightly different because the word had a somewhat misleading connotation from the start.
A neutral term at least has a window of time where people are open to hearing the context, although the words eventually get politicised and people start jumping to conclusions. In the two examples I’m thinking of, it sounds bad right off the bat to someone who’s never heard about the topic before, and you immediately have to defuse that with context. It’s starting off with a rhetorical disadvantage, rather than having one form over time.
For the worse, the term "privilege" has become fundamentally accusatory, due in no small part to its over- and misuse as a mechanism to dismiss what someone is saying. Hell, I know what the word means and understand the sociological concept reasonably well, but every time I read it, even I roll my eyes.
What the term may actually mean is irrelevant to how people respond to it. I think for a lot of people "defusing that with context" comes off as backpedaling in the same way as a motte and bailey type argument or saying "you're one of the good ones" (as in, backpedaling after saying something racially inflammatory, intentional or otherwise).
For years, Black Lives Matter pressed for "reform the police", with almost no effect. The [edit: effect/] calculus behind "defund the police' is to shift discourse such that "reform the police" seems reasonable in comparison to the more extreme "defund the police".
I recall a friend (who is an academic in protest studies) going to a talk where a leader in the BLM movement told them this. Sorry, it's not a great source (or even a source at all really). Even if many people haven't explicitly made this calculus, though, the effect of moving towards pushing for more radical solutions (from repeatedly being ignored and sidelined) has been to shift discourse to a point where police reform seems like a more reasonable middle ground.
My view is that there is a category of things which are upbeat and feel-good – it is called "fantasy" rather than "history" where facts are important. I think it's very hard to get away from the fact that about 15% of the population was enslaved for hundreds of years, and even today is considered to be inferior to the rest. Of course there are some upbeat moments (end of slavery, civil rights movements, Roe v. Wade – until it was repealed), but for a lot of people in America (women, non-whites) they are somewhat few and far between.
If you look at scholars looking at "race" today, they usually don't look at it in isolation; they also consider lots of other perceived characteristics. For example, Kimberlé Crenshaw has written a lot about how inequalities intersect with each other.
As someone who grew up poor, I think of it like this.
Imagine you're sorting objects based on material: you want to keep only the copper ones. The silver, brass, and gold ones aren't as desirable. But, the machine that dumps into the bin is designed in such a way that ones with rounded edges don't spill out onto the floor, the ones that are square, triangular, and other non-rounded shapes sometimes do. So, while you'll find more silver, brass, and gold rounded objects, you'll also definitely find far more of the copper ones too... and that offers an advantage to rounded objects.
Definitely. And I've used simpler versions of this explanation for my students. I think they get it. But I fear that some won't and that they'll just walk away pissed off. Especially if their parents are against it at home.
I actually co-teach all four core subjects, so I consider myself very fortunate to get the whole curriculum for my grade level. We do evolution in science and many kids still walk away thinking a monkey literally turned into a human one day because it was hungry or whatever. So I'm not hopeful that the concept of privilege is getting through to all of them in the nuanced way that it needs to. You know?
“Many” is hyperbole here, right? Please tell me it’s hyperbole.
Best guess? 20-40% don't understand it fully. They have some idea that animals change but they don't truly understand that it's through random mutation and survival of the fittest. Many walk away thinking, no matter what we do to teach it, that we are advocating some kind of "intelligent" evolution where giraffes (or their genes) "know" they need a long neck to survive and so their babies get one.
10-25% straight up think we are saying the monkey will transform into a human one day.
Just rough estimates based on my memory of last year's discussion questions and test scores.
…which itself is a misleading explanation. It should be something more akin to "reproduction of those who live long enough to reproduce." "Survival of the fittest" implies that the arc of history bends towards ever stronger and faster species while ignoring that it's often the mediocre (with correspondingly lower caloric needs) who inherit the earth—especially after a cataclysm (see: early mammals replacing dinosaurs as the dominant land vertebrates).
There's uneducated, and there's willfully ignorant. One you can teach. I just wanted to throw my two cents in from someone who has definitely had white privilege on their side, even if not economically so.
Race issues are still happening today.
Respectfully, I did point that out in my post. And I mentioned that they're absolutely still important to talk about.
I found this article quite thin, I feel like it complains that there are issues with identity politics several times without clearly stating what those issues are. I found the article referenced towards the end, by Maurice Mitchell to be much more stimulating. In it, he critiques specifically neoliberal identity politics, which he defines by its focus on the individual.
I am not a fan of the term 'identity politics' because I think it is begging the question: what is your identity and why do you have it in the first place? We must not forget that these are social identities, and that this concept is intimately connected to the concept of communities.
As a resident of my town, I am a member of a community of place. As a non-binary person, I am a member of a community of experience. As a researcher, I am a member of several communities of practice. As my parent's child, I am a member of a community of blood/genes. In each instance, there is something concrete that I share with other people, which brings us into a community, and which allows us to form a social identity. Identity follows community, not the other way around. I propose that it is not useful to speak of a 'community of identity' because I see that as begging the question.
I don't think we should be speaking of 'identity politics', instead there is 'experience politics', 'place politics', 'practice politics'. We have to look at the factors which underlie each specific social identity.
This also works to counteract the neoliberal identity politics that Mitchell describes, because it shifts the focus from a label to the reality of people's experiences. In doing so, it becomes more intuitive to understand why communities and identities of experience are relevant, and how to argue well with them. Mitchell says:
It would be both more persuasive, and more informative for this person to instead draw upon their own experiences and the experiences of others in their community: "I saw this happen before...", "This happened to the women in X...". These alternative formulations do several things which are lacking for me in the 'label-centred' statement: they ground the argument in reality; they create a story; they point directly to ourselves and people we are connected to; and they show where we can learn, so that we can improve our work (praxis!)
I love this take, thank you for it.
I think the problem is that the people who use the term "identity politics" are generally the ones opposed to considering these experiences. And it feels like, no matter how carefully expressed if there's a term to describe wanting to be inclusive and consider the impact of the experiences of different groups it would be derided the same as every other term. It is frustrating for an academic term like CRT to get thrust out, mis-defined, and become the face of "making kids feel bad". I'm not convinced it could be the same with anything else used.
Perhaps I'm just pessimistic.
Yes, this is exactly what happens with other concepts like intersectionality. Authoritarians present this as if it's about atomising people and ranking them on a hierarchy of oppression, when instead it's about appealing to experience and showing how different communities struggle against the same systems, finding resonances, and building solidarity.
I think optics, specifically the terminology and arguments we use, are really important when discussing our ideas with people who are coming from less radical, slightly-authoritarian mindsets, like centrists. I had a conversation with someone this week about "living below the breadline" and "meeting people's needs", and I learned that some people are very concerned with problems of 'free riders' (what about people who don't want to earn their living?) over and above problems of equality (why can't we provide for everyone?). These people don't lack a sense of fairness, instead they are defining fairness in a different way. In order to understand that, I had to listen to them first, and then explain my positions in their terms. My values are important to me, and I believe in them so strongly because it is like I have seen something innately beautiful but I cannot describe why. Instead I want to find out how to show people the same thing I am looking at, in the hopes that they will see beauty in it too. At a minimum, if we are both able to look at the same things, it makes it easier to talk about them, even if they don't resonate with us in the same way.
So I agree, I do a lot of education as I work with college students and I'm always hoping to help them see a broader point of view, regardless of the topic. However on a political level, I don't think you can "win" that way as sound bites are what sells. People who most didn't understand trans-ness but were rather neutral to it, or who could have had systemic oppression explained to them instead get drowned in "grooming your children" and "Critical Race Theory in our schools" propaganda. And while the only work I can do is on an individual level, it's beyond exhausting and frustrating to watch as I feel a large proportion of the country wants to suck my rights away drop by drop and pretend that there are no historical wrongs that lead to present harm.
And I can't "message" against things at that scale.
In some labor-focused retelling of the biblical story of the tower of Babel, they describe the creation of the tower involving so many people that the meanings of words changed to have different meanings, to the point that they were no longer speaking the same language. And I think that we are living through that today. You brought up the different meaning of intersectionality and identity politics, but there are many more terms that have had the same things happen to them; "liberal", "CRT", "woke", "socialism", etc.
I have a lot of thoughts about this, but frankly I can't put them into a coherent argument. It's just so... bullshit, for lack of a better term. There's no way to stop this kind of thing from happening because it's just how language works. I'd like to blame it on the media outlets, and while there's no doubt in my mind that there are some of them that are aware of what they are doing there is no way to prove it. Even if there was, what could we possibly do about it? It all just seems so hopeless.
I haven't done the historical deep dive but I am fairly confident that there are thinkers and activists from the past who created and implemented strategies to fight being vilified by the opposition. It happened to the labor movement. It happened to the abolitionists. It happened to the suffragettes. It happened to the Civil Rights activists.
When the conservatives face real opposition they generate and spread and amplify propaganda that demonizes that opposition. It's never been easy but that also means that we have examples of people we can learn from
In addition to the issues surrounding the article's treatment of "identity politics" (which you discussed excellently), it felt quite thin on evidence to me as well. It starts and ends by referencing two concrete examples, but the bulk of it is filled with statements like "people worry that..." or "when the left does this, people think that...". I like to imagine what pieces that do this would look like if they were Wikipedia articles:
So much of it felt like it was crying out for [citation needed] imo.
Sounds real scary, yeah. But let's look at the full quote:
I mean, if you want to misquote people by cutting out their central point, don't link your sources.
I don’t know that the full context takes much away from their point. I feel like obsessing over ancestry when it should be an absolute non-issue is actually harmful.
what evidence do you have that they're "obsessing" over it?
that "Understand and own European ancestry and see the tie to privilege." is one bullet point out of seven listed as goals of a curriculum.
also, let's keep the context and the extremely limited stakes in mind here:
this whole controversy took place back in 2016.
it took place at a private school in NYC with 430 students.
the linked NY Post article doesn't mention it, but the curriculum being discussed is weekly, for 45 minutes, for 10 to 12 weeks.
and it only applies to grades 1-4, so that's probably around half the enrollment of that K-8 school.
180 school days a year times 6 hours a day is 1080 hours. this entire lesson plan, which again that bullet point about ancestry is only one part of, is less than 1% of what those ~200 kids spent their time learning.
if this was as big a problem as the author claims, it seems like it'd be easy to find a more relevant anecdote than a 7 year old news story about a controversy involving a few hundred schoolchildren and what they spent less than 1% of the school year learning about.
and it sure doesn't seem like any sort of "obsession"
I was speaking more generally about the current state of society than this particular program, but I have to say this particular program is disturbing. Did you notice how it segregates the class into white kids and coloured kids and teaches them different material in a different physical location? Think about that for a second -- they are physically separating children out by race and putting them in different rooms to learn different curriculum. I find this mind boggling.
[edit: sorry, I replied to the wrong comment; I meant to reply to this one]
I think this is something of a fallacy, (and something that is very common in continental Europe); whenever anyone brings up empirical data relating to ethnicity and discrimination, dismiss it by saying that they are trying to create divisions. I think the logic is sound though
claiming that (b) 'creates' discrimination ignores the fact that the discrimination already exists, in step (a)!!
Thank you for your kind words :)
I've been called a "class reductionist" before but honestly it's a term I'd happily embrace over intersectionalist, because Caitlyn Jenner doesn't need to worry about making rent for next month.
The obsession with identity honestly feels antithetical to leftism, as if buying from LGBT/POC/Women owned stores is actually how we solve all our problems.
We talk about lived experience of minorities, but as a relatively wealthy "PoC" I know my wealth has sheltered me from most of the inequality that would be associated with my race. The way I speak and dress, as a product of my class, shelters me from racism.
I'm sorry if I'm more concerned about poor white kids not having enough food on their plate than I am about young black women fighting prejudice at some law school.
I understand that in theory intersectionality isn't supposed to make a hierarchy of oppression but it's often practiced this way.
I'm frustrated that even though it seems you know what the theory states and possibly even agrees with it you're ignoring it and only focus on class just because some other people don't understand the theory. Or that's how I read it anyway. I probably shouldn't be frustrated about this and I guess I can see where you're coming from. It's hard to try and educate every second person you discuss something with. Or is this just about how you label yourself when talking to others? Do you still think racism is a problem, or is it only about class in your mind?
As an addendum, I think that class usually gets too little room and weight in the discussion. But I don't think it's the only thing.
Class tends to supercede other issues which is why grifters like candace owens are so easily adopted by the right wing.
I'm just tired of neoliberalism because it frames the problem as "disproportionate inequality" instead of inequality. I want to eradicate poverty, not ensure that there is a proportional amount of black and white poverty.
Yeah racism is a problem but class obfuscates it, being called mean names actually isn't that big a problem, not compared to homelessness.
It's not really about "some people" misunderstanding the theory, it's about the theory itself being subsumed into capitalism.
It's also about the victories we have already won against racist laws and customs and institutions.
Racism and classism, especially in America, are deeply intertwined.
It's a "colorblind" caste system. The actual races are fluid in order to keep class solidarity at bay. See how Irish were not "white" until it proved politically convienient.
See also: How "generic christian" is being used to try to form a cohesive political unit where there isn't one, often to push the agenda of fundementalists.
A left-leaning opinion piece aimed at the "[m]any people who were initially sympathetic to its goals [and] have since recognized that the identity synthesis [aka critical race theory] presents a real danger. They want to speak out against these ideas, but they are nervous about doing so. It’s not just that they don’t want to risk alienating their friends or sabotaging their careers. They fear that opposing the identity synthesis will, inevitably, force them to make common cause with people who don’t recognize the dangers of racism and bigotry, push them onto the “wrong side of history,” or even lead them down the same path as Mr. Weinstein..."
I would not call this "left". In my opinion this is conservative/reactionary that is pretending to be progressive.
These are mine and many other's genuine feelings all while still supporting what society would deem radical leftist social and economic policies.
Understand how invalidating, alienating, and unproductive it is to accuse us of bad faith and call us conservatives every time this is brought up, even as we do our best to couch our disagreements in language that is incredibly soft and accepting of your viewpoints.
So, I don't understand the meaning of your first sentence. Do you mean like leftists should be grateful that you support them at all despite their radicalness? As in you are doing the left some huge favor (Even using incredibly soft and accepting language!)? Or do you feel like you hold leftist views which society judges as radical?
Regarding your second sentence... There is no doubt that your opinions are more conservative than mine (you said the article reflects your genuine feelings). That word is not a bad thing in itself, but if you are uncomfortable with it ¿How would you describe your political opinions?
I personally hold those "radical" leftist views as deemed by society, and as such feel rather alienated to be called "conservative" (with all of the terrible implications it comes with) simply for holding a singular different view.
If we insist on using incredibly reductive left-right (or equivalent "progressive-conservative") terminology, then yes I'll concede that that singular opinion isn't as prominent among "progressives". But by no means should believing that no one should feel outright shame, be personally judged for the actions of other people, or be judged by their skin color whatsoever be considered a "conservative" view. Calling it so (knowing the implications of that label) is absolutely a strategy only used to try and alienate and shame people with that opinion.
To be told that those of us holding that opinion are "pretending" or somehow delusional in our views is outright offensive and dismissive.
We hold the same goals, vote for the same people, and need to work together to achieve our common end goals. Trying to push people with that opinion out of the leftist label is purposefully reductive, an act of bad faith in itself, and practically counterproductive.
Thank you, I understand you better now, i think.
So no one owns these terms or categories, but helpful or not, some people think that your more moderate views are not radically left and are actually unhelpful or reactionary.
You might find it alienating to discover that your political opinions are not on the extreme left, but that is the reality. I am not labelling you or name calling, just pointing out the obvious.
In my opinion, privilege is like bias or ethnocentrism. These are concepts that are absolutely vital to discuss and people should be educated to realize that everyone has these traits to some degree. That's not a personal attack on anyone. Just an awareness that we should be introspective and self-examine.
I'd say anyone arguing for socialism is a radical leftist, you don't get to decide who is/isn't radical based on their opinions on social issues.
There are plenty of capitalists that are obsessed with identity politics. It doesn't make them leftists.
Advocating for LGBT and racial minorities while still maintaining capitalism isn't a leftist position, it's not even a moderate position, you can do both of those things and be a libertarian.
Yeah, I'm not trying to gatekeep leftism, but language is needed to be able to discuss and make comparisons. Maybe the usual spectra between conservative and progressive or liberal, or between right and left don't allow for accurate description? In regards to being "radical", I think it might be kinda like how when it comes to driving anyone driving faster than you has no regard for safety and anyone driving slower is overly cautious/too hesitant.
I do not think this author has understood critical race theory, and their analysis suffers from this. CRT scholars do not believe that "race" is not an empirical thing with a biological basis (for some biologists' research on this see e.g. Stephen J. Gould's The Mismeasure of Man or Rutherford's book How to Argue With A Racist). In the literature people tend to use terms such as "racialised" people or the "ethnically minoritized" to highlight that these racial/ethnic categories are constructed, rather than inherentley "there".
Critical Race Theory accepts that race/ethnicity is something that people believe in, and seek to investigate how it shapes our society[^1]. The author believes that critical race theory looks at the (almost) converse, i.e. to look at our society and see how we can make race/ethnicity something people believe in. Critical Race Theory notes that in spite of the Civil Rights Movement, we still see widespread discrimination today.
[Edit: if you want to read some of the CRT literature to get a better feel for it, I would recommend Kimberlé Crenshaw's analysis of a series of legal cases brought by black women alleging that they were discriminated against, specifically as black women – i.e. not just as black people or women or the sum of that discrimination, but they suffered discrimination as a unique category.]
Some people seek to discredit anti-racist movements by saying "economic inequity is the real problem today" and usually "racism is not as important" is left implicit. This ignores that they are connected! I think a lot of people who argue that "we should address inequalitable resource distribution" don't connect this with "black people in the US have access to far fewer resources than whites". Of course inequality must be addressed, and the left should focus more on this (and material reality more generally), but not if we ignore that economic inequality doesn't mean that racism and/or gender[^2] are unimportant.
[^1]: here they suffer the same kind of problem as radical feminists who would like to move 'beyond' gender, which is difficult as they also wish to attack misogyny, which requires recognising that gender is an important construct in society
[^2]: for example in feminist economics a major topic of research is the unpaid work which women do – this is a big hole in Marxist analysis which focusses primarily on wage labour, and ignores non-wage labour (i.e. care work)
It's really not though. Citing only one of the early thinkers from the 1930s, cited by early CRT academics in the 1990s, and declaring that their views that racism is permanent is the only aspect of CRT is just as dismissive as the right-wing lies.
CRT rightly has us look at history and policy through these lenses because people like Bell were correct at their time: Racism is deeply seated in America. The fact we're still having these discussions 90 years later tells me he wasn't far off.
Nice catch!
From the article:
My reading of the article:
You were initially sympathetic to its goals [but] have since recognized that the identity synthesis presents a real danger [because of this article’s argument against it]. You [now] want to speak out against these ideas, but you are nervous about doing so. It’s not just that you don’t want to risk alienating your friends or sabotaging your [career]. you fear that opposing the identity synthesis will, inevitably, force you to make common cause with people who don’t recognize the dangers of racism and bigotry, push you onto the “wrong side of history,” or even lead you down the same path as Mr. Weinstein.
I can’t get behind anyone who writes like this no matter what their message may be. It’s way too manipulative. I don’t need this guy to shepherd my thoughts and (dis)allow me from feeling one way or another.
Right, I said elsewhere ITT that this article frustrated me in part due to its lack of citations when making these "people feel this way" or "people think this" claims. I think your reading may be partly why it's written this way (whether consciously intended or not).
A problem Democrats have is that the electoral geography of the Senate and the electoral college is aligned against them. So they have to win not 50% of the popular vote but 50+x%.
If they pander or seem to be pandering to some small group, say 2%, at the expense of alienating say 30% of people it advantages the Republicans, particularly if that 2% is too radical to vote (Biden is white, old, male, not left enough) or if that 2% is dogpiled in blue states that are going to vote Democrat anyway.
If that 2% really sees the return of Trump as an existential threat the one thing it can do that would make a difference is move to a swing state.
The article does point out that strange thing about crankishness and that is a good observation, I have seen so many people go through that uncharismatic transformation and can’t really explain it although I do think politics today is full of many movements that have a religious element even if they claim to be atheist. Anti-vax and similar conspiracy theories seem to give people a sense of meaning and purpose. Some religions believe a book is infallible or the pope is infallible but other modern movements believe a certain class of people is infallible, that anyone who disagrees with them is evil, etc.
It sure seems to be infectious and if it crosses party lines it may be very bad for the left because the electoral map makes generalized extremism good for Team Red and very bad for Team Blue.
This isn’t a sure bet because peoples politics tend to be reflective of their social milieu. So if they move to a swing state they’re as likely as not to flip their political orientation.
Virtues tend not to change, but the political expression of those virtues and which specific issues people attach salience to will. A radical is not likely to moderate, because moderation partly comes out of things like intellectual humility or reflexive conservatism (as in distrust of dramatic changes). If they had those they wouldn’t have radicalized in the first place, but if they lack those they’re likely to go from a radical leftist to radical rightist and back again. Largely depending on who they’re hanging out with or what contemporary issue is incensing them most.
But that’s only a specific type of moderate. Other moderates aren’t actually moderate, they’re actually just cross pressured where the two parties each have something they really don’t like (like wants to eliminate abortion but also eliminate guns). These people will also tend to either pick up more of the political outlooks of their social circles or drop out. Because if you’re surrounded by people who talk on and on about gun control you’re gonna be steeped in the importance of those issues moreso than the abortion issues. It becomes more salient to you.
This is all a simplified model, obviously a lot shifts based on current events and the charisma of individual candidates and so on. But directionally I think it’s pretty much right.
I think this structural factor is actually why it doesn’t easily cross party lines. Because the Democratic Party has to compete a lot harder to win, the radicals simply don’t. Even in elections the Dems allocate delegates in a more representative manner that isn’t as prone to snowballing early advantages compared to the GOP. Consensus forming is baked into the party apparatus in ways the GOP’s isn’t. This frustrates Leftists obviously, but that’s largely due to their general inexperience working inside the system.
You reminded me of the books that Tom Wolfe wrote about subcultures in the 1960s including: The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby and The Pump House Gang that revolved around a theory that not everybody can be near at the top of the primary social hierarchy but you can be near the top of the hierarchy in some subgroup you're a part of.
The early adopters in any movement are different from the people who come later: first you get people who are independent thinkers and smarter and more articulate than average, eventually you get people who are following the herd. "Identity politics" might once have been about organizing politically around being black or gay but today online it seems to be about following a tribe so you're very right that people are likely to change their views and perception of salience based on the people around them and that some kind of intervention in group structure might change their behavior quite a bit, just as the social media "experiment" has shown.
I don't think there is much of a line between political and psuedopolitical groups as well as the intermediate forms. For instance, it's implausible that Biden would "defund the police", the slur you could make stick is that he's a fuzzy old liberal who could never defund anything. Certainly there is no line between the shenagins at Evergreen State College and the majority of Democratic elected officials but conservatives would sure like to draw that line.
I'd like to draw your attention to Q22 of this poll
https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/04/Fox_April-21-24-2023_National_Topline_April-26-Release.pdf
where the top two issues are the economy and jobs that are certainly politicized (somehow many people suddenly think the economy is doing better or worse when the presidency changes just like that) but that the #1 "culture wars" issue is Gun Control and I was thinking that that is something that affects a lot of people directly. I live in rural upstate NY and a lot of people here had yarn signs against the "SAFE Act" and many of them were inconvenienced directly by firearms restrictions. On the other hand I went with my family to the NY Farm Show this year and we planned to go to the big mall in Syracuse to eat at The Cheesecake Factory (plays a role in my misadventures in business so I wanted to check it out) later and when we were going in a crowd was going out because some jackass teenager fired off a handgun in the food court so we were inconvenienced by that.
On the other hand "Wokeness / Transgender issues" scores just 1 percent on this scale which suggests that for all the sound and fury on this issue it is something that doesn't really matter all that much to most people, at least not compared to other things. I tell people "It's your life, but it's their clickbait" and I think that is some of it: The Atlantic and The New York Times opinion page were very quick to get into criticism of "cancel culture", long before conservatives got into it (not least because the people who write the NYT opinions page think commencement speeches are a good gig that they don't want to lose, at least that's what people lower on the totem poll at the NYT would tell you in private), precisely because it has so much clickbait potential.
That seems incorrect from what I have seen, how would a "radical" leftist go to the alt right
General anti-establishment positions combined with a belief in redemptive violence and a resentment for “elites” that can easily be skewed into a resentment towards (((elites.))) Most people’s politics aren’t very well thought out. They tend to float around a lot, especially when they’re younger.
A LOT of generally politically apathetic guys I knew from High school went through a Bernie to Trump pipeline, even calling themselves socialists before drifting into weird conspiracy nonsense.
Don't think alt-right as in "trump." It's more like... radical left view: the US gov is fascist/based on racism and is thus trying to secretly eliminate black people (see: Tuskegee syphilis experiment) ----> alt-right view: the government can't be trusted to give us COVID vaccines.
I mean...the Republican party is pretty damn fascist right now (See: 2025 project). And Republicans beat the rascism drum harder than anyone.
While the current state of US law is less explicitly rascist than in the past, there's still a lot of baggage that is still de-facto rascist. Like the drug war. Or credit scores.
I don't know how much I can contribute here but I'm gonna try. As a middle aged transracial adoptee, this topic is so complicated and difficult to speak about. I wasn't too impressed with the article. I do feel the article focuses a bit much on the "leftists are making things worse" narrative. But I did agree that moderate voices are needed and that it would only help society to focus more on the commonalities we all share as opposed to our differences.
Having said that, I also admit my life as a transracial adoptee has made this topic complicated because I have experienced difficulties due to not having my ethnicity, my origins, my lack of knowledge about my birth or birth parents/mother acknowledged or addressed. Ever. My birth country was framed as this far away, long lost land you only hear about in storybooks. Nobody looked like me in the communities I grew up in. I was othered, and yet because I was raised as a typical American kid with white parents, I didn't view myself as different. So when I started realizing some people make the wildest and most inaccurate assumptions about me based on my ethnicity, it was both confounding and traumatizing. It has been and still is difficult to verbalize how I've always desired to have my differences respected while also being accepted as an equal. I am of the opinion that some people only accept me as long as I conform to something they feel comfortable with.
As a result of all of this, I have always wondered why the concept of shared humanity isn't the concept that brings people together.
Because othering people can bring people to do harm against themselves. Republicans don't have a policy to help people so they use this to get votes.
This kind of subject usually gets locked. If you wish for a long-lasting discussion, I advise everyone to be even more civil and respectful than, I am sure, you already are.
Having just read through the responses, I don't find the discussion to be inflammatory at all. I'm kinda into it in fact - this is a tough subject and things are going to get a little heated, but so long as theres no name calling, let it happen!
You are very right. I am proud, and, admittedly, surprised.