I am the white mother of a mixed race daughter. I live in an ethnically diverse community, work in an ethnically diverse workplace and have friends and relatives who look very different from me.
Richard Leakey in The Making of Mankind posited that the real differences between people are cultural, not racial. Watching my little girl in the schoolyard playing with her diverse friends certainly illustrated that point of view.
Recently, however, I have learned that I am apparently the worst kind of racist because “I don’t see colour.” Of course I see colour, but it becomes irrelevant very quickly as friendships form and we focus on our similarities rather than on our differences.
I recently found this out about myself too, that I'm a racist. Apparently I'm a racist because I think people should be evaluated based on their character, rather than the color of their skin. I believe that what matters about a person is what they think, what they believe, how they came to those conclusions, whether they can or will argue in good faith, and most importantly what they choose to do.
But because I said this, I was labeled a color blind racist. I was also told that everyone is a racist, and that it's impossible not to be racist. To me, that is insanity. If progress isn't possible, what are we doing? There are serious problems in the world right now. There are existential problems that humanity may or may not make it through; climate change, and people don't think about it a lot but nuclear annihilation is still a possibility. But here we all are having these insane moments of inclarity, where actually not caring about the color of a persons skin is the new racism.
Racism in itself is a bad thing, obviously, and wherever it exists it needs to be extinguished. But I think it's important to recognize what is and what is not racism. Not everything is racism. Not every brutal police killing is racism. There is no doubt that some are, but not all of them. Some are just simple police brutality.
To me this movement smacks of seeing echoes of past injustice, where perhaps current examples of that injustice are relatively less likely to happen. Seeing racists where perhaps we're only seeing echoes of racist policy that was established generations ago by actual racists. So the solution, to me, is some kind of mix of policy to address the problems, and people working to become more like you, Veronica.
And then, we need to address our more important problems. Because we do have them; climate change, wealth inequality, the threat of nuclear war. We can't care about racism if no humans are alive because our planet burned up. We can't live if the wealthiest among us control all of the wealth, and no one else has anything anymore.
I realize that I have unloaded all of this on your comment, but I've been reading a lot of comments and it all just came out. Thanks for reading.
I’m also the racist mother of a white daughter married to a wonderful Hindu Indian immigrannt with gorgeous, really dark skin she’s pregnant can’t wait to see their baby. He/she will be beautiful
Our government worked to subvert Brexit. Obama really did a number, telling the Brexiteers they would be moved to the end of the” queue”. Such condescending arrogance .his comment was so offensive it served to convince remainders to join Brexit
The population were lied to as well. Brexit is just basically an excuse for leaving the EU to sell the UK to America, so we can be bled dry for stuff like health care like the increasingly tragic USA.
This was so overwhelming and absurd. The issues of customs barriers and Ulster were totally off the radar till two years *after* the referendum. I joked at work in London in 2016 - "the queue to Dover will reach Manchester and Ulster will kick off again" and they thought I was completely mad. Idiots.
It's a great tribute to Matt that this site has become a meeting ground between those social democrats and those rightists who believe civil liberties are not negotiable, the cornerstone of the country. If we're going to survive this very dangerous moment as a nation, we have to come together on that. If you're on the left, believe it or not, many Trump supporters agree with you on this life-and-death issue. I don't know anywhere else where this dialogue is even happening.
100%, I'm begging conservatives to listen to the sane liberals as the only way to heal the country. The multinational corporations are out of hand and doing absolutely anything to maintain their stature in a period of moral and cultural stagnation and decline. We need Teddy Roosevelt back.
But at the same time, sane liberals need to recognize that a Trump victory is the only way the neoliberal establishment is going to be crushed. A Biden victory will have them entrench themselves even more deeply until massive unrest is the only possible outcome as they cling panicked to their wealth and influence. Things are coming to a head and we need to put aside smaller side issues we can resolve later, the global neolib establishment has surrendered itself to foreign influence and is a clear danger to the republic. How many in our government have been bought by China? How do we recover from that without a pugilist like Trump? As scary as he may seem to you, he may be the weapon we need. Please think soberly about this and consider the people who hate him most.
Donald Trump is a hapless incompetent. He has no business as President.
With a tight rein and the understanding that he'd face prosecution if he involved himself in corrupt dealings, Trump might have made an effective Commerce Secretary, once upon a time. But that ship sailed long ago.
And the Commies are not going to take over once he's defeated for re-election.
Yes, and how many within the Trump administration have been bought off by Saudi Arabia and Israel ? So funny how people actually buy into conman Trump's baffle 'em with BS patriotism and scapegoating. We're just along for the ride now. Trump is not going to risk everything to save you, he never gave a warm runny shit about you in the first place.
I don’t know. Do YOU? Can you name names or are you just ranting?
I honestly do not care about Russia, or Saudi Arabia, or Israel. I want the USA to be free from all this PC garbage, or this constant indoctrination by a media that is more a surrogate for a political party. And that goes to the 99% of the MSM On le left and for the few of the right (Fox, Breibart, and Daily Caller....any more?)?
There is no left and there is no right. There's top and bottom and that's all you get to choose from. Left and right = divide and conquer just like race, religion, ethnicity, geography, superstition, and what ever else the elite can come up with to divide the masses. Management 101 when you can back it up with violence.
Thanks for admitting to your xenophobia though, it does help explain your unwarranted fear of frightened folks desperately trying to change what they see as injustice within a good 'ol boy system that has kept 70% of the world's population under it's thumb for several centuries now.
The empire is dying and you can't vote your way out of it. It's not up for negotiation and hasn't been since the beginning.
Oh yes, just "a little corruption". I grew up in Africa, it is never a little when it is out in the open for everyone to see and then witness no legal ramification for such theft. Just leads to corruption permeating all structures of the government because the precedent has been set. In the end, nothing in the system will work without corruption
So spot on. Tucker, Steve Hilton, Tammy Bruce, Leo Terrell, Dave Rubin really got the ball rolling. The exodus from totalitarian Dem media and the cult devotion by once respectable, honest, popular figures who ordinarily rejected any engagement across the aisle who are real liberals have opened a pathway to finding a platform that unites people in a common purpose. To expose the corrupt deviant machinations that have stripped us of our civil liberties and how to unite and fight back.
Who could have imagined having open, tolerant engagement with those we once shunned ( left and right). It is the culmination of dissatisfaction with both parties. The refusal of both parties to hear our voices. Best think FHA’s happened in decades Bari Weiss, Naom Wolff Brett Weinstein, Leo Terrell,Russell Brand, Asra Nomani, Henry Cuellar, Andy Ngo,Seth Rogan, Matt Taibbi, Scott Adams, Maria Bartiromo,Victor Davis Hanson,Charles Payne, Caitlyn Jenner , Bill Binney,Robert Epstein, Ami Horowitz, Sharyl Attkisson, Lara Logan, Jamal Altimani, Steve Hilton,Lawrence Jones,Sonnie Johnson,Andrew Yang,Ian Miles Cheong,Rose McGowan-people who have had it.
What freedom ? When where we free in this country ? What makes you think Trump isn't just holding out for a bigger pay out after he leaves office ? He's never had any courage before, so why would he risk his life for you when he prides himself on screwing over everyone he does business with ?
It strikes me as unlikely that the entire spectrum of political values could be evenly divided into right/left. Personally, I tend to think of myself as a liberal person; I think that the science of climate change is persuasive, I think that publicly funded higher education up to the first bachelors degree is a good idea, I think that a universal healthcare system is a good idea. Those things strike me as investments in the citizenry; a quality, well rounded education would help Americans be more apt to think critically even in times like these, to make our populace competitive on the global market; to be able to take the economic fight to the gigantic gorilla in the room that is China. To be healthier as a people to make that work likely, or even possible.
But I also am an ardent supporter of people's rights. I support our right to freedom of speech, even if it's something that I disagree with. I want to hear people speak freely, I want to be able to engage in civil discourse with them. I want to hear your response to comment, even if you disagree with me.
I support people's right to keep and bear arms. I do so myself. The last thing I would want to do would be to hurt or kill anyone else, but if it comes down to a life and death struggle, I want to come out the other side whole. I want my friends and family to be safe.
So I think there is a large middle ground that is disappearing from the public discourse, because that middle ground doesn't do anything to help either the right or the left; with a duopoly like American politics, the only way to distinguish either party is by exaggerating the differences. They (the political parties) focus on the margins of the political bases. And so we've been dragged to this point in our history by perverse incentives; the incentive to seek and validate the most extreme views that people may hold, and use that to get elected.
The middle ground isn't shrill enough, and we're not newsworthy. There's no advertising revenue in reporting about how reasonable people can get along even when they don't agree on every issue.
"I think that publicly funded higher education up to the first bachelors degree is a good idea."
Incorrect. This idea shows a lack of empathy. Your writing skills exceed those of most people. How are you at working on cars? Could you operate heavy machinery for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week? Are you a good hitter? How's your batting average? The examples are endless.
The average IQ is 100. I don't need to see anything more from you to know that yours is above that average. In general, you likely experienced school as positive, with occasional rewards for your performance. Maybe you weren't as good at some subjects as others, but overall, school was a good time and book learning suits you.
That's not how it is for everyone, but you project to come to your conclusion. Many, if not most, people do not find the experience to be rewarding. In fact it's torturous because they lack your innate abilities - your aptitudes. They must rely on "social promotions" just to graduate from 8th grade. They struggle through high school to get that diploma. And after they have it, they are barely literate, not because they didn't show up or try to make good grades. They just didn't have the aptitudes.
Why should they have to put up with 4 more years of that when they could be doing constructive work in the construction trade? Not only does this focus on education regardless of ability not help - it can piss a person off. It can make a person want to rebel against a system that only values book learning. It can prevent a person from learning real world skills, developing craftsmanship, being an apprentice to a journeyman in some trade. In fact, in America today, that's just what it does.
I never said that higher education should be required, but it should be made available for those who could make good use of it. Another thing I'd like to point out; education shouldn't be a pipeline to create a worker fit for a job. That can be one outcome of a quality education, but in my opinion it shouldn't be the primary focus. On the job training ought to serve that role. Education should serve to expose people to critical thinking skills, to familiarize people with the humanities, to create a well rounded person who is capable of tackling any number of varied problems that we can all expect to face in our lives. And I understand that people have different aptitudes; I'm not looking down on tradesmen; actually I am a tradesman myself!
I think that education is important; learning language is education, speaking and writing is education. Learning about our history is education, and that is so important for people to know, so that we can learn from that history and strive not to repeat the same mistakes. It's important to dig into the political revolutions in our history, species wide, so that we can recognize the pitfalls, and be on watch for them.
In the trades, especially apprenticeship programs, people tend to be paid to learn those skills! That is awesome, and something I'd like to see applied to public education in a wider sense; at this point it's the exact opposite.
I also have an issue with free college. If people want to earn the higher wages and enjoy the good times associated with the college experience, they should be the ones to pay for it. Not the rest of us, many of whom chose to risk lower wages and fewer parties to not be saddled with debt. In the countries where college is free, very few are allowed to go. In Germany it's around 30%, the US is around 70%. While I'd like to see lower rates of people wasting time and money on indoctrination, I don't believe that depriving them of the right to choose for themselves is preferable. In any case, the education lobby is hugely powerful and would never allow their admission dollars to fall by 60%. Even Bernie didn't propose lowering admission rates, but actually increasing them! This is a worst of both world's situation.
Oh My gosh! Tyler said, "I want to be able to engage in civil discourse with them. I want to hear your response to comment, even if you disagree with me" and it immediately happened! What is this crazy upside-down place where sanity reigns?
Tyler said nothing about mandating higher education, nor anything to suggest that trades and professions that don't require higher education aren't important and valuable. He just shared his own general political positions, one of which being that higher ed should be funded by the government up to the first bachelor's degree.
I think there's room for criticism of our curriculum. Or at least, there OUGHT to be room for criticism. I welcome it, for one.
When people make an argument with this structure, I push back against it. The structure goes like this; There's a problem with X, so we should get rid of X! I've seen this argument applied to religion, to government, to science, and to education.
I push back against it because of course there are going to be problems with those things. There are going to be problems with ALL things. It is a difficult job to determine what the problems are specifically, in each domain, and to resolve them. If the problem is that the government spends money inefficiently, the solution (in my opinion) shouldn't be to cut off funding for the government, it should be to make sure the government is spending money in ways that are transparent and efficient. If there are problems in academia, the solution shouldn't be to destroy those institutions of learning, but rather to study what exactly is happening in academia and to resolve whatever problems we find there.
If a scientific study comes out with an interesting finding that turns out to be false, the solution to that problem isn't to abandon science; the solution is to apply better and cleaner science to the problem, so that we can figure out what exactly is going on.
There isn't anything more dogmatic than Spearman's "g"- the supposed basis for IQ measures. And you seem to be fine with leaving that pedestrian concept unexamined. Look into the difference on how people with autism perform on Raven's Progessive Matrices vs. the Weschler intelligence tests. Yet both of them supposedly measure the same ability- "general intelligence", Spearman's "g"!
Good point. It should have said, college or trade school. "Higher' education is sort of elitist anyway - the idea of it. The applied arts are where it's at. You also don't need college or even a high school diploma to be a critical thinker. Hell, you don't even need to read or write - though reading and basic math help to open a lot of doors - and there's nothing greater when you're a kid, then learning to read and suddenly having the whole wide world of books open up to you...I miss the era of books! If I had kids, I would encourage them all to learn trades that they can take with them to anywhere in the world. Travel would be the rest of their education; as would living in another country or culture. You can't get that through book learning.
I agree with you completely. The middle ground has no voice whatsoever, and I think it's because it doesn't polarize people and/or agree with "the narrative", and therefore doesn't make media outlets money. It's a form of censorship, which Matt also wrote about recently (in regard to COVID, but applies in this situation also).
You are just drawing an arbitrary line, like everyone else, based on consequentialism. The reason they are able to keep us divided is because we are arguing about the wrong things. Every policy decision is a decision about what to do or what to protect with stolen money from the citizenry (taxes) - and you will never get a sustainable, virtuous outcome when the foundation is theft. Extreme conservatives and libertarians want to draw the line of socialism at the law courts, police, national defence etc and the left want it at the opposite end to cover education, health, housing, UBI etc. This is all arbitrary.
At least the left understands that they want some degree of socialism, while the right somehow thinks they are against it. Everything the government does is socialist - free roads are socialist, free police are socialist, and socialism can only be funded by threats of violence/imprisonment.
If they made taxes voluntary the state would crumble and we'd live a free society where we wouldn't have to argue over where to draw that arbitrary socialist line. Privatize everything and imagine what kinds of checks and balances could be arrived at when you can actually withdraw your monthly or yearly funds from the private agencies that provide all the services we need, like arbitration and health care. Right now we have a fascistic/coorporatist Frankenstein nightmare of a system.
The argument we should be having is whether taxation is theft or not, and therby, whether the government is a moral institution.
We got rid of slavery by adressing the basic morality of the situation and it massively improved society in all kinds of ways. The same will happen when we get rid of the state.
“It's a great tribute to Matt that this site has become a meeting ground between those social democrats and those rightists who believe civil liberties are not negotiable“
I’m not exactly a “rightist” but a libertarian. Someone who is fiscally conservative (As long as is no Enron sucking up the staff retirement savings) , socially Liberal (as long as you don’t demand for me to accept the 120% of the progressive agenda or else Im Hitler), but yeah, I believe civil liberties are non negotiable. So you welcome to call me “ Hitler” or a “Decadent sinner who will go hell” If I couldn’t care less about people’s private sex lives. That’s individualism, isn’t it?
Individualism is the enemy of the status quo. It’s as though a meteor is going to hit,You know where, when and how to stop it, but you’re locked in an asylum,
and nobody can hear you scream.
My husband’s response is “ Godammit Gail! I know, what the hell do you want me to do about? One lunatic in the house is enough!. Not a good answer. It’s surprising how receptive those “ little people” are. Like the landscaper, plumber,roofer, carpenter,pool guy, cashier,deli worker,etc. They feel it. They know it. And they are otherwise invisible.
"If you're on the left, believe it or not, many Trump supporters agree with you on this life-and-death issue. I don't know anywhere else where this dialogue is even happening. "
In the UK thankfully, we have Unherd.com, where you will find such writing. It's become a platform for the confluence of old fashioned liberals like me and the old working class who, post-Brexit have become completely unmoored from the modern virtue-signalling Labour Party.
The Triggernometry podcast on youtube too, is a fusing of these two strands.
I've given up on pretty much all other media, except I can't seem to stop trolling the Financial Times comments sections.....
I hear scary things about restrictions on free speech in the UK (criminal prosecutions for off-color jokes on social media, etc.), but perhaps they're exaggerated. If I may ask, what's the situation?
James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose and Peter Boghossian (et al.) of Sokal Squared Hoax fame have and amazing website that has education, analysis and most importantly - strategies for combating Critical Race Theory.
Another biting piece, a refreshing take on reality, and a superior articulation of anything I could ever express, despite experiencing and feeling the same way about these topics. There are two in particular:
"People everywhere today are being encouraged to snitch out schoolmates, parents, and colleagues for thoughtcrime. The New York Times wrote a salutary piece about high schoolers scanning social media accounts of peers for evidence of “anti-black racism” to make public, because what can go wrong with encouraging teenagers to start submarining each other’s careers before they’ve even finished growing?
“People who go to college end up becoming racist lawyers and doctors. I don’t want people like that to keep getting jobs,” one 16 year-old said. “Someone rly started a Google doc of racists and their info for us to ruin their lives… I love twitter,” wrote a different person, adding cheery emojis."
I caught the same NYT article and sent it around, equally shocked that this is considered normal and mainstream. Does no one see this is a repeat of the type of tactics authoritarian governments of both right and left engaged in?
But there is more important piece:
"For corporate America the calculation is simple. What’s easier, giving up business models based on war, slave labor, and regulatory arbitrage, or benching Aunt Jemima? There’s a deal to be made here, greased by the fact that the “antiracism” prophets promoted in books like White Fragility share corporate Americas instinctive hostility to privacy, individual rights, freedom of speech, etc. "
That's exactly it. It's a diversionary tactic to preserve, not cancel, privilege. Going on some sort of antiracist crusade is a lot cheaper than increasing corporate tax, going after private equity and establishing an expensive national healthcare system.
It's deeply depressing. What is to be done? Are those who see reality through and depite the fog of popular illusions a minority in just about every society in the world?
"What is to be done?" Here is my humble opinion (from one who risked his life escaping communism 40 years ago and now see my great America moving toward intolerant/oppressing society):
1. While there are serious problems on both the right and left, you needs to have a clarity on which problems that likely cause direst consequences. The clarity enables you to decide the side and to take actions. Having said that, It's quite clear for me to see that what the left is doing - cultural destruction (of books, movies, and statues) and increasing censorship in mainstream media, education and corporations- is taking the country toward a totalitarian society. Nothing is for scarier than this for me. With freedom, we always have hope and chances to improve our lives and society; however bad it is. Without it lives are miserable and hopeless as history shows us.
2. Assuming that you have same fear as I have, a couple things we can do are:
- Share with your loved ones, friends and neighbors what you think. This is important because the current mobs are trying to silent people who don't support them.
- Support and vote for people/organizations that are fighting for the same cause as your are.
Why are you assuming voting has anything to do with anything in a capitalist system that puts policy in the realm of the "free market" where only elites can afford it ? Don't forget the right is just as guilty of pushing corporate fascism and neofeudalism as the left. This fake paradigm hide the actual division which is top vs bottom. It's always been top vs bottom since the species stopped hunting and gathering.
What @Skutch says. Both "sides" of the corporate elitist fascist puppet parties coin will sell you any idea they think you will buy, in order to keep us all divided. We need to get out from under the idea that puppet politicians are who control things, and look at this as a top- down problem; follow the money and expose the corporations and puppetmasters of them and the politicians. The only way to solve is to unify from the bottom up.
You just made the case for what MUST be done! This is where the Republicans have failed epically. How to make people see the light, understand what they are either propping up or attempting to ward off.
We need a visible, vocal presence of those who have escaped oppressive, tyrannical regimes, love America and are passionate in messaging.
Exactly. For all the talk about raging against a corrupt system, so many of these people are blind to the fact that the real system would rather us bicker and burn down cities over this than actually address the root cause of income inequality. It's insane. It's really a perfect firestorm, too, because this hatred and division can clearly be perpetuated for a long time to come.
Honestly, people are so worked up over this, and they're acting alarmingly sheepish, that I really do not know if there's any righting this ship. It is scary.
Of course, Kurt, the truth is that the top 5% of earners pay 65% of Federal Income Taxes...the bottom 50% pay less than 3%. George was funny as hell, but like all typical liberals, maintained the religion's propaganda.
We all feel that way though "i dont know if theres any way to fix this". There is, us. We can't let them have a puppet in the executive branch. Say what you want about Trump, the neolib/neocon establishment HATES him. Learn how to keep oligarchal power at bay for another 4 years with this one weird trick!
Children reporting on each other and their parents. Don't we condemn Nazi Germany and Stalin and Mao for doing this. Of course, now its OK because the NYT says it is.
I subscribed to this site b/c I admire *Hate, Inc.*: that news media leverage hate to score readers is exactly right. But this is such a dismissive slam of DiAngelo. It doesn't address her argument; it's not clear whether or not Taibbi has actually read the DiAngelo's book. This is just "Let's get nasty about something naughty to get nasty about!" Using random quotes from DiAngelo for target practice. What a bumper crop of Hate. Why so defensive, Matt? Do you think racism is over now? If not, what are your ideas for how to stop the people in power from continuing to edge out whomever they can, i.e. those with the least power, a group that consistently includes blacks? If you've never seen a white person freak out when confronted with whatever demeaning/racist thing he or she said or did, then I think you're not paying attention. This is what DiAngelo's book describes: how people in power can stop defensively clinging to their power. How to recognize the knee-jerk discomfort/embarrassment/shame of being called out for acting superior-- and then let it go, and so maybe we might learn something. You've got the knee-jerk discomfort/embarrassment/shame part down pretty good, Matt, I think.
Of course I don't think racism is "over." That's absurd. I wrote two books on structural racism (mainly in the criminal justice system), an experience that was disillusioning even for someone who expected to find a system weighted against minorities. The issue is DiAngelo's prescription for dealing with racism is to massively increase the focus on race, at both a societal and individual level. Her simplistic binary view of the world - one is either on board with her conception of "antiracism" or a white supremacist - is a recipe for disaster, just like any doctrine that separates human beings into rigid categories of good people and bad people, citizens and uncitizens. This is the logic of the witch hunt and it's the reason a generation of young activists is on the hunt for lives to destroy, because in this theology the bad people are unredeemable agents of systemic evil and therefore not deserving of rights. This ideology does not believe in the common human experience, generosity, love, or spirituality. It assumes that people ultimately are ruled by bottom-line racial motivations in the same way Leninists assumed people were their class affiliations. It's an extremely dangerous idea, and needs to be identified as such, hence the article.
Matt, I appreciate your ability to do a vicious takedown, but you still aren't answering the question: What alternative(s) are you proposing? The racial wealth gap is as bad as it was 50 years ago, and Black incarceration rates are still horribly out of proportion. You researched and wrote about these things, but they aren't improving. I would argue with DiAngelo that white folks unwillingness to 1) acknowledge structural racism and/or 2) to be willing to investigate our cluelessness on racism (that helps perpetuate these racist structures) is a major impediment to progress. This comments section is rife with white denialism about racism, excuses about why white folks don't need to do anything, and many of the same scripts that DiAngelo talks about. This is Exhibit A in how hard it is for white folks to have meaningful conversations about racism. And so what is your better "science" based solution that doesn't create any division? -- please enlighten us on the specifics. Also, please invite DiAngelo onto Useful Idiots to respond to your attacks in person.
Typical troll response. "OH SO YOU DON'T HAVE A SOLUTION TO THIS DROUGHT, HMMMM? THEN WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME I'M DUMB FOR THROWING VIRGINS INTO VOLCANOS TO MAKE IT RAIN!?!"
Matt is not obligated to propose an alternative in a critique of the book and its message perhaps other than "whatever the author is proposing do the opposite." It is possible to point out a bad idea without necessarily having a ready made alternative. The criticism stands on its own.
Yeah, basically Matt is saying "we need to do something, but not this as it would be a remedy worse than the ailment". Is that so hard to understand? I duess ideological brainwashing went too far, and any old thing triggers the sectarian responses.
So how is Taibbi's intense negative reaction to the suggestion that many white people need to learn how to deal with the concept of their own racial identity and race and racism related to his inability to propose anything in response?
I would say that his fragility tantrum stands on its own. He's just another entitled white guy who can't deal with whiteness and the ideologically entrenched failure to deal with it on almost any level that most white people were born into and simmered in their entire lives, regardless of whether they are left, right or center.
Because the suggestion is simultaneously wrong & crazily prominent, & earns the negative reaction he gave it. There is nothing 'fragile' in strongly rejecting bad ideas. There is nothing 'fragile' in saying 'the emperor wears no clothes'. There is nothing 'fragile' in calling a spade a spade. DiAngelo's arguments, such as they are, as well as yours, as well as those of the entire structure of systemic anti-racism, are simply juvenile exercises in labelling. Like the therapy culture which in part spawned it, it feigns a sophisticated understanding of some observation by slapping theoretical labels on it--borderline personality disorder, 'whiteness'--while being unable to associate the label with any compelling etiology that can be tested for & would provide the sort of understanding needed to create a useful corrective. You cannot grasp that people oppose you --that they deny what you say--because it is weak & useless--worse than useless, harmful. Rather than defending your pronouncements with persuasive arguments, you simply put more labels on the criticisms that come your way: 'white denialism', 'fragility tantrum'. And your ultimate parlor trick: simply label any standards of thought such as reason & evidence as racist, & call it a day. Critical Race Theory has turned your mind to jelly.
I'd really like to echo the admiring comments below this post, but I have one minor nit to pick: considering the already inflamed (over-)sensitivities & thinly-veiled suspicions on the part of DiAngelo "fans" that even arguments contrary to their thesis (cult) that are totally sound from a rational standpoint originate in baser bigotries -- surely you could have found a better colloquialism than "call a spade a spade"...?
Pretty sure from the enlightened & intelligent tone of the rest of your comments that this was not a ham-fisted back-handed ploy to sneak a slur into otherwise excellent comments, & the colloquialism probably refers to cards (unlikely runner-up: digging implements...?), & its use was entirely appropriate to the sentence: but it's just the kind of irrelevant shit a troll is looking to pounce on when losing an argument, & just picking a different metaphor -- or just changing the object specified -- just denies an intellectually-dishonest jackal food. (Whether or not it's shameful that one has to even consider policing one's own honestly ub-bigoted speech just to avoid triggering sewage spewage lol.)
The "negative reaction" was to DiAngelo failing badly to teach or help people do these things. And what does it matter if you come to the same conclusion either way? If DiAngelo is right and white people are unredeemable, then the options are like the liar's paradox: only white people who agree they are intractably implicated in racism can be trusted, except they shouldn't be because they're racist. If they disagree whiteness = intractable racism, they are definitely racist and not to be trusted. I just read an academic paper that argues exactly this after showing how white professional and academic discourse engages in performative rhetoric, as DiAngelo does, to acknowledge racism in order to be accepted as a "good white" person, which the logic of an essentialist approach to race cannot allow. If you really believe there is nothing a person can say or do to make you trust them or want to have an amicable relationship with them or even a pragmatic alliance for common goals, that's fine -- it's an honest position. But it's pointless then to insist others accept it or to engage them or even care what they think. Communication is relationship and engaging in it implies belief in the possibility of it achieving something beyond domination and deception where you will always win or lose because of the way race cards were dealt out.
His response is a response to the grotesque Kafka trap this philosophical theory (critical race theory) is built on. Matter of fact it is Kafka trap upon kafka trap. A Kafka trap is a fallacy where if someone denies being x it is taken as evidence that the person is x since someone who is x would deny being x. The name is derived from the novel The Trial by the Austrian writer Franz Kafka. In this case one is slandered by calling everyone of a certain grouping a derogatory term and any defense of the slander is seen as guilt of the slander. Its pretty basic and stupid. “The kafkatrap is a form of argument that is so fallacious and manipulative that those subjected to it are entitled to reject it based entirely on the form of the argument, without reference to whatever particular sin or thoughtcrime is being alleged” – Eric Raymond. Kafka traps have been present is books on manipulation and gaslighting for the last 40 years.
The "white fragility" accusation is just another form of a loaded question. Kafka would be amused that denying a false accusation is being used in a nonfiction circumstance as proof of the accusation.
At some point we, or I, must insist on privacy. The privacy of my own thoughts. What I think or feel is, actually, my business and no one else's. Everyy citizen deserves equity and fairness and a decent quailtiy of life. We do not all need to love each other to live as citizens of one country. Americans need to reverse recent legislation (mainly under Clintons) that screwed minorities and the working class and now the middle class. Focus on class and fairness and standards of civic conduct. AFter that, my thoughts are my own. Trying to mess with people's heads is a waste of time, in policy terms. It will also put Trump back into the WH, if that is the issue.
We all need the same things: clean water and environment, universal health care, free public education, a decent place to live, good-quality food, affordable and reliable communications infrastructure. We need money for these things, and that means taxing the wealthy, eliminating offshore tax havens, strangulating the hold of the MIC and the military and intelligence budget. That is what Americans should be rioting about. Malcolm understood this. MLK understood this. The Rev. William Barber II understands this.
We don't need most of the things you just wrote. Anything with "universal" or "Free" in front of it, you don't "Need"... You are free to think what you want, but once you throw it out in public it isn't just yours anymore.
How dare you assume he or anyone you don’t know is a racist? Are you a mind reader? Are you god? You have zero insight to him as a man, an individual, but you believe you do. This is illusion is called the illusion of asymmetric insight. Stop it please. You have no special dispensation to know this man’s life story and his thoughts better than he does. Yours is a betrayal to his humanity.
So, as a white man myself, you seem to know my background pretty well. Glad that what I think or have experienced, you know, in a tactile and visceral manner didn’t matter.
I'd say you didn't read it correctly. He's not reacting to the "suggestion that many white people...blah blah blah". He's reacting to the terrible prescription for healing our nation's troubles.
I see you've learned the Deangelo lingo pretty well. Let's not engage with the very specific and articulate criticisms Taibbi gave about how the 'white fragility' concept is a mightily convenient model for corporations that want to increase division. That it is likely to actually make the problem it claims to solve WORSE. No..let's just chalk his disagreement up to his fragility and have done with it.
That is patently absurd. You are also able to like a book, and understand that there may in fact be criticism. Also, the Jackie Robinson bit should tell one with any logic pretty clearly that there are logical fallacies within the writing.
The idea of white fragility has always been on my white (read: oppressor’s) mind as purported in a Draconian manner by Robin. I examine myself and constantly expect better.
But, is drumming up a construct almost explicitly implying segregated laws really a viable concept? I think not
Seriously?? Just because you have bought into the group think does not make DiAngelo's lame theories correct. And your second paragraph full of complete racism proves one of Taibbi's points. Your ignorance is so thick, you don't even realize how racist you are.
It sounds like you are intent on keeping the races divided. With these kind of pronouncements, no discussion can be had. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't proposal to all whites.
I'd suggest you look at statistics on white males born and raised in single mother homes without present fathers. I don't feel like digging around for somebody who may not want to click the link due to cognitive dissonance. If you truly seek truth, you can look it up.
White males in single mother homes are dramatically more likely to drop out of high school and become incarcerated. White women who have kids without a father present are dramatically more likely to drop out and remain poor.
Ask yourself what has happened to black families in the last 50 years? Since the 60s, the rate of out of wedlock births in the black community has sky rocketed. A majority of black children now live in homes without a father. The effects are no different than for white men.
Ending the drug war would help reduce incarceration and ideally reduce the fatherless rate in black communities, but it would only be a minority. Most of the absent black dads are not incarcerated. They just bailed. Please tell me what new form of racism has been created in the past 50 years to cause black men to abandon their families at higher rates than equally impoverished whites and latinos? Also, tell me what the government or I can do to get these assholes to not bail on their kids?
I'm sick and tired of being blamed for assholes impregnating women and bailing on them, and being expected to fix the result. Nobody is going to take care of my kids if I bail, so why should anyone else be expected to get that treatment?
FYA: The best father I know is a black man. He is a single father, is incredibly successful in his career, and coaches 3 different leagues throughout the year for boys. He complains often about this issue being ignored.
There it is -- root cause of the problem, which no one can address except the black community. If "black lives matter", this is exactly what BLM needs to be addressing.
If you read the BLM agenda on their website it's focus is destroy the family. Which will end up making lives for black lives so much worst..If they really fixed the problem they wouldn't have a job. Anti-Racism is an industry as much as cancer research is if you cure cancer you no longer have the industry.
Hell yeah! Finally someone talking some sense. All those babies that were never born are draining the system! And for the ones that are born, let's just hang their poor single moms out to dry to teach these asshole dads a lesson!
Tried to write a full blown response - but internet is so overloaded with working from home - I'm not sure where it went. Long story short - welfare moms aren't allowed to have men living with them. Convoluted but true. You could not understand the machinations of the welfare system unless you had to live within it - there is not way out. Pissed that I explained "WHY", but my explanation just poof vanished. Too tired to write it again. Maybe, "like a miracle", it will show up somewhere. Whatever.
Welfare and abortion is a smaller part of the reason. The main reason is white racism handed out by the Government of the United States. When the US Govt from its inception prevented Black Americans from accumulating wealth through land, housing and business, it led to the results you have today. Read the Color of Law.
Fine example of the weakness in Matt's argument vis-a-vis identity politics. That this bald assertion passes as a cogent policy argument in conservative circles shows the need for applying some analysis of race untethered to class. It's something that must be done without the grifters like D'Angelo making bucks from our struggles
"Also, tell me what the government or I can do to get these assholes to not bail on their kids?" You can refrain from making statements like the one you made because it's not based on the facts. First, you make a statement about the “ending of the war on drugs would reduce fatherlessness, But that would only we a minority.” So why mention it if does not make much difference? Then you say “They just bailed.” Again a statement based on opinion not facts. According to the Huffington Post “Recent data published by the Center for Disease Control reveal that African-American fathers spend more time in their children’s day-to-day lives than dads from other racial groups, defying stereotypes about black fatherhood. The Pew Research Center has found similar evidence that black dads don’t differ from white dads in any significant way, and that there isn’t the expected disparity found in so many other reports. Although black fathers are more likely to live in separate households, Pew estimates that 67 percent of black dads who don’t live with their kids see them at least once a month, compared to 59 percent of white dads and just 32 percent of Hispanic dads.” In essence, you are contributing to a narrative that is based on opinion or anecdotal evidence.
With that said, I will add that the US government can actually enforce the constitution of the US, by correcting and ending the racist policies of redlining, “de-facto” segregation, gentrification, zoning changes, and predatory home loans. These policies severely lessens the opportunity for Blacks to amass wealth. For more info about this topic read the Color of Law. Look, I am talking from experience. In 2006, I had a credit score of 700, but yet the only mortgage I could get was one for 11.25%. I didn’t know any better because all the people I knew also got similar rates. With rates this high, it leaves very little for property maintenance and to create wealth over time.
With that said, I will not go further to dive into how these policies impact the psyche of the Black Community.
For all racial and ethnic groups combined, 39.6 percent of births in the United States were out-of-wedlock. For blacks, the number is 69.4 percent; for American Indians/Alaska Natives, 68.2 percent (Native Hawaiians/Other Pacific Islanders were at 50.4 percent); for Hispanics, 51.8 percent; for whites, 28.2 percent; and for Asian Americans, 11.7 percent.
It doesn't mean much when you don't account for economic equality. Sweden has a higher percentage of single moms and they have high income levels than single mom's in America. Why?
It is indeed food for thought, but it doesn’t really dispel any myths. Just because more black dads see their kids once a month doesn’t mean these kids won’t go off the rails. The aggregate data from other studies shows the opposite, in fact.
Kids of all groups go off the rails. Police and the US government at all levels give other groups a pass. The stats are there for marijuana possession for example. Black kids get incarcerated at much higher level for the same offense. This is just one example of many. The stats are out there.
Actually, I can: The imposition of rules on social assistance forbidding such assistance to two-parent families. It was an accepted thing in the leadership of both major parties in the 1960s that, due to the economic damage done to black and brown communities by redlining-the deliberate government policy in which banks and insurance companies were directed to withhold their services to black and brown neighborhoods-neighborhoods which had done nothing to deserve such treatment-that there was going to have to be a large expansion of social services simply to keep people in those neighborhoods alive. When those programs were introduced, the "no assistance for two parent families" rules left people in those neighborhoods with an impossible choice(since there were no jobs in those neighborhoods due to redlining and since people with no money can't afford to move to look for work because you can't move to look for work if you have no money and since it is not a reasonable expectation to demand that people in neighborhoods with no jobs who also can't afford to go anywhere else to look for work-nobody can get a job by hitchhiking and eating gruel at soup kitchens while also having no place to wash their clothes and take a shower simply never marry OR have sex) the choice being to either deny your kids one parent in the home or deny them three square meals a day by not getting the benefits when you have no alternative but taking the benefits.
If the "aid for single parents only" rule had not been put in place, the decline in two-parent families in those neighborhoods would never have happened. The best things that could be done to fix it now would be a combination of repealing those rules-if two-parent families are THAT important, society should be willing to subsidize their survival-combined with finally doing what should have been done: passing federal jobs programs to put everyone who wants to work-as the vast majority of all peoples and all races do- in the places where they were born and with to stay. It's not about anybody being an "asshole" and the black community is already doing everything it can do to preserve two-parent families and has done nothing to deserve your smug attempts to shame and disparage them.
Most large trends tend to be due to multiple factors. One approach to explaining things is to pick a narrative, and then select the potentially causative factors which would fit that narrative, and attribute the outcomes entirely to those factors.
So for example, we could honestly say that the dramatic shift in Black family makeup between 1960 and 2020 was likely caused in part by the welfare rules which were in place during the 1960's. An honest social scientist might say that we initially don't know if that was a 10% cause or a 90% cause, and then proceed to do some objective research to begin to tease out the degree of causality from that one factor, as well as identifying (as best we can, an ongoing process of refinement) the other causes as well.
Somebody waving a political narrative will identify one cause that fits that narrative, and consider it the only cause, or the only meaningful cause. Not because of any balanced assessment of evidence, but because it fits the narrative.
This leads to statement like "If the "aid for single parents only" rule had not been put in place, the decline in two-parent families in those neighborhoods would never have happened." That is not based on evidence of single causality, it's based on political framing requirements.
There are a number of statements in your post which are assertions which are undoubtedly true in some individual cases, but may or may not be statistically the majority of causes or outcomes. It's a matter of reasoning by presuming the most positive (or narrative-reinforcing) scenarios we can imagine, as the only ones worth considering - with less than zero interest in learning whether these are typical or atypical of the overall reality.
For example, if a given disadvantaged kid doesn't turn in homework, we could presume that they are probably working full time after class to take care of a sick and poor grandmother. Yes, that's possible and we should be very open to learning that it's true. But the main point is to reinforce a narrative, and to gain sympathy whether deserved or not. Is it the typical for this individual not doing homework? (No need to find out). Is it the typical reasons that some kids in the class don't do homework? (please don't find out).
I love that you are trying to give the maximum benefit of the doubt and considering the most charitable possible possibility;; you have a good heart. But at some point we need to reason, if we are going to make sustainable improvement in the real world. And to understand problems we need to look at the full range of causes, with appropriate weights for frequency of each, so we can consider and implement interventions that are effective, with the least amoount of unintended consequences. We need good hearts and good minds to fix the problems.
As another example, you assume that the vast majority of people of all races want to work. I can say that I would strongly prefer to never need to work; I'd actually rather not have to harness myself to that timeclock, doing things that often I find tiresome or boring. I've worked for many decades and I've enjoyed parts of it more than other, but if I had been independently wealthy I would have quit every single job. I might have taken an occasional job for a while (if I could get it), until I got tired of it. And I would have volunteered a good bit (as I have in my actual life), for as long as it pleased me to do so.
I don't think I'm atypical. I doubt more than 20% of the people I know (at most) would have worked at the jobs they did, if they didn't need the money. A large number complain about their jobs, sometimes a lot. A few say they love it. Many are in between, as I was; I got some challenge and joy of accomplishment, but not enough to do it for a long time if I didn't need to.
You and the vast majority of the people you know might be different, but I think you are seeing society and human nature through rose colored glasses. (Not to suggest that going all the way to the opposite extreme would be better; stop as close as you can get to the objective truth instead) It makes for a very sympathetic and loving perspective and politics (at least for the groups you favor), but not necessarily one that would keep a society operating to produce the benefits you enjoy every day.
I'd rather be around kind spirited but unrealistic people than around mean spirited but unrealistic people, but better still are the kindly yet realistic folks who can actually achieve real world improvements.
Thanks for a moment of sanity and well-reasoned discussion of the flaws in these same arguments which we see over and over again in people whose only goal is Activism and Advocacy, not fair, objective and constructive analyses of the Facts.
"redlining-the deliberate government policy in which banks and insurance companies were directed to withhold their services to black and brown neighborhoods-neighborhoods which had done nothing to deserve such treatment"
Actually, that is not redlining. The maps in question delineated parts of a city into 4 zones which estimated the probability of default on mortgages. Unsurprisingly, the areas assigned the highest risks (#4) were poor, and Blacks were disproportionately poor and living in those zones. Nobody was prohibited from serving them - but if a bank agreed with that assessment, they might need to charge higher interest or require a high down payment - to have enough confidence that they would get their money back. Black owned banks were just as concerned about defaults, and tended to invest more easily in the higher rated zones (motivatd to preserve the saving of their black customers). But this was the choice of the banks - they could issue low down payment and/or low interest loans to residents of any zone, if they wished. Indeed, people (of any race) who bought in the high risk zones did get loans - but not as easily or at the same rates.
However, banks track actual default rates, and if they found that a red-lined geographic area was showing lower default rates than the redlining (zones 2-4) predicted, it would be a market opportunity to make loans there. Or if their own data showed higher default rates than redlining predicted (say, in zones 1-3) they could avoid making loans or require higher down payment and/or interest. In other words, redlining was advisory, and banks (white and black owned) who were rising other people's savings on the loans made the final decision.
If the core intent was to keep Black people down, then Balk owned banks (absent that intent) would have ignored the redlining. If the core intent was to be careful about bad loans using depositors savings, then both Black and white owned banks would make similar use of the redlining. (And mis-estimated default rates would open new opportunies for the banks who discovered the inaccuracy of the estimates, from their own experience).
One thing which isn't mentioned is that, if the redlining estimate of loan default likelyhood was more or less accurate, how much different would the results have been if there had been no maps? Would black owned banks have *successfully* invested more in Black homes and businesses, creating more prosperity? Or would they have made more bad loans? Or would they have figured out the bad risks from other sources and made similar decisions to what actually happened? We don't know.
Alas, this understandable desire to categorize loan risks (on behalf of depositors who wanted their saving back), winds up tending to expand the wealth difference between poor and rich. (And if Blacks are disproportionately poor, this obviously affects blacks more). Poor people would have more trouble coming up with higher deposits, and paying higher interest - and so would be more likely to remain poor. Not like 100% of the time, but too often. So redlining was rightly prohibited half a century ago. That's good.
There is an inherent paradox involved tho. A good analysis of differences in Black and white wealth identified one important factor being that white homes had appreciated more rapidly. That had two effects - white homeowners accumulated more equity and the cost of their housing went up faster. From the flip side, black homeowners gained equity more slowly, and housing in their neighorhoods remained more affordable. If black equity had gone up as fast, newer owners and renters would have faced less affordable housing - another social ill.
That all makes sense to me. Abolishing the deeply rooted systems that keep Blacks down is the only change to our system that is both indispensable and obviously correct. I doubt that doctrinaire systems of correct thought can ever be helpful to that process. The issue of what ideology whites should install in their minds is, I think, an artifact of white college kids struggling to find some way to think about race without losing their sanity. But no system of ideology is going to help them, seems to me. Anti-black policies are deeply embedded I'm our social and economic systems. Only long-term education has any hope of changing that grim fact.
The dissolution of Black communities and families that started in the 1950s is partially a result of desegregation. Segregation kept the communities together. I'm a Jew, grandson of holocaust survivors. The religious activist core of the Jewish community has a fear that people will assimilate and stop being Jews if they go two or three generations without severe ostracism and oppression. That in fact, Jews as a group and Judaism as a religion have only held together for so long as a result of brutal mistreatment, genocide, enslavement, and so on. There's some logic behind this, and there's historical evidence for periods of Jewish assimilation (e.g. Germany before the 1930s). But my view is: I hope there are positive things that can hold the culture together. But if they can't, then screw it. I don't need or want to be part of a culture that uses historical feelings of victimhood or oppression as its main totems or to hold it together. To remember is one thing. But either the culture has to be about life - now, as it is lived - or it's a dead culture. The new racialism masquerading as anti-racism is, in a weird way, an attempt to bring back segregation - or at least the parts of it that gave people a sense of community in that under extreme conditions, they needed to rely on each other as part of their ethnic group against a common enemy who was trying to obliterate them. But bringing back the threat or re-segregating or chaining yourself to historical martyrdom is a terrible way to assert a culture or a history, and it leads to a pit of failure. (Just look at the white South). And to the extent the Jewish community thrives on that type of thing, it also generates plenty of rebels like me who want to be judged by our actions and the content of our character, nothing more or less. Not ancient history.
Mostly true, though I would point out that Utah is not a pit of failure, although Mormons have always identified as an oppressed minority and venerated their "martyrs". Of course they have also, until the current generation, been pretty much entirely white, reserving an inferior place for people of other ethnic groups.
This is not about any inherent superiority of one set of genes than another. If you reversed the histories, presenting European-descended populations with the same circumstances that African-descended populations have faced, they would be in more or less the same present circumstances. We are not claiming any inherent "white" superiority.
However, the situation we find ourselves in is that identifiably different populations today have some different cultural contexts and values, which contribute to different outcomes. Even if we were to buy some argument that 100% of those differences are due historically to a single population's ancestors (with no agency on the part of anybody else), we still find ourselves facing today's cultural landscape.
If, hypothetically, a low percentage of two parent families contributes substantially to worse statistical outcomes for a given population, and is a substantial contributor to intergenerational poverty and other problems like crime, then we may need to seriously address that factor - no matter what the original cause was. That doesn't mean it can be fixed entirely from within the population - we as a society need to be working on it from the outside, to create better opportunites and support. But it can't be fixed entirely from the outside either - Asian-Americans and European-Americans can't just reach into African-American families and make them have two parent households.
We need to work on this together, understanding the mixture of internal and external factors which perpetuate disparities, and work on both in a coordinated way. Trying to push a disadvantaged population to fix it all on their own without dealing with external factors is naive at best and oppressive at worst; but trying to guilt trip other populations to fix everything is doomed to failure also.
The currently dominant political strategy regarding race is to emphasize adversarial approaches and blame/guilt in both directions. I don't care for those dynamics, but I might accept them if it was demonstrably leading to a better world. But it's NOT working, and doubling down on it isn't going to work better.
Here is some more stats: in 1929 more than 3/5ths of two parent American families earned less than $2k a year and couldn't save money. Post 1945, 50% of two parent Black homes lived below the poverty line about the same as one parent Black homes. And until the 1960s, 75% of Black households with a child under 18 years old had two parents. This didn't save Black families from poverty because unemployment and discrimination were the problem. Not the racist generalizations of irresponsible single Black mothers and absentee Black fathers. One might argue, that Blacks were not job creators. When went they did build up their community like Tusla, Ok, jealous Whites in collaboration with local and state officials burned down 30 blocks of affluent Black homeowners and their business district. Another example of government sanction of violence and racist against Blacks occurred when city planners in various cities like LA would run freeways through affluent Black communities to destroy their wealth. This is a practice that is still going on today. So the myth of the nuclear family is nothing but a myth. It's about economics.
The facts are out there. Between 1855 to 1880 over %70 of Black families in the US were nuclear. Meaning they had a 2 parent household (mom & dad). Yet, the vast majority of Black Americans were poor during this period. This is because the US government was and still is complicit in the practice of segregation based on race. Prior to the creation of the nuclear family in the 1950's most White families could not afford to have the wife/mother stay home. They worked in factories and in many instance white children also worked in factories to bring home the bacon. This has nothing to do with Asian and European families reaching into AA families and make them have two parent households. Its all about the US government discriminating against Black Americans and preventing them from make money on par with White Americans whether through Slavery, Jim Crow, Segregation, Redlining, Gentrification and other racist policies.
"Unemployment is the root cause for single parent homes. It's been noted that employed Black men were two times more likely to marry the mother of their child than unemployment men." Like Aron said, no fair person can deny the history and legacy of racism exists. But you engage in distorted use of statistics and considerable self-serving bias in interpreting them. You frequently distort causal relationships, like pretending that employment causes men to marry the mother of their child, and unemployment is the only reason why Black women prefer to not marry a lot of Black men. Black women get sick of being exploited and taken advantage of by the same kinds of Black men who have sired children by all sorts of different "Baby Mamas." You refuse to publicly acknowledge the kind of bullshit that many Black men perpetrate on Black women, just like we saw in the movie "Hustle and Flow." That is the greatest reason for the high rate of unmarried Black mothers: they have decided they would rather go it alone than settle for the games which many Black men play, who rely on the women for their shelter and phones and cars food and clothing and then CHEAT on them, and then move on to the next naive woman once they have destroyed the credit of this one. There is a culture of exploitation and abuse of women among many Black men, and that is NOT a myth. Plenty of Black women write about it, and I have seen it in my own family. Who exactly started the practice of referring to women as bitches and ho's in popular culture? Granted, part of this emerged as a survival mechanism as a result of the Systemic Racism you document so well. Black women were the main ones able to get jobs and get credit. And THAT is the real reason why poverty was so little different between Nuclear Families and Single Women families: even in the married families, the woman was the one keeping things together on HER salary. So there was not much difference with unmarried women. The Myth of the Strong Black Woman is NOT a myth. I've seen it in my own family, and am sick of folks like YOU distorting things to make it seem that the Government can be scapegoated for every damn thing wrong in Black families. There is a subculture of abuse of power and manipulation of women running through many Black communities, that has allowed many Black men to never have to grow the fuck up, and they continue to live the wannabe "Player" lifestyle, usually at the expense of women and/or breaking the law. You might be able to convince your white allies that this is just a "racist trope" and stereotype, but like I say, I have seen it in my own family. You are stuck in a time warp, and do nothing but throw decades-old historical excuses into the conversation, ignoring the fact that pretty much ANY Black child with talent and motivation can go to schools like Harvard for FREE today. To be young, talented and Black in today's America is a very different experience than it was 50 years ago. So stop throwing statistics from 50 years ago about as if they are as pertinent today as they were then. Black people are the killers in roughly 47% of all killings in America nationwide TODAY, yet represent only 13% of the population. They kill roughly 70 children in Chicago alone every year. The kill their own 18 and 19 year old teens at a rate of 14 times the national average. Black teens are roughly FIVE times more likely to be killed through gun violence than white teens. Right were I live, a 7 year old Black girl was gunned down while waiting in the drive through in McDonalds. You want white people to stop being Fragile and be more accountable, well I have never seen anybody more fragile than the Blacks claiming they suffer PTSD from whites wanting to touch their hair and whining that they cannot feel safe anywhere in America when they are 100 times more likely to be killed by somebody Black than by a cop, or anybody white. You like stats...look at the Murder stats of whites and blacks. Blacks kill twice as many whites every year as whites kill Blacks....and that is in RAW numbers, even without doing a per capita analysis. Blacks get away with accusing people of being bigoted racists whenever anybody points out the ways in which Blacks are masters of their own misfortune in SOME cases, and consistently use Racism as an an excuse for their OWN violence and bigotry. Last word: take a look at who is doing the most violent attacks on Asians. It is BLACKS, for the most part, but the newspapers rarely publish THEIR photos in the articles, but when it is a white person, the fact of THEIR skin color is front page news. And Black activists try to gaslight America by claiming that Blacks can NOT be Racist. Bullshit. Of course I am angry: I am sick of the distortions on BOTH ends of the political spectrum. But the popularization of propaganda like "White Fragility" and the revision of history and censoring of books like "To Kill a Mockingbird" - and taking Lincoln's name off schools and firing people for merely daring to publicly criticize any aspect of critical race theory has come to resemble the same Fascist Bigoted behavior engaged in by groups like the Nazis and the KKK. You and Aron have engaged in some semblance of a rational discussion, even offering documentation of certain "facts". But more often than not you do not bother to address the essential truths in many of the points he is making, you are unable to contradict them and simply deflect or find yet another way to promote the idea that America is STILL conspiring to destroy Black people's lives, when massive attempts have been made to enhance them, which folks like you inevitably find SOME way to trash and denounce so that you can hang on to your scapegoating and demonizing of all white people through your condemnations of whiteness. The type of shit you allow people to say about whites would NEVER be permitted to be uttered about Blacks, but you insist on separate rules for Blacks and white, just like the KKK and segregationists did. But you tolerate it, because you like the effects. You refuse to acknowledge the irrationality of claiming that there is no such thing as Race, no such thing as Gender, because they are social constructs, and then demanding that Intersectionality be used to sort people by race and gender so that people can engage in pissing contests to see who has been victimized the most. Please watch Malcom X explain that Blacks and whites need to openly and honestly talk about the real issues without worrying about hurting each others' feelings. We made great progress towards that a decade ago. Today, it is next to impossible. Any white person stupid enough to publicly say anything which might hurt a Black person's feelings will have their career destroyed. So, you have a culture of fear, with performative bullshit protestations of Anti-racism, and Pro-Blackness and earnest apologies for having failed in the past and promises to do better. What an utter bunch of BULLSHIT. It's not coming from any place of sincerity. It is coming from a new form of Domestic Terrorism just as insidious as what the Nazis perpetrated upon Germany. Sorry for my angry rant. I sense you are likely a decent man. But you lack insight into the ways that you too have been duped and manipulated.
Good points, but the fact is that the "War on Drugs" and "Getting Tough on Crime" and three strike rules DID disproportionately prevent a lot of Black fathers from being part of their family's lives. And while I disagree with their conclusion, that is seen as a "new form of racism in the past 50 years." Yeah, I know, I know - you'll now claim that those criminals were unlikely to have been the kinds of fathers that Black kids need. And maybe they were not the best, but their absence still caused more harm in THEIR families than it solved, and I can understand the arguments of people who want a different kind of "Justice" that seeks to repair, as well as to punish.
Do you think that anyone who wants to express their doubts about the White Fragility thesis must come ready with their own proposal for how to solve racism?
Because in the real world people are imperfect, they aren’t the color blind creatures you would like them to be. Yes we can and should strive for that but we will never reach that because we are human. Ignoring what has gone on in the past and what continues to go on is easy to do from a position of safety, you don’t have to live life as a Black person. That’s not just about today in the moment, it’s what happened yesterday and the day before and the month before and the year before, it all gets us to this point in time. Forgive me if I seem angry but when you don’t have to live this life it’s easy to have pie in the sky views.
The alternative is to address the underlying cause of all oppression: unregulated capitalism. The alternative is to participate in a cross racial working people’s movement which unites instead of divides. Until we address these issues we’ll remain in the gilded age of woke capitalism, diverse imperialism and inclusive environmental destruction.
Unregulated capitalism? Is that some sort of joke? If you honestly believe the system we have is unregulated capitalism then it's not even possible to have a discussion. You simply have no concept of reality.
"The alternative is to address the underlying cause of all oppression: unregulated capitalism."
Thus proving you're an ignorant fool who really doesn't understand the problems face in America and the world, not to mention someone who has no concept of what free markets are in relationship to 'capitalism.'
I do not think "oppression" can ever be "solved." That is as impossible as the Neocon struggle to "end evil." Some things really are impossible, and attempts to solve them once and for all generally turn into nonsense.
A pretty good point, there will be oppression of one form or another as long as groups exist and bullies within them are able to assume leadership. What becomes a jest of God is the tendency for these earnest well-meaning progressives to promise to end Fascism - if we would only allow THEM to behave in a fascist manner long enough to root out whiteness and destroy it everywhere.
In part I agree. The currently dominant left-of-center political framing serves primarily to divide people into competing tribal niches, encouraging them to base their very identity primarily on the intersection of various racial and sexual categories, and then blame/shame/resent/rebel/hate each other. There are assertions that a century ago some of the rich encouraged whites and Blacks to focus their animosity on each other, to distract them from noticing the economic disparities. Today anti-racism and intersectionalism foster exactly that kind of conflict for free; the working class and the middle class are dividing themselves into warring camps.
For example, if you look up the statistics, the economic difference between the top and bottom deciles *within* every race totally dominate any disparity *between* races. I'm not saying, by the way, that there should not be any economic differences between people; it would appear that human beings do not do thrive together in large societies without some motivation of differential rewards for differential contributions. But the degree of separation between the top and the bottom is out of whack today, and far larger than needed to encourage people to contribute their best.
However, I believe that your conception of capitalism is somewhat distorted. All of the "western" democracies, including the US, practice a hybrid system of "social welfare capitalism" (as do Japan, South Korea, etc). The means of production are mostly in private hands, and a majority of people work for private employers (or themselves) rather than being employees of the State - but the State has taken on a huge amount of social welfare responsibility. These systems are FAR removed from "unregulated capitalism". Read about living conditions for ordinary workers (or the unemployed) in the industrialized nations in the 1700's and 1800's to get a better idea of unregulated capitalism. The difference is hard to overstate. Or on the other side, if you ever tried to run a small business with some employees, you would not characterize our system as "unregulated", as a large part of your time and money will be spent dealing with an incredible number of regulations.
Now look for truly socialist nations, over the last century - where the State owns the means of production and everyone works for the State. See if you really like that better than "capitalism with democratically imposed regulation". There is a reason that socialist states need to use authoritarian means to stay in power, whether reluctantly or enthusiastically.
That said, there are substantial (although smaller) differences in the degree of regulation and the degree of social welfare modifications to capitalism. What you likely desire is to move that needle, with more regulation and more social welfare, within a capitalist country where most of the means of production is NOT owned by the government, and most people are not employess of the government. Imagine all the factories, all the mass media, all the transportation network, all the internet, all the entertainment industry, all the housing, all the agriculture, etc being owned by the government. I doubt that's what you want. You likely would like to move towards something like Sweden, rather than like the former USSR.
(To be clear, communism is a form of socialism distinguished by accepting the particular analysis of Marx, perhaps modified by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, etc. There are other non-Communist socialist theorists, but ownership of the means of production by the state is a core concept of all or most socialism, including all forms that have ever achieved power - ie: excluding armchair fantasies never tested against the real world of real humans).
If unregulated capitalism is the underlying cause of all oppression, then we've now eliminated oppression because our capitalism is highly regulated (albeit too much so for some voters and not enough for other voters). And all pre-capitalist societies were did not have oppression - monarchies around the world, feudalism in Europe and Japan, Rome and Greece, Genghis Kahn, biblical patriarchies, African empires, Aztecs and other Native Americans, etc. Or perhaps you need to reconsider this simple attribution of the source of oppression.
As for environmental destruction - alas, socialist governments have had an even worse record in the past century. But there is a more fundamental problem which actually transcends this economic distinction. The socialist as well as capitalist nations of the world have competed for economic growth, which has been seen as the key to improving the lot of their citizens (even if unevenly distributed). All economic systems which are based on and optimized for exponential growth are inherently unsustainable. If we really want to have a sustainable planet, we need a new form of economics which is not oriented towards (physical) growth. This is a really, really hard lift because we now have hundreds of years of history conditioning us to believe that growth is good, as we have benefitted from it. Growth impact =growth in population times growth in per capita consumption and waste products. Weening ourselves from that conceptual framework is actually much harder than capitalism vs socialism, it's more like the cultural differences between an advanced technological global society and bands of hunter-gatherer tribes. We need a technological society organized as different from our current society as those wandering tribes, but in a different and more complex way than those tribes.
But that's a different story needing great depth of exploration and challenging previously unquestioned assumptions. For now we have to survive the next decade, so we can go back to the subjects closer at hand.
I've enjoyed your takes, but what always amazes me in discussions around wealth inequality is that I have yet to see anyone mention financial literacy, or the lack there of. I humbly consider this to be, if not the fundamental cause, then surely the cure to wealth inequality.
As you stated, there will never be an even distribution of wealth, just as there are not an even distribution of marketable skills. Until recently, this seems to have been an acceptable and tenable truth. In fact, there once was a time in this country when the prevailing desire amongst the middle and lowers class was simply that their progeny became at least better off than they were. I'm not sure if that's true anymore, but if it is, financial literacy (which merely informs tough decisions that still need to be made) all but ensures that will take place...short of government malfeasence anyway (creating otherwise unnecessary economic hardship, ie harsh inflation/deflation/stagflation).
The interesting thing is just how rampant this illiteracy is. Even, and perhaps particularly among the "educated", aside from those trained in finance, of course. It is astounding to me that so many can espouse an opinion on the merits of capitalism without personally understanding what money is, let alone how it can be leveraged. To me, it's analogous to watching people play monopoly without ever buying any of the spaces for themselves. They simply make their way around the board, hoping to survive on the stipend of passing go, and perhaps be lucky enough for a "bank error in their favor". Seriously, I didn't realize how good that analogy is until writing it out, because that pretty much sums up what I see when I observe most people navigate their financial lives - including my own until I became literate.
You're onto something, but the problem you're looking to is how 99.9% of the worlds population not being active participants in the market system(s) means the wealthy that do at a high and frequent level are largely uncontested. The general population is supposed to be the 'invisible hand' of the market that brings it to bear, but until more people are active in that process rent seekers will never be dealt with, nor their negative influence and impact resolved.
Actually the "invisible hand" turns out to be the elite who bought the government on the "free market". Sorry but libertarian BS was all bought and paid for by the scumbag Koch brother trust fund babies.
Where is this "unregulated capitalism" you speak of? Or do you simply mean "capitalism isn't as regulated as I'd like it to be or in the way I'd like it to be" (which is to regulate it out of existence)? And you claim that something that largely doesn't exist is the "underlying cause of all oppression"? Husband beats wife in socialist country? Unregulated capitalism is to blame!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh. You're serious. As was said by others - you have made a huge, unsupported assertion. The burden of proof is on YOU. A good start would be to look at non-capitalist based economic structures and the countries that work with them and find ones without oppression. You won't. America is the most ethnically diverse country with the most opportunities for people of all colors. Our only other competition is Canada, which is about the population of a few of our states, and is only multiethnic in a few of their bigger cities.
There is nothing wrong with saying, yes, racism can exist AND saying no to a form of argument that is in of itself dangerous. Non-falsifiable claims are not only the thing of nightmares for scientists, but also the stuff of real nightmares where witches burn in the public square. Try reading Kafka’s “The Trial”.
Which is a comical assertion given where the vast majority of anti-Jewish hatred has come from in my life-time. Where is actual anti-Semitic violence going on in the U.S.? Big, very progressive cities.
The fact that you can't tell if I am white or black should be viewed as progress. By the way, did you know that there is only one race? The Human race. I just use black and white to avoid confusion because most people don't know this fact.
White denialism is a Kafka trap and although many people might not be well enough informed to identify them as what they are, they most definitely know when they are in one, they most definitely know that they are flawed from a logical, common sense and critical thinking standpoint. A Kafka trap is “a fallacy where if someone denies being x it is taken as evidence that the person is x since someone who is x would deny being x.” It has long been identified as manipulation, egregious and historically been a tool to justify gross injustices like the witch trials. Critical race theory is saturated in Kafka traps. For example, white people deny being racist because they clearly are too racist to see their own racism, white people deny systematic racism because they can’t emotionally confront that they benefited for racism. Minorities that speak against systematic racism are too engulfed in racism to see the racism. Then even crazier ones are logic, reason and the identification of a Kafka trap is a tool of the “masters” thus cannot be used to deconstruct critical racial theory. Then if you defend the science, linguistics, logic. Then it is said science, logic and linguistics are all forms of whiteness and thus they are invalid in arguing against the concept. It becomes the rambling of a crazy person really quickly. How would this feel. To a minority. Systematic racism makes black people losers and to deny the fact you’re a loser is simply because no one likes being a loser or to you simply deny the fact you’re a loser because your self-image has been draped in being a loser you can’t even recognize winning in life because you’re such a loser. It’s the exact same logic. Fundamentally it’s not far from critical race theories’ central tenants to beguine with. A quick history of critical theory sources from Hegel to economics through Marx. It migrated from Hegal to philosophy by way of a few philosophers in the Frankford school. It then continued to reproduce in the philosophy departments in America. Now it is still by all accounts a philosophy but is seen by the populous as a scientific theory which it is not its a philosophic theory. That’s why its proponents still call it critical race THEORY. It does not hold up to critical thinking as a core principle, nor does it hold up to any varieties of the scientific method. Enough intellectual talk. Whatever your religion walk with me for a second through one atheistic theory about why religion is false. The theory is called the god of the gaps coined by Richard Dawkins. It was to combat the idea that god is real because we don’t know why we got here so it must be god. Then theologians said. Well ok we know there was a big bang. But we know god exists because what about before that, it must be god. Dawkins argued that just because you think you know the answer doesn’t make it the answer. More so that frame of mind stops you from finding the real answers. Be that small answers around the bigger question or big answers that reduce the rest to small questions. So to directly answer the questions you are essentially saying some form of the following statement is inherently true, “THE current problem with our social issues is RACISM NOW.” Not echoes from a history of racism (historical race issue), not past laws on the books that are racist (historical race issue), not a poverty issue coupled with a willingness to commit crime in the black community that results in less lawyers in the courtroom or more low quality less connected lawyers (cultural and economic issue), lack of education (economic and cultural issue), dependence on the government (political issue) and broken home (political, economic and cultural issue). Here is the point I’m making. The current dominant ideology is one of racial victimization. If everyone hangs their hat on that before taking a rational look at all things the real problems thus real solutions will be overlooked. “Does” structural racism exist or “did” structural racism exist? Does structural racism exist or do the byproducts of structural racism exist now? Is racism even relevant in 2020? Is racism bigotry between people or a structure? They all assume racism a primary role. You gave two very good examples of real problems. “The racial wealth gap is as bad as it was 50 years ago.” That would be an economic issue. If it were to be addressed it could be that for 100 years the united states issues interest free mortgages to American descendants of slaves under the premise they were historically bared from owning land and redlined. on a 40 year mortgage a person pretty much pays the holding company pretty much double the house face value. Thus on a 400,000 house a person would save 400,000 in interest plus create generational wealth. People might squak but it offers black people a easier way up to wealth. It is also a good viable solution. Most white mean wealth is in home equity not a bank account. Financial problem financial solution. Next “black incarceration rates are still horribly out of proportion.” Judicial reform through both removing unjust victimless laws, back dating both release for crimes removed and automatic expungements. A fixed pay back of any release white, black or brown from these stricken laws of $15,000. We will save that since their incarceration cost more than that a year anyway to tax payers. Since it disproportionately effects black people it will disproportionately help black people. I think that speaks to policing too. Take the focus off of crime prevention to crime response. That would reduce cops on hand, increase detectives and make traffic cops actual traffic cops. Essentially reducing the overall needed force. It would also stop stop and frisk and pulling over suspicious drivers, two things noted as reasons blacks are effected by justice more. Lastly only hire cops to police a community that live in. That way their salary remains in the community they are policing, their taxation as well. There are rational solutions but chasing systematic racism (yes racism exists) is like chasing terrorists in the Bush era. Yeah they existed too but it was much more of a mind fuck to the public than a actual relevant threat to the people and was sold to the masses with the same threatening vigor.
Opening up well funded schools and after school programs, along with daycare facilities in impoverished neighborhoods (IE actual reparations) That would do a hell of a lot more than making Kafka racism traps for white people.
Good point. But it's not that easy, alas. In my state, differences in local-tax funding between geographic areas are equalized via state-wide funding, so all schools receive relatively equal funding. Yet they do not achieve very equal outcomes. Some of the disparity could indeed have to do with racism, but it's clear that one cannot explain all of it (or perhaps even a majority of it) based on race. Poverty is a larger factor, but even that is only a partial explanation.
It takes a real song and dance routine to pretend that culture makes no difference. Some subcultures emphasize and valorize different things than other subcultures, and that results in different outcomes. If your racial-ethnic group really rewards and values chess, there will be more good chess players; if it respects some sport, that population is likely to excel in said sport (statistically speaking). The subcultures which valorize education tend to do well in the US.
It can be challenging to disentangle this from socio-economic class, since socio-economic classes tend to have different cultures, and different cultures produce different socio-economic class results. There is a feedback loop, which alas tends to keep those at the bottom from succeeding as the same rate. However, culture is more malleable than some other factors; if that shifts, and if we can substantially improve the equality of opportunity (see equal school funding above as one factor), then there is a change to break that cycle.
But without any accompanying cultural change, just throwing more money at schools will not get the results we want. It takes both; a subculture (of any race) which does not actively promote behaviors which raise one's income and class, will not flourish just by having more money available for education, etc.
There is no one white culture or one Black culture (nor for any other group). What I speak about differences between subculture applies within every racial group, in fact far more so than between groups. But there are statistical differences between the distributions of subcultures between larger groups as well. Not every Asian family will emphasize education, but at the aggregate level it's more culturally common among Asian families - and that shows in different outcomes.
[At this point, if there are any wokefolks here, they will roll their eyes theatrically, sigh heavily, and throw down #modelminority like a football flag, and think that hashtag and superior attitude, somehow magically exempts them from facing critical thinking or hard facts. Let's not bother to go there.]
Race is a biological reality. See David Reich in the NYT. Quote "But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among “races.”". Sorry, but reality bites hard.
DNA analysis has shown greater genetic variation between West Africans and East/Nilotic Africans-Kenya, Ethiopia,etc. than between West Africans (from West Africa, not intermixed in the Western Hemisphere) and Western Europeans. It really is only skin deep.
Let me offer one more comment. Apparently, genetic variation in dogs is two times greater than in human. However, most people can still tell the difference between dogs and humans.
You have made two pretty common mistakes. First, African-Americans came from a relatively small area in West Africa. They do not represent the genetic diversity of Africa (at all). The second error is confusing genetic variation with genetic distinguishability. Sure Africa has genetic diversity. However, that doesn’t make using genetics to distinguish Europeans from Africans hard at all. See “Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies” (NCBI/PMC). Risch was able identify race with 99.86% accuracy. Not bad for something that doesn’t exist. Note that Risch did not look skin color genes at all. Of course, Risch is just one source. Take a look at “The Inconvenient Science of Racial DNA Profiling” in Wired or “How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of 'Race'” by David Reich in the NYT. If race was only ‘skin deep’ it would not be trivial to identify race from genes. But it is.
I could go on, but so could you. Neither of us is an expert, but one of us thinks he knows all the answers because he can find at least one "expert" who agrees with his preconceptions.
My question is why it's so vital for you to establish that races exist. And I believe it's because you are in fact a racist. Why? Well, examine the following quotation from Adolph Reed:
"It is easy in the dubious shorthand of our prevailing race discourse to lose sight of the reality that racism is simply and quintessentially the belief that race is not merely a statistical reification but instead refers to populations defined by actual biological difference. And that belief is quintessentially racist whether or not it is linked to claims regarding inferiority or superiority. That is, racism is the belief that race is a category that defines and encapsulates natural populations. It does not. A claim that black people are especially vulnerable, as black people, to Covid-19 or any contagion is as preposterous as a claim that unicorns are especially vulnerable."
I believe professor Reed's definition of racism is the best one I've seen. In that sense, I'm not a racist because I find the very idea of race to be useless. Some words and concepts simply cause more confusion and difficulty than I'm willing to put up with in my discourse. For another, take "anti-Semitism," a hopelessly inaccurate term that most people use synonymously with "anti-Jewish" even though there are many Semites who are not Jews and Jews who are not Semites. The simplest way out of the linguistic swamp is to say "anti-Jewish" or "Jew-hating" when that's what's under discussion. Similarly, I find "ethnicity" a perfectly meaningful concept that doesn't carry the baggage and inherent errors of "race." And then it's rather easy to see that people who insist on using "race" as a meaningful, natural word/concept for distinguishing and defining human populations are furthering agendas that I don't accept. You, Peter, are a textbook example of someone with an enormous investment in the idea of race. And it's pretty clear why.
What's clear is that you do not understand that it is mostly Black people who are now insisting on identifying humans by their races so that they can claim a win in the race to who has been most victimized intersectionally.
“As Thomas Sowell succinctly stated in his book The Quest for Cosmic Justice, “there is only so much divergence between prevailing theories and intractable reality that a society can survive. Yet theories of equality are unlikely to be re-examined—or examined the first time—when they provide a foundation for the heady feeling of being morally superior to a benighted ‘society.’””
“divergence between prevailing theories and intractable reality”
“My question is why it's so vital for you to establish that races exist”
I sort of like believing in reality. How about you? I know that fantasies and emotions are a lot more soothing and “nice”, than reality. But to quote from Philip Dick “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away”.
“And I believe it's because you are in fact a racist”
Name calling proves you have no argument, just bitterness. Predictable.
You can quote from National Geographic and 100 other publications. However, you can’t change reality. The fact that race can be easily determined from a drop of blood (which is true) makes all of the Nation Geographic articles a bunch of hooey. You do know what an ‘existence proof’ is? You have heard of white swans and black swans?
See “Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies” (NCBI/PMC). Risch was able identify race with 99.86% accuracy. Not bad for something that doesn’t exist. Note that Risch did not look skin color genes at all. Of course, Risch is just one source. Take a look at “The Inconvenient Science of Racial DNA Profiling” in Wired or “How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of 'Race'” by David Reich in the NYT. If race didn’t exist it would not be trivial to identify race from genes. But it is.
“reality that racism is simply and quintessentially the belief that race is not merely a statistical reification but instead refers to populations defined by actual biological difference”
Numerous studies have shown that race can be very accurately determined from a drop of blood. I guess that makes reality racist. Good to know.
“A claim that black people are especially vulnerable, as black people, to Covid-19 or any contagion is as preposterous as a claim that unicorns are especially vulnerable”
Where have you seen that one? New to me. There are (so far unproven) claims that certain blood types might be more vulnerable. A fascinating and related point is that 1% of Europeans are invulnerable to HIV (CCR5 Δ32). Higher infection rates for blacks (and Hispanics) are probably a consequence of geographic locale, occupational differences, mass transit use, etc.
“You, Peter, are a textbook example of someone with an enormous investment in the idea of race. And it's pretty clear why.”
I sort of like believing in reality. How about you?
Some sources state “race is not a biological reality”. That’s a commonplace view on the left, but is not actually true. A good parallel might be the Sun orbiting the Earth. Everyone “knew” that this was true, but of course it wasn’t. The biological reality of race has been demonstrated many times. However, since it is not a PC idea, the science just gets ignored. A few useful data points.
See “Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies” (NCBI/PMC). Risch was able identify race with 99.86% accuracy. Not bad for something that doesn’t exist. Note that Risch did not look skin color genes at all. Quote
“We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity. On the other hand, we detected only modest genetic differentiation between different current geographic locales within each race/ethnicity group. Thus, ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population. Implications of this genetic structure for case-control association studies are discussed.”
Take a look at “The Inconvenient Science of Racial DNA Profiling”. A scientist by the name of Tony Frudakis was able to identify the race of a serial killer in a police investigation in Louisiana. The police in Louisiana were looking for a white male killer based on (mis)information received early in the case. They were wrong. Frudakis examined DNA samples collected in the investigation and told the police that the killer was probably 85% Black and 15% Native American. Based on this new information the police starting examining new suspects and found the actual killer (who matched Frudakis’s description rather well). Tony Frudakis found that race could be determined from genes with 100% accuracy. Not bad for something that doesn’t exist.
Take a look at “How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of 'Race'” by David Reich in the NYT. If race didn’t exist it would not be trivial to identify race from genes. But it is. Quotes
“Groundbreaking advances in DNA sequencing technology have been made over the last two decades. These advances enable us to measure with exquisite accuracy what fraction of an individual’s genetic ancestry traces back to, say, West Africa 500 years ago — before the mixing in the Americas of the West African and European gene pools that were almost completely isolated for the last 70,000 years. With the help of these tools, we are learning that while race may be a social construct, differences in genetic ancestry that happen to correlate to many of today’s racial constructs are real.”
And
“Recent research on the human genome challenges the basic assumption that human races have no biological basis. In this article, we provide a theoretical synthesis that accepts the existence of genetic clusters consistent with certain racial classifications as well as the validity of the genomic research that has identified the clusters, without diminishing the social character of their context, meaning, production, or consequences.”
It turns of the Razib Kahn has commented on this. See ““To classify humanity is not that hard””. Quote
“The idea that human phylogeny is impossible is in the air, I have heard it from many intelligent people. I have no idea why people would be skeptical of it, the way it is presented by many scholars makes the implication clear that phylogeny is impossible, that differences are trivial. Both these are false impressions. I do not believe that the fact that mixed-race people’s real problems obtaining organs with the appropriate tissue match is a trivial affair. Human genetic differences have plenty of concrete impacts which are not socially constructed.”
A number of companies (23andMe, Ancestry.com, etc.) can easily identify the ancestors of anyone using a tiny DNA sample. If race had no bilologial basis, this would be impossible. But, of course, it is very possible.
It turns out that Stephen Hsu has commented on this. See “Metric on the space of genomes and the scientific basis for race”. Quote
“Now plot the genome of each human as a point on our lattice. Not surprisingly, there are readily identifiable clusters of points, corresponding to traditional continental ethnic groups: Europeans, Africans, Asians, Native Americans, etc. (See, for example, Risch et al., Am. J. Hum. Genet. 76:268–275, 2005.) Of course, we can get into endless arguments about how we define European or Asian, and of course there is substructure within the clusters, but it is rather obvious that there are identifiable groupings, and as the Risch study shows, they correspond very well to self-identified notions of race.”
It turns out that we now have AI on this topic. AI has been found to determine race with considerable accuracy from X-rays. If race doesn’t have a biological basis, how exactly does this work? See “Reading Race: AI Recognizes Patient’s Racial Identity In Medical Images” in arXiv
Well over two hundred years ago, Blumenbach found that he could classify skulls by race. It sad but true, that our understanding of our own species has declined (in some respects), since then.
There is actually a funny version of this. Quote
“Forensic anthropology and the concept of race: if races don't exist, why are forensic anthropologists so good at identifying them?”
Why indeed? If race had no biological significance, then it would be impossible to determine race from skeletons. But, of course, it is.
Ultimately, the debate should be moving toward solutions, so I agree it's fair to ask if he has alternative solutions. But that doesn't mean there isn't also value is pointing out when other proposed solutions might be useless endeavors, or make things worse. It is clearly possible to be able to identify a wrong solution, and articulate why it's wrong, without necessarily knowing the right solution. Further, to the extent we are still searching for the right solution, part of the criticism of the book appears to be that a core tenet of its philosophy is to preclude further debate. That is a scary proposition in an area where we, as a society, have such a record of failure in our past attempts. The alarming trend in essays online, and potentially with the ideas in the book from what I gather, is to dismiss our quest from the last few decades to "lift all boats" as futile, and instead adopt a quest to "sink all boats." That philosophy must carry a heavier burden of persuasion because it is on its face less idealistic. A post-racial society is almost universally agreed to be a worthwhile goal, but pursuing a perpetually-racial society needs a loftier defense.
You wouldn't know it from Matt's review or most of the discussion here, but DiAngelo agrees that a post-racial society is the ultimate goal. Based on years of having difficult conversations with white people, she notes that most white folks want to ignore existing racism and just jump to this post-racial reality without doing any hard work. This is the fantasy position that should require the heavier burden of persuasion / proof. It seems to be the one that Matt supports, but how would I know if he won't share his approach?
I’ll offer a proposed solution for discussion. Treat the failure of local communities to provide blacks with safe neighborhoods, protection from police abuse and satisfactory education outcomes as civil rights violations. This could provide state and or the federal government the leverage to bring local politicians and powerful police and teachers unions to the table to force much needed change.
Interesting proposal. We don't see the teacher's unions and the police unions targeted at the same time very often, due to partisanship. Democrats usually won't criticize teacher's unions and Republicans usually won't criticize police unions.
That makes me think you might be interested in analyzing the political leadership in the cities with the largest problems of unsafe neighborhoods for Black folks, and where police are most often accused of mistreatment. It would appear after a generation of electing Black people, or Democrats, to local power in those cities, that such a simple solution doesn't work. That convinces some that racism must be so deeply embedded that we need to burn everything down and rebuild from scratch (liberal democracies don't often emerge from the ruins, absent some other power stepping in as after WWII). Others believe we need to rethink the prescriptions, as some wrong assumptions about effective approaches to needed reform may be wrong.
Education is a case in point, as you bring up. It's badly failing minority students in many locations, even with Black superintendents, boards and teachers. Blaming that entirely on racism provides a handy excuse, but not solutions. "It'll all be magically fixed once the last remaining vestige of implicit bias is rubbed out" rings pretty hollow. In locations where the large majority of power is in Black hands, things often are worse rather than better. I don't think that's because there aren't competent Black teachers and administrators, but perhaps because the focus has shifted toward empowering the folks who drape themselves in anti-racism like somebody draping themselves in the flag, to avoid accountability. "Look over there!". But the students deserve better.
So the problem of trying to use civil rights to fix things is that it doesn't apply to the worst locations with the lowest outcomes, where the school administration is already dominated by Black folks.
It might help in some places tho, where white administrators or local politicians are driving the problems; racism does exist and in some cases has explanatory value. But the problem is - will that fix it there, or just turn those locations into similar situations to the existing Black dominated cities with especially bad problems, as referenced above? If getting schools under Black administrations had been successful in improving their outcomes, then trying to expand that would be a promising strategy. Alas, that's not the case.
So maybe the roots of the problems are somewhere else, somewhere where reformers are unwilling to look. Your mention of the teacher's union is one of those, which is why I'm interested in your views on this.
This is exactly right! The minute you focus on the possibility of a post-racial society most white people want to skip the hard work. This is her point!
Maybe they want to maintain their rights as full citizens and are not willing to go along with the destruction. Change does not automatically equate to better.
I appreciate your response and agree with you about identifying wrong solutions. Yet I don't believe that "a core tenet of [white fragility's] philosophy is to preclude further debate"; I feel that the preclusion rather lies with readers who remain unwilling or unable to understand the book.
The problem of writers treating people unequally based on their race? Easy fix. They just need to leave their racist views out of their written work. Like, don't capitalize color when referring to people's race. Right now, we have at least two major news distributors, AP & the NYT, intentionally emphasizing skin color as a basis for describing people differently based on race. This is racist ideology in action - real negative change.
As I have pointed out, AP instituted this policy change a couple weeks ago and the NYT has followed suit this week. They are deliberately stirring up racial discrimination with these policy changes. Their rationales for taking these actions are total nonsense - pure propaganda like we have come to expect from our IC-fed mainstream media.
And it appears that Mr Taibbi may have jumped on this runaway leftist racist train as well. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what he does about "the problem."
Yeah, sorry, you won't get away with labeling me as being on some runaway leftwing racist train. ROTFLMAO. But I do prefer to capitalize Black as a symbolic recognition that Blacks DO have a very special history in this country, and the term black is applied to them in ways much different from the term white has been applied to whites. I do believe Blacks have earned some degree of special treatment in this country. They are not simply a group with non-white skin color. Sorry. My ancestors and yours made sure of that, and even enshrined those differences in the constitution.
I do get your point, but using capitalization has only a very minor effect. I would rather concentrate on the more important issues, and not get derailed by the comparative trivia.
Poverty, including black poverty, has been on the decline for decades since we ended the misbegotten war on poverty. Thus the racial wealth gap you cite is a fake statistic; the gap has increased because the middle class has gotten richer faster than the poor have gotten richer - but they've ALL gotten richer. That's a good thing.
Citing higher black incarceration rates as proof of racism is like citing higher male incarceration rates as proof of sexism. Evidence of unequal outcome is not proof of unequal treatment, and applying diversity mandates to the prison population is silly on the face of it.
What you call "white denial of racism" assumes the commenters are white, as though blacks like Coleman Hughes, Larry Elder, or numerous other black pundits who happen to agree, aren't black. By today's standards, you've made a racist assumption.
I agree with virtually all your points, and Coleman Hughes is one of my heroes, as well...and I have used the Males commit more crimes must mean they are discriminated against/not discriminated against argument myself. There is simply NO scientific justification for refusing to recognize that Racism HAS played a role in differential treatment within the Legal System. That fact does not dispute the fact that Blacks disproportionately commit crimes of violence due to their own subcultural deviant values. Both conclusions are valid and justified.
The problem with the "White Fragility/Whiteness Studies" is that it elides the structural/institutional impacts of historical racism with the phenomenon of personal racist attitudes, and then goes on to focus almost exclusively on the second component, when the core problem resides in the legacy impacts from the first component. (I think this is an outgrowth of the rise of the notion that "the personal is political", which became viewed as a primary focus by the American Left in the 1980s, once the "right/center" Reagan/Tip O'Neill Establishment Democrat majority Congressional coalition reigned triumphant and banished the Left as a political force at the national level.)
Addressing structural impacts- with the notable exception of one institutional fixture- entails a shift away from government arbitrated by wealthy private interests toward implementing ideas associated with social democracy. That's an ambitious goal, and a very tough fight. And it isn't really the wheelhouse of most modern American liberals. As social critics like Barbara Ehrenreich have noted, the braintrust, the leadership, and the financial backers of the Democrats are now primarily drawn from the ranks of the professional-managerial class. They're much more comfortable with the "personal is political" approach. Sadly, so many of them have lost the common touch that they can't even process how terribly flawed and limited that approach is, as an officially ordained solution.
My own perspective continues to be that no major progress will be made in addressing race-related injustices until the War on Drugs is ended, repealed, and replaced by a system of comprehensive drugs law reform. The War on Drugs is the "one institutional fixture" that I alluded to above. As long as it continues, it comprises an intractable obstacle. For example, as long as the illicit criminal economy has a controlling interest in mostly black and Hispanic neighborhoods, "black-on-black crime" will rage on. That undeniable phenomenon is a chief talking point of the right wing. It's an effective forking tactic because it's an indisputable reality. (Save your whataboutism. I'm starting with the hard questions. I can at least save issues like the rampant nationwide corruption of the police by the illicit drugs trade for the next comment, can't I?) Only the dismantling of massive criminal economy by pointedly effective drugs law reform will solve that problem. No amount of gun control will do it. Disarming the police won't do it. Abolishing the police department won't do it. Seminars on White Fragility won't do it.
Only after American political leaders confront the issue of replacing the War on Drugs with a rational policy that doesn't perpetuate the economic- and cultural- power of the criminal underworld in this country, from the bottom to the top, will we be in any position to take the next steps to ameliorate the problem.
Any questions, or is this post going to get the same blank silence those observations have overwhelmingly received for the last 20 years (especially from chickenshit liberals)?
"As social critics like Barbara Ehrenreich have noted, the braintrust, the leadership, and the financial backers of the Democrats are now primarily drawn from the ranks of the professional-managerial class. "
Thomas Frank's "Listen LIberal!" is another brilliant dissection of the growth of the professional class, its takeover of the Democratic Party, and also the expansion of professionals' class interests (if not their class consciousness). Well worth a read, and very well written and documented.
Yes, I've been reading Thomas Frank since he wrote What's The Matter With Kansas? about 15 years ago.
The two books from the 1990s that I recommend are Shadows Of Hope by Sam Smith, and Partners In Power, by Roger Morris.
I hate saying "ain't nothing changed". It sounds so hopeless. But 25 years on, the Democratic Party brain trust (such as it is) and the people I refer to as the Orthodox Liberal Establishment have yet to demonstrate that they've learned anything from any of those critiques. For all the unsparing and frequently scathing character of observations in those books, they were ultimately intended as constructive criticism, not Enemy Action.
Reading "Listen, LIberal" led me to formulate my view that ALL of the 99%, all colors, need to develop a set of political demands to roll back legislation **passed by Democratic administrations** within the past 30 years. We cannot change the past of slavery. It is hard to gather statistics on the consequences of slavery. But we damned well can change recent legislation passed by our supposedly left party that has destroyed all of our 99% communities. Including bank bailouts, under Obama. Just add to taht single-payer healthcare, and we would be in a whole lot better shape. I cannot have any respect for hooligans who pull down statues and cannot put a sentence together to make single political demand. The 99% should be demanding rollbacks of specific legislation passed since 1993 by Clinton--Bush 2--Obama. What's going on now is a big circle jerk.
I'd argue that the Left is congenitally incapable of recognizing the single greatest feeder of disparate outcomes: children raised in stable two parent homes. In communities full of fathers, children enjoy a huge comparative advantage. And where public primary and secondary education could act as a leveller, it only serves to further accumulate comparative advantage for the lucky.
But drug dealers get more girls. A situation that won't change until that criminal opportunity is obviated by legalizing the business, along with permitting medical addiction maintenance.
The "comparative advantage" concept is largely undone by the fact that most people get involved in the illicit drugs business as minors, and it's the most lucrative business opportunity around for poor teenagers.
You observations are valid. But they're also invalid, because illicit drug dealing is the one crime that reliably pays. Especially for teenagers. Especially the poor ones. Money, status, girls...
It’s always been all about the benjamins. Whether it’s purveyors of illegal drugs buying elected officials or the purveyors of legal drugs buying elected officials. With the expansion of campaign spending allowed by Citizens United, they don’t even have to be covert about it. I don’t see any meaningful legislative change taking place without campaign finance reform. That is unless voters, who give congress a 15% approval rate but an 85% re-election rate, wake up and vote them out.
@Mascot - Killed it spot on, there are structural issues yes. Racism is a real thing. But it's not the big bad wolf. To keep calling it that will allow the real big bad wolf to keep taking big bad bites out of our overall prosperity, happiness and cohesion.
That is a great point, although I think also unfair if intended as a critique of DiAngelo and other “whiteness” scholars. That would be like critiquing people for studying car exhaust pollution because factories contribute to air pollution more significantly. The study of one thing does not mean it presupposes it is the most important. (Side note: Your point also made me think about people who focus on turning off the water when they brush their teeth vs corporations that have been given free reign to destroy the planet...I agree we lose when we focus too much on the individual when combating systems of power). I would bet that 99% of people who study white identity also agree we need criminal justice reform (including ending the War on Drugs). However, look at what is currently happening with schools dissolving their partnerships with police, defunding police departments, etc. and books like White Fragility and How to Be An Antiracist sustaining #1 spots on bestseller lists for months. I think there is a relationship there that may not be directly causal, but surely there is some connection. Seeking to understand how racism and oppression functions in this country must include a discussion of how the idea whiteness operates at a social and political level. Hoping the war on drugs is next!!
You state “The problem ..is that it elides the structural/institutional impacts of historical racism (perhaps that might be better phrased “the structural/institutional determinants that sustain racism across generations”?) with the phenomenon of personal racist attitudes, and then goes on to focus almost exclusively on the second component, when the core problem resides in the legacy impacts from the first component.” I think herein lies the area that could most profit from some reconceptualization of the core construct of culture in second edition of Robin’s book, for you’re right about where the source of the problem(s) lie. In one sense, given her conceptualization of culture, she has no choice but to focus on attitudes and the interpersonal dimension. For one, but I hasten to add this same criticism has been leveled at Thomas Kuhn’s “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” and it did not prevent it from becoming perhaps the most influential book in the Philosophy of Science of the 20th Century and the core concept of paradigm becoming a household word, Robin qualifies ‘culture’ with at least a dozen distinct terms: western, white, mainstream, European, hegemonic (I believe), etc. Greater precision here would be constructive. This is because – and these ideas are presently under peer review so I should be a bit guarded – culture is presented as largely inescapable (except for one passing mention, which receives no further explanation, of potentially massively important “exceptions”) and essentially omnipotently determinative. Given such a conception of social structure, there is little reason one could expect policy shifts in the American political economy to have any transformative effect, again, if the central determinant of the transgenerational transmission of increasingly implicit racially biased attitudes is cultural/structural. But there are alternative conceptualizations of structure that open the door for a recursively transformational relationship between the interpersonal/attitudinal and the cultural/structural. Therein lies, I think, greater hope for progress on multiple fronts of social/racial justice.
"ameliorate the problem" > make that "problems." A whole host of them. Some of them related to the American legacy of racial injustice, some wider in scope. But until the power of the political economy of illicit drugs is undone, everything else is tail-chasing. Costly, ineffective, exhausting.
Maybe you'll face the answer once you get tired of that game.
You say there's something wrong with "massively increas[ing] the focus on race, at both a societal and individual level," but you don't explain why there's something wrong with that. You've written two books on structural racism: so, you achieved just the right focus on race? A massive focus on race is not the same thing as a "simplistic binary view of the world." That you equate DiAngelo's book with separating "human beings into rigid categories of good people and bad people" indicates that you do not understand her book. DiAngelo's book is not about intentionally bad or hateful human choices: it's about counter-productive yet habitual ways of seeing and interpreting the world. Perhaps if, instead of using the terms white supremacy and white privilege, we might start speaking of white-valence. White Fragility is not about people intentionally trying to hold onto white supremacy or privilege: it's about our resistance to letting go of habitual ways of viewing the world. We're not resisting because we're bad; it's because we don't want to be bad, and because it's natural to resist change. And even if we're not intentionally choosing to be bad, people do have a right to be very angry.
Bravo. This is the critical distinction that Matt and many of the white people in this comments section fail to make: Being white in America doesn't make us bad, but by marinating in the structural racism of America, we've absorbed -- mostly unconsciously -- "bad" (racially unhelpful) beliefs / world views that cause us to be unconsciously complicit with these racist systems. Becoming aware of our racial bias is the heavy lifting, which most of us want to avoid (including myself), and while DiAngelo's approach may not be the most artful or appealing to some, at least she recognizes the need for the hard work. Yes, there is some research that training aimed at addressing unconscious bias is not effective, but these involved short term efforts (e.g., exposure to 1 workshop) -- of course a workshop or two will not be effective against bias that has built up over decades. So, what each white person can ask themselves is, "Do I care enough about my POC friends and fellow citizens to do the hard work, or am I just going to find excuses to stay in my white comfort bubble?"
Massively increasing the focus on race in the current environment means, actually, not being able to see the person approaching you on the sidewalk as antoher hu;man, but first and foremost noting, "It's an African American--how must I now compose my face?" I don't want to live that way. So, the end effect is to avoid black people. Check out the first definition of "racism" in Merriam Webster. This is what we are now doing/getting. Many people of color do not welcome this newly racialized atmosphere where everything is about race.
What's a unit of structural racism? How do you know you're making it better if you can't measure it? If you can measure it by indirect measures, why not use make the problem about fixing those indirect measures instead of the un-seeable and un-measurable structural racism.
It was a shame to ruin a perfectly good effort with such a baseless assertion in the last sentence.
Ignoring, for a moment, that you didn't make an argument for why people should adopt your way or anyone else's way of viewing the world over their own. Hearing it is one thing, but assuming that it is worthwhile is entirely another. One could almost suspect that your way might harm the person adopting it.
Respectfully, if I'm reading you correctly, here and previously, white folks are 'resistan(t) to letting go of habitual ways of viewing the world. Does this resistance afflict other races? Does it afflict you?
The other (also broken) angle one must struggle with in order to make sense of the 'Fragility' philosophy here is that if everyone is inescapably damned, then no one is. Which is to say, if our race makes it impossible for us to adequately understand or sympathize with another race, then how can we reasonably be blamed for whatever in-sensitivities spring forth from that un-bridgable divide? What sense of common moral law is there to adhere to?
I think that DiAngelo's observations of white fragility are spot on. It's why white people cannot deal with race. Your prescription for political/social change is perfectly in line with what DiAngelo and generations of people of color have noticed -- that white people get all agitated and defensive about their "objective" world view that race is irrelevant, when clearly white supremacy has been a major factor in the oppression of the working class.
You've said this exact same thing, multiple times now, on multiples dates. So sorry he hasn't deigned to respond to your weak attempt at a Kafka trap. Maybe it's time to move on with your life
"You say you're not white and fragile, so you're white and fragile, insecure honky." Jesus, it's like a circular religious fundamentalist logic trap made by a child! Racist drivel. "White people cannot deal with race." You mean like the white farmers being massacred in South Africa? Or what white people exactly do you mean in your racist, pathetic blanket generalisation? Laughable third-grade anti-intellectual drivel.
The people who cannot deal with race are the (largely white) academics who have talked themselves into a corner. Abandoning the friendship/love/nonviolence ethic means abandoning the scandalous response to the absurd and terrible reality of racism. MLK knew all whites in the US were beneficiaries of racism, and he knew it might prevent many (most) of them from being truly anti-racist, but he still appealed to them in the name of love because love is genuinely transformative (over a long time) — not being loved, mind you, but being loving.
Too many people think love is "feeling nice feelings" though, so they miss the point and come to the conclusions of fundamentalist religion — the impure are just intractably guilty and damned. It's infantilizing and it sets up a permanent structure that constructs a racial group based on appearance (people with pale skin are "white") and that builds in a system that silences and condemns them forever, reproducing the very conditions it was supposed to remedy — "anti-racism" is "anti" the way that the white chess pieces are "anti" the black ones - merely on the other team. But this is what a world emptied of love and grace as transformative, radical realities is like. Hell. Everyone engaged in self and mutual torment and immiseration.
So where does that leave black people who think DiAngelo's theories are off the mark? I suppose if they are men (e.g. Adolph Reed), you can toss in a little misogyny to try to get them back into the PC fold. It can't simply be that there are legitimate criticisms of "white fragility" and that not all critics are having any sort of tantrum in pointing out her theory's flaws.
Matt makes substantial criticisms of DiAngelo's work. It's no tantrum. He isn't dismissing her every idea, but he's not simply rolling over and accepting her as some sort of essential thinker on the subject the way corporate America and the PC identity politics sycophants are doing. The problem here isn't discussing racism, but rather putting the issue in terms that allow corporations to isolate racist attitudes, ideas, and behaviors in the workplace from the capitalist economic system that fosters and preserves them. Perhaps listen to Matt's and Katie Halper's interview with Professor Reed before concluding that Matt's pushing the view that race is irrelevant. Or more importantly, that racism is irrelevant.
So what is it that you want? Other than money? Because every solution seems to boil down to "Give me something". So what is it that you want from white people that doesn't involve money?
White people: get off your rear ends and fight racist policies. Organize other white people to do the same. Support anti-racist policies. Organize other white people to do the same. Stop raising your children to be "colorblind." It doesn't help, and it harms them and others.
Couldn't agree more Matt. What a much needed article. Thank you for writing it and continuing to add such valuable resistance to this disturbing trend. I am all too familiar from working in the social justice space. It took me a little while to wake up from the dogma. It makes me think of what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in the Gulag Archipelago, "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil." Thanks again.
It must be yugely entertaining for you, Matt, what with all the right-wing ideological simpletons trying to get their foot inside your door with their fawning...
I think that DiAngelo's observations of white fragility are spot on. It's why white people cannot deal with race. Your prescription for political/social change is perfectly in line with what DiAngelo and generations of people of color have noticed -- that white people get all agitated and defensive about their "objective" world view that race is irrelevant, when clearly white supremacy has been a major factor in the oppression of the working class. Matt, you're having a white fragility tantrum.
Then you are as stupid as she is. Who the hell is listening to a wealthy white woman that admits she's a racist and thinks everyone else is a racist? Maybe to the other Karen's of the world believe she's enlightening, but the rest of us can see through her BS a mile away.
"The issue is DiAngelo's prescription for dealing with racism is to massively increase the focus on race, at both a societal and individual level."
- Matt Taibbi expressing a sentiment that's uncannily similar to one expressed by that great champion of human rights, Chief Justice John Roberts, here:
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
You might have gotten a better hearing here if you had just said this, which I think has merit. I don't at all agree that this is the point DiAngelo is making but if she were making this point it would be a problem.
I would sincerely be interested in a succinct paragraph or two, if you (or anyone who agrees with your statement) feel(s) so inclined, to explain the point the DiAngelo is making, in particular addressing how Matt got DiAngelo's point wrong. I want to understand this better.
This focus on DiAngelo as some profiteering corporate goon is so disingenious. Matt also wants to sell books and secure interviews to promote himself, doesn't he? Just stop.
But it's also not completely irrelevant to observe that the richest anti-racist activist in the US just happens to be white, using her privilege to go to the top. Her book was estimated by industry sources to have paid her more than $2 million (and there have been many sales since then), and she gets tens of thousands for gigs and speeches.
That doesn't make her views any more or less true (and thus it's better omitted as a talking point in most cases; this is one of the rare excpeptions when I will discuss it), but it IS revealing about how she REALLY feels about systemic racism and how whites should combat it rather than profit from it. In my value system, a person of any race earning money from a book they wrote and speaking/training business they do is OK, but in hers she should hate herself all the way to the bank, or rather she should disdain benefitting from her privilege rather than exploiting her positionality regarding racial tensions to move herself into the 0.1% while preaching to others against benefitting from white privilege.
While it doesn't directly affect the truth or falsehood of her assertions, it does affect the degree that we consider her to be a sincere and good faith advocate of her views.
I think the point that Matt misses is that the book doesn’t condemn any white person for any moral shortcoming. It points out that we exist inside a racist structure that (unless we are actively hating minorities), is not of our making. As a white male who was raised in a small all white town, I found the book to be extremely elucidating. I am now more clearly able to see the plight of a black man or woman in the US. I think the book is there to help shine a light on things about racism that I never would have thought of. I found it extremely elucidating and am having an attack of cognitive dissonance to be in such a strong disagreement with one whom I admire so much
Matt Hartie If only that is what the book was saying. I don’t think it is quite as innocuous as you interpret it to be. Just to pick out a few quotes from the book that Matt cited: “Anti-blackness is foundational to our very identities… Whiteness has always been predicated on blackness.” “[A] positive white identity is an impossible goal.” “[S]trive to be less white.” In other words, all white people are born with the original sin as defined by the amount of melanin in their skin. To interpret DiAngleo’s thesis as taking the onus off the individual white person but putting the onus on every white person because of the “racist structure” we live in is nothing more than linguistic trickery. (And, I might add that there are many white people who have grown up and continue to exist with no advantage for being white whatever. Yet even white people who were raised in dirt poor circumstances, received minimal education, and perhaps with drug-addicted parents, are somehow privileged by the institutional/structural racism that exist in this country. I am not buying it one bit.)
To those of you who are onboard with DiAngelo, I beg you to read (or listen to) thoughtful criticisms of her book. Matt’s article is a good start, but he is not alone (i.e., “left” and thoughtful). I would suggest starting with Coleman Hughes. There are many fantastic thinkers out there who fear her thesis (and most of CRT, in general) is a dangerous trend.
So if the book helped you, I think that's good too. But those of us inside universities (and media) are seeing incidents like Evergreen happening at our workplaces. Hence Matt's article.
Yes. Thank you for making this point about how this shakes out in actual application by the fans. Diangelo's book CAN make a contribution, merely as a starting point for people who have never given much thought to race or racism, even as they/ we obliviously live inside of its structures. But she begins and ends her analysis of "racism" as a personal and interpersonal phenomenon, so this thing that should be a first step is also the last step--her passing references to the words "institutional" and "culture" and "systemic"notwithstanding.
I know firsthand how her admirers can apply her techniques to excess. The real goal is to help employees BELIEVE that this approach is all we really need to correct racism. The real benefit to the corporations sponsoring these kinds of work shops is that they get to offload to the individual the entire responsibility for solving "racism," as if the disparate outcomes for black and brown people are not systemic. Large corporations helping to train individual employees to "not touch a black person's hair" are simultaneously sending their lobbyists to Washington to fight any changes that might actually narrow the wealth gap, or support Medicare for all or Free tuition, or any other thing that would put a floor under people and reduce inequality.
If she had put her work in the context of the past 400+ year history of institutional racism and built a bridge to understanding and addressing it in its current forms, I would be very happy with her approach--as a FIRST step. But as it stands, it redirects people away from the root causes and (inadvertently) supports the status quo.
The brilliance of her approach is that she starts with the "good" news that although every white individual is racist, it's not their personal fault and thus nothing to feel guilty about. No guilt trip here!
But unless you agree with her, and dedicate yourself to a lifetime of fighting this evil, then you do have something to feel guilty about after all, because you have unfairly benefited from the system and are responsible for dismantling it. It's like a one two punch - the left hand feints and misses you, just so the right can connect when your guard is down.
Others have pointed out the cultural background upon which she is drawing - the Christian concept of original sin, which even Athiests and non-Christians in her audience will be very familiar with. You didn't eat the apple so you bear no direct responsibility for that - but you still need to dedicate your life to seeking partial redemption (just as if it was your doing), or else.
I have a good and thoughtful friend who also managed to distill something useful from the book, tho he had to read it twice and make a major effort. So I will credit that it may have given you some useful insights - more power to you and I'm truly glad that you care about the disadvantages that some of our Black fellow citizens face.
But a good deal of the book has a different effect which is not so laudable, unfortunately. I cannot recommend it. For example, John McWhorter talks about how condescending it is toward Black people, treating them as more fragile and systemically unable to meet white people on an equal basis. Pity is not respect.
I'd be quite interested in what cognitive dissonance you are experiencing.
next.20.yrs, DiAngelo is making a pretty simple point: After years of doing diversity and anti-racism training, she's noticed a particular pattern in the way many white people respond to being challenged about their racial world view, which she calls our "script." One of the script lines that appears right on the back cover is: "It's focusing on race that divides us." Which is exactly what Matt is saying. Contra Taibbi, she says white unconsciousness about race and racism must first be addressed. This is the simple argument that you can't solve a problem you don't even acknowledge exists. Now, Matt acknowledges not only racism, but structural racism, which is much more than can be said for many white folks on this comments section. But Matt does not appear to be willing to acknowledge the individual *psychological* effects each white person (and people passing as white) acquires simply be living in America's systemic racism. I can understand this -- I resist it myself -- it's the heavy lifting I mentioned earlier, and I struggle with it mightily. Matt, and lots of other liberal leaning people (not even mentioning conservative folks) poo-poo self examination. It's seen as weak and unnecessary and it makes them super uncomfortable. Maybe I'm wrong and Matt does lots of introspective work -- I invite him to correct me! But I suggest that Matt's piece is primarily an expression of his unconscious discomfort at being challenged -- he wrote 2 books so he's supposed to be an "expert" on racism! -- but how else do you explain the hyperbole of his statement that this is the "worst book ever written?" I've conceded Matt's point that DiAngelo lacks art and humor, but I think he lacks a willingness to take up the challenge of critical self examination, and lots of white folks here are cheering him because they don't want to do it either.
Excuse me: My take on this is EVERY PERSON FEELS THIS WAY! Whatever their racial makeup is! No one wants to be challenged about their racial biases, or accused of racial bias without a chance to defend themselves. The author of the book DiAngelo is writing and stating her "Opinion" not "Fact." I respect Matt Taibbi for putting this "front and center" instead of speaking in "lock step" with the current climate in this country which is quite toxic at the moment.
The point is: do NOT make generalizations about others. Unless you are a "mind reader" and know what is in someone's heart you don't know what they think. Period.
BB Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I did read the book and understand that DiAngelo is addressing systemic racism as an issue that persists and continues to negatively affect black persons in all aspects of their lives. However, I am having a hard time understanding how this points us in a positive (or even true) way forward. If acknowledging that white people are unconscious about race and racism and thus resist addressing it, what would be the way going forward if , as a thought experiment, every white person acknowledged (in a way that satisfied DiAngelo’s definition) the existence of structural/systemic racism and the benefit that confers to each individual white person? How would that solve the problem of structural racism? I suspect, although I could be off base on this, is that the answer is something like a universal consciousness in our institutions that would no longer confer privilege to white people and black people would have the equal opportunities they do not have at present. Or as one earlier comment put it, “DiAngelo agrees that a post-racial society is the ultimate goal.” I am struggling to understand how this collective guilt of white people simply because they are privileged by their skin color – an assumption which is taken as truth , but should be more carefully discussed - will ultimately lead this country into the promised land. I am not arguing, just honestly trying to understand. I may be daft but so far, a lot of this just isn’t making sense to me.
I think DiAngelo's answer to your question of "how this collective guilt of white people simply because they are privileged...will ultimately lead into the promised land..." is on page 144. There, she says that the reason for her techniques is to improve relationships with black people. These improved relationships will automatically lead to "institutional change." If it were a formula, it would be "constant acknowledgmeent of my supremacists thoughts + apology to black people as needed+ offers to them to repair the damage done by my insensitivity = good relationships which lead to individual commitments to institutional change.
In other words, what you are sensing is her very flawed theory of how change happens. She doesn't distinguish root causes from symptoms with any consistency, and she shows little understanding of the vast political power that put these institutions in place over four centuries. More importantly, her writing shows little to no understanding of the political-economic forces that keep discriminatory policies, practices, and outcomes in place today.
"I think he lacks a willingness to take up the challenge of critical self examination, and lots of white folks here are cheering him because they don't want to do it either."
Mmm yes, she dictates that any white person who holds liberal values such as MLKs words quoted in the article has only to agree with her or is simply following “the script.”
The failure of her book and your posts is the assumption that others who come to different conclusions than you are failing to acknowledge issues or failing to engage in self-assessment. Your blithely refer to individual psychological effects but apparently do not understand the importance of the term “individual”. In other words, you may need to get your mind around the idea that something you “struggle mightily” with is YOUR problem, not everyone’s.
Similarly, the author may need to consider how she interacts with her audience and who her audience is. There is no significant demographic group that does not acknowledge racism (and the few who disavow it are extremely unlikely to have any interaction with her) and attempting to treat her perception of people’s response to her as applicable to 200-250 million Americans is patently absurd.
What is particularly disingenuous in her framework (and in your acquiescence) is her attempt to define “It's focusing on race that divides us." as a part of a “script.” That belief is both morally and intellectually viable and for many Americans is the result of significant consideration. You (and she) are entitled to believe differently but you are not entitled to disavow – with no basis – the legitimacy of this belief and strategy.
There is an underlying reality to the nature of race relations in this country. The worst transgressions against people of color are occurring in major communities that have been controlled by “progressives” for decades. The most segregation, the worst educational opportunities and the most violent crimes against people of color have developed – deliberately or not – as a result of Democrat machine politics. Minneapolis is overwhelmingly leftist, yet somehow Derek Chauvin spent nearly 20 years on their police force (acquiring an average of a formal complaint per year while doing so). Perhaps, the failure to self-assess is a primarily leftist issue?
You duplicitous mainsplaining creep. You have the temerity to blast her for daring to employ the vernacular of one of the 20th Century’s most influential sociologists, Pierre Bourdieu, whose concept of habitus means a great deal more than your google translation, but perhaps that’s just where your level of comprehension is. But after creaming for egghead language you tell us her sin is a “simplistic binary view of the world…[with] rigid categories of good people and bad people…”. There is a 69 page chapter (in my e-pub) explicitly designed to debunk the good people bad people binary. I realize the language may have been hard to grasp, but FYI- the chapter in which she does the very opposite of what you’re saying is called “The Good/Bad Binary.” Why don’t take the time to read at least that damn chapter before you fabricate more BS about a book you cleary did not read or that went over your head.
I appreciate your objections to Matt's often byperbolic style. That being said, I HAVE read every word of DiAngelo’s book. I also joined an online “forum” designed for white people (most were women) to help each other employ Diangelo’s techniques for uncovering and accepting their own 'deeply internalized' beliefs of their own racial superiority, and all the ways that manifested in the way we spoke, asked questions, etc. --in order to--as you have noted-- to improve our relationships between white and black people
Based on all that reading and direct engagement, I think I understand the difference in what you, Brett, understand to be the “good-bad binary,” and the “binary” to which Matt refers—which is DIFFERENT. When DiAngelo explains the “good bad binary,” she is referring to the false belief people have that only “bad” people can be “racist.” Hence, “white fragility” ensues, as we who are white attempt to defend our honor based on not wanting to be “bad.”
Matt, on the other hand, is NOT referring to THAT kind of "good" and "bad" when he mentions “binary.” He is referring to the shaming that is inherent in DiAngelo’s advice to white people to restructure their behaviors based on a constant search for opportunities to apologize to black people, and then atone for their sins. And using the word “sin” is not an over-statement; original sin means you are born with it. Essentially, she IS saying we are born INTO it, and it is inescapable. And if we want to be antiracist, we need to spend all of our lives, every day and in every moment examining our thoughts for their inherent racism.
Whether or not you, or I , or Matt agree or disagree that this is good advice, I believe this praxis of DiAngelo’s is what Matt is referring to as a “binary.”
In practice, I can affirm first hand that what Matt describes is what happens, whether or not this is exactly what DiAngelo originally intended. In online forums, her fans chide one another, try to scoot each other more deeply into “the work,” and advise each other how to plumb the depths of every statement they make for its inherent “superiority.” Typical from the moderators, (some small number of whom may be black), is the advice, “stop centering yourself in the way you tell this story,” or “re-write this avoiding all use of the words, “I,” “Me,” or “mine.” This avoidance of the word “I” is a pretty artificial way to actually relate a direct observation or experience. To the devotees, however, expressing this academically in the third person and passive voice feels like “doing the work.”
And--you guessed it--any question asked about the utility of avoiding the word "I" was met with "you are showing your fragility."
I wish I were exaggerating. I don’t even know if DiAngelo actually recommends this in her workshops, but based on her fans application of what they think is her advice, my guess is that she does.
So naturally, Matt picked up on this. The division of people into lifelong victimizers and their victims, and a constant need to “work that" and accept the “discomfort” of it all does inspire the word, “binary.” More specific than “bad” or “good,” however, would be “victimizer and victim.” You will never be "woke" if you are white; but you need to devote yourself to enforcing the language of those who are, by virtue of their lived experience, which they too were "born into."
As cloying and weird as all this is, my main objection is DiAngelo's obviously flawed theoryof change--which is that even though supremacy is "institutional," the way it is challenged and changed is exclusively in the realm of the personal and interpersonal. See page 144 for her theory of progression from "apology" to "repair" to automatic "institutional change.
I appreciate your acceptance of my charge that Matt engages in frequent (and I would add a grotesque level of) hyperbole. I assume we agree also that doing so is profoundly unhelpful to those who in good faith seek, as you have obviously done, to engage seriously with the important work of seeking, on a personal/interpersonal level to lower the probability that we personally inflict harm on those who, through the accident of their birth, exist in a society that does that plenty of that without need of our assistance.
I also appreciate that you have read the book, for I really am not all convinced that Matt has. (Btw, if you are on Quora, and if this would interest you, I am, when time permits, opening a “space” – not quite sure what that means – for open, honest, respectful, collegial debate about Robin’s book among those who attest to having actually read it. Your experience in the forums you describe would be of great value, I’m sure.). But I’m still not wholly convinced that Matt’s not using binary and good/bad in the way I asserted – in a direct contradiction of the way Robin seeks to employ that construct. First, if you will allow me to offer a few reasons I have little confidence in Matt’s good faith. Consider these selections:
He viciously attacks her ad hominem by saying, DiAngelo isn’t the first person to make a buck pushing tricked-up pseudo-intellectual horseshit…
Really? On what basis does he claim her work is grounded in tricked up pseudo-intellectual horseshit. Like you, Trudy, I’ve read her book, twice in fact. And her dissertation, and about half of her 29 peer-reviewed articles. (Disclosure: I have a book manuscript under review that contains a chapter that criticizes her construct of culture but otherwise offers a defense of the fields of scholarship Robin grounds her work in.) The multidisciplinary field of inquiry into implicit cognition, for example, is one of “the largest, and fastest growing, subfields of psychology” (Bertram and Payne 2010, ix). Within 15 years of the foundational article by Greenwald and Banaji published in 1995, a PsycINFO search generated 15,000 references – that was a decade ago (2010, ix). The Greenwald and Banaji article has been cited nearly 7,500 times (Google Scholar 19 March, 2020), while Greenwald et al.’s (1998) report on their Implicit Attitudes Test experiments has been cited 12,331 times (Google Scholar 19 March, 2020). And Matt has the cojones to dismiss her work as tricked-up pseudo-intellectual horseshit???? I’m sorry, he really does deserve the disdain he elicited from me.
Then he ascribes to Robin the view, “If your category is “white,” bad news: you have no identity apart from your participation in white supremacy….
Trudy, you have to admit that she could not be clearer in her opposition to this unidimensional thinking. In fact, it is Matt himself who elsewhere slams her “for her writing style [that] is pure pain. The lexicon favored by intersectional theorists…” Throughout this tantrum dressed up as column, he demands to have it both or even multiple ways. But clearly, she can’t be one of those damned intersectionalists and believe one has a unidimensional identity. Again, he either cannot understand her work, or he is intentionally misrepresenting it. I don’t know him, this was my first and last encounter with the man, so others can make the call. But neither possibility is complementary, and both undermine his authority to speak, and to speak with the dismissive venom as he does throughout.
Yes, he then next says, “DiAngelo writes like a person who was put in timeout as a child for speaking clearly.”
This is where Matt switches from his complaint about her simpleton lexical style characterized by the redundant use of the root term white, presumably, because of her limited ability, to a populist anti-intellectualism for daring to employ the vocabulary essential to express adequately Bourdieu’s critical conceptual contribution of habitus. And to drive home the limits of his switch to anti-intellectualism in the paragraph immediately after his infantilizing assault on her unacceptably simplistic writing style, he offers us a google translation of her use of Bourdieu that does about as much service to the construct of habitus as saying that the construct of wellness means simply not being fat.
And then there’s this lament: “DiAngelo instructs us there is nothing to be done here, except “strive to be less white.””
That sentence is taken from the final chapter of the book. It is lifted without any context whatsoever. It would be wholly reasonable for Matt’s readers to infer she uses skin darkening cream, or adopts a mode of speech scholars used to call “Black English.” But in fact, the rest of that paragraph is a complete non sequitur, referring back to the very opening passages in which she describes some of the constitutive elements of her construct of white fragility. What she really has to say about striving to be less white is to attempt “to be less racially oppressive…be more racially aware,…be better educated about racism, and to continually challenge racial certitude and arrogance. To be less white is to be open to, interested in, and compassionate toward the racial realities of people of color.” What could possibly be objectionable about that?
And finally to the issue of his conception of the good/bad binary. I really do appreciate the depiction of your experience. But let’s look at his text – from the column and a reply.
From his column he asserts plainly that:
“[i]t” (I can’t remember now if “it” refers to her childish linguistic style or her egghead overintellectual one, but whichever), “banishes ambiguity, nuance, and feeling and structures itself around sterile word pairs, like racist and antiracist, … that reduce all thinking to a series of binary choices.
Now you claim that what “he is referring to [is] the shaming that is inherent in DiAngelo’s advice to white people to restructure their behaviors based on a constant search for opportunities to apologize to black people, and then atone for their sins.” You go on to make it clear that “sin” is not hyberbolic. “[O]riginal sin,” you note, ‘means you are born with it. Essentially, she IS saying we are born INTO it, and it is inescapable.”
This is an interesting passage from you Trudy. You lost me, only partly though, in your claim that DiAngelo prescribes for us a shaming or shameful experience in her extensive prescription / discussion of apology in the “Where do we go from here?” chapter. As for the matter of shaming, I think she’s quite clear that the practice of antiracism (which indeed includes a good deal of discussion about apologies to people of color when we become aware, or are made aware, that we have exhibited some racist behavior) is not at all a guilt-ridden process, for like any ‘infection,” we are not responsible for contracting it – but once we know we have it, it sure as hell becomes our responsibility to do something about it. It is precisely because it might be said to be our original sin, that we did not seek our racist attitudes or beliefs, that we better understand now the high prevalence of implicit racially biased attitudes. And shame and guilt, Robin claims, are the exclusive domain of the denialists – not those who seek out ways to make amends to those we may have harmed.
I said you only partly lost me here. Though you liken the source or origin of our racism to the concept of original sin, of course the only place the concept of sin shows up is in the preface written by Michael Dyson. Robin assiduously avoids, it seems, any connotation of sin. But in my manuscript under review, I do argue that her conception culture merits interrogation. This is not the place to explore that critique, but I’m reminded of the ways in which certain notions in Radical feminism about the inescapable ubiquity of patriarchy, a construct that has done much to shed light on structures and systems of gender oppression, has by virtue of its inescapability an uncomfortable family resemblance to the biological determinism of gender traits sold and naturalized as being grounded in biology.
And from his reply to a commenter her doubles down:
“The issue is DiAngelo's prescription for dealing with racism is to massively increase the focus on race, at both a societal and individual level.” Well, what’s wrong with that? In the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, we are well advised by all, except Trump, to increase our focus on the problem of a contagion. It seems to most people wholly rational to radically increase our focus on infectious disease, not, as the president did, dismantle our institutional apparatus designed to deal with the problem of infectious disease. I don’t think my analogy is without merit.
He goes to claim, “Her simplistic binary view of the world - one is either on board with her conception of "antiracism" or a white supremacist ,,,because in this theology the bad people are unredeemable agents of systemic evil and therefore not deserving of rights.”
Well, I haven’t a clue what he means by not deserving of rights, but that’s hardly the only time goes so far astray from her book that one can’t really be expected to know what he means. But this language of ‘theology’, and a choice between racism and antiracism is only a razor thin conceptual distance from that which she spends the whole of chapter 5 dispelling.
Trudy, there seems like obvious common ground between us for a reasoned, continued debate about his column. But I must confess, it’s 8:28 here in Bangkok, and I’ve worked all night. So I must grab a bit of a nap before I restart my day. I did want to say again I appreciate your effort to educate me on the practice of the forum you described. I have no experience with those, and I don’t know if that’s what my Quora space would end up being. But perhaps we’ll have a chance to continue this further.
based. on your comment, I re-read Matt’s article. And yes, I do still think Matt is NOT using “binary” in any way that has anything to do with Robin’s use of “binary” in the context of “fragility.” (in fact, I think he’d agree with all she wrote about that). So her rejection of “binary” in one context (“fragility”) doesn’t in any way mean that she has not engaged in “binary thinking” in other contexts.
I wouldn’t state as starkly as he does his feelings about her “sterile,” forced choice pairs, but I do agree that her prescriptions result in some oppressive dynamics. In the forums that I mentioned, people applying her techniques engaged in “outing,” shaming and banning.” DAILY, they would gang up on participants, following the lead of a moderator. They applied all the “binary” words that Matt mentioned—e.g., center, de-center, platform, de-platform, etc.) This does reflect DiAngelo’s approach; it also reflects a real lack of sophistication with the material and the process.
The unspoken rule was “never challenge a moderator.” It should be noted that 5 out of 6 moderators were white. Participants were to accept all “feedback,” immediately apologize for their error and atone for it by re-reading the material or offering some form of repair, like paying for a black woman’s groceries (seriously, they posted contact info for a list of black women on Venmo). Frequently, they would advise participants to apologize to the one black moderator for “expecting a black woman to ‘do labor’ for you.” Labor” was another jargon word. I sincerely doubt that this is what DiAngelo originally intended, but Matt’s point is that this is where it can lead.
I think Matt likely agrees with robin that racism is embedded in every institution and that we are all affected by it. However, I think he mis-reads her when he concludes that she is saying that we who are white are “nothing more than our racism” and that we were “born with it.” She says we were born INTO it. That’s a very important distinction. If he thinks she is saying that Caucasians are genetically wired with supremacy as their biologically determined essence, that’s crazy. But he does use the word Hitlerian, so I think he did go there.
Ironically, some of what DiAngelo describes as “whiteness” is similar to what James Baldwin describes as “whiteness.” I mention this because I am guessing that Matt would agree with Baldwin. So when Matt writes in his criticism of DiAngelo, ““If your category is “white,” bad news: you have no identity apart from your participation in white supremacy….” He would also be criticizing Baldwin who says something similar. But DiAngelo’s presentation of “whiteness” is so awkward and simplistic that the similarity between her concepts and Baldwin’s eloquence is easy to miss.
Here are two quotes from Baldwin on whiteness:
“Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.”
“America became white—the people who, as they claim, "settled" the country became white—because of the necessity of denying the Black presence, and justifying the Black subjugation.”
He also says that the only way white people can be liberated is if black people are—IN EVERY POSSIBLE REALM. In other words, “whiteness” defined as dominance and supremacy goes away when black people have equal power.
However, despite the similarity between Baldwin’s and DiAngelo’s definitions of “whiteness,” DiAngelo’s CONCLUSIONS are profoundly different from Baldwin’s.
DiAngelo says: “To be less white is to be open to, interested in, and compassionate toward the racial realities of people of color.”
Baldwin says, ““The only thing white people have that black people need, or should want, is power.”
In other words, “sensitivity training” for white people ain’t it We need policy and change that addresses the real hurdles and dangers and lack of access that black people navigate each day.
You mentioned “guilt” and your belief that DiAngelo is not promoting guilt: YES, you are correct that she SAYS her approach is not about “guilt.” But saying and doing are two very different things. Her advice—as Matt points out-- consists of abject apologies to black people by white people, and humble offers to “repair the harm I did to you in the racist statement I made about your hair...” I have black and brown friends and associates who laugh about the advice to white women to buy groceries or offer other favors to black people--not just because it is embarrassing and awkward, but because it actually changes nothing that matters to them.
You wrote: “but once we know we have it [racism], it sure as hell becomes our responsibility to do something about it.” I totally agree. But what IS that something that we do? Her analysis of WHY white people have such a hard time with racism and with dialogue about racism is fine; but her analysis of what to DO about it focuses more on white people’s comfort (ironically) and need for approval than it does on black people’s needs. In my view, her approach is (ironically) yet another way for white people to make themselves the main topic.
While I do in fact still engage in facilitation of work sessions with people on the issue of internalized racism, I never do it without an analysis of power (all 7 types) and how power is distributed. In other words, the personal and interpersonal (DiAngelo’s world) cannot be considered apart from the wider context of how justice, injustice, and inequality are structured and are self-perpetuating Radically changing policy and economics and removing the retrograde “leaders” that we have are the only “amends” and “repairs” that interest me.
Finally, yes, you are correct that she doesn’t say “sin.” I used that word to convey what MATT thinks she is saying about white people’s lifelong inheritance of irremediable racism. Matt also believes that DiAngelo wants people to feel shame for the equivalent of original sin (and I agree with him, for reasons I stated earlier). She can SAY that she doesn’t feel or want other to feel guilt; her methods scream that she does.
Thank you for the invitation, but I probably won’t do much, if anything in the Quora realm, just due to a severe lack of time. I do read and write when I have time, and respond to others but I don’t do well with ongoing commitments.
Here is an interesting review of the book titled, “I’m black and afraid of white fragility.”
thanks so much Trudy. really. Again, dawn has broken over thailand and I have exams to grade by 9:00. I did try to craft a quick reply suggesting we share common ground of critique re; the language of apology in the final chapter, but the website frequently freezes and I lose my post, which just happened. Just know I appreciate your deeply thoughtful response and that I fuller reply is forthcoming. best wishes, b
Ah yes, the humanities "peer review" process, brought to you by the same people who made the phony "rape culture in a Seattle dog park" the paper of the year, and "peer reviewed" and accepted as valid what, 20 others or so before realizing they were being punk'd with what any sane person would immediately recognize as an "Onion" article?
Don’t know the difference between humanities and social sciences I see. But you are referring to those three singularly ideologically motivated critics of the academy and especially virulent critics of feminism (9 of the 11 targeted journals represent Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) who submitted 21 bogus papers to 11 academic journals, which the hoaxers represented as being “leading journals in their respective fields.” Far from your claim 20 other s were accepted, 2/3 of them were rejected. Seven, however, indeed making quite outlandish claims, but claims represented to the journals who for many reasons have to assume submissions come in good faith, as being supported by real data the authors had dutifully collected, but which it turns out were all total fabrications, were accepted.
“Peer review is simply not designed to detect fraud. It doesn’t need to be. Fraud is uncovered in due course, and severe professional consequences deter almost all such behavior. Nor is the peer-review process designed to weed out every crazy idea. Given the self-correcting nature of scholarship, it is far better to let through a few bad ideas than to publish only those that are so self-evident as to be without controversy (Bergstrom 2018).
But who did they target? Leading journals like they claim? Hardly. These cowards committed the worst form of academic misconduct and submitted to journals that were the least able to defend against scum bent on perpetrating academic misconduct. A “leading journal” in the field would be the American Political Science Review, American Anthropologist, Quarterly Journal of Economics, etc.. These outlets have been publishing 118 years, 130 years and 133 years, respectively. The ones they targeted, like Porn Studies, Fat Studies, Feminist Theory, etc. Years in publication: 4 years, 6 years, and 23 years, respectively. Why does age matter? The number of reviewers for one. The American Political Science Review has a stable of scholars standing ready to accept articles to review numbering 4005. The numbers for the targeted journals? Most are so new they don’t even have a count. But the 4005 reviewers of the APSR is essentially the size of the library circulation of the targeted journal Hypatia. Yeah, your intellectual heroes are truly of the brave and noble sort. Like schoolyard bullies. And those who stand and watch and cheer as bullies beat up little kids, they’re a class act too.
So Trudy, I don't agree that DiAngelo's theory of change necessarily rules out or invalidates all actions outside the "personal and interpersonal" realms. As I read her, she is saying the personal and interpersonal are both powerful and necessary, but not exclusive. I'm curious though. I'm impressed with your ability to explain Taibbi's pov on DiAngelo because it flat out baffled and appalled me. I'm also impressed with your experiences of people online dogmatizing DiAngelo's methods of expanding self-awareness, which I agree, is a negative outcome. But please, what theory of change would you prescribe to eliminate racism from American culture?
I too "do not agree that DiAngelo's theory of change necessarily rules out or invalidates all actions outside the "personal and interpersonal" realms1" DiAngelo's book is a FIRST STEP for people who have given little thought to either race or antiracism. DiAngelo's writing suggests that the first step is also the last step, as she states there will be a natural progression to institutional change more or less automatically. So,her theory of change doesn't "rule out" the next steps, but it does nothing to show any understanding of the bridge to them. Her theory appears to me to be, "self awareness" leads to "greater sensitivity" and "apologies" which will result in "good relationships." Those good relationships will in turn lead to "institutional change."
Did you read page 144? There, in one paragraph, she states this. While she uses the words, "institutional racism" several times, there is no focus on defining it--either the history of what created it and what has held it in place for 400 years, or what it will take to dismantle the policies that have disparate outcomes for black and brown people, at every level and in every part of our economic and political systems.
I guess the second part of your comment is asking me what is MY theory of change. Any fundamental change has to address the various means by which a government can be IMPELLED to change its priorities, its policies, and its structure of economic and political power. James Baldwin said, "the only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power." I think he would say to DiAngelo, save the apologies about touching my hair; just keep your foot off my neck.
Change is about the distribution of power: we have a system that allows only rich people access to governing. We have two corporate parties that use "race" only as symbols and as ways to divide and to protect the status quo and their own financial interests. Any theory of change that does not disrupt the tiny ruling elite is just tinkering and symbolism, and not much else.
I'm guessing that BLM organizers' next steps don't include Robin DiAngelo workshops. I'm guessing they know that sensitivity trainings by Robin DiAngelo are not going to get anyone's neck out from under anyone else's knee. So while her work doesn't "rule out," prevent, negate, or block the "next steps," her work distracts from the rest of the story, by feeding the delusion that well meaning white EMPLOYEES (not even their companies!) can fix all this by just being more sensitive.
I think it would be interesting to ask HER how she thinks her work could lead to the kinds of changes described by Baldwin, Frederick Douglass's, or current change agents like Cornell West or even a moderate like Marc Lamont Hill. Does her book need to do everything? No. No one's does. But those criticizing her work know that without admitting to what your book DOESN'T do, you can do harm.
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Trudy. It was a pleasure to read. But you still didn’t answer my question. I’m not clear on what your theory of change would be. You alluded to some sources that hint at an answer: James Baldwin, Cornel West and Frederick Douglass—all heroes of mine. So I can guess at your answer and reckon it’s probably somewhere near the realm of where my answer would be, if it were fully formed. And, while I’m not close to despair—and I don’t think I ever will be, even at the point of death—I don’t think, at this juncture, the owners will ever take their feet off our necks, nor do I have a lot of hope that we worker bees are likely to develop the kind of solidarity necessary to forge a new society in which the pillaging owners can be thrown off and then contained. It is in the development of the latte—some form of lasting, resilient solidarity among a significant majority of working people—where the solution, the stairway to the answer, is to be found. That solidarity will need to be grounded in the heart as well as the mind in the way love for one’s family is grounded in both.
Here’s the problem: When you look at history, the slaves have never overthrown the slaveholders. Never completely. We’ve never ever really come close. And by “overthrown,” I mean, we slaves have never gotten the slaveholders to get their feet off our necks and keep them off. Of course, I’m using the word “slavery” in it’s broadest sense of workers trapped in an economic system that holds them to a minimum of material prosperity unless they adopt the values and methods of the slaveholder, which I would define by historical analogy as the values and methods of capitalism.
I see it working generally this way: Once a person accepts the values of capitalism, i.e. that one goes into business to make and horde money (to build a better life for oneself, a true believer would say), and that there’s nothing wrong with paying your employees the lowest wage you can (because it’s their own damn fault if they’re willing to permit themselves to be satisfied with that), then that person becomes free to climb the ladder to material heaven. So goes the American Dream. Private jets. Worldwide mansions. Fabulous lifestyle. The other alternative, if one wants to get ahead but isn’t comfortable with the risk involved in going into business for oneself, is to rise in the management hierarchy, and essentially serve Massa as an overseer. This management alternative works just as well in the public as it does the private sector. Massa rewards people willing to manage the slaves well, and one can end one’s career in a nice new spacious McMansion in a gated community with a golf course and country club. No private jets, but you might be able to drive a Jag or Mercedes in the three-car garage while keeping yourself well away from the dangerous and distasteful unwashed masses and the viruses they carry.
Just as DiAngelo points out how white supremacy is so much a given that it goes unnoticed by the white majority, so the values of capitalism form the given parameters around which the world is seen as naturally turning. That paradigm is necessarily hierarchical and selfish. One can be benevolent with one’s family only. Everyone else is a potential competitor (which means enemy). My vision of the solution begins with the recognition that the paradigm of capitalistic selfishness must be broken and replaced with a paradigm of solidarity based upon a recognition of our necessary, mutual interdependency.
Yes, this is an incredibly utopian, pie-in-the-sky vision, riven with problems and seeming impossibilities. For one thing, people don’t know how to live this way. The norm is the nuclear family and this paradigm would require communal living, the pooling of resources and a significant loss of privacy. The individual would have to willingly allow herself to be subsumed into the community and find joy and comfort in that. The ideas of ownership and exclusivity would have to be reworked. The effect of a switch from the current capitalistic paradigm to this communistic paradigm would create dizzying difficulties in the area of sexual relationships alone. Indeed, the traditional family would have to break down and dissolve itself into a much broader sense of family, ultimately one that embraced all of humanity.
People have never pulled this off. They’ve made some good starts. The anarcho-syndicalism of Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War was promising. The early Christians pulled it off for a few centuries before the Roman empire annexed them to give the world the grim blessing of Catholicism. I think it was probably the norm in certain matriarchal Neolithic communities before they were overrun by waves of Caucasian migratory hordes. It is possible, but far from probable under contemporary conditions.
There is one potential ace in the hole: the fact that capitalism is certain to destroy the earth. Right now it looks like it will either be by nuclear holocaust or by global warming. I might be possible, if we plant enough seeds of the communistic paradigm and begin actually practice communism, working out the kinks as we go, refining the theory and the practice in the decades before capitalism finally careens off the cliff, we might be able to instill some seed communities that can grow the world back again the way it should be, in harmony with nature and knit together in mutual interdependence, and yes, love.
I don't understand how so many of the simple tons posting here can't grasp that Matt isn't accusing her of saying racists are good or bad. We get that - she thinks everyone is racist. Is one of the central, most ridiculous premises in the book. The issue is that she hold such a simple dichotomistic worldview. Christ sake bud, your ability to understand what you read without reading into it your own strawman, bad-faith arguments, is straight up laughable. YOU are the one missing the point!
I think that DiAngelo's observations of white fragility are spot on. It's why white people cannot deal with race. Your prescription for political/social change is perfectly in line with what DiAngelo and generations of people of color have noticed -- that white people get all agitated and defensive about their "objective" world view that race is irrelevant, when clearly white supremacy has been a major factor in the oppression of the working class. Matt, you're having a white fragility tantrum.
Its fine with us that you THINK she is spot on. You are entitled to your opinion. Now, try to make a logical case supporting your opinion. Kindly base it on measurable data.
No, you're indulging in the assumptions of someone who employs a communications double-bind that serves the goal of making their correspondent wrong, unless they assent to the claim being offered. A tactic that depends on the speaker arriving at a predetermined conclusion about the inherent nature of the person responding, and then satisfying themselves that their assumption has been proved correct no matter what response is offered in return.
That doesn't demonstrate superior insight; it demonstrates conceit. It's a discreet form of bigotry.
Really: once a given "white person" is informed that all white people are fragile, the double bind ensures that the response supports the claim, whether agreement ("yes, I am a fragile white person, because white">>"Yes, you are, exactly as I said.") or disagreement ("I haven't the faintest idea what you might be talking about">>"Then why so sensitive, all of a sudden?")
Why so sensitive? Because "fragility" is a synonym for "weakness." And few human beings are inclined to respond positively to someone who makes the claim that they're inherently weak (or dull-witted, or unstable, or incompetent) simply on account of their group membership status. Especially when the claim is made by someone who's never met them, and may not even know their name.
Really: how much weight do you think the exact same claim makes, with only the direct object being changed?
"(I know that*) because you're on the Left, you're touchy and easily offended."
Note that double-binds like these bury the actual subject and predicate, which are the words that I put in parentheses in the example above. The assertion is dependent on the tacit opening- "I know..." followed by an assertion offered as if it were a statement of fact, without support, as if its truth were so obvious that none were needed.
A statement of that sort isn't a fact claim; it's a turf claim. It's a sneaky means of asserting dominance in the conversation.
Honest and productive communication is only possible between equals. A discourse based on the ground rule that "I am going to TALK, and YOU are going to LISTEN"- i.e., that takes place with an insistence that there are some points that are not open for disagreement or dissent- is not an authentic conversation. It's forced indoctrination.
A great many people put on the spot by a double-bind claim recognize the trap that it contains, and respond by rejecting it as an insufferably arrogant imposition. They are not wrong.
The interesting thing is that some of them recognize that problem only when it happens to be the case that they're the target.
I know that EVERYBODY on earth feels affinity for their own race, tribe, ethnic group, language and religion. And almost all people regard "the other" with varying degrees of suspicion, alienation, fear. This is universal and cannot be ended, period. That behavior and inclination is genetically transmitted to each new generation. Nature, in the form of evolution, designed humans in this way to prevent what is called "genetic drift", which would quickly result in the weakening of the core genome of modern humans. That core genome has made us strong, resistant to many ailments, extremely intelligent, and able to create the modern world we all live in. Evolution is still working on us, we are a work in progress, but we are getting stronger with each generation. No need to tamper with success.
Are you being serious? A basic corollary of evolution theory is that genetic diversification strengthens, not weakens the genome. Weaknesses in the genome are weeded out by natural selection, not fear of "the other", which is only related to natural selection in that, on balance, fearing the unknown tends to keep you from getting killed. That doesn't mean it doesn't have downsides, one of which is that it can lead a population to become rather vulnerable (genetically or otherwise) to a sudden novel threat.
I come to this discussion at a late stage because I've been in comments in this stack that -only- Donald Trump opposes Critical Race Theory and that CRT is "bad -- very, very bad".
I am not a scholar on race, but I'm willing to try alternate methods of solving the problem -- no matter how flawed some purists insist those methods are.
Matt, I think DiAngelo’s main point is that we should stop thinking about racism in terms of bad racists and good non-racists. That racism is a structure we all grow up in. That you have to think about it, notice it, in order to combat it. Deciding to not focus on race doesn’t do much to change racist structures in society. I don’t love her writing style either but I think you were too quick to dismiss some of her points and you mischaracterized others in my opinion.
Kate, it is "good non-racists" who spearheaded the abolition of slavery not just in the USA but in Britain and Africa. It is really the height of impertinence and opportunism or someone like DiAngelo to run what comes down to "reeducation camps" that constantly reinforce racial memes. But then home wrecker DiAngelo sounds like an an opportunist also in her private life. Why didn't she marry an African American instead of stealing someone else's husband?
That may be what DiAngelo claims she is describing, but Matt's point is that her book actually promotes logical fallacies and crazy Kafka traps which will do nothing but antagonize ordinary people and probably make actual racism worse.
In summary: if you agree with her, then she’s right. If you disagree with her, then she’s right.
There’s nothing wrong with teaching people to recognize defensiveness and overcome it, not with teaching people to be aware of what their words/actions can cause others to feel.
If that’s all DeAngelo taught, I’m 100% certain that Matt would have no problem with it.
But that’s not all she’s saying. Not by a long shot. The fact that it’s what you’re implying makes me wonder if you’re arguing in good faith (or, at the very least, if YOU aren’t the defensive knee-jerker in this equation).
It's worth noting that African-Americans in the contemporary era have been known to be subjected to similar traps, upon offering public vocal dissent from a particular ideological party line that's "commonly supposed" to be the approved "pro-black" position.
It's possible to think someone is wrong on an issue of that sort and then go on to disagree with the content of their views, without sarcastically questioning or disdaining their "blackness" (if they're African-American) or pre-emptively judging them as "racist" (if their ancestry is European.) It's the difference between opening up a topic for debate and seeking to shut it down.
"It's worth noting that African-Americans in the contemporary era have been known to be subjected to similar traps..."
The term "African-American" is a racist term. Black and African-American are not synonyms. African-American is a 21st century term typically and incorrectly used to distinguish blacks from full-fledged Americans, who are of course, white. It's a term that was coined for the political purpose of Identity Politics, a strategy devised by the left. The true connotation of African-American is "victimized" American.
African American is analogous with Italian /Irish/Arab/ and many other such terms. It became popular adn in many ways preferable to other options within my own lifetime and memory.
Viz., "Most of us became familiar with the ethnonym African American in the 1980s, when Jesse Jackson began popularizing it as an alternative to black. (An ethnonym is a name by which an ethnic or racial group is known.) But the term is much older than that: recently, I found an example dating back to the earliest days of the American republic."'
As the product of Italian and Acadian immigrants who was taught that we are all "Americans" and that to assimilate and to thrive meant becoming "American" was the only way to succeed and not starve to death I disagree with your bullshit.
Stop drawing lines based on race publicly, privately.
We are all just people. People who live under the rule of law and that rule is SUPPOSED to be equal.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The founding principals are still solid and have tremendous value for ALL of us.
Some would have us believe that racism is systemic, and that everyone is at each others' throats 24/7, but it's just not true.
Blowing up a small percentage of events and holding them up as examples is willfully deceiving the public at large in any case.
CNN/FOX/MSNBC all have a vested interest in fomenting civil unrest.
Remember that THEIR masters are the enemies of us all.
All of the terms of "race-based nomenclature" are noisy. I think you're out of line in calling out "African-American" as "racist", and I suspect that you're only doing so because it seems like an easy, cheap shot to take in a game of "turnabout." As if we didn't have enough of those already, being hurled in all directions. I'm in this discussion to untangle the noise, not to throw more chaos firecrackers on the bonfire.
Also, I'm not here in service of an ideological zero-sum game. That's tired, to me.
As I said, I think "African-American" is a noisy term. But it's a useful one, in some ways. It's intended to refer to the subset of African diaspora people- a population that didn't order anything about their relocation to the New World, or what happened when they got there- that ended up in what became the US, and lived under the unique set of rules devised by "white" (mostly English) Americans. Which makes them different from Haitians, or Jamaicans, or Bahamaians, or Brazilians, or Africans from Africa. Because- this won't go down easy, but it's true- in a lot of ways, of all the slave-owning national regimes of the Western hemisphere, the US was the national regime that made it the toughest on African diaspora people. The US damaged its black African diaspora population to an extent that didn't occur in the Caribbean island nations, which had black majority populations. All of the Carribbean nations were emancipated decades before enslaved people in the US. The attitudes of the islanders toward their own ethnic identity are a lot more secure and confident- which helps to account for how black Caribbean immigrants currently tend to achieve upward mobility in the US faster than black Americans. Jamaicans never had to contend with the reality that they were vastly outnumbered by a population of a different ethnicity, with the levers of power controlled by men whose attitudes overwhelmingly fell in the range between unwelcoming and openly hostile.
TLTR. My point is logically irrefutable. Black and African-American are not synonyms, no matter how many words you string together in order to deny that simple reality. I understand the 21st century Identity Politics creation of the term. Leftists should refrain from trying to reason. To be more effective influencing those of little knowledge, stick to emoting.
Slavery was ended in the Carribbean 186 years ago. Slavery was ended in the USA 155 years ago. So now we have an explanation for why Caribbean immigrants do better.
Slavery was ended in Saint Dominique (Haiti/Dominican Republic) in 1804.
Slavery was ended in Jamaica in 1834.
The islands of Saint-Dominique and Jamaica had the largest slave populations in the region.
Slavery was abolished in France's other colonies- in the Caribbean and elsewhere- in 1848.
The French slave trade from Africa was finally abolished in 1826.
Slavery was abolished in the other British colonies in 1838.
The British slave trade from Africa had already been abolished in 1807. One major unintended result was the rise of the domestic slave breeding industry in the US, and the formal division between temporary indentured servitude with provisions for manumission- henceforth reserved for whites- and perpetual slavery henceforth for the population with any traceable African ancestry, identified as "colored" or "black."
Slavery was ended by the US in 1863 (actually 1865.) Within 11 years after the Union victory in the Civil War in 1865, , the former slave states- and many other parts of the country- imposed systems of official race-based exclusion that amounted to apartheid rule. In fact, some of those provisions were Federal laws. The most severe of those laws were in place and unmodified until the late 1940s, largely unchallenged until the 1950s and 1960s. So within 11 years of gaining freedom, the vast majority of the formerly enslaved population found themselves living under something like legally enforced apartheid rule, until the mid-1960s.
Maybe it's because they lived in absolute squalor and learned the fucking value of a solid republic that guarantees rights to all.
Something Haiti or the Dominican Republic never had.
They do well because they know what it's like to live in an environment where you have jack shit and then they have every opportunity imaginable when they move here.
You can still live a better life here versus in the Carribbean.
Race is being pushed forward as a "big issue" because the scummy politicians only care about it when they can benefit from it during election years.
It's the same shit every four years.
I love how you try to re-paint Carribbean history with your racist brush though. Good work.
African American here. You have this wrong. A large swath of African descended Americans adopted this term to give cultural rooting that others like Italian Americans, German Americans and others enjoy who did not forcibly have their heritage and cultural roots interrupted via enslavement. In other words they know who they are and from whence they came. Your equation of it to so called victimized American is intellectually childish at worst and reductionist at best.
Intellectually childish, eh? What an intellectually mature argument you make! - Not
Where did you come up with this "cultural rooting" idea? Is that from some sociological theory or did you devise this theoretical construct all on your own? Whichever it is, it's BS. You're claiming victimhood due to slavery - plain and simple. Have you been enslaved? No. Do you descend from slaves? Maybe, but even if you do, a large portion, if not a majority, of the black population in America today, did not. But that's not important to you because you're gonna milk this slavery routine for all you can get.
You claim to be an African American. What country in Africa did you come from? How old were you when you came to America? How many years have you been in America? If you are truly African American, you did not descent from slaves.
If you were born in America, then you're an American, just like me. You deserve no special privileges and neither do I. And BTW, when referring to Italian Americans and German Americans for your comparison, you're talking apples and oranges. Those are countries - not continents. To treat them equally to African Americans, you would refer to them both as European Americans. But you're into dividing people, not uniting them. I guess you yearn for tribal culture with the accompanying blood feuds, etc.
I don't know where my ancestors came from so that kinda blows your "they know who they are and from whence they came" BS. Most people don't. It doesn't matter. It's not important unless you make it important in your mind. I'm an American. It's my misfortune to have to share the country with orgs like Black Lives Matter, which is more accurately called Feel White Guilt. The guilt trip doesn't work on me because I'm not that easily bamboozled.
Kurt, how often do you talk with white folks about racism? I suggest that if you did, you recognize what jvmack and DiAngelo are saying: White people seem to slip into an unconscious script about why they're not racist / why racism doesn't exist, etc. I see this in most of my conversations with white people about race, too. Don't take our word for it -- try it out. And also ask some Black folks if they're willing to share their experiences of racism with you.
Gee, I can't speak for Kurt, whom I do not know, but if you're active on social media, it's rather impossible to avoid speaking with all sorts of people about racism these days.
Last I checked, I've been white for pretty much all of my seventy years (I probably wasn't enculturated into whiteness in early infancy, but I'll let that go). And I try to avoid making gross generalizations about any group of people based on characteristics like melanin. But I'm enough of a product of American white culture (or at least the greater NYC liberal Jewish segment c. 1950-present) to know that no one can be raised here without being tainted by the history of the continent and the current nation that occupies the area between Canada and Mexico. To say "I'm not racist" is a bit silly, but it's also ridiculous to expect the average American to say, "Well, of course, I'm racist. Now, what?" which is what I generally say if it comes up.
Thing is, I have no difficulty owning the life I lived. I didn't go around harassing black people (or members of any group). I didn't keep black people out of clubs or activities. I went to summer camp as a teenager with black kids from Alabama (one of whom, Reggie Davis, is Angela Davis' younger brother; also the younger brother of Ben Davis, later an all-pro defensive back for the Cleveland Browns, who was a domestic exchange student at my high school a couple of years ahead of me). My parents were politically active and about as anti-racist and anti-war as they could be in suburban NJ in the '50s and '60s. Still, I knew very few black people until high school and relatively few at that time. Only in college did I have a chance to meet and go to school with more than a couple of black people. I worked with black people in a printing company during my last two summers in high school, but we didn't hang out together after work (nor did I hang out with anyone else after work from that job, for a host of reasons).
Fifty odd years later, I'm sure that when I hear people say that they're not racist and/or that racism doesn't exist, such people are unlikely to understand me when I say unhesitatingly that I assume that everyone in this country is infected by racism; that all white people are racist (though not necessarily to the same degree or in the same ways) and that no one can live here for very long without catching the effects of living in a racist society. I won't go so far as to say "All black people, all brown people, all PEOPLE in this country are in fact racist" because that opens up a dozen cans of worms that distract from productive conversation. But what it means is that it's impossible to be here and escape from the impact that racism brings to bear on American life - social, economic, psychological, cultural, etc.
I've spent a huge percentage of my life in Michigan now, working in math education and teacher-education in Detroit, Flint, Muskegon, Grand Rapids, Pontiac, Monroe, and other urban districts, mostly with black and Latinx students, parents, and other educators. I have seen all sorts of data that make clear the existence of racism, its impact, and the severe conditions in which the majority of people of color live in these cities. I'm more than aware of the pervasiveness of mass incarceration and the profits being made from sending millions of young, mostly black, mostly male people to prison directly from schools that function in many ways as preparation for life in jail.
And absolutely none of that makes me disagree with the vast majority of what Matt has written or what people like Kurt have said about it. DiAngelo's book strikes me as vapid nonsense written by someone who's figured out how to make a nice $$ by exploiting a moment in a long tragic history. And for the most part, I think she's got virtually nothing insightful to offer that hasn't been said more profoundly and clearly and constructively by many others (many of them black or Latinx or Asian or Native American, etc.) for the better part of 170 years or so. She's a flavor of the month, a hustler, and her work isn't going to help anyone except herself and her mini-cult.
Critical race theory isn't some monolith in which everyone doing work is a wonderful, selfless human being whose every word must be attended to carefully and worshipfully. Like any other field, it's got hucksters and charlatans and fools. And we do NOT benefit from assuming that everyone in it is a profound thinker because clearly she isn't. Kow towing to her and her work is a very bad idea. I can just as easily claim to be a critical race theorist and come out with a bunch of jargon and bilge that will help me get a piece of the nice dollar (to steal from Bill Hicks) that DiAnglelo has glommed onto, but my problem is that I actually care about things like truth, equity, human decency, and other inconvenient ethical issues that would make me have to shoot myself were I to go the route she's chosen. I feel about her much as I feel about Jordan Peterson and other academics and pseudo-intellectuals who have imbecilic viewpoints grounded in little but personal psychology and wishful thinking that they gin up with jargon and fluff to better foist it all upon some gullible segments of the public (including corporate culture).
There are far better people out there fighting racism and educating people about it. Why anyone would be suckered by someone like DiAngelo eludes me.
Hey everyone maybe it's possible to appreciate Matt's critique and at the same time take White Fragility as useful in other ways, and then move on with life. Rather than once again forcing ourselves into one camp or another.
I mean, the book seems to be saying "Hey white people, listen more, be less defensive, don't think you have all the answers, and be more forgiving around racial trauma." Everything else aside, seems like some good advice.
Everything else aside, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" seems like good advice. So, if you believe that it's good advice, then you must be a Christian, right?
Obviously not. Because there *is* everything else. And it *can't* be set aside.
I've heard plenty of stories of racism from POC. Funny thing is I've experienced similar or worse to most of them, including unjustified arrests, only as a white man I couldn't categorize any of it as racism.
When racism takes on the extreme definitions of the modern Left, then it becomes both impossible and ridiculous to expect discussions about it with Mr and Mrs Dayton, Ohio. No one but professionals can be expected to have discussions with the terminally destructive.
Please don’t presume to know the extent to which I have or haven’t spoken with people (of whatever color) about racism.
My original comment stands: cultural awareness/cultural humility is founded upon individuals (*all* individuals in a given interaction) being aware of their own biases and being willing to listen with an open heart.
Either you agree with me on this or you don’t. Please don’t try moving the goalposts.
If it takes claptrap like White Fragility to get some people to realize that, then so be it, I guess. However, it seems to me that this book's witch hunt approach will only bamboozle the gullible, but will otherwise alienate people who would be open to learning those simple principles you present. Humility is the root of wisdom. Everyone knows something you don't know. (And visa versa, and the inversion of that.) Everyone has biases. Work on metacognition. Not everyone will agree with you. Good people disagree.
Having been a fan of Matt Taibbi for years, I find it highly unlikely that he’d critique DiAngelo’s book without having read it first. He’s one of the last few who values integrity above all else.
I read the book and thought Matt did a good job of pointing out how flawed it is. Matt isn't writing a dissertation and besides he promised that this article is part of a larger piece he will make available this week. Beyond that, I wonder if you even read Matt's article. Nowhere did he state "racism is over." DiAngelos' book and CRT in general is a perfect example of a Kafkatrap. I suspect you haven't spent much time reading or listening to critics of CRT and this book, in particular. That might be worth your time.
That’s mostly because DiAngelo HAS no valid arguments. She has a lot of false assumptions, begged questions, and a totally fascist philosophy. Only intellectually inadequate people could ever find her work convincing at even the most elementary level.
Racism will never be over as long as people like DiAngelo are around to deliberate poison the intellectual atmosphere, while parroting a mirror image of Nazism. A special place in hell is reserved, it is said, for people like her.
How is it possible to quite a book that you've never really read? Ever heard anyone quote the bible, especially passages that conform to their personal, ideological beliefs, Leviticus, for example, who you just know have never read the bible? It's easy: just read enough critical reviews of a book, or listen to enough like-minded bible-thumpers, and you have plenty of material to craft your own ill-informed, bad-faith, fundamentally misrepresentative review. Happens all the time in the echo chambers of opposition to DiAngelo's book, such as Aero magazine, Quilette, etc.
<i>White Fragility</i> doesn’t <em>have</em> an argument. The point Matt is making is that DiAngelo and her ilk have abandoned “argument” for bullying and kafkatrapping.
Some of her followers (what you call "her ilk" may have gone off the rails into bullying and kafkatrapping, but if you think she has too, I would suggest you read the book more carefully. The lady is careful and she knows what she's talking about.
I think it's laudable for someone to obtain an awareness of racial injustice, and to work to overcome it. But no one should fool themselves that they're going to get anywhere with that project by jettisoning informal logic standards for double-minded thinking, or by failing to confront the absurdly high noise quotient found in the tangled semantics of "race" and "color."
Otherwise, what you get is
1) the demand for common assent to the imposition of logical double-binds as a foundational premise for "anti-racism"- a premise that anyone is on firm ground in rejecting as an insult to the standards of informal logic, which are not to be twisted.
Note that even "white supremacist" racists are on firm ground in rejecting a logical double-bind when it's imposed on them. Incidentally, the use of that lazy, sloppy tactic allows them to shift the subject of discussion to the ludicrous illogic of such demands. Easy turf to argue on.
The actual focus of a coherent, effective antiracist effort directed at "white supremacists" should be to focus on the logical flaws of THEIR double-mindedness. By contrast, invoking a logical double-bind as a requirement for people of European ancestry to qualify as "antiracist" only compounds the murk and confusion.
2) a failure to draw the obvious lesson from the historical reality that the insistence on color-coded terminology and ancestral heritage as reified categories was originally the idea of the slaveowner caste. Why imagine that reiterating and restoring that emphasis will somehow have a positive effect? You actually think that there's a way to rehabilitate that terminology? It was wrong in the first place. Those terms have a place in the discussion. But only conditionally, in a commonly understood context that references the historical past, and always with full awareness of the inherently high quotient of bogosity involved in pigeonholing any individual or group within the confines of a single category. Especially a general category with an elusive definition.
("Class", "caste", "ethnicity", "ancestry", "heritage", "legacy", "nationality"...all of those words have some precision to their definitions. Whereas defaulting to referencing racial categories and "color" in discussions of human society, culture, and history have a way of introducing more mush than clarity. Particularly the more distant the audience for the conversation.)
It should also be understood that opposition to white supremacy is only part of a wider task, which is struggling to overcome oppression, injustice, and cruelty, per se. In that regard, no one should be celebrating Twitter pack swarms, doxxing random strangers, hounding people out of their jobs, or any of the other aspects of cancel culture. What possesses anyone to imagine that these tactics support the pursuit of justice? They're mimicking the unjust behavior of the oppressors! Those tactics are anti-due process, anti-privacy rights, and anti-civil liberties. I don't buy the argument that the tactics are justified by the targets...it's identical to the argument of the Ku Klux Klan, c.1867.
thank you for this insightful comment. I was just hoping you could elaborate on the term "logical double-bind". What I understand. to mean is the way in which critical race theory allows the constant creation of scenarios where both action and inaction can easily deemed "racist" by its priesthood and therefore grounds for moral censure, which has a deeply chilling effect on people that I think is pretty much the point of critical race theory. Let me know if this tactic is what you meant.
I would add to this another disturbing feature of critical progressive theories in general , which is how they allow constant shifting of goalposts in what's orthodox, what's minor deviation, and what's outright heresy. Again, the point is: keep the control targets confused as to what action will allow them to get on with their fucking lives; only the critical theory priesthood knows; come to them for supplication or else.
UB, I've added a couple of other comments elaborating on hallmarks of the double-bind and its problems elsewhere in the comment thread, as responses to another poster who was trying to impose the "white fragility" double-bind on our host Matt Taibbi. You may find the extra clarification worth your time to review.
I think you get the general concept. According to the Wiki entry, "a double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, with one negating the other."
There are several different types of double bind. But the one most commonly employed to attempt to gain political advantage consists of a negative characterization with accusatory overtones that's directed at an individual (or a group member), and then insists that any disagreement or denial on the part of the target is proof of the veracity of the accusation.
It's a form of turf (power) claim masquerading as a fact claim.
Very well said. I am still trying to sort out the logical soundness of being anti-racist. I think it depends on the intent. The historical construction of race classifications as a way to oppress is different than acknowledging the privilege that now comes with those classifications. So I think it’s more about evoking race in order to remove the negative impacts of those classifications. That takes a high level of awareness from everyone in understanding the nature of how/why we are invoking race.
The language of "race" and color- the fouled-up semantics and connotations embedded in the terminology- lead to problems like confusing confronting the historical reality and redressing authentic grievances with attributions of "blood guilt", and "blood libel" (which are racist concepts.) The acknowledgement of the often horrible truth of racial injustice is about legacy impacts carried from the past, and the necessity to address those impacts so that they diminish and disappear. A task that's considerably tougher in some respects than it was in 1866, due to the negative legacy impacts of sharecropper indenture and the prison farm system, de jure segregation (Jim Crow), and weaponizing criminalized drug population against scapegoated populations, including African-Americans.
By contrast, imputations of blood guilt ultimately merely serve personal egomania. No matter who indulges in that move. One of the dubious rewards that result from someone adapting racism to suit their own preferences when they find it advantageous. Shifting the goal to who is to be the master, rather than dismantling the concept.
It’s easy to agree that illiberal activity is a net negative. I’m less interested in the assertion that the broader enterprise of examining and mitigating white supremacy is somehow responsible for every bad actor inside the tent, anymore than every small gov’t advocate owns the worst excesses of the Tea Party movement or Christianity owns the sermons coming out of Westboro Baptist Church. You’re making actual points about efficacy, which is levels beyond what this piece is trying to accomplish.
As best I can tell from my vantage as a psychologist, white fragility as defined by DiAngelo fails as a empirical psychological construct. It is defined so broadly and variously as to be untestable.
"This is what DiAngelo's book describes: how people in power can stop defensively clinging to their power."
Actually, RD spends her time giving this message to *employees*, a group which by definition has the least power in the contexts she works in. The people in power are the ones who hire RD; the employees don't attend by choice. Interesting how this overriding power dynamic is obfuscated by RD's racialist approach. That's great for the people who hire her, which I'm sure is just a coincidence.
The existence of racism doesn't validate a silly strategy to dismiss all counter-arguments, disagreeable anecdotes, as and anti-interests as "fragility".
Matt is doing you a favor by steering the Left's arguments away from the absurd and therefore assisting them in staying relevant longer.
Some on the Right will think that Matt should have allowed the Left to continue to derail without a logical correction from a voice of the slightly less-extreme contingent.
Anyone who upper-cases "Hate" sets my antennae twitching. Enuff with the rhetorical uppercasing. It is puerile.
Speaking of editorial standards, MW has a new definition of "racism" :
"1: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2
a: a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles
b: a political or social system founded on racism
3: racial prejudice or discrimination"
It sure seems like DiAngelo's book is an example of the first definition.
Clearly you have read DiAngelo because you mimic her gobbiglock so well. Literally nothing in your post specifically identifies an argument Matt made that is incorrect with supporting evidence. Which "random quotes" do you object to? Inquiring minds want to know. Essentially your argument is exactly what he is objecting to: ad hominem "your a racist" attacks with zero substance.
Can you hear the boot steps coming for you Matt? I doubt they will be able to talk you into firing yourself? Thank you for keeping alive nuance in these difficult discussions.
My first run in with Anti-Racist activists was my fellow Middle School students. They questioned every student about their Christian Faith while quoting a fake bible verse of God creating black people with a curse. They then assaulted any student who refused to denounce their faith. My parents explained to me what racism was when I got home, my best friend was black and I didn't initially understand the concept of race at my age. Turns my teachers were orchestrating it.
In high school I ran into a similar group that was allied with radical LGBT activists. When they weren't manufacturing fake hate crimes against themselves, they liked to harass the Catholic girls running a bake sale for the homeless. In community college part of our student fees for the Diversity + Inclusion center went to buying baseball bats. There was no baseball team, but their were some very aggressive SJW types. Evergreen State was mild compared to Austin, TX.
My Freshman year at college my first C was by the teacher of my mandatory diversity and inclusion course. I got A's in calculus and physics. The C was b/c the Prof would sabotage the grades of the white male students. She even made a false accusation of cheating to the honor council against one of the students who made the mistake of debating her.
These were between 4 and 11 years before Trump ran for president. My experiences in the professional work force have been far worse.in terms of cultural authoritarianism. I have never voted for a Republican for federal office in my life. I am likely voting for Trump in 2020 simply b/c these people scare me.
I am sympathetic, but think this through. A Trump victory will give these people far more power. In 2016, they cried. They are much more empowered now and a Trump victory will probably see, not crying, but riots the next day. I am not saying that the country should be bullied into voting for the Democratic candidate, but I am saying that if you are only considering Trump in order to fight back against this insanity, that strategy might backfire.
Can't disagree there. But my crystal ball says if Trump is re-elected, the SJW, Woke, and CRT's will seize more power. If Biden is elected, we can hope he (or more precisely, his puppet masters) will provide plenty of window dressing to appease this crowd but the craziness will subside. Otoh, a Trump election and the ensuing riots will end in a Trump law and order response, which will put us perilously close to some kind of civil war.
The Cold Civil War is well under way. Skirmishes began two decades ago (Bush vs. Gore, Rathergate, the un-personing of Sarah Palin.) It's been raging since the day Trump won in 2016. It will go from cold to hot before 2030, Trump or no Trump.
I welcome it, and the opportunity for moral clarity it will provide. The greatest Rectification of Names in 2000 years.
Man oh man. You can't be advocating for a hot civil war, can you? And on top of that, assert that a hot civil war would be the beat means to provide moral clarity in troubled times?
Those positions are crazy, to me. Just as crazy as the wokeness we're all here talking about. In fact, that is precisely what America's enemies want; for us to break and devour ourselves. That would sure make it easier for them, wouldn't it?
We need to find a peaceful path through this craziness. We need to build trust in institutions again; not blind trust, but trust that is build on observable outcomes in institution aims and goals. Evaluated, measured, contingent trust. Contingent on those institutions performing their stated aims.
We need to pump the brakes on the idea of another hot civil war, and get down to the real work of talking through our differences, and aiming for a level of compromise that doesn't diminish our values, but does allow us to live better lives.
So, to that end, what's important to you, John Skookum?
Nobody wants a civil war, not even the people who think they do. China is the elephant in the room here, the time for trolling and provocation is over. They're in a fragile position themselves, Americans just have to have a ceasefire along with the recognition of that fact. Few people seem to know how bought our politicians are by China though. It's like They Live.
This cold civil war began the day after Appomattox for the South. Those traitors began plotting the course for reinventing slavery under a different name with a Reign of Terror on newly enfranchised Black American citizens and extended that to every state in the union to some degree. Three NC cops were recently recorded accidentally of course their eagerness to start a hot race war and slaughter (their word) as many blacks as they could.
So acquiesce to the terrorists pulling down our history and denying entire racial groups agency? You're insane. God help us if Trump isn't re-elected. No one will be opposing the neoliberal establishment at that point. If you think you guys aren't next for the purge, you're underestimating how entrenched these power structures are and will become without massive corporate and bueaucratic breakups by a strong executive branch. It's scary that we've arrived at this, but we have to look at it soberly.
Statues are not history. Statues have traditionally been made to honor people of great character or great achievements. Tearing down a statue is not erasing history, it's tearing down a statue. The history you speak of was written by the elite's who won and is never accurate to begin with.
So we surrender to the iconoclastic demands of domestic terrorists and their billionaire stringpullers because "statues are not history"? Or were you just being pedantic during the biggest cluster of crises the republic has faced in recent memory? So many of you sheltered liberals aren't even serious about this, you just use politics as a vehicle to show off how much knowledge you attained in school. We don't have time for your depressive AKSHUALLY BS. We get it, you read books. Noted.
Comments like that are no less crazy than the Hillarycrats predicting the advent of unstoppable Brownshirt fascism in November 2016, after Trump won the election.
“will provide plenty of window dressing to appease this crowd “
The most disappointing thing in this is that until recently I believed that both Dems and Reps while having different approaches to solve the country’s problems they had a core agreement In the basics: USA is a democratic representative republic; The individual rights enshrined in the constitution are not negotiable. The need to defend and protect the USA is a priority above all. Individual liberties and system of justice reigns above all.
But this is not what we’ve seen in the last 4-8 years. Democrats are willing to dismantle the country for votes. The so called “voter supresssion of minorities” is just a fold for let illegals vote. They are more willing to defend illegal aliens than to protect american workers, they want to make a state out of the federal capital city for those votes, they are willing to dismantle the police, the electoral college vote, even the Supreme Court only for votes. So sad!
It's always amusing when you trumphumpers start out a comment like that trying to pretend you're not rightwing fascists but immediately give it away by projecting what you're doing the country onto Dems. It must be part of the indoctrination by Cult of Trump that makes you think you have a cloak of invisibility.
The civil war is here at our doorstep. Time to prepare and be ready to defend your family and property, because the government will NOT do it. BLM wants revenge and submission.
Not really. We've got spoiled children running around claiming victimhood while destroying our country. Reality sucks don't it? It's gotta be true....I saw it on CNN
I’m a republican and make no fuss about it. I voted for Trump because he was the republican candidate. I don’t suffer from TDS but live constantly furious about Trump unpresidential behavior, specially the stupid tweets.
But there is ONE issue for me tops it all: Freedom of Speech. That sacred, first amendment enshrined in the US Constitution.
It’s been said, that great minds talk about ideals. Moderate minds talk about events. Small minds talk about people.
Trump as person is a pain in the b...tt, bombastic and unlikable guy, but he has not enforced a policy of silencing people. He isn’t the one that has cancelled someone for saying “All lives matter” or for saying “man and woman are different”. He isn’t the one stopping and protesting a conservative speaker in a school. The progressive left is the one that calls anyone who doesn’t agree 120% with them “a racist” “a Hitler” a transphobic, deplorable or whatever. And if it just stayed at insult level,it wouldn’t be a proble, but today real people lives are being destroyed. Jobs terminated, over the slightest thing.
Like anyone else I want a return to normal politics of respect and disagreement Which is why I voted for Clinton in 2008 Dem primaries and then for McCain and Romney is 2008 and 2012. But those two were demonized. Talk about the “boy who cried wolf”. I didn’t think of Sarah Palin, but I did think of Freedom of Speech. So here I go again...
No! Nominating Biden is a severe form of voter discouragement. Silencing is shouting down or physically attacking someone who is speaking or asked to speak. Silencing is "Shut Up!" Silencing is firing someone for what they say. Silencing is taking away a person's voice. Silencing is repealing the First Amendment in fact, if not in law. Silencing is how we treat lambs.
It's ALWAYS the lesser evil. The electoral system is terribly flawed. We've needed Ranked Choice Voting for a very long time. The powers that be, including the media, don't want it because they have this game down. As it stands, there's really only one party. And ultimately, no real choice because there is a shadow govt that's been pulling all the levers behind the curtain for the past 75 years or so.
Did he mean the LEFT people? Trump is at least more fun to watch because they can't control him as easily as they've been able to handle real professional politicians.
You are right, but you go too easy on Biden. (1) Usurious interests rates that are outlawed in the rest of the USA are allowed in Delaware. Credit card debt peonage is a terrible problem for all, but esp. the poor. So Biden has directly contributed to the immiseration of all people who must rely on their credit cards for any kind of credit or cash to tide them over. Including, obviously, blacks. (2) Biden was in the forefront of the trend to for-profit prisons. "As head of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Biden not only supported the war on drugs that led to mass incarceration, he co-authored many of the laws that led America to have the world’s highest per capita prison population. He pushed The Comprehensive Control Act of 1984, which expanded federal drug trafficking and civil asset forfeiture without proof of guilt, and the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988 that increased crack cocaine and overall drug offense penalties." Read more here:
Biden is an effing liar, hypocrite, and little girl fondler. As a champion of black folk , Biden is sick joke. (Never saw video of him fondling a young black girl, though; in the videos I have seen the girls were all white.)
A Trump victory already saw riots virtually "the next day." Remember? So, what's new there? Those who riot are responsible for their behavior. Or for being dupes, if that is what they are. Holding the election of a politician hostage to a threat of violence is political extortion. We are supposed to have a smooth transition of power in this "democracy," remember? Such extortionist threats make me even think of voting for Trump.
On the face, that seems like a good argument. But like you said, "think this through." You are saying that the rioting will only get worse if this president is re-elected. I want to know, what would make the rioting get better? I suppose it's better if we learn to tolerate it as normal and natural.
BLM and related groups are pushing hard for a Biden win, even diverting funds they receive to Biden's campaign. A perceived "win" and they have little to riot about. I think Biden and team will provide plenty of window dressing and signaling that these groups' demands will be addressed. Of course, they will not (see, e.g., Obama) but smoke and mirrors almost always work.
I may be misreading, but you seem to be saying that people are using rioting and violence to hold the country hostage, and if we give them what they want, they'll stop. That's not how it usually works. People who play that way just up their demands, until they control you completely.
Stockholm Syndrome. You become sympathetic to those who hold you hostage. After all , they hold your fate in their hands, and so you would hope you could understand and trust them,.
Yes, I am saying that. But I was not saying we should acquiesce to the bullies. I was talking about outcomes in responding to the original post where the OP was so fed up, he was considering a vote for Trump. All I am saying is that is not a reason to vote for Trump as it is very likely that a Trump victory will give the mob more power. (To which a Trump response may cause an eruption this country cannot stand.) If you believe that the DNC (the actual arm in control) will give in to the demands of BLM and related groups, I believe you are naive. The DNC will give lip service, they will provide window dressing, but there is no way they will let those demands take over. Again the point is: a Trump victory will give these groups more power and ultimately could result in something like a civil war. Whereas a Biden victory will placate the mob without really giving them what they want.
I don't think the traditional Dem establishment can control the hard left any more. An example: Ilhan Omar made some clearly antisemitic statements. Nancy Pelosi, to her credit, tried to bring a resolution to the floor condemning antisemitism without naming Omar directly but clearly pointed at her. Omar pulled together progressive allies from the CBC and elsewhere, and Pelosi found she didn't have the votes. In the end, the resolution was watered down to condemn every kind of bigotry including islamophobia, and Omar cheerfully voted for it and claimed a victory against islamophobia. Along the way, Omar and AOC rubbed it in by accusing Pelosi of disrespecting women of color. Pelosi was subdued.
And I would love to hear your thoughts on my assessment of the potential outcomes, which was the entire point of my original reply to the OP. So far, this has not been addressed in any of these comments.
BLM and related groups are pushing hard for a Biden win, even diverting funds they receive to Biden's campaign. "
this is one of the very concerning aspects brought up by the "person of color" who wrote the letter to the UCBerkeley History Department: that the dept. was collecting donations for BLM, and those funds are going directly to ActBlue. So, the UCBerkeley History Dept has been hopelessly politicized and "partisanized."
Oh, I don't know about that. It will definitely push this zit to a big fat head and maybe even pop it... but I don't really worry about it.
I bet people sat around in the 1930s watching these radical ideologies spring up all over the world were mighty nervous, too. This sure resembles that era. Our masters are orchestrating another big purge.
I am 73. Grew up in working class Los Angeles in the 1950's and 60's. Where I lived we had no black people. It was just whites and Mexicans, who called themselves Chicanos. We got along fairly well, a few racially motivated fights between two boys. The word "racism" was unknown. People spoke of somebody being "prejudiced" if they expressed dislike for Mexicans. Again, in my part of LA there were literally no blacks. Most of us had never heard of Watts or Compton or any of the black neighborhoods.
The result of my upbringing is, I have no feeling for black people. Never worked with any black people except a bit in the Army, never had any black friends, never lived around any. So I don't feel any kind of obligation to "repent" for my racism because I don't have any thing to apologize for. I just do not care about the whole concept, and I bet whole lot of white people feel the same. I am voting for Trump, again. If Biden wins the election, we are never going to see the end of the riots and looting.
You're an example of white fragility, If not exactly (but close) how Matt renders DiAngelo's take:
"The concept, as articulated in books like former corporate consultant Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility (Amazon’s #1 seller!) reduces everything, even the smallest and most innocent human interactions, to racial power contests."
The Marxists and their ridiculous new word usage. Very amusing, but pathetic and a lot of loser perma victims buy right in and parrot the idiocy. The above poster Mike, doesn't care about your little feelings and uber evolved outrage. And I don't either. Blacks are going to find NORMAL, DECENT people of all races wanting to avoid them. Sucks for decent Black people.
Just so you know, I’m in corporate HR and I also think that this book is racist garbage. Not all of us are wokerati, hell bent on making everyone’s life miserable. Frankly, I see a big part of my job these days as insulating my people from bile like DeAngelo’s.
There *is* important work that needs to be done about race and identity in corporate America. Anyone who contests that is as clueless as DeAngelo. But so much of what is out there (and held up by the press as a balm for a manufactured wind) is counter-productive at best and toxic at worst. We need more Cornell Wests and fewer Rubin DeAngelos.
It would be a shame if no one actually read this book because of this uninformed commentary, especially the target audience of “well-meaning” leftists, specifically progressives, who choose to act as if racism is something other people do.
The current strain of leftist anti-identitarianism and anti-essentialism has been fascinating to watch unfold, whether in the more prescient and thoughtful takes such as Richard Rorty’s and Jonathon Haidt’s and the less illuminating such as Mark Lilla’s or Matt’s. Identity politics clearly undergirds much of the illiberal excess on the left, and in the hands of activists and children it exhibits the same banality and misapplications as other -isms. Plenty there to trouble us.
And yet it is no less useful for whites to come to terms with racism as a white problem to be solved by whites; with white identity as the invisible hand in our collective culture; or with the thesis that racism and implicit bias are profuse in whites across the ideological spectrum, not just the leftist fantasy of a sin peculiar to rightists. These and other barely controversial propositions can be explored in this book.
Hand-wringing over identity politics strikes me as futile. The grievances are too legitimate and too damaging to wave away with calls for a new nationalism/patriotism or with sophistic attempts to discredit it by handcuffing it to the latest list of illiberal “outrages” as Matt does here. So another white guy reacts to the concept of white fragility by cranking out several thousand irony-shattering words that only serve to exemplify it. We can do better.
Who would have guessed that someone who buys DiAngelo's claptrap would come along and try to refute Taibbi's takedown by 1) saying "well, he just exemplifies white fragility" and 2) by calling him a "white guy"?
There’s no doubt that charges of passive racism (silence is complicity) put whites in the bind you describe. Why not acknowledge that and wrestle with it honestly?
Your reference to this as a takedown is revealing and helps me clarify my reaction. Matt does seem to be devolving into the culture of “owning” and “destroying”
opposing viewpoints that passes for discourse among the logic-you-with-facts crowd. It dawns on me that Matt’s work may be more of that mode than I realized. So thanks for that.
Hysteria about "white supremacy" is the McCarthyism of our time (with no help from Joe Stalin). From "reds under the bed" we have gone to "white supremacists under the bed". Guess what? It ain't real. The richest ethnic groups in America are non-white. "White supremacy" is a useful myth however.
One of the characteristics of our time is that hysteria is frequently inversely related to the facts. In China under Mao, "capitalist roaders" were supposedly everywhere and subverting everything. At that time, the number of actual "captialist roaders" (outside of jails and death camps) was around zero. China has vast number of very real "capitalist roaders" these days, but no hysteria. Hitler was hysterical about the supposedly omnipotent "Jews". The power of penniless refugees is not apparent to me. Hitler knew better. Not to be outdone, Stalin had his "doctors plot" (also involving Jews) and his famous show trials. Khrushchev admitted that it was all a fraud.
Now we have "white supremacy" and "racists under the bed". The very magnitude of the mania shows how false it is. The dominants ideology of our time is "diversity" (really racial quotas). For ever real Klan sympathizer, America has 100 (or 1000) "diversity" fanatics determined to find the "reds under the bed" (make that "racists under the bed").
Racism is very powerful in America, PC racism that is. Just the facts. Let’s try college admissions. Quote
“How much harder is it for an Asian-American applicant? Mr. Zhao and the complaint cite 2009 research by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade that found an Asian-American student must earn an SAT score 140 points higher than a white student, 270 points higher than a Hispanic and 450 points higher than an African-American, all else being equal. So if a white applicant scored 2160 on the SAT, lower than last year’s Harvard average, an Asian-American would need to hit 2300, well into the 99% percentile, to have an equal chance at getting in.”
So racism is actually quite real in the U.S. Anti-Asian racism is pervasive and profound.
If “white racism” and "white supremacy" were even trivially real, whites would be the richest group. The truth is otherwise and the numbers aren’t even close. Average family income for Indian Americans ($107,390), Jews ($97,500), Taiwanese ($85,566), all Asians ($74,245) is greater than Whites ($59,698). As can you see, non-white ethnic groups are at the top and Jews earn (far) more than non-Jewish whites. "White supremacy" is a useful myth however. Don't give it up.
One or two cherry-picked data points don't carry enough weight to falsify white supremacy as a historical reality in this country. That said, your imagining that they do may be simply an honest mistake.
You've misapprehended the phenomenon of white supremacy, which is- fortunately- more about legacy impacts than present-day official policies. But- unfortunately- the burdened past accounts for a lot of present-day injustice.
There's a tendency by many Americans to use the word "history" as a synonym for "nothing to see there, move on." If only it were that simple.
The self-ordained wokies have different problems in regard to superficial approaches to history: it's as easy to cherry-pick data points that serve to conflate the impact of the past with the present- as if nothing has changed- as it is to dismiss the past as over and done with.
Neither extreme gets a researcher within range of authentic historical insight.
There's also the fallacy of Presentism, which gets exploited for the purpose of partisan ideological narratives of all sorts- including both neoJacobin statue-topplers on the Left and the lunatic fringe of White Supremacists who would reimpose slavery as a "natural economic order." Historical scholars worth their salt view Presentism as a flaw to be avoided. It's a travesty of the discipline.
The very high incomes of Jews and some Asians (dark-skinned) are hardly cherry-picked data points. Japanese-Americans were intensely discriminated against for 100+ years. They were locked up in internment camps during WWII. They are (by some measures) the most successful group in America.
Jews have been discriminated against forever. They are (as a group) highly successful.
Real "white supremacy" disappeared about 60 years ago. In the period when "white supremacy" was real, black and white incomes slowly converged. Since the Civil Rights act of 1965, convergence has slowed or stopped.
You're still relying on less than a handful of cherry-picked data points, and they don't gain any more probative value just because you insist that they aren't cherry-picked. All you have is a useless shorthand summary that you imagine closes the case.
"But- unfortunately- the burdened past accounts for a lot of present-day injustice. "
Actually it is the RECENT past---legislation passed since the Clinton 1990s---that most burdens black and whites and everyone other color in the 99%. All of this antiracism hoo-hah is basically Dem-sanctioned noise to misdirect attention away from this fact. Read Thomas Frank, "Listen, Liberal," and then come back to this thread with your book report.
This is not ot deny effects of racism. But the current program isn't going to lead anywhere, politically. It is based on shoving noses into racism and racializing every tiny thing. That is obvious. It is not going to lead to any kind of real political movement. Why isn't BLM making speicific political demands: single-payer health care; cancellation of student debt; money spent on infrastructure and houseing instead of trillions going to Wall Street; etc. The movement's demands are childish and pathetic. They will never lead a genuine poitical movement that improves the conditions of the whole 99%. "Color-tested" is similar to "means-tested." FDR's genius was to grasp that SS must be for all. Later, Medicare must be for all. Not "just" for the poor. Whining about grievances does not substitute for a genuine poltiical program. It is truly pathetic that Biden ---one of the worst of the racist, two-faced Dems---is profiting from this race kabuki.
"But the current program isn't going to lead anywhere, politically. It is based on shoving noses into racism and racializing every tiny thing."
You don't have to lecture me on that point; we agree, as my other posted comments should show.
"Actually it is the RECENT past---legislation passed since the Clinton 1990s"
The worst impacts of legacy racism derive from formerly enslaved people given their "freedom" in 1865-66- "freed" to make their own way in the world their ancestors were carried off to. With zero assets, no real estate property, no social capital, and no literacy skills. And then later on, after some of them managed to make it anyway, they got their most successful communities burned to the ground and they were subjected to forced expulsion. (The same thing happened in the same era to the Chinese in parts of California, fwtw.)
That's the real core of the injustice.
On the positive side, for milennia it's been the historical norm for nations and empires to cover up disgraceful and unpleasant history like that, and here we are in the United States of America, airing it out. Which is part of what American idealism is all about.
If “white racism” and "white supremacy" were even trivially real, whites would be the richest group. The truth is otherwise and the numbers aren’t even close. Average family income for Indian Americans ($107,390), Jews ($97,500), Taiwanese ($85,566), all Asians ($74,245) is greater than Whites ($59,698). As can you see, non-white ethnic groups are at the top and Jews earn (far) more than non-Jewish whites. "White supremacy" is a useful myth however. Don't give it up.
This is an excellent post. Historically, the degree of hysteria in a witch-hunt tends to be inversely proportional to the number of witches being hunted.
Overwhelming the top positions of wealth and power in this country are held by whites. This doesn’t mean there are not millions of poor white people who are struggling. Regarding the statistics on the Asian populations you provided, I would say you have intentionally left out any statistics on the wealth/income/education levels of black and brown skinned people because you can have one of two reactions to those gaps: 1. There is something biologically or behaviorally wrong with black and brown people or 2. Systemic racism exists. To your other points: Asian population (specifically Indian, Korean, Taiwanese, many Chinese, etc) statistics reflect waves of wealthy and highly educated immigrants who attain highly skilled positions (both recently, but starting in the 1960s). There are also poorer Asian subpopulations that are not discussed as often. I would also add that anti-Asian racism is very much alive and well and it is almost more socially acceptable to stereotype and mock Asians than any other racial group in the US. My last point would be that colorism has always been a part of the racism of this country, and a myriad of studies and data have shown that darker skinned people (even within a race) fare worse in this country.
“Overwhelming the top positions of wealth and power in this country are held by whites”
A typical statistic is that 3 Supreme court members are Jewish. Jews are not 33% of the US population. A similar pattern can be found in Congress (8.4% Jewish) and the Federal courts (19% of appellate court judges are Jewish). Do you really want to claim that non-Jewish whites are biased in favor of Jews… Or will you go for the “Jewish conspiracy” theory…
“I would say you have intentionally left out any statistics on the wealth/income/education levels of black and brown skinned people”
Sorry, but my intent was to show that Jews and Asians are more successful in America than non-Jews and non-Jewish whites. That just happens to be true.
“To your other points: Asian population (specifically Indian, Korean, Taiwanese, many Chinese, etc) statistics reflect waves of wealthy and highly educated immigrants who attain highly skilled positions (both recently, but starting in the 1960s).”
That turns out to be “untrue”. Asians in America were highly successful long before the 1965 law change. See below from the New York Times.
“Success Story, Japanese-American Style By William Pettersen New York Times (1923-Current file); Jan 9, 1966”
“Asked, which of the country's ethnic minorities has been subjected to the most discrimination and the worst injustices, very few persons would even think of answering: "The Japanese Americans." Yet, if the question refers to persons alive today, that may well be the correct reply.”
“The history of Japanese Americans, however, challenges every such generalization about ethnic minorities, and for this reason alone deserves far more attention than it has been given. Barely more than 20 years after the end of the wartime camps, this is a minority that has risen above even prejudiced criticism. By any criterion of good citizenship that we choose, the Japanese Americans are better than any other group in our society, including native-born whites.”
Actually, Asian-Americans were known to be highly successful much further back, as were Jews. By 1920, Jews were already 20% of the entering class at Harvard. Quotas (bad, very bad) were then imposed to keep Jews out of Harvard. Now (good, very good) we have quotas to keep Asians out of Harvard.
It is quite true, that the post-1965 Asian immigrants to the US were/are considerable more elite than the earlier waves. The earlier waves were distinctly down-scale, at least when they arrived. So were the immigrant Jews of the period (downscale as a group).
However, the earlier waves of Asian immigrants were highly successful anyway as mentioned above (as were the Jews of the same period). Of course, they faced much higher levels of discrimination and prejudice, but were highly successful in spite of the obstacles they faced.
However, Asian success did not end with the earlier waves. Today, the children of poor Asian immigrants are excelling in the very same public school systems where NAMs are failing. For example, 75% of the kids going to the Stuyvesant (one of the specialized high schools in New York City) are Asian. Their parents are hardly rich. Around half of the kids are eligible for free lunches. The kids eligible for free lunches are disproportionately Asian.
Indeed, a generation ago Scientific American published a study showing that the children of poor Vietnamese immigrants were thriving in the same schools where black and Hispanic children were failing. See Nathan Caplan, Marcella Choy, and John K. Whitmore, “Indochinese Refugee Families and Academic Achievement,” Scientific American (1992), 36-42. Quote
"The scholastic success of Asian children is well recognized. Their stunning performance—particularly in the realm of science and mathematics—has prompted American educators to visit Japanese and Taiwanese schools in an effort to unearth the foundations of these achievements. Experts recommend that American schools adopt aspects of their Asian counter-parts, such as a longer school year or more rigorous tasks, in order to raise the scholastic level of US. students. Yet there is no need to go abroad to understand why these children do so well. The achievement of Asian-American students indicates that much may be learned about the origins of their triumph within the American school system itself.
More specifically, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, devastating political and economic circumstances forced many Vietnamese, Lao and Chinese-Vietnamese families to seek a new life in the US. This resettlement of boat people from Indochina offered a rare opportunity to examine the academic achievement of their children. These young refugees had lost months, even years of forma schooling while living in relocation camps. Like their parents, they suffered disruption and trauma as they escaped from Southeast Asia. Despite their hardships and with little knowledge of English, the children quickly adapted to their new schools and began to excel."
That's the longest straw man fallacy to date ! congratulations ! So please explain why there are so few minority billionaires that just so happen to be political king makers here in the US ? Every election both fake parties report on the ring kissing ceremony every candidate must do and every one of them are white.
I think it’s asking a lot for those suffering racism to not be emotional. And with so much science positing that facts don’t change people’s minds — with highly educated people being particularly resistant — I think emotional engagement is unavoidable.
'Those suffering from racism' hmm, it is actually a form of racism to lump all 'white people' together as if they are a monolith. Tell that to proud Irish, who were being enslaved by the British long before the white man discovered the African slave trade. The W.A.S.P. discrimination against Catholics and Jews has nothing to do with skin color. If you choose to see it through that prism, it would be white on white crime [although Jews are technically not white, and many dont even look white]. This all still exists today to varying degrees. Not to mention the hard left violating the civil rights of Jews on college campuses around the world.
As well, There were riots in the streets of Boston in the 70s when forced integration of schools happened, and it had little to do with white vs black racism. The Irish didnt want to break up their communities and schools they came here to start. Many of them asked why the solutions to other people's problems should happen at their expense.
And I havent even gotten to the rot within the BLM movement, the Dem Party, and many some of black culture that normalizes bigots like Louis FaraKKKhan, the black David Duke. He is the equivalent of a Grand Wizard of the KKK. Yet he was given a prominent position at Aretha Franklin's funeral next to Bill Clinton, He smiled for pics with Eric Holder after... and thats after years of pis with Barack Obama, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, and many many more.
Bottom line: there is a tragic irony in the fact that racism is also color blind. It is possible for non-racists to be proud of who they are, and be color blind about judging people by the content of their character, and not by the color of their skin. I am firmly in the MLK camp on this. And as a proud Jew myself, I am proud of how many devout Jews walked with Dr. King to fight for the equal rights of black people and all minorities in America.
If you understand that it is "asking a lot for those suffering racism to not be emotional", what do you understand of the emotional response to being falsely accused of being racist?
What you’re describing is the pain of being called racist as it’s commonly understood (bad white person with active hostility toward brown and black people). It’s also part of the fragility the book describes. As painful as that is, does it really measure up to being an object of racism?
If you think of racism as a system more than an act, and worry more about that system than your own innocence, it helps reframe things. At least it did for me.
By most thoughtful definitions, "everyone" is "racist." "Racism" simply means having conscious or unconscious biases, preferences, beliefs--and without POWER to enforce discrimination, it is merely bias. Institutional racism, by far the most damaging form of racism, is prejudice plus power (P + P = R). Structural inequity should be the focus of activism, IMHO.
So personal accusations in some sense technically can't be "false," (i.e., we all have biases) but I think the more important question is: "what part does individual confrontation (such as that which DiAngelo trains people to do) play in reducing inequality?" I've read her book, I've participated in anti-racism forums and book clubs, and I conclude that the individual and interpersonal "self growth" realm mostly misses the mark, if we want to make any progress in our lifetimes that improves the material conditions, health and safety of regular folk. Regular, individual white folk who aren't part of organized bigoted groups are doing little to hurt people of color directly. But bringing about policy, systems and structural change does require that regular folk recognize that discrimination and inequity are real.
The police kill far more whites (see the cases of Justine Damond and Tony Timpa) than blacks. Of course, whites don't riot (these days). I tried Google with "justine damond" and "police killing" and got 2,420 hits. By contrast, "george floyd" with "police killing" got 2.3 million hits. "tony timpa" with "police killing" got 2,750 hits. Some lives are more important than others.
do you think in percentages when you quote these figures? Google it. Black people are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than are white people. They are far less of the population than white people. So it is not meaningful to say, "police kill far more whites..." As for the media, when there is a PATTERN, it tends to show up. There IS a pattern and practice of excessive use of force against black people. Under-reported for a variety of reasons is that the people killed most, REGARDLESS of race, are those in mental health crisis.
The police kill far more whites (see the cases of Justine Damond and Tony Timpa) than blacks. Of course, whites don't riot (these days). I tried Google with "justine damond" and "police killing" and got 2,420 hits. By contrast, "george floyd" with "police killing" got 2.3 million hits. "tony timpa" with "police killing" got 2,750 hits. Some lives are more important than others.
The context is rather clearly police activity and yes, white people don't riot in response to police killing of whites. Sports riots do occur. However, they seem to attract people of all races. The worst sports riot in modern times was in Egypt.
So you're saying there were no whites rioting in the Floyd riots ? Are you serious ??? What a steaming load of generalization ! White people never riot unless other races are included... Do you actually believe that horse shit ? Can you back your BS claim ?
You're leaving out a few points in order to provide that conclusion:
1) Situations of chronic injustice have a way of eventually leading to eruptions on the part of the aggrieved populations. A particular event is merely the tinder for the fire; what really counts is the amount of kindling that was gathered around it. Consider the 1770 Boston Massacre; in isolation, it was simply a matter of the British troops firing in self-defense on a mob that was tormenting them, and those troops were in fact acquitted of murder charges (defended in court by John Adams, no less.) In context, the harassment and violence was about popular opposition to the wider policy of being remotely policed by the British Crown. And one thing led to another.
2) We're in the era of the Phone Camera now. So a lot of things that used to be relegated to hearsay accusations are now documented. And sometimes that visual evidence is so dramatic, and the aspects of what's depicted are so indisputable, that it draws a lot more attention than text accounts of the event.
3) The video evidence of the rioting, vandalism, looting, and arson in regard to the most recent civil disorders makes it clear that (some) whites do riot, along with (some) African Americans, Latinos, and Asians. All of which is deplorable, and counterproductive.
Fortunately, the rioting is at an order of magnitude less than what it was in the 1960s. And most of the wishful thinking about the prospect of it increasing appears to be coming from the White Supremacist Right.
I know there have been tens of thousands of protesters, if not hundreds of thousands. That much is indisputable.
But I challenge you to find me an authoritative estimate that the number of "rioters" (i.e., those committing arson, looting, vandalism, and other serious crimes) have numbered in the "tens of thousands."
Otherwise, it's going to appear that you're one of the people indulging in wishful thinking, with that exaggeration.
However, most of those arrests have been for failure to disperse or curfew violations. Arrests for failure to disperse- which include most of the curfew violations- are not in the same class of offense as rioting or looting, and those charges are very often dismissed once the purpose of breaking up a spontaneous mass protest has been served.
I don't want to underplay the rioting or the violence. It's a bad, wrong thing. But I'm old enough to recall the Watts riots of 1965, the riots in 159 cities nationwide in 1967, and the riots in inner city neighborhoods across the country in 1968 in the aftermath of Martin Luther King's assassination. Some of those riots lasted up to a week, and several required the deployment of the National Guard to return order to the streets.
The death toll from the week-long 1967 Detroit riot alone was 43 people. That's nearly three times the number of people killed in this recent wave of civil disorder. But no one then was granting serious credence to the possibility that the entire nation was on the verge of a civil war, other than the extreme fringes of the Left and the Right. The protests we've seen over the last couple of months have a vast multiethnic group of participants with a much, much greater proportion of nonviolent protesters, compared to the fraction carrying out criminal acts of violence and rioting.
Incidentally, the 1967 Detroit riot was widely reported in the American press of the day as "the deadliest riot in American history", or "the deadliest riots since the 1863 anti-draft riots in New York during the Civil War." Both claims are incorrect, although almost no one realized it at the time. I only found out within the last few years that the deadliest and most costly riots in US history were carried out by white people who marched into black neighborhoods in several cities and burned them to the ground. Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921 was worse. Wilmington NC in 1898 was worse. There were several other "riots" by American whites targeting the black population that had a death toll similar to Detroit, some of which were carried out to drive out the entire black population. In California, similar campaigns were carried out against the Chinese, in cities like Rio Vista in the Sacramento Delta.
@Evan Rentschler "logic-you-with-facts crowd" -- So reason, science, logic, and epiricism is useless and counter-productive when discussing race? How foolish is that?
It’s a reference to a certain internet “type” who insists on arguing over the formatting in the third pie chart in Appendix F in order to derail debate and avoid engaging in a humane manner.
How? If being color blind is racist, and paying attention to color is racist, and basically everything is racist, then nothing is. And you have no argument. It's hysterical, and also incredibly frightening, that people think everything now is about color, and we can't escape it, and we're doomed to behave in XYZ ways b/c of our color, BUT BY GOD KEEP DEMONIZING WHITE PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY'RE THE ENEMY. When frankly, my dear Scarlett, white people have no more control over the situation of their birth then you do.
The example of Jackie Robinson is telling. White people were racist for keeping him out. Then they were racist for letting him in. And now, when we celebrate "42" day each year in MLB, then that's racist, too. Because it's racist to think that Jackie had anything at all going for him as a man who put up with a lot of abuse while pioneering the participation of blacks in baseball, which white men allowed, which was racist, but thinking Jackie was great is racist, and OMG does the circle ever end??
When loving each other is dismissed as a solution, then society has no hope. You've written yourself into a corner and there's no way out.
The scam anti-racists that Taibbi is condemning want to create a situation where the problem can never be solved and that the solution is to hire more and more anti-racist consultants to find more and more racism so that more consultants need to be hired.
Real anti-racists, like MLK Jr want to heal society so that the most virulent forms are racism are banished and we can all just get along. I am Jewish. Every so often a non-Jewish friend will make a seemingly anti-Semitic comment. Instead of shaming them and forcing an apology, I ask them what they meant. At this point their eyes open wide and they start apologizing like hell. My response is, you don't need to apologize; you did not hurt me or hurt my feelings; I know you are a good person. Just tell me what you meant. They then tell me. I am not trying to win an argument or score points or make them feel bad. Later on, they might be talking and then interrupt themselves to say they are going to use another potentially anti-semitic term. We talk about the term and then get on with talking.
I think the other scam is trying to make simple interactions like that into overly-legalized gyrations. So rather than saying "what do you mean?" we have to say: “Would you be willing to grant me the opportunity to repair the racism I perpetrated toward you in that meeting?”
Language must now become a tortured obstacle to actual communication.
No, “paying attention to race” is NOT racist. And who is saying whites were racist for letting Robinson play? And who is saying we shouldn’t celebrate him (as DiAngelo says, we just need to tell the true/whole story). Your whole argument is based around refuting a point that no one is making.
I dispute the straw man claim. If anything, Matt is the one foisting one on his readers by focusing on the essentialist aspects of DiAmgelo’s argument while ignoring all practical applications the text offers.
As for ad hominem, I indulged myself while responding to someone who asserts that this is the “dumbest thing ever written.” Everyone is welcome to their opinion, but Matt’s ratio of gonzo to thoughtful got the better of him throughout the post.
It is interesting that the most prominent leftist purveyors of anti-identitarian arguments are white guys. There’s a thin line between ad hominem and observation.
That's not "interesting", it's the inevitable consequence of *specifically targeting* white guys as reprobates, sinners, and oppressors. Wow, it's interesting that my anti-rabbit eradication program seems to be resisted mainly by rabbits. Interesting! P.S. I'm not white in the slightest
"It is interesting that the most prominent leftist purveyors of anti-identitarian arguments are white guys."
Not true. Many people of color recognize that the hegemony of the thought police and the heads I win tails you lose version of ferreting out racism north south east and west is bad for them personally and for African Americans generally.
There are certainly notable exceptions like John McWhorter and Francis Fukuyama in recent times, but I could expand the list of White males with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Michael Tomaskey and the list goes on.
I’d add that one of the more interesting storylines this election cycle is black voters supporting Biden in droves. One reasonable interpretation is that identity politics carries far less weight than perceived electability for many black Dems, at least this year.
“one of the more interesting storylines this election cycle is black voters supporting Biden in droves.”
I thought that the only reason Biden carried the nomination after an abysmal start was that he was going to get a huge boost from black voters in South Carolina, and other states. How is it an “interesting” storyline, if it was entirely expected? And how can you read a “reasonable interpretation” into something that was taken for granted from the outset?
There was nothing to guarantee that Biden would win South Carolina. In fact, until he did, it was virtually a "Hail Mary." Rep. Clyburn's endorsement certainly gave it the boost it needed, but there was no certainty until it happened. Until that primary win, Biden's campaign was barely on life support. One thing that Biden's S. Carolina win made clear is that (if you must make generalizations) black voters, as a block, are pragmatic. But there is clearly no monolithic "black vote."
As you say, Biden got off to a poor start. If you buy the narrative that many black voters’ primary concern is an electable Dem, it’s just as plausible that black voters might have looked elsewhere.
Clyburn’s endorsement also appears to have been crucial in S.C. I’m not sure that was preordained.
You may have access to a lot more inside information than I do. It never seemed a given to me.
wtf is a "people of color"? The book focuses on the foundational divide in America, which is black and "white." White meaning a social caste, not a phenotype, that includes pretty much everyone OTHER than native black people.
I expect you understood my point despite your dissatisfaction with the nomenclature preferred by quite a few people of color. Such as the historian, member of the UCBerkeley history faculty, who recently wrote a letter making this very point.
Logic and debate (and the attendant avoidance of logical fallacies) wasn't resolving Black/white racial gaps rapidly enough and needs to be abandoned under the latest "thinking" on the left.
I wasn't aware logical debate was ever happening surrounding this issue on either side of the fake left/right paradigm that obscures the true top/bottom divide.
Please show us examples of how the fake left/right were resolving racial gaps created as cover for the elite......
I'm not familiar with the fake left/right paradigm you are pointing to (but open to the possibility). I think back to Milton Friedman vs. Phil Donahue or Baldwin vs. Buckley type of vigorous discussions. I'm not sure there are many recent examples (featuring established intellectuals vs. youtube personalities) due to pressures around platforming as endorsement (perhaps Jordan Peterson vs. Michael Eric Dyson).
Elevation of collective identity over individual identity only ends in Hatfields and McCoys. When has it ever ended well?
The grievances won't be solved by more identitarianism, only worsened. Growing up in mostly black schools, I saw the disempowering nature of bad parents telling their kids the system was rigged against them, robbing them of agency.
If the refs are biased against you, walking off the field isn't the thing to do. Keep playing, and try to win in spite of the biased refs. The racists have less power than they ever have, but the identitarian message is a way to feel ok in the short term as you walk off the field. In the long term, you fall into the helpless despair of victimhood.
It's obvious you didn't grow up in a diverse place, with lots of friends of different races. You'd realize how weird and unnatural this all is if you had. People are individuals first. Immutable characteristics are the least interesting thing about anyone.
The book sucks. I read it. It has no data behind it, and even less scientific thought. In fact, these idiots in the grievance disciplines don't even use the scientific method. It's just a bunch of sweeping generalizations that could be ranted by a drunk uncle, disguised with fancy jargon that fails to hide it's absurdity.
"The book sucks. I read it. It has no data behind it, and even less scientific thought. In fact, these idiots in the grievance disciplines don't even use the scientific method. It's just a bunch of sweeping generalizations that could be ranted by a drunk uncle, disguised with fancy jargon that fails to hide it's absurdity."
New York Times Book Review after reading Mein Kampf, c. 1935.
I actually do have a lot friends of different races. I’ve never found that it made me immune to bias, and I’ve done and said things that my friends excused or were too nice to point out over the years as ignorant or biased.
I don’t know what data would satisfy people on this topic. I’m in a position to discuss the book’s ideas with black family members on a continual basis and most of what she’s writing about is reflective of their experience. Again, I don’t espouse every tenet it proposes, but I’ve found it helpful the last couple of years.
As for identitarianism, I’m neither for nor against. It’s simply something that must be acknowledged and understood. I don’t think we can move forward until that happens.
You’re verging on non sequitur. Demands for evidence or data to support every point are a transparent bid to derail discussion. “What data would satisfy...” is a rhetorical comment on this bad faith mentality which you seem to be (unconsciously?) exhibiting.
Providing evidence/data for one's opinions is an elementary obligation of intellectually honest discussion. If you do not accept that obligation then I'd say it is you who are exhibiting "bad faith".
Your statement that "I don’t know what data would satisfy people on this topic. " seems to make it plain that your opinion has no evidentiary basis, or at least not one you're prepared to present.
I remember as a young child I started spouting this kind of crap to a black man. He told me I was full of it. There is something deeply condescending in the idea that small psychological biases in well-meaning people are powerful enough to destroy the lives of tens of millions of people.
Bingo, the black men I work with and deeply respect shake their head at this crap and see it for what it is, another white liberal egghead profiting from the color of their skin... their words, not mine.
I'll bet that's not what they say when you're not around. I'd wager they have a few stories they could tell about YOU. It's a specialized kind of survival tactic called "code switching." Look it up.
Yes, because you're a mind reader. Group identity is the predictor of what people think in your sick worldview. Every single human interaction revolves around power in the minds of the racialists. Individual thought and identity don't exist. We are all just mouthpieces for our collective groups. That's the bullshit that underpins your view of reality. It's sad.
People who believe in your non-sense are exactly the same as white nationalists. Switch out a few words, and it's a stormfront post. They love your ideology, because it mirrors theirs and validates their entire view, and helps them recruit. White nationalists believe in a wall that divides the races, and see it everywhere. You see the same wall everywhere as well. You are just on the other side of it. The fact that the wall is a fabricated social construct that only exists if you believe it is lost.
Tell a kid in a trailer park in eastern Kentucky that he's privileged, and see how that goes. The world you live in is one where the poorest white kid can go to Harvard with no issues, and the richest black kid can't get a job. It's deeply insulting and is a view held by losers to validate their own lack of success. You can either tell yourself you can do better and try to improve things you can control, or you can focus mental energy on things you can't control, and pretend that they are why you failed. We all know what the racialists do. I've never met an ethno-nationalist who wasn't a complete loser.
people like "angelO" *are* mind readers. Swallowing critical race theory wholesale is proven to sharpen the sensitive emotional antennae of the progressive.
Absolutely. One need look no further than the policies enacted during the '60s that were purported to "right the scales" and correct the damage from slavery and Jim Crow. The government successfully destroyed the black family, and made it explicitly clear to blacks that they couldn't compete on a level playing field.
No one is guilty of anything due to the color of their skin, and until we stop making an issue of it, nothing will get any better.
The same goddamn way every aggrieved population corrects the damage done. Stop being a victim and move up and on. Truly, this country has thrown money and resources at the disadvantaged black population since the 1960's. Is it perfect? No. But at some point we need to wonder if there is more than purported racism and the legacy of slavery that perpetuates the "damage." CRT is NOT a positive and helpful way forward! (And don't accuse me of white fragility for saying that b/c you have no idea how much melanin I have in my skin. )
Every ethnic group has a distinct history. All except two are immigrants, and only one was brought here in chains, had its labor stolen for 250 years, followed by 150+ yrs of de jure and de facto subjugation, terrorist attacks, unchecked discrimination, forced physical isolation, mass incarceration, and state-sanctioned lynching.
To lump that group in with immigrant groups makes no sense historically, socially, or politically. In fact, it allow others to hoover up the meager benefits (e.g. affirmative action) that were created to remedy the effects that singular history.
The government destroyed the black family when it allowed slavery, enforced black codes, allowed blacks to be excluded from the trillions in wealth-building handouts that went to white people, invented&maintained a system of redlining, initially excluded most blacks from Social Security, added white women to anti-discrimination legislation and affirmative action programs meant to redress past wrongs done to native blacks, etc. Shall I go on?
And condescending that once the small group has "purged" their guilt then the real problem will be solved, systemic issues be damned. Like making a walk of atonement and then going back to being an asshat.
We need an updated version of the B.S. Bingo game for race-speak in 2020: "we can do better" should be on there alongside "wrong side of history". I guess "this is not okay" as well. I need to write down 21 others.
Michael Tracey had a great riff on this new form of HR speak:
"To everyone who has been hurt by my poasts over the past several weeks: I hear you. I see you. Right now, I'm just taking the time to listen. I want to give you the space to go f*ck yourself"
As someone who works for a major corporation it has been interesting to see the book recommended by employers. And as someone who read it “before it was famous” it’s been equally interesting to watch its sudden rise.
I’m certainly in the camp that struggles with essentialism, and while I think implicit bias is an irrefutable fact I think there needs to be much more study of how biases manifest in behavior. Despite those positions I found the book to be full of challenging ideas for me to reflect on and apply to my own experience. I was motivated to do so so YMMV.
Evan, although I disagree with you, I commend you for your civility. It is encouraging to read.
I might point out, regarding implicit bias, that, even if you have great trust in the accuracy of social psychology experiments, many of which have been discredited in recent years, the experimental data does not unequivocally support it.
Thanks, Lex. I don’t usually do much online except read, but if I’m going to discuss something I try to operate in good faith.
I’ve followed implicit bias studies enough over the years that I think it very much exists and is even measurable. As I’ve noted a couple of times here, it seems less clear how it manifests as behavior, especially under stress. It seems to have become a more polarizing concept than I ever expected, so I’m always looking to see if there’s a motive behind a given study beyond honest curiosity.
Evan, as you might have guessed, I am skeptical of social psychology. There seems to be too much opportunity for the experimenter to pass along cues, even unconsciously. I was trained as a physicist, and electrons really don't care whether you are smiling or not when you adjust the voltage. People do.
However, this possibly argues against me, since people (= experimental subjects) presumably don't want to be considered biased! However, it's history that a lot of social psych research (from Milgram to Amy Cuddy) has been discredited.
Wow, very erudite sounding. But do fix the danglers!!
("As someone who works for a major corporation it has been interesting to see the book recommended by employers. And as someone who read it “before it was famous” it’s been equally interesting to watch its sudden rise. "
In the ever expanding list of things that can no longer be said, I don't see White Fragility, but an emerging Black Fragility. One does not overcome the state of their birth by discovering novel things to be upset about. I totally understand how many of these things are offensive and insulting, I don't see how recognizing and highlighting them leads to success for a group of people that needs success in this society more than anyone else.
- assuming that anything that happens to you is specifically because you are black, or because of "bias"
- responding with immediate denial and fragility when someone confronts you about the black crime rate
-demand white people be more conscious of their "bias" while being utterly dishonest about why they might have those "biases" in the first place
-being responsible for 52% of all homicides yet refusing to talk honestly about it
-insecurely redefining "racism" to mean "systems of oppression" so you can be personally racist to white people and then claim "it's not actually racism, I don't have systemic power"
-responding with threats of violence whenever challenged, unable to take any criticism without responding violently
-having to pretend that psychopathic career criminals, in many cases caught on camera committing heinous crimes or attacking people, were innocent good boys shot by the cops for no reason
Increasingly rhetoric like what I wrote above will become more and more common. So will the idea of "black privilege"
Black privilege:
- being able to violently loot, riot, commit violent attacks against innocent people, yet be fawned over by a complicit media apparatus, so terrified of being called racist, that they'll go out of their way to enable your violence
- be able to be the highest per capita perpetrators of interracial violent crime but never get challenged on this by media or society
-the ability to violently attack people, falsely accuse that person of calling you an n word, and then get away with it
- the ability to threaten white people, go out of your way to intimidate them, then claim to be victims when they fight back or arm themselves
- the ability to violently attack police and then claim to be a victim of police brutality when they arrest you
- the ability to commit minor crimes like fly tipping and then call any white person who challenges you a "Karen", post them online, and ruin their life
Black people don't have any special impunity for any of the criminal offenses you listed there. Some of the offenders have been known to try to play the system by using race, and sometimes they've succeeded, but white offenders have a record of doing that too, and a lot more effectively.
I want a system where no criminal gets to work the system that way, but it used to be that only white people could do it. So I don't wonder that there's some confusion in the process of getting to that goal.
I know it is 11 months later, but have to say this. I do NOT know you. We don't even know the same people. But the things which YOU are perceiving are exactly what I perceive, and your conclusions are exactly the same as mine. This Concordance is not a coincidence, nor an accident. Keep fighting and writing, please. Nobody dares say these things, but they need to be said, although there is a constant battle to suppress them. Good luck to you. Everyone like you is a beacon of hope to the rest of us who fight this uphill battle against the new Fascism promoted by the Progressive Propagandists.
The accuser is usually the doer. What you describe as Black Privilege is exactly what White Supremacists nations such as US, France, Belgium, Spain and the UK have been doing for the past 400 years.
White Supremacy: being able to violently invade, loot, commit attacks against innocent people, yet be fawned over by a complicit media apparatus, so terrified of being called Unpatriotic, that they'll go out their way to enable more violence through war.
-be able to be the highest per capita perpetrators (whites are a minority of world population) of violent crime against people of color and never get challenged by mainstream media
-the ability to violently attack people, falsely accuse those people or nations of being communists, terrorists, or dictators and then get away with it (Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War I & II, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya just to name a few)
-the ability to threaten democratically elected brown and black people, go out of your way to intimidate them, then claim to be victims when they fight back or arm themselves
-the ability to violently attack their military, defense force, & civilians and then claim to be a victim of when they fight back or detain your spies (agent provocateur)
-the ability to commit war crimes against humanity like bombing hospitals and then call any non-white person who challenges you a radical, socialist, terrorist, or communists!
Quazar this will be a fight to the bloody end. I will not let you drag Black people in the mud without a fight. History is not on your side.
Well, it's clearer that ever that you have delusions of grandeur in addition to being a poser and clearly a young, naive self-appointed white-splainer for the entire black community whose just discovered evil in the world and knows just how to combat it. Let me guess, you just finished your first year in college and now consider yourself both and expert and a crusader but most of all desperate to seem "woke."
You can read white responses to "White Fragility" antagonistically, but DiAngelo can be read antagonistically as well, namely by reading "white fragility" as one attempt among many by the professional-managerial class to position itself as universally understanding the needs of all races insofar as the needs of capital are concerned (hence, why so much of this is phrased in terms of "politeness," as a "basic level" of civil discourse in work and casual environments), and mandating new policies and ways of speaking which are supposed to resolve the problems of racism without transforming the capitalist system. Conveniently, this requires workers' induction into new discursive norms through education and training, which can further be used to discipline the workers this class oversees for capital. That is, racism isn't being "solved" by whites and won't be because, to the extent it remains a problem, it isn't an individual but systemic problem of capitalism, yet the banner of "anti-racism" is being used by this class to assert its moral and intellectual importance to capital through the attempted imposition of new norms which they would be needed to enforce, until technology is able to monitor and discipline workers similarly, with little or no intervention needed from such people. At that point, perhaps there will be yet another panic.
So foolish: Racism isn’t a systemic problem of capitalism, it’s a systemic problem universal to all organisms that have evolved systems of perception that categorize threat levels into known and unknown (explored, familiar territory vs. unexplored and unfamiliar).
Unfortunately for creatures that have evolved the ability to abstract, the negative aspects of our pre-cortical motivational systems —(the seeking (explorative impulse), fight (anger), flight (Fear), shame (separation sensitivity), lust drive, and care—underpin all our actions and all our thinking.
Hebrew and Christian religion identified this concept as original sin. Paul called it the Ancient Man. These woke (born again) zealots have rediscovered it as “implicit bias.” And like Calvinists, they believe we are all damned unless chosen. Hence the need to virtue signal to display a chosen status.
Every natural system is purposed within a social whole into a specific form which allows for certain expressions, rather than being directly transmitted from nature to immediate expression. Every choice is necessarily bounded by the set of choices which seem available to us, and what seems available isn't necessarily the same between a prehistorical man living in a cave, a 15th century Chinese peasant and a 20th century French aeronautics engineer. That is, nature expresses itself within the given material and social context rather than abstractly, from "nature" as such. I don't find this sort of crude biological reduction convincing in the least, for a few separate reasons in addition to the one above (e.g. what do we mean when we talk about "nature," or these conceptual derivations from human forms of organizing the world like biology?), but it should be obvious that human nature isn't a sufficient explanation for what specifically is happening here.
Pontificate as you wish, but you must identify the problem before you can craft a strategy.
Your assertion that racism is a systemic problem of capitalism is beyond naive. The problem of racism and original sin is billions of years old in the making. Our nervous systems have been developed into what they are, built as they are on the architecture of our ancestors, and our conscious minds are not able to fully regulate it (which seems to be what our frontal cortex is for).
Biology therefore provides a context, as nature has a way of selecting that optimum strategy. Sure the environment of prehistoric man and today is different. But 10,000 years is a short time, and that is similar than dissimilar. The biology of the man is unchanged.
For example, BLM and leftist organizations like it maintain the bizarre goal of "disrupting 2-parent family structures." In BLM orthodoxy, homosapien pair-bonding is bizarrely reframed as the product of whiteness circa 500 BC and onward, and not the optimal strategy for coping with the negative aspects of neotony over a period of 5 million years.
These terrible strategies are pushed at a horrific cost. Yet, no matter how much verifiable data refutes the foolishness; the ideological madness is resilient, metastasizing and rebranding. There is always an ephemeral and elusive force to blame. Each religion has its own preferred bogey man. This one prefers the terms structural racism, implicit bias, etc.
While I appreciate what you are trying to say, it seems that you have confused prejudice with racism. Racism is not biology, It is a manifestation of power. Prejudice on the other hand is exactly what you are describing here- fear of the other.
“ Identity politics clearly undergirds much of the illiberal excess on the left, and in the hands of activists and children it exhibits the same banality and misapplications as other -isms.“
lmao what in the hell is this even trying to say. Was this generated by a “think piece” AI?
I work on predictive algorithms/deep learning algos for a living. The way the grievance disciplines teach students like this guy is similar to training NLP algorithms:
Feed them training data (shitty unscientific essays), have them write their own essays, and grade them not for writing skill or knowledge of content, but for how much they parrot the professors radical beliefs. When the student is perfectly mimicking, the training is complete.
Not unlike a deep learning text generator, they don't understand what they are writing. They just spew it out.
The (oppressed group here) studies majors really are the Special Olympics of Academia, and I feel guilty for denigrating the athletes by comparing them to these morons.
Nice theory, but I’m too old to have learned much at the academy.
You can always ask me to clarify something I’ve written. Or you can make baseless claims about my motivations that reinforce your worldview. Whatever floats your boat.
C-/D response. How about this irony: your over reliance on Roget’s Thesaurus renders your response unreadable. You’re still using SAT vocabulary in 2020?! Have you no decency? Nice try with the verbal sophistry, but as that great American moralist of the 90s stated, “that dog won’t hunt.”
I should be clearer. America discriminates against poor people. So long as globalization continues poor black people will never get ahead; it is literally impossible for them to do so. No amount of action by white people can change that--except ending globalization.
All of our mainstream political dialogue until 2016 was designed to cover for the fact that globalism in its current form is a race to the bottom and only benefits those who can afford to benefit from it. The parties are split in just the right way to ensure nothing ever changes beyond superficial identity and morality policing BS. Trump was the first breakaway from that, and Bernie almost the second, but they really put their foot down on that one. Are any of you principled progressives willing to acknowledge the threat a puppet president like Biden poses for the republic? I won't ask you to vote for someone you hate, but please don't directly consent to the end of American democracy. Look what they did to your guy, and how they bought off Warren, these people are possessed.
It's cute how you think elections matter and that Trump isn't a globalist. He's just looking for leverage to increase his own fame and fortune. Didn't you read his book ?
You seem really committed to reinforcing outdated narratives and playing GOTCHA with people's words. You aren't arguing in good faith, or even offering any relevant specifics, you're trying to derail the discussion.
What's outdated about us living in a plutocracy ? The parties aren't split, they're owned. It matters not who wins any election in any of the 5 eyes allied nations anymore.
This is very interesting because I think anti-globalism in itself is a form of racism. Why? While I agree that globalism ultimately benefits the rich ruling class the most, it’s impossible to deny that globalism also helps poor countries to get out of their economic rut?
The way I like at it is, why should Western countries be the only ones that benefit from capitalism? What’s wrong with the citizens of Asia, Africa and Latin America now having access to capital to command the buying power that most of the developed world has enjoyed for decades?
The transition mechanism is the missing ingredient. If you can find a place where there are 25 million literate 12-year-olds available to work 72 hours per week for $1 per day, plus living in barracks and eating cold rice, you may profitably replace 5 million US heads of family making $22 per hour in a 35-hour week with health benefits and pension plans. If the 25 million pre- adolescents produce exactly the same as 5 million US heads of family, the transfer of profit -- the 'surplus value' -- generally goes to the consumer, the employer, and the capitalist. You can see how the transition is a form of colonialism, only it is sponsored by the self-colonizing government that encourages both slave labor and child labor. Your argument has merit, but the details of the transition process can be ugly, and end up exploiting the production workers, in fact forcing them into conflict with one another.
So if I understand correctly, the problem isn’t the wealth transfer to poorer countries but the way the wealth is transferred, which you believe is a form of neo-colonialism.
While I see why one would think that, I have disagree. Just speak to anyone in former developing nations that have benefited from globalism they don’t see it that way. While exploitation will happen at first, the citizens of China, Vietnam, and numerous other countries that have benefitted from globalism will differ in their view that they’ve been exploited.
What they now have is newfound wealth and confidence. Yes, it comes at the cost of the working class of richer countries in the West, it’s unfortunate, but we’re creating a much more balanced world now because of globalism.
Except for some vicious imbalances in America and Europe, you're right. Naturally, you don't talk to many 12-year-old wage slaves -- or to their parents -- in less-developed countries, but I'm sure the oligarch and Mandarin classes in those countries would love to bathe eternally in "globalization." It's interesting that you describe a world where the wealthiest 1/10th of 1% have Quintupled their share of total wealth since 1977-78 as "more balanced." When the new generations keep experiencing deteriorating lifestyles -- now 42 years and counting -- welcome to Orban, Trump, Brexit, Le Pen, and -- of course -- the Klepto-Autocrats such as Xi and Putin.
LOL @ this: "Yes, it comes at the cost of the working class of richer countries in the West, it’s unfortunate"
Who gave you the right to just callously throw their lives away like that? "It's unfortunate", really?
Do you even know how hilariously stereotypically modern-leftist it is, to dismiss the native working class in the process of virtue-signaling / fetishizing Other?
THINK about what you are saying. "It's unfortunate" to throw millions of people on the scrapheap but hey ho, whatever? Don't be ridiculous.
Gosh, Filius, your rosey view of globalism suggests to me that you do not understand very much about gloablism and international finance. For example---just one small one---I expect you don't understand a jot about tax havens, a prime mechanism of globalism that facilitates the creaming off and hidingn of profits made off the back of from developing nations that globatlists "invest" in. Please watch The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire,
Obviously this is somewhat off the USA racism topic, but it is central to the globalist agenda, and this is what has to be challenged for peope of all colors to have a chance at decent lives.
What you consider a rosey view, I consider realistic. The facts bear out that people in the developing world are better off now than they were before globalism. What exactly would be a better plan?
The irony of that view is that globalization has, by far, improved the material well-being of more people of color in the last 30 years than any other system over any other time period going back to the beginning of recorded history. It is just that they are Chinese, Vietnamese, Nigerian, Brazilian, etc. instead of African-American.
Not working out so well for the ME or South America and Africa these days though. It's a protection racket that loots and pillages one part of the world to lift up another. Let's not forget who has improved their material well being the most...the wealthy are stealing money from the our left pocket and putting it back into our right pocket after taking a cut for themselves.
you got crickets on this salient point, skutch, because obsessing about race frees people from looking at class, and wealth distribution. that globalisation has slightly helped the extreme poor into the only sort of poor category, while jettisoning rich people into the multi millionaire and billionaire status, is too icky for folks to concentrate on, never mind work to change. too many people's daddies are bankers, too many people want wealth themselves. safer to scream about white people than actually fix poverty and discrimination. And filius, there really is not much a of a middle class left in America, so that problem is solved too.
the fix is simple if unsavory to many, progressive income taxes which favors the middle class, small business and the firms themselves; only hurts well connected professionals, financiers and corp execs aka big political donors.
This is a topic of the utmost seriousness to me. While I enjoy Matt’s snarkiness when applied to political theater or partisan media, this piece does little to advance the conversation and he comes off as incoherent and out of his depth. A thoughtful disagreement with DiAngelo would be incredibly helpful, but this made no effort to be that. So yes, I think we can do better when discussing racism than Matt does here. Much better.
No no no. Rubin is a total fraud and a Koch bro funded tool. He has no values except lining his pockets and he has no self-respect.
He lets his guests openly disrespect him on his own show. I almost feel sorry for him as he’s obviously a troubled dude. But I could never take him seriously as a political or cultural commentator.
I'm not a fan of Rubin as I don't find him very smart or engaging, but I am all for this message getting out across ALL long-form platforms. I don't care if Rubin is your definition of a "fraud" or if he is a Koch bro tool (which is a silly statement), every faction of this country needs to hear this message b/c we are in deep trouble.
Rubin was unfairly maligned by these same woke people engaging in the current e-guillotine shenanigans. We need to welcome anyone who's willing to cross the aisle in good faith, Rubin is as inoffensive as they come as far as I'm concerned. The stakes are more than just "he said mean things". These are radicals trying to dramatically restructure our culture and the information we consume. We need to move past that juvenile BS, it's being exploited to avoid shining a spotlight on the corporate oligarchy running our lives (as they drain us for all we're worth until they can move to China's untapped potential with zero human rights or labor laws). Think about how egregious Spygate was and how the media still won't acknowledge their dangerous coverage of the saga. When media is working hand in glove with intelligence you might want to think about things beyond "Rubin is icky". I hope you're a teenager.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. And if you knew my views on economic policy, you might think I'm a Koch tool too. And yet I think we'd also find critically important areas where we agree, because we're both here.
Thanks Matt, I know it's probably uncomfortable to take a stand on this stuff, but I'm glad somebody is doing it. What's so objectionable about this kind of identitarian world view is not just that it doesn't make a lot of sense, but that it may be actively hurting many of the progressive causes we've all spent a lot of time working towards. I'm glad there's someone with your level of commitment and credibility paying attention.
Wow. I thought your article from two weeks ago on the media destroying itself was the best thing I'd read in a very long time. But this is better.
Matt, keep going. You're helping to save the country.
Matt sees the outcome of these policies, and the groupthink that will destroy their proponents, better than any author I can think of.
Agree. This would be a better world to live in if there were more journalist like Mr. MATT.
Agree 110%.
amen
LOL at thinking the dingbats will read this.
Yes on this article, the anti media diatribes are tiresome.
We need more articles like this -- the cultural authoritarianism is becoming unbearable.
I am the white mother of a mixed race daughter. I live in an ethnically diverse community, work in an ethnically diverse workplace and have friends and relatives who look very different from me.
Richard Leakey in The Making of Mankind posited that the real differences between people are cultural, not racial. Watching my little girl in the schoolyard playing with her diverse friends certainly illustrated that point of view.
Recently, however, I have learned that I am apparently the worst kind of racist because “I don’t see colour.” Of course I see colour, but it becomes irrelevant very quickly as friendships form and we focus on our similarities rather than on our differences.
I recently found this out about myself too, that I'm a racist. Apparently I'm a racist because I think people should be evaluated based on their character, rather than the color of their skin. I believe that what matters about a person is what they think, what they believe, how they came to those conclusions, whether they can or will argue in good faith, and most importantly what they choose to do.
But because I said this, I was labeled a color blind racist. I was also told that everyone is a racist, and that it's impossible not to be racist. To me, that is insanity. If progress isn't possible, what are we doing? There are serious problems in the world right now. There are existential problems that humanity may or may not make it through; climate change, and people don't think about it a lot but nuclear annihilation is still a possibility. But here we all are having these insane moments of inclarity, where actually not caring about the color of a persons skin is the new racism.
Racism in itself is a bad thing, obviously, and wherever it exists it needs to be extinguished. But I think it's important to recognize what is and what is not racism. Not everything is racism. Not every brutal police killing is racism. There is no doubt that some are, but not all of them. Some are just simple police brutality.
To me this movement smacks of seeing echoes of past injustice, where perhaps current examples of that injustice are relatively less likely to happen. Seeing racists where perhaps we're only seeing echoes of racist policy that was established generations ago by actual racists. So the solution, to me, is some kind of mix of policy to address the problems, and people working to become more like you, Veronica.
And then, we need to address our more important problems. Because we do have them; climate change, wealth inequality, the threat of nuclear war. We can't care about racism if no humans are alive because our planet burned up. We can't live if the wealthiest among us control all of the wealth, and no one else has anything anymore.
I realize that I have unloaded all of this on your comment, but I've been reading a lot of comments and it all just came out. Thanks for reading.
I’m also the racist mother of a white daughter married to a wonderful Hindu Indian immigrannt with gorgeous, really dark skin she’s pregnant can’t wait to see their baby. He/she will be beautiful
if you can be fired for liking a Trump tweet, I don't know how anyone thinks polling can even be remotely accurate anymore.
Brexit being a perfect example. The media demonized leavers as racists and xenophobes, so everyone lied to pollsters.
Our government worked to subvert Brexit. Obama really did a number, telling the Brexiteers they would be moved to the end of the” queue”. Such condescending arrogance .his comment was so offensive it served to convince remainders to join Brexit
The population were lied to as well. Brexit is just basically an excuse for leaving the EU to sell the UK to America, so we can be bled dry for stuff like health care like the increasingly tragic USA.
This was so overwhelming and absurd. The issues of customs barriers and Ulster were totally off the radar till two years *after* the referendum. I joked at work in London in 2016 - "the queue to Dover will reach Manchester and Ulster will kick off again" and they thought I was completely mad. Idiots.
You need a Nobel prize motherfucker...you are killing it
Either the Nobel Prize for Literature, or maybe the Nobel Peace Prize...
Matt has been on a roll, that’s for sure! I would say the Pulitzer, but that has become a worthless joke these days.
It's a great tribute to Matt that this site has become a meeting ground between those social democrats and those rightists who believe civil liberties are not negotiable, the cornerstone of the country. If we're going to survive this very dangerous moment as a nation, we have to come together on that. If you're on the left, believe it or not, many Trump supporters agree with you on this life-and-death issue. I don't know anywhere else where this dialogue is even happening.
100%, I'm begging conservatives to listen to the sane liberals as the only way to heal the country. The multinational corporations are out of hand and doing absolutely anything to maintain their stature in a period of moral and cultural stagnation and decline. We need Teddy Roosevelt back.
But at the same time, sane liberals need to recognize that a Trump victory is the only way the neoliberal establishment is going to be crushed. A Biden victory will have them entrench themselves even more deeply until massive unrest is the only possible outcome as they cling panicked to their wealth and influence. Things are coming to a head and we need to put aside smaller side issues we can resolve later, the global neolib establishment has surrendered itself to foreign influence and is a clear danger to the republic. How many in our government have been bought by China? How do we recover from that without a pugilist like Trump? As scary as he may seem to you, he may be the weapon we need. Please think soberly about this and consider the people who hate him most.
Donald Trump is a hapless incompetent. He has no business as President.
With a tight rein and the understanding that he'd face prosecution if he involved himself in corrupt dealings, Trump might have made an effective Commerce Secretary, once upon a time. But that ship sailed long ago.
And the Commies are not going to take over once he's defeated for re-election.
Yes, and how many within the Trump administration have been bought off by Saudi Arabia and Israel ? So funny how people actually buy into conman Trump's baffle 'em with BS patriotism and scapegoating. We're just along for the ride now. Trump is not going to risk everything to save you, he never gave a warm runny shit about you in the first place.
so how many people...
I don’t know. Do YOU? Can you name names or are you just ranting?
I honestly do not care about Russia, or Saudi Arabia, or Israel. I want the USA to be free from all this PC garbage, or this constant indoctrination by a media that is more a surrogate for a political party. And that goes to the 99% of the MSM On le left and for the few of the right (Fox, Breibart, and Daily Caller....any more?)?
There is no left and there is no right. There's top and bottom and that's all you get to choose from. Left and right = divide and conquer just like race, religion, ethnicity, geography, superstition, and what ever else the elite can come up with to divide the masses. Management 101 when you can back it up with violence.
Thanks for admitting to your xenophobia though, it does help explain your unwarranted fear of frightened folks desperately trying to change what they see as injustice within a good 'ol boy system that has kept 70% of the world's population under it's thumb for several centuries now.
The empire is dying and you can't vote your way out of it. It's not up for negotiation and hasn't been since the beginning.
100% correct. Left and right is bullshit. Rulers and helots are the two parties.
What xenophobia? The problem caused by branding anyone who disagrees with you with such damaging labels was one of the concerns in the article above.
Oh yes, just "a little corruption". I grew up in Africa, it is never a little when it is out in the open for everyone to see and then witness no legal ramification for such theft. Just leads to corruption permeating all structures of the government because the precedent has been set. In the end, nothing in the system will work without corruption
So spot on. Tucker, Steve Hilton, Tammy Bruce, Leo Terrell, Dave Rubin really got the ball rolling. The exodus from totalitarian Dem media and the cult devotion by once respectable, honest, popular figures who ordinarily rejected any engagement across the aisle who are real liberals have opened a pathway to finding a platform that unites people in a common purpose. To expose the corrupt deviant machinations that have stripped us of our civil liberties and how to unite and fight back.
Who could have imagined having open, tolerant engagement with those we once shunned ( left and right). It is the culmination of dissatisfaction with both parties. The refusal of both parties to hear our voices. Best think FHA’s happened in decades Bari Weiss, Naom Wolff Brett Weinstein, Leo Terrell,Russell Brand, Asra Nomani, Henry Cuellar, Andy Ngo,Seth Rogan, Matt Taibbi, Scott Adams, Maria Bartiromo,Victor Davis Hanson,Charles Payne, Caitlyn Jenner , Bill Binney,Robert Epstein, Ami Horowitz, Sharyl Attkisson, Lara Logan, Jamal Altimani, Steve Hilton,Lawrence Jones,Sonnie Johnson,Andrew Yang,Ian Miles Cheong,Rose McGowan-people who have had it.
My view of Trump as president is like what The Dude tells Walter when he wants to shoot the league manager in The Big Lebowski
“You’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole”.
What freedom ? When where we free in this country ? What makes you think Trump isn't just holding out for a bigger pay out after he leaves office ? He's never had any courage before, so why would he risk his life for you when he prides himself on screwing over everyone he does business with ?
Such interesting and crazy times we live in.
It strikes me as unlikely that the entire spectrum of political values could be evenly divided into right/left. Personally, I tend to think of myself as a liberal person; I think that the science of climate change is persuasive, I think that publicly funded higher education up to the first bachelors degree is a good idea, I think that a universal healthcare system is a good idea. Those things strike me as investments in the citizenry; a quality, well rounded education would help Americans be more apt to think critically even in times like these, to make our populace competitive on the global market; to be able to take the economic fight to the gigantic gorilla in the room that is China. To be healthier as a people to make that work likely, or even possible.
But I also am an ardent supporter of people's rights. I support our right to freedom of speech, even if it's something that I disagree with. I want to hear people speak freely, I want to be able to engage in civil discourse with them. I want to hear your response to comment, even if you disagree with me.
I support people's right to keep and bear arms. I do so myself. The last thing I would want to do would be to hurt or kill anyone else, but if it comes down to a life and death struggle, I want to come out the other side whole. I want my friends and family to be safe.
So I think there is a large middle ground that is disappearing from the public discourse, because that middle ground doesn't do anything to help either the right or the left; with a duopoly like American politics, the only way to distinguish either party is by exaggerating the differences. They (the political parties) focus on the margins of the political bases. And so we've been dragged to this point in our history by perverse incentives; the incentive to seek and validate the most extreme views that people may hold, and use that to get elected.
The middle ground isn't shrill enough, and we're not newsworthy. There's no advertising revenue in reporting about how reasonable people can get along even when they don't agree on every issue.
"I think that publicly funded higher education up to the first bachelors degree is a good idea."
Incorrect. This idea shows a lack of empathy. Your writing skills exceed those of most people. How are you at working on cars? Could you operate heavy machinery for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week? Are you a good hitter? How's your batting average? The examples are endless.
The average IQ is 100. I don't need to see anything more from you to know that yours is above that average. In general, you likely experienced school as positive, with occasional rewards for your performance. Maybe you weren't as good at some subjects as others, but overall, school was a good time and book learning suits you.
That's not how it is for everyone, but you project to come to your conclusion. Many, if not most, people do not find the experience to be rewarding. In fact it's torturous because they lack your innate abilities - your aptitudes. They must rely on "social promotions" just to graduate from 8th grade. They struggle through high school to get that diploma. And after they have it, they are barely literate, not because they didn't show up or try to make good grades. They just didn't have the aptitudes.
Why should they have to put up with 4 more years of that when they could be doing constructive work in the construction trade? Not only does this focus on education regardless of ability not help - it can piss a person off. It can make a person want to rebel against a system that only values book learning. It can prevent a person from learning real world skills, developing craftsmanship, being an apprentice to a journeyman in some trade. In fact, in America today, that's just what it does.
I never said that higher education should be required, but it should be made available for those who could make good use of it. Another thing I'd like to point out; education shouldn't be a pipeline to create a worker fit for a job. That can be one outcome of a quality education, but in my opinion it shouldn't be the primary focus. On the job training ought to serve that role. Education should serve to expose people to critical thinking skills, to familiarize people with the humanities, to create a well rounded person who is capable of tackling any number of varied problems that we can all expect to face in our lives. And I understand that people have different aptitudes; I'm not looking down on tradesmen; actually I am a tradesman myself!
I think that education is important; learning language is education, speaking and writing is education. Learning about our history is education, and that is so important for people to know, so that we can learn from that history and strive not to repeat the same mistakes. It's important to dig into the political revolutions in our history, species wide, so that we can recognize the pitfalls, and be on watch for them.
In the trades, especially apprenticeship programs, people tend to be paid to learn those skills! That is awesome, and something I'd like to see applied to public education in a wider sense; at this point it's the exact opposite.
I also have an issue with free college. If people want to earn the higher wages and enjoy the good times associated with the college experience, they should be the ones to pay for it. Not the rest of us, many of whom chose to risk lower wages and fewer parties to not be saddled with debt. In the countries where college is free, very few are allowed to go. In Germany it's around 30%, the US is around 70%. While I'd like to see lower rates of people wasting time and money on indoctrination, I don't believe that depriving them of the right to choose for themselves is preferable. In any case, the education lobby is hugely powerful and would never allow their admission dollars to fall by 60%. Even Bernie didn't propose lowering admission rates, but actually increasing them! This is a worst of both world's situation.
Point taken.
Oh My gosh! Tyler said, "I want to be able to engage in civil discourse with them. I want to hear your response to comment, even if you disagree with me" and it immediately happened! What is this crazy upside-down place where sanity reigns?
Tyler said nothing about mandating higher education, nor anything to suggest that trades and professions that don't require higher education aren't important and valuable. He just shared his own general political positions, one of which being that higher ed should be funded by the government up to the first bachelor's degree.
Education has become more like indoctrination. It's the Chinese model.
I think there's room for criticism of our curriculum. Or at least, there OUGHT to be room for criticism. I welcome it, for one.
When people make an argument with this structure, I push back against it. The structure goes like this; There's a problem with X, so we should get rid of X! I've seen this argument applied to religion, to government, to science, and to education.
I push back against it because of course there are going to be problems with those things. There are going to be problems with ALL things. It is a difficult job to determine what the problems are specifically, in each domain, and to resolve them. If the problem is that the government spends money inefficiently, the solution (in my opinion) shouldn't be to cut off funding for the government, it should be to make sure the government is spending money in ways that are transparent and efficient. If there are problems in academia, the solution shouldn't be to destroy those institutions of learning, but rather to study what exactly is happening in academia and to resolve whatever problems we find there.
If a scientific study comes out with an interesting finding that turns out to be false, the solution to that problem isn't to abandon science; the solution is to apply better and cleaner science to the problem, so that we can figure out what exactly is going on.
There isn't anything more dogmatic than Spearman's "g"- the supposed basis for IQ measures. And you seem to be fine with leaving that pedestrian concept unexamined. Look into the difference on how people with autism perform on Raven's Progessive Matrices vs. the Weschler intelligence tests. Yet both of them supposedly measure the same ability- "general intelligence", Spearman's "g"!
It's a crock.
Good point. It should have said, college or trade school. "Higher' education is sort of elitist anyway - the idea of it. The applied arts are where it's at. You also don't need college or even a high school diploma to be a critical thinker. Hell, you don't even need to read or write - though reading and basic math help to open a lot of doors - and there's nothing greater when you're a kid, then learning to read and suddenly having the whole wide world of books open up to you...I miss the era of books! If I had kids, I would encourage them all to learn trades that they can take with them to anywhere in the world. Travel would be the rest of their education; as would living in another country or culture. You can't get that through book learning.
I agree with you completely. The middle ground has no voice whatsoever, and I think it's because it doesn't polarize people and/or agree with "the narrative", and therefore doesn't make media outlets money. It's a form of censorship, which Matt also wrote about recently (in regard to COVID, but applies in this situation also).
That’s the crux of what is killing America. I feel as though caught between the steel doors of an elevator, slowly being crushed
You are just drawing an arbitrary line, like everyone else, based on consequentialism. The reason they are able to keep us divided is because we are arguing about the wrong things. Every policy decision is a decision about what to do or what to protect with stolen money from the citizenry (taxes) - and you will never get a sustainable, virtuous outcome when the foundation is theft. Extreme conservatives and libertarians want to draw the line of socialism at the law courts, police, national defence etc and the left want it at the opposite end to cover education, health, housing, UBI etc. This is all arbitrary.
At least the left understands that they want some degree of socialism, while the right somehow thinks they are against it. Everything the government does is socialist - free roads are socialist, free police are socialist, and socialism can only be funded by threats of violence/imprisonment.
If they made taxes voluntary the state would crumble and we'd live a free society where we wouldn't have to argue over where to draw that arbitrary socialist line. Privatize everything and imagine what kinds of checks and balances could be arrived at when you can actually withdraw your monthly or yearly funds from the private agencies that provide all the services we need, like arbitration and health care. Right now we have a fascistic/coorporatist Frankenstein nightmare of a system.
The argument we should be having is whether taxation is theft or not, and therby, whether the government is a moral institution.
We got rid of slavery by adressing the basic morality of the situation and it massively improved society in all kinds of ways. The same will happen when we get rid of the state.
“It's a great tribute to Matt that this site has become a meeting ground between those social democrats and those rightists who believe civil liberties are not negotiable“
I’m not exactly a “rightist” but a libertarian. Someone who is fiscally conservative (As long as is no Enron sucking up the staff retirement savings) , socially Liberal (as long as you don’t demand for me to accept the 120% of the progressive agenda or else Im Hitler), but yeah, I believe civil liberties are non negotiable. So you welcome to call me “ Hitler” or a “Decadent sinner who will go hell” If I couldn’t care less about people’s private sex lives. That’s individualism, isn’t it?
Individualism is the enemy of the status quo. It’s as though a meteor is going to hit,You know where, when and how to stop it, but you’re locked in an asylum,
and nobody can hear you scream.
My husband’s response is “ Godammit Gail! I know, what the hell do you want me to do about? One lunatic in the house is enough!. Not a good answer. It’s surprising how receptive those “ little people” are. Like the landscaper, plumber,roofer, carpenter,pool guy, cashier,deli worker,etc. They feel it. They know it. And they are otherwise invisible.
Truth!
"If you're on the left, believe it or not, many Trump supporters agree with you on this life-and-death issue. I don't know anywhere else where this dialogue is even happening. "
In the UK thankfully, we have Unherd.com, where you will find such writing. It's become a platform for the confluence of old fashioned liberals like me and the old working class who, post-Brexit have become completely unmoored from the modern virtue-signalling Labour Party.
The Triggernometry podcast on youtube too, is a fusing of these two strands.
I've given up on pretty much all other media, except I can't seem to stop trolling the Financial Times comments sections.....
I hear scary things about restrictions on free speech in the UK (criminal prosecutions for off-color jokes on social media, etc.), but perhaps they're exaggerated. If I may ask, what's the situation?
Have you seen Australia and New Zealand?
Taking note of the resources. Thanks guys.
James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose and Peter Boghossian (et al.) of Sokal Squared Hoax fame have and amazing website that has education, analysis and most importantly - strategies for combating Critical Race Theory.
Steal the motte and bomb the bailey!
https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/do-better-than-critical-race-theory/
Agree with you on unherd and triggernometry. Also John Anderson interviews and Glenn Show on youtube. https://heterodoxacademy.org/
amen
Absolutely agree. Liberals often aren’t these days.
Good point, and as a libertarianish type, I agree completely.
Another biting piece, a refreshing take on reality, and a superior articulation of anything I could ever express, despite experiencing and feeling the same way about these topics. There are two in particular:
"People everywhere today are being encouraged to snitch out schoolmates, parents, and colleagues for thoughtcrime. The New York Times wrote a salutary piece about high schoolers scanning social media accounts of peers for evidence of “anti-black racism” to make public, because what can go wrong with encouraging teenagers to start submarining each other’s careers before they’ve even finished growing?
“People who go to college end up becoming racist lawyers and doctors. I don’t want people like that to keep getting jobs,” one 16 year-old said. “Someone rly started a Google doc of racists and their info for us to ruin their lives… I love twitter,” wrote a different person, adding cheery emojis."
I caught the same NYT article and sent it around, equally shocked that this is considered normal and mainstream. Does no one see this is a repeat of the type of tactics authoritarian governments of both right and left engaged in?
But there is more important piece:
"For corporate America the calculation is simple. What’s easier, giving up business models based on war, slave labor, and regulatory arbitrage, or benching Aunt Jemima? There’s a deal to be made here, greased by the fact that the “antiracism” prophets promoted in books like White Fragility share corporate Americas instinctive hostility to privacy, individual rights, freedom of speech, etc. "
That's exactly it. It's a diversionary tactic to preserve, not cancel, privilege. Going on some sort of antiracist crusade is a lot cheaper than increasing corporate tax, going after private equity and establishing an expensive national healthcare system.
It's deeply depressing. What is to be done? Are those who see reality through and depite the fog of popular illusions a minority in just about every society in the world?
"What is to be done?" Here is my humble opinion (from one who risked his life escaping communism 40 years ago and now see my great America moving toward intolerant/oppressing society):
1. While there are serious problems on both the right and left, you needs to have a clarity on which problems that likely cause direst consequences. The clarity enables you to decide the side and to take actions. Having said that, It's quite clear for me to see that what the left is doing - cultural destruction (of books, movies, and statues) and increasing censorship in mainstream media, education and corporations- is taking the country toward a totalitarian society. Nothing is for scarier than this for me. With freedom, we always have hope and chances to improve our lives and society; however bad it is. Without it lives are miserable and hopeless as history shows us.
2. Assuming that you have same fear as I have, a couple things we can do are:
- Share with your loved ones, friends and neighbors what you think. This is important because the current mobs are trying to silent people who don't support them.
- Support and vote for people/organizations that are fighting for the same cause as your are.
Why are you assuming voting has anything to do with anything in a capitalist system that puts policy in the realm of the "free market" where only elites can afford it ? Don't forget the right is just as guilty of pushing corporate fascism and neofeudalism as the left. This fake paradigm hide the actual division which is top vs bottom. It's always been top vs bottom since the species stopped hunting and gathering.
What @Skutch says. Both "sides" of the corporate elitist fascist puppet parties coin will sell you any idea they think you will buy, in order to keep us all divided. We need to get out from under the idea that puppet politicians are who control things, and look at this as a top- down problem; follow the money and expose the corporations and puppetmasters of them and the politicians. The only way to solve is to unify from the bottom up.
You just made the case for what MUST be done! This is where the Republicans have failed epically. How to make people see the light, understand what they are either propping up or attempting to ward off.
We need a visible, vocal presence of those who have escaped oppressive, tyrannical regimes, love America and are passionate in messaging.
Exactly. For all the talk about raging against a corrupt system, so many of these people are blind to the fact that the real system would rather us bicker and burn down cities over this than actually address the root cause of income inequality. It's insane. It's really a perfect firestorm, too, because this hatred and division can clearly be perpetuated for a long time to come.
Honestly, people are so worked up over this, and they're acting alarmingly sheepish, that I really do not know if there's any righting this ship. It is scary.
+1
https://youtu.be/XdH38k0iUgI
Of course, Kurt, the truth is that the top 5% of earners pay 65% of Federal Income Taxes...the bottom 50% pay less than 3%. George was funny as hell, but like all typical liberals, maintained the religion's propaganda.
We all feel that way though "i dont know if theres any way to fix this". There is, us. We can't let them have a puppet in the executive branch. Say what you want about Trump, the neolib/neocon establishment HATES him. Learn how to keep oligarchal power at bay for another 4 years with this one weird trick!
> the real system would rather us bicker and burn down cities over this than actually address the root cause of income inequality
Why not say what you think it is?
Children reporting on each other and their parents. Don't we condemn Nazi Germany and Stalin and Mao for doing this. Of course, now its OK because the NYT says it is.
I subscribed to this site b/c I admire *Hate, Inc.*: that news media leverage hate to score readers is exactly right. But this is such a dismissive slam of DiAngelo. It doesn't address her argument; it's not clear whether or not Taibbi has actually read the DiAngelo's book. This is just "Let's get nasty about something naughty to get nasty about!" Using random quotes from DiAngelo for target practice. What a bumper crop of Hate. Why so defensive, Matt? Do you think racism is over now? If not, what are your ideas for how to stop the people in power from continuing to edge out whomever they can, i.e. those with the least power, a group that consistently includes blacks? If you've never seen a white person freak out when confronted with whatever demeaning/racist thing he or she said or did, then I think you're not paying attention. This is what DiAngelo's book describes: how people in power can stop defensively clinging to their power. How to recognize the knee-jerk discomfort/embarrassment/shame of being called out for acting superior-- and then let it go, and so maybe we might learn something. You've got the knee-jerk discomfort/embarrassment/shame part down pretty good, Matt, I think.
Of course I don't think racism is "over." That's absurd. I wrote two books on structural racism (mainly in the criminal justice system), an experience that was disillusioning even for someone who expected to find a system weighted against minorities. The issue is DiAngelo's prescription for dealing with racism is to massively increase the focus on race, at both a societal and individual level. Her simplistic binary view of the world - one is either on board with her conception of "antiracism" or a white supremacist - is a recipe for disaster, just like any doctrine that separates human beings into rigid categories of good people and bad people, citizens and uncitizens. This is the logic of the witch hunt and it's the reason a generation of young activists is on the hunt for lives to destroy, because in this theology the bad people are unredeemable agents of systemic evil and therefore not deserving of rights. This ideology does not believe in the common human experience, generosity, love, or spirituality. It assumes that people ultimately are ruled by bottom-line racial motivations in the same way Leninists assumed people were their class affiliations. It's an extremely dangerous idea, and needs to be identified as such, hence the article.
Matt, I appreciate your ability to do a vicious takedown, but you still aren't answering the question: What alternative(s) are you proposing? The racial wealth gap is as bad as it was 50 years ago, and Black incarceration rates are still horribly out of proportion. You researched and wrote about these things, but they aren't improving. I would argue with DiAngelo that white folks unwillingness to 1) acknowledge structural racism and/or 2) to be willing to investigate our cluelessness on racism (that helps perpetuate these racist structures) is a major impediment to progress. This comments section is rife with white denialism about racism, excuses about why white folks don't need to do anything, and many of the same scripts that DiAngelo talks about. This is Exhibit A in how hard it is for white folks to have meaningful conversations about racism. And so what is your better "science" based solution that doesn't create any division? -- please enlighten us on the specifics. Also, please invite DiAngelo onto Useful Idiots to respond to your attacks in person.
Typical troll response. "OH SO YOU DON'T HAVE A SOLUTION TO THIS DROUGHT, HMMMM? THEN WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME I'M DUMB FOR THROWING VIRGINS INTO VOLCANOS TO MAKE IT RAIN!?!"
Accurate summary of every critique so far.
Hero 🦸🏾♂️ of free speech and protector from counterproductive mob justice. Thank you 🙏🏼
Matt is not obligated to propose an alternative in a critique of the book and its message perhaps other than "whatever the author is proposing do the opposite." It is possible to point out a bad idea without necessarily having a ready made alternative. The criticism stands on its own.
Yeah, basically Matt is saying "we need to do something, but not this as it would be a remedy worse than the ailment". Is that so hard to understand? I duess ideological brainwashing went too far, and any old thing triggers the sectarian responses.
So how is Taibbi's intense negative reaction to the suggestion that many white people need to learn how to deal with the concept of their own racial identity and race and racism related to his inability to propose anything in response?
I would say that his fragility tantrum stands on its own. He's just another entitled white guy who can't deal with whiteness and the ideologically entrenched failure to deal with it on almost any level that most white people were born into and simmered in their entire lives, regardless of whether they are left, right or center.
Because the suggestion is simultaneously wrong & crazily prominent, & earns the negative reaction he gave it. There is nothing 'fragile' in strongly rejecting bad ideas. There is nothing 'fragile' in saying 'the emperor wears no clothes'. There is nothing 'fragile' in calling a spade a spade. DiAngelo's arguments, such as they are, as well as yours, as well as those of the entire structure of systemic anti-racism, are simply juvenile exercises in labelling. Like the therapy culture which in part spawned it, it feigns a sophisticated understanding of some observation by slapping theoretical labels on it--borderline personality disorder, 'whiteness'--while being unable to associate the label with any compelling etiology that can be tested for & would provide the sort of understanding needed to create a useful corrective. You cannot grasp that people oppose you --that they deny what you say--because it is weak & useless--worse than useless, harmful. Rather than defending your pronouncements with persuasive arguments, you simply put more labels on the criticisms that come your way: 'white denialism', 'fragility tantrum'. And your ultimate parlor trick: simply label any standards of thought such as reason & evidence as racist, & call it a day. Critical Race Theory has turned your mind to jelly.
Henry Clayton: Very well put.
Well said and a breath of clarity and fresh air. Bonus! I learned a new word today - “etiology.”
Bravo!
Brilliant, sir.
Beautifully summarized. Wow! Re: your writing prowess.
I'd really like to echo the admiring comments below this post, but I have one minor nit to pick: considering the already inflamed (over-)sensitivities & thinly-veiled suspicions on the part of DiAngelo "fans" that even arguments contrary to their thesis (cult) that are totally sound from a rational standpoint originate in baser bigotries -- surely you could have found a better colloquialism than "call a spade a spade"...?
Pretty sure from the enlightened & intelligent tone of the rest of your comments that this was not a ham-fisted back-handed ploy to sneak a slur into otherwise excellent comments, & the colloquialism probably refers to cards (unlikely runner-up: digging implements...?), & its use was entirely appropriate to the sentence: but it's just the kind of irrelevant shit a troll is looking to pounce on when losing an argument, & just picking a different metaphor -- or just changing the object specified -- just denies an intellectually-dishonest jackal food. (Whether or not it's shameful that one has to even consider policing one's own honestly ub-bigoted speech just to avoid triggering sewage spewage lol.)
Otherwise: coming in five by five lol.
The "negative reaction" was to DiAngelo failing badly to teach or help people do these things. And what does it matter if you come to the same conclusion either way? If DiAngelo is right and white people are unredeemable, then the options are like the liar's paradox: only white people who agree they are intractably implicated in racism can be trusted, except they shouldn't be because they're racist. If they disagree whiteness = intractable racism, they are definitely racist and not to be trusted. I just read an academic paper that argues exactly this after showing how white professional and academic discourse engages in performative rhetoric, as DiAngelo does, to acknowledge racism in order to be accepted as a "good white" person, which the logic of an essentialist approach to race cannot allow. If you really believe there is nothing a person can say or do to make you trust them or want to have an amicable relationship with them or even a pragmatic alliance for common goals, that's fine -- it's an honest position. But it's pointless then to insist others accept it or to engage them or even care what they think. Communication is relationship and engaging in it implies belief in the possibility of it achieving something beyond domination and deception where you will always win or lose because of the way race cards were dealt out.
His response is a response to the grotesque Kafka trap this philosophical theory (critical race theory) is built on. Matter of fact it is Kafka trap upon kafka trap. A Kafka trap is a fallacy where if someone denies being x it is taken as evidence that the person is x since someone who is x would deny being x. The name is derived from the novel The Trial by the Austrian writer Franz Kafka. In this case one is slandered by calling everyone of a certain grouping a derogatory term and any defense of the slander is seen as guilt of the slander. Its pretty basic and stupid. “The kafkatrap is a form of argument that is so fallacious and manipulative that those subjected to it are entitled to reject it based entirely on the form of the argument, without reference to whatever particular sin or thoughtcrime is being alleged” – Eric Raymond. Kafka traps have been present is books on manipulation and gaslighting for the last 40 years.
The "white fragility" accusation is just another form of a loaded question. Kafka would be amused that denying a false accusation is being used in a nonfiction circumstance as proof of the accusation.
At some point we, or I, must insist on privacy. The privacy of my own thoughts. What I think or feel is, actually, my business and no one else's. Everyy citizen deserves equity and fairness and a decent quailtiy of life. We do not all need to love each other to live as citizens of one country. Americans need to reverse recent legislation (mainly under Clintons) that screwed minorities and the working class and now the middle class. Focus on class and fairness and standards of civic conduct. AFter that, my thoughts are my own. Trying to mess with people's heads is a waste of time, in policy terms. It will also put Trump back into the WH, if that is the issue.
We all need the same things: clean water and environment, universal health care, free public education, a decent place to live, good-quality food, affordable and reliable communications infrastructure. We need money for these things, and that means taxing the wealthy, eliminating offshore tax havens, strangulating the hold of the MIC and the military and intelligence budget. That is what Americans should be rioting about. Malcolm understood this. MLK understood this. The Rev. William Barber II understands this.
Now, leave me alone.
We don't need most of the things you just wrote. Anything with "universal" or "Free" in front of it, you don't "Need"... You are free to think what you want, but once you throw it out in public it isn't just yours anymore.
How dare you assume he or anyone you don’t know is a racist? Are you a mind reader? Are you god? You have zero insight to him as a man, an individual, but you believe you do. This is illusion is called the illusion of asymmetric insight. Stop it please. You have no special dispensation to know this man’s life story and his thoughts better than he does. Yours is a betrayal to his humanity.
Wow, you first world people are really bananas. I guess being privileged really makes you oblivious to your privilege.
So, as a white man myself, you seem to know my background pretty well. Glad that what I think or have experienced, you know, in a tactile and visceral manner didn’t matter.
I'd say you didn't read it correctly. He's not reacting to the "suggestion that many white people...blah blah blah". He's reacting to the terrible prescription for healing our nation's troubles.
I see you've learned the Deangelo lingo pretty well. Let's not engage with the very specific and articulate criticisms Taibbi gave about how the 'white fragility' concept is a mightily convenient model for corporations that want to increase division. That it is likely to actually make the problem it claims to solve WORSE. No..let's just chalk his disagreement up to his fragility and have done with it.
That is patently absurd. You are also able to like a book, and understand that there may in fact be criticism. Also, the Jackie Robinson bit should tell one with any logic pretty clearly that there are logical fallacies within the writing.
The idea of white fragility has always been on my white (read: oppressor’s) mind as purported in a Draconian manner by Robin. I examine myself and constantly expect better.
But, is drumming up a construct almost explicitly implying segregated laws really a viable concept? I think not
the responses to your comment, sister_h, are embarrassing. I'm sorry you got this nasty pile-on of righteous indignation.
Good God, it’s a criticism of the book and the incongruous nature of the point of the book and the way it is reasoned.
Seriously?? Just because you have bought into the group think does not make DiAngelo's lame theories correct. And your second paragraph full of complete racism proves one of Taibbi's points. Your ignorance is so thick, you don't even realize how racist you are.
It sounds like you are intent on keeping the races divided. With these kind of pronouncements, no discussion can be had. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't proposal to all whites.
The concept of white fragility and all of CRT is insanity.
It is demonstrably provably wrong. Just like the 1619 farce.
Just like "hands up dont shoot"
Just like canonizing George Floyd for having a Fentanyl overdose in Police Custody.
Just like burning down a Wendys in Atlanta because an idiot decided to fight Police, steal a tazer from an officer and shoot it at him...
Just like burning Portland and Seattle for 10 months...
Just like burning minority owned businesses in Minneapolis in solidarity with George Floyd, because he never built anything as useful as a business???
You sound like a racist
Well said
Also, Taibbi does seem to have a favored approach: King’s idea of judging by the content of character rather than superficiality.
I'd suggest you look at statistics on white males born and raised in single mother homes without present fathers. I don't feel like digging around for somebody who may not want to click the link due to cognitive dissonance. If you truly seek truth, you can look it up.
White males in single mother homes are dramatically more likely to drop out of high school and become incarcerated. White women who have kids without a father present are dramatically more likely to drop out and remain poor.
Ask yourself what has happened to black families in the last 50 years? Since the 60s, the rate of out of wedlock births in the black community has sky rocketed. A majority of black children now live in homes without a father. The effects are no different than for white men.
Ending the drug war would help reduce incarceration and ideally reduce the fatherless rate in black communities, but it would only be a minority. Most of the absent black dads are not incarcerated. They just bailed. Please tell me what new form of racism has been created in the past 50 years to cause black men to abandon their families at higher rates than equally impoverished whites and latinos? Also, tell me what the government or I can do to get these assholes to not bail on their kids?
I'm sick and tired of being blamed for assholes impregnating women and bailing on them, and being expected to fix the result. Nobody is going to take care of my kids if I bail, so why should anyone else be expected to get that treatment?
FYA: The best father I know is a black man. He is a single father, is incredibly successful in his career, and coaches 3 different leagues throughout the year for boys. He complains often about this issue being ignored.
Black Dads Matter.
There it is -- root cause of the problem, which no one can address except the black community. If "black lives matter", this is exactly what BLM needs to be addressing.
If you read the BLM agenda on their website it's focus is destroy the family. Which will end up making lives for black lives so much worst..If they really fixed the problem they wouldn't have a job. Anti-Racism is an industry as much as cancer research is if you cure cancer you no longer have the industry.
The simple answer is economics. Money is the great equalizer. The slaughter in the "inner cities" will cease.
Like stopping the daily SLAUGHTER in the inner cities...
Welfare plus abortion on demand has completely destroyed the black community.
No need to hold the baby-daddy accountable when the government is willing to step in and hand out cash payments.
Hell yeah! Finally someone talking some sense. All those babies that were never born are draining the system! And for the ones that are born, let's just hang their poor single moms out to dry to teach these asshole dads a lesson!
Tried to write a full blown response - but internet is so overloaded with working from home - I'm not sure where it went. Long story short - welfare moms aren't allowed to have men living with them. Convoluted but true. You could not understand the machinations of the welfare system unless you had to live within it - there is not way out. Pissed that I explained "WHY", but my explanation just poof vanished. Too tired to write it again. Maybe, "like a miracle", it will show up somewhere. Whatever.
Welfare and abortion is a smaller part of the reason. The main reason is white racism handed out by the Government of the United States. When the US Govt from its inception prevented Black Americans from accumulating wealth through land, housing and business, it led to the results you have today. Read the Color of Law.
Fine example of the weakness in Matt's argument vis-a-vis identity politics. That this bald assertion passes as a cogent policy argument in conservative circles shows the need for applying some analysis of race untethered to class. It's something that must be done without the grifters like D'Angelo making bucks from our struggles
"Also, tell me what the government or I can do to get these assholes to not bail on their kids?" You can refrain from making statements like the one you made because it's not based on the facts. First, you make a statement about the “ending of the war on drugs would reduce fatherlessness, But that would only we a minority.” So why mention it if does not make much difference? Then you say “They just bailed.” Again a statement based on opinion not facts. According to the Huffington Post “Recent data published by the Center for Disease Control reveal that African-American fathers spend more time in their children’s day-to-day lives than dads from other racial groups, defying stereotypes about black fatherhood. The Pew Research Center has found similar evidence that black dads don’t differ from white dads in any significant way, and that there isn’t the expected disparity found in so many other reports. Although black fathers are more likely to live in separate households, Pew estimates that 67 percent of black dads who don’t live with their kids see them at least once a month, compared to 59 percent of white dads and just 32 percent of Hispanic dads.” In essence, you are contributing to a narrative that is based on opinion or anecdotal evidence.
With that said, I will add that the US government can actually enforce the constitution of the US, by correcting and ending the racist policies of redlining, “de-facto” segregation, gentrification, zoning changes, and predatory home loans. These policies severely lessens the opportunity for Blacks to amass wealth. For more info about this topic read the Color of Law. Look, I am talking from experience. In 2006, I had a credit score of 700, but yet the only mortgage I could get was one for 11.25%. I didn’t know any better because all the people I knew also got similar rates. With rates this high, it leaves very little for property maintenance and to create wealth over time.
With that said, I will not go further to dive into how these policies impact the psyche of the Black Community.
Food for thought.
For all racial and ethnic groups combined, 39.6 percent of births in the United States were out-of-wedlock. For blacks, the number is 69.4 percent; for American Indians/Alaska Natives, 68.2 percent (Native Hawaiians/Other Pacific Islanders were at 50.4 percent); for Hispanics, 51.8 percent; for whites, 28.2 percent; and for Asian Americans, 11.7 percent.
It doesn't mean much when you don't account for economic equality. Sweden has a higher percentage of single moms and they have high income levels than single mom's in America. Why?
It is indeed food for thought, but it doesn’t really dispel any myths. Just because more black dads see their kids once a month doesn’t mean these kids won’t go off the rails. The aggregate data from other studies shows the opposite, in fact.
Kids of all groups go off the rails. Police and the US government at all levels give other groups a pass. The stats are there for marijuana possession for example. Black kids get incarcerated at much higher level for the same offense. This is just one example of many. The stats are out there.
Actually, I can: The imposition of rules on social assistance forbidding such assistance to two-parent families. It was an accepted thing in the leadership of both major parties in the 1960s that, due to the economic damage done to black and brown communities by redlining-the deliberate government policy in which banks and insurance companies were directed to withhold their services to black and brown neighborhoods-neighborhoods which had done nothing to deserve such treatment-that there was going to have to be a large expansion of social services simply to keep people in those neighborhoods alive. When those programs were introduced, the "no assistance for two parent families" rules left people in those neighborhoods with an impossible choice(since there were no jobs in those neighborhoods due to redlining and since people with no money can't afford to move to look for work because you can't move to look for work if you have no money and since it is not a reasonable expectation to demand that people in neighborhoods with no jobs who also can't afford to go anywhere else to look for work-nobody can get a job by hitchhiking and eating gruel at soup kitchens while also having no place to wash their clothes and take a shower simply never marry OR have sex) the choice being to either deny your kids one parent in the home or deny them three square meals a day by not getting the benefits when you have no alternative but taking the benefits.
If the "aid for single parents only" rule had not been put in place, the decline in two-parent families in those neighborhoods would never have happened. The best things that could be done to fix it now would be a combination of repealing those rules-if two-parent families are THAT important, society should be willing to subsidize their survival-combined with finally doing what should have been done: passing federal jobs programs to put everyone who wants to work-as the vast majority of all peoples and all races do- in the places where they were born and with to stay. It's not about anybody being an "asshole" and the black community is already doing everything it can do to preserve two-parent families and has done nothing to deserve your smug attempts to shame and disparage them.
Alas, I think we need a more nuanced analysis.
Most large trends tend to be due to multiple factors. One approach to explaining things is to pick a narrative, and then select the potentially causative factors which would fit that narrative, and attribute the outcomes entirely to those factors.
So for example, we could honestly say that the dramatic shift in Black family makeup between 1960 and 2020 was likely caused in part by the welfare rules which were in place during the 1960's. An honest social scientist might say that we initially don't know if that was a 10% cause or a 90% cause, and then proceed to do some objective research to begin to tease out the degree of causality from that one factor, as well as identifying (as best we can, an ongoing process of refinement) the other causes as well.
Somebody waving a political narrative will identify one cause that fits that narrative, and consider it the only cause, or the only meaningful cause. Not because of any balanced assessment of evidence, but because it fits the narrative.
This leads to statement like "If the "aid for single parents only" rule had not been put in place, the decline in two-parent families in those neighborhoods would never have happened." That is not based on evidence of single causality, it's based on political framing requirements.
There are a number of statements in your post which are assertions which are undoubtedly true in some individual cases, but may or may not be statistically the majority of causes or outcomes. It's a matter of reasoning by presuming the most positive (or narrative-reinforcing) scenarios we can imagine, as the only ones worth considering - with less than zero interest in learning whether these are typical or atypical of the overall reality.
For example, if a given disadvantaged kid doesn't turn in homework, we could presume that they are probably working full time after class to take care of a sick and poor grandmother. Yes, that's possible and we should be very open to learning that it's true. But the main point is to reinforce a narrative, and to gain sympathy whether deserved or not. Is it the typical for this individual not doing homework? (No need to find out). Is it the typical reasons that some kids in the class don't do homework? (please don't find out).
I love that you are trying to give the maximum benefit of the doubt and considering the most charitable possible possibility;; you have a good heart. But at some point we need to reason, if we are going to make sustainable improvement in the real world. And to understand problems we need to look at the full range of causes, with appropriate weights for frequency of each, so we can consider and implement interventions that are effective, with the least amoount of unintended consequences. We need good hearts and good minds to fix the problems.
As another example, you assume that the vast majority of people of all races want to work. I can say that I would strongly prefer to never need to work; I'd actually rather not have to harness myself to that timeclock, doing things that often I find tiresome or boring. I've worked for many decades and I've enjoyed parts of it more than other, but if I had been independently wealthy I would have quit every single job. I might have taken an occasional job for a while (if I could get it), until I got tired of it. And I would have volunteered a good bit (as I have in my actual life), for as long as it pleased me to do so.
I don't think I'm atypical. I doubt more than 20% of the people I know (at most) would have worked at the jobs they did, if they didn't need the money. A large number complain about their jobs, sometimes a lot. A few say they love it. Many are in between, as I was; I got some challenge and joy of accomplishment, but not enough to do it for a long time if I didn't need to.
You and the vast majority of the people you know might be different, but I think you are seeing society and human nature through rose colored glasses. (Not to suggest that going all the way to the opposite extreme would be better; stop as close as you can get to the objective truth instead) It makes for a very sympathetic and loving perspective and politics (at least for the groups you favor), but not necessarily one that would keep a society operating to produce the benefits you enjoy every day.
I'd rather be around kind spirited but unrealistic people than around mean spirited but unrealistic people, but better still are the kindly yet realistic folks who can actually achieve real world improvements.
Thanks for a moment of sanity and well-reasoned discussion of the flaws in these same arguments which we see over and over again in people whose only goal is Activism and Advocacy, not fair, objective and constructive analyses of the Facts.
"redlining-the deliberate government policy in which banks and insurance companies were directed to withhold their services to black and brown neighborhoods-neighborhoods which had done nothing to deserve such treatment"
Actually, that is not redlining. The maps in question delineated parts of a city into 4 zones which estimated the probability of default on mortgages. Unsurprisingly, the areas assigned the highest risks (#4) were poor, and Blacks were disproportionately poor and living in those zones. Nobody was prohibited from serving them - but if a bank agreed with that assessment, they might need to charge higher interest or require a high down payment - to have enough confidence that they would get their money back. Black owned banks were just as concerned about defaults, and tended to invest more easily in the higher rated zones (motivatd to preserve the saving of their black customers). But this was the choice of the banks - they could issue low down payment and/or low interest loans to residents of any zone, if they wished. Indeed, people (of any race) who bought in the high risk zones did get loans - but not as easily or at the same rates.
However, banks track actual default rates, and if they found that a red-lined geographic area was showing lower default rates than the redlining (zones 2-4) predicted, it would be a market opportunity to make loans there. Or if their own data showed higher default rates than redlining predicted (say, in zones 1-3) they could avoid making loans or require higher down payment and/or interest. In other words, redlining was advisory, and banks (white and black owned) who were rising other people's savings on the loans made the final decision.
If the core intent was to keep Black people down, then Balk owned banks (absent that intent) would have ignored the redlining. If the core intent was to be careful about bad loans using depositors savings, then both Black and white owned banks would make similar use of the redlining. (And mis-estimated default rates would open new opportunies for the banks who discovered the inaccuracy of the estimates, from their own experience).
One thing which isn't mentioned is that, if the redlining estimate of loan default likelyhood was more or less accurate, how much different would the results have been if there had been no maps? Would black owned banks have *successfully* invested more in Black homes and businesses, creating more prosperity? Or would they have made more bad loans? Or would they have figured out the bad risks from other sources and made similar decisions to what actually happened? We don't know.
Alas, this understandable desire to categorize loan risks (on behalf of depositors who wanted their saving back), winds up tending to expand the wealth difference between poor and rich. (And if Blacks are disproportionately poor, this obviously affects blacks more). Poor people would have more trouble coming up with higher deposits, and paying higher interest - and so would be more likely to remain poor. Not like 100% of the time, but too often. So redlining was rightly prohibited half a century ago. That's good.
There is an inherent paradox involved tho. A good analysis of differences in Black and white wealth identified one important factor being that white homes had appreciated more rapidly. That had two effects - white homeowners accumulated more equity and the cost of their housing went up faster. From the flip side, black homeowners gained equity more slowly, and housing in their neighorhoods remained more affordable. If black equity had gone up as fast, newer owners and renters would have faced less affordable housing - another social ill.
That all makes sense to me. Abolishing the deeply rooted systems that keep Blacks down is the only change to our system that is both indispensable and obviously correct. I doubt that doctrinaire systems of correct thought can ever be helpful to that process. The issue of what ideology whites should install in their minds is, I think, an artifact of white college kids struggling to find some way to think about race without losing their sanity. But no system of ideology is going to help them, seems to me. Anti-black policies are deeply embedded I'm our social and economic systems. Only long-term education has any hope of changing that grim fact.
Well... that pretty much took down the MYTH of "White Privilege", didn't it? Ooops!
The dissolution of Black communities and families that started in the 1950s is partially a result of desegregation. Segregation kept the communities together. I'm a Jew, grandson of holocaust survivors. The religious activist core of the Jewish community has a fear that people will assimilate and stop being Jews if they go two or three generations without severe ostracism and oppression. That in fact, Jews as a group and Judaism as a religion have only held together for so long as a result of brutal mistreatment, genocide, enslavement, and so on. There's some logic behind this, and there's historical evidence for periods of Jewish assimilation (e.g. Germany before the 1930s). But my view is: I hope there are positive things that can hold the culture together. But if they can't, then screw it. I don't need or want to be part of a culture that uses historical feelings of victimhood or oppression as its main totems or to hold it together. To remember is one thing. But either the culture has to be about life - now, as it is lived - or it's a dead culture. The new racialism masquerading as anti-racism is, in a weird way, an attempt to bring back segregation - or at least the parts of it that gave people a sense of community in that under extreme conditions, they needed to rely on each other as part of their ethnic group against a common enemy who was trying to obliterate them. But bringing back the threat or re-segregating or chaining yourself to historical martyrdom is a terrible way to assert a culture or a history, and it leads to a pit of failure. (Just look at the white South). And to the extent the Jewish community thrives on that type of thing, it also generates plenty of rebels like me who want to be judged by our actions and the content of our character, nothing more or less. Not ancient history.
Mostly true, though I would point out that Utah is not a pit of failure, although Mormons have always identified as an oppressed minority and venerated their "martyrs". Of course they have also, until the current generation, been pretty much entirely white, reserving an inferior place for people of other ethnic groups.
I want to expand on a point you make.
This is not about any inherent superiority of one set of genes than another. If you reversed the histories, presenting European-descended populations with the same circumstances that African-descended populations have faced, they would be in more or less the same present circumstances. We are not claiming any inherent "white" superiority.
However, the situation we find ourselves in is that identifiably different populations today have some different cultural contexts and values, which contribute to different outcomes. Even if we were to buy some argument that 100% of those differences are due historically to a single population's ancestors (with no agency on the part of anybody else), we still find ourselves facing today's cultural landscape.
If, hypothetically, a low percentage of two parent families contributes substantially to worse statistical outcomes for a given population, and is a substantial contributor to intergenerational poverty and other problems like crime, then we may need to seriously address that factor - no matter what the original cause was. That doesn't mean it can be fixed entirely from within the population - we as a society need to be working on it from the outside, to create better opportunites and support. But it can't be fixed entirely from the outside either - Asian-Americans and European-Americans can't just reach into African-American families and make them have two parent households.
We need to work on this together, understanding the mixture of internal and external factors which perpetuate disparities, and work on both in a coordinated way. Trying to push a disadvantaged population to fix it all on their own without dealing with external factors is naive at best and oppressive at worst; but trying to guilt trip other populations to fix everything is doomed to failure also.
The currently dominant political strategy regarding race is to emphasize adversarial approaches and blame/guilt in both directions. I don't care for those dynamics, but I might accept them if it was demonstrably leading to a better world. But it's NOT working, and doubling down on it isn't going to work better.
Here is some more stats: in 1929 more than 3/5ths of two parent American families earned less than $2k a year and couldn't save money. Post 1945, 50% of two parent Black homes lived below the poverty line about the same as one parent Black homes. And until the 1960s, 75% of Black households with a child under 18 years old had two parents. This didn't save Black families from poverty because unemployment and discrimination were the problem. Not the racist generalizations of irresponsible single Black mothers and absentee Black fathers. One might argue, that Blacks were not job creators. When went they did build up their community like Tusla, Ok, jealous Whites in collaboration with local and state officials burned down 30 blocks of affluent Black homeowners and their business district. Another example of government sanction of violence and racist against Blacks occurred when city planners in various cities like LA would run freeways through affluent Black communities to destroy their wealth. This is a practice that is still going on today. So the myth of the nuclear family is nothing but a myth. It's about economics.
The facts are out there. Between 1855 to 1880 over %70 of Black families in the US were nuclear. Meaning they had a 2 parent household (mom & dad). Yet, the vast majority of Black Americans were poor during this period. This is because the US government was and still is complicit in the practice of segregation based on race. Prior to the creation of the nuclear family in the 1950's most White families could not afford to have the wife/mother stay home. They worked in factories and in many instance white children also worked in factories to bring home the bacon. This has nothing to do with Asian and European families reaching into AA families and make them have two parent households. Its all about the US government discriminating against Black Americans and preventing them from make money on par with White Americans whether through Slavery, Jim Crow, Segregation, Redlining, Gentrification and other racist policies.
"Unemployment is the root cause for single parent homes. It's been noted that employed Black men were two times more likely to marry the mother of their child than unemployment men." Like Aron said, no fair person can deny the history and legacy of racism exists. But you engage in distorted use of statistics and considerable self-serving bias in interpreting them. You frequently distort causal relationships, like pretending that employment causes men to marry the mother of their child, and unemployment is the only reason why Black women prefer to not marry a lot of Black men. Black women get sick of being exploited and taken advantage of by the same kinds of Black men who have sired children by all sorts of different "Baby Mamas." You refuse to publicly acknowledge the kind of bullshit that many Black men perpetrate on Black women, just like we saw in the movie "Hustle and Flow." That is the greatest reason for the high rate of unmarried Black mothers: they have decided they would rather go it alone than settle for the games which many Black men play, who rely on the women for their shelter and phones and cars food and clothing and then CHEAT on them, and then move on to the next naive woman once they have destroyed the credit of this one. There is a culture of exploitation and abuse of women among many Black men, and that is NOT a myth. Plenty of Black women write about it, and I have seen it in my own family. Who exactly started the practice of referring to women as bitches and ho's in popular culture? Granted, part of this emerged as a survival mechanism as a result of the Systemic Racism you document so well. Black women were the main ones able to get jobs and get credit. And THAT is the real reason why poverty was so little different between Nuclear Families and Single Women families: even in the married families, the woman was the one keeping things together on HER salary. So there was not much difference with unmarried women. The Myth of the Strong Black Woman is NOT a myth. I've seen it in my own family, and am sick of folks like YOU distorting things to make it seem that the Government can be scapegoated for every damn thing wrong in Black families. There is a subculture of abuse of power and manipulation of women running through many Black communities, that has allowed many Black men to never have to grow the fuck up, and they continue to live the wannabe "Player" lifestyle, usually at the expense of women and/or breaking the law. You might be able to convince your white allies that this is just a "racist trope" and stereotype, but like I say, I have seen it in my own family. You are stuck in a time warp, and do nothing but throw decades-old historical excuses into the conversation, ignoring the fact that pretty much ANY Black child with talent and motivation can go to schools like Harvard for FREE today. To be young, talented and Black in today's America is a very different experience than it was 50 years ago. So stop throwing statistics from 50 years ago about as if they are as pertinent today as they were then. Black people are the killers in roughly 47% of all killings in America nationwide TODAY, yet represent only 13% of the population. They kill roughly 70 children in Chicago alone every year. The kill their own 18 and 19 year old teens at a rate of 14 times the national average. Black teens are roughly FIVE times more likely to be killed through gun violence than white teens. Right were I live, a 7 year old Black girl was gunned down while waiting in the drive through in McDonalds. You want white people to stop being Fragile and be more accountable, well I have never seen anybody more fragile than the Blacks claiming they suffer PTSD from whites wanting to touch their hair and whining that they cannot feel safe anywhere in America when they are 100 times more likely to be killed by somebody Black than by a cop, or anybody white. You like stats...look at the Murder stats of whites and blacks. Blacks kill twice as many whites every year as whites kill Blacks....and that is in RAW numbers, even without doing a per capita analysis. Blacks get away with accusing people of being bigoted racists whenever anybody points out the ways in which Blacks are masters of their own misfortune in SOME cases, and consistently use Racism as an an excuse for their OWN violence and bigotry. Last word: take a look at who is doing the most violent attacks on Asians. It is BLACKS, for the most part, but the newspapers rarely publish THEIR photos in the articles, but when it is a white person, the fact of THEIR skin color is front page news. And Black activists try to gaslight America by claiming that Blacks can NOT be Racist. Bullshit. Of course I am angry: I am sick of the distortions on BOTH ends of the political spectrum. But the popularization of propaganda like "White Fragility" and the revision of history and censoring of books like "To Kill a Mockingbird" - and taking Lincoln's name off schools and firing people for merely daring to publicly criticize any aspect of critical race theory has come to resemble the same Fascist Bigoted behavior engaged in by groups like the Nazis and the KKK. You and Aron have engaged in some semblance of a rational discussion, even offering documentation of certain "facts". But more often than not you do not bother to address the essential truths in many of the points he is making, you are unable to contradict them and simply deflect or find yet another way to promote the idea that America is STILL conspiring to destroy Black people's lives, when massive attempts have been made to enhance them, which folks like you inevitably find SOME way to trash and denounce so that you can hang on to your scapegoating and demonizing of all white people through your condemnations of whiteness. The type of shit you allow people to say about whites would NEVER be permitted to be uttered about Blacks, but you insist on separate rules for Blacks and white, just like the KKK and segregationists did. But you tolerate it, because you like the effects. You refuse to acknowledge the irrationality of claiming that there is no such thing as Race, no such thing as Gender, because they are social constructs, and then demanding that Intersectionality be used to sort people by race and gender so that people can engage in pissing contests to see who has been victimized the most. Please watch Malcom X explain that Blacks and whites need to openly and honestly talk about the real issues without worrying about hurting each others' feelings. We made great progress towards that a decade ago. Today, it is next to impossible. Any white person stupid enough to publicly say anything which might hurt a Black person's feelings will have their career destroyed. So, you have a culture of fear, with performative bullshit protestations of Anti-racism, and Pro-Blackness and earnest apologies for having failed in the past and promises to do better. What an utter bunch of BULLSHIT. It's not coming from any place of sincerity. It is coming from a new form of Domestic Terrorism just as insidious as what the Nazis perpetrated upon Germany. Sorry for my angry rant. I sense you are likely a decent man. But you lack insight into the ways that you too have been duped and manipulated.
Good points, but the fact is that the "War on Drugs" and "Getting Tough on Crime" and three strike rules DID disproportionately prevent a lot of Black fathers from being part of their family's lives. And while I disagree with their conclusion, that is seen as a "new form of racism in the past 50 years." Yeah, I know, I know - you'll now claim that those criminals were unlikely to have been the kinds of fathers that Black kids need. And maybe they were not the best, but their absence still caused more harm in THEIR families than it solved, and I can understand the arguments of people who want a different kind of "Justice" that seeks to repair, as well as to punish.
Why does he have to provide an alternative to an asinine assertion?
Do you think that anyone who wants to express their doubts about the White Fragility thesis must come ready with their own proposal for how to solve racism?
Why can't people just be people and treat others as they would like to be treated???
Oh, I see: it doesn't help the DNC in an election year.
Because in the real world people are imperfect, they aren’t the color blind creatures you would like them to be. Yes we can and should strive for that but we will never reach that because we are human. Ignoring what has gone on in the past and what continues to go on is easy to do from a position of safety, you don’t have to live life as a Black person. That’s not just about today in the moment, it’s what happened yesterday and the day before and the month before and the year before, it all gets us to this point in time. Forgive me if I seem angry but when you don’t have to live this life it’s easy to have pie in the sky views.
Rofl. It’s in your head .
Scott on June 30
Your "click-bait" recipe seems to be attracting some really sick fish. Got any other spiritual commandments to share?
The alternative is to address the underlying cause of all oppression: unregulated capitalism. The alternative is to participate in a cross racial working people’s movement which unites instead of divides. Until we address these issues we’ll remain in the gilded age of woke capitalism, diverse imperialism and inclusive environmental destruction.
Unregulated capitalism? Is that some sort of joke? If you honestly believe the system we have is unregulated capitalism then it's not even possible to have a discussion. You simply have no concept of reality.
"The alternative is to address the underlying cause of all oppression: unregulated capitalism."
Thus proving you're an ignorant fool who really doesn't understand the problems face in America and the world, not to mention someone who has no concept of what free markets are in relationship to 'capitalism.'
As soon as you can point to an example of a non-capitalist country that's solved oppression, you'll have our attention.
I do not think "oppression" can ever be "solved." That is as impossible as the Neocon struggle to "end evil." Some things really are impossible, and attempts to solve them once and for all generally turn into nonsense.
A pretty good point, there will be oppression of one form or another as long as groups exist and bullies within them are able to assume leadership. What becomes a jest of God is the tendency for these earnest well-meaning progressives to promise to end Fascism - if we would only allow THEM to behave in a fascist manner long enough to root out whiteness and destroy it everywhere.
In part I agree. The currently dominant left-of-center political framing serves primarily to divide people into competing tribal niches, encouraging them to base their very identity primarily on the intersection of various racial and sexual categories, and then blame/shame/resent/rebel/hate each other. There are assertions that a century ago some of the rich encouraged whites and Blacks to focus their animosity on each other, to distract them from noticing the economic disparities. Today anti-racism and intersectionalism foster exactly that kind of conflict for free; the working class and the middle class are dividing themselves into warring camps.
For example, if you look up the statistics, the economic difference between the top and bottom deciles *within* every race totally dominate any disparity *between* races. I'm not saying, by the way, that there should not be any economic differences between people; it would appear that human beings do not do thrive together in large societies without some motivation of differential rewards for differential contributions. But the degree of separation between the top and the bottom is out of whack today, and far larger than needed to encourage people to contribute their best.
However, I believe that your conception of capitalism is somewhat distorted. All of the "western" democracies, including the US, practice a hybrid system of "social welfare capitalism" (as do Japan, South Korea, etc). The means of production are mostly in private hands, and a majority of people work for private employers (or themselves) rather than being employees of the State - but the State has taken on a huge amount of social welfare responsibility. These systems are FAR removed from "unregulated capitalism". Read about living conditions for ordinary workers (or the unemployed) in the industrialized nations in the 1700's and 1800's to get a better idea of unregulated capitalism. The difference is hard to overstate. Or on the other side, if you ever tried to run a small business with some employees, you would not characterize our system as "unregulated", as a large part of your time and money will be spent dealing with an incredible number of regulations.
Now look for truly socialist nations, over the last century - where the State owns the means of production and everyone works for the State. See if you really like that better than "capitalism with democratically imposed regulation". There is a reason that socialist states need to use authoritarian means to stay in power, whether reluctantly or enthusiastically.
That said, there are substantial (although smaller) differences in the degree of regulation and the degree of social welfare modifications to capitalism. What you likely desire is to move that needle, with more regulation and more social welfare, within a capitalist country where most of the means of production is NOT owned by the government, and most people are not employess of the government. Imagine all the factories, all the mass media, all the transportation network, all the internet, all the entertainment industry, all the housing, all the agriculture, etc being owned by the government. I doubt that's what you want. You likely would like to move towards something like Sweden, rather than like the former USSR.
(To be clear, communism is a form of socialism distinguished by accepting the particular analysis of Marx, perhaps modified by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, etc. There are other non-Communist socialist theorists, but ownership of the means of production by the state is a core concept of all or most socialism, including all forms that have ever achieved power - ie: excluding armchair fantasies never tested against the real world of real humans).
If unregulated capitalism is the underlying cause of all oppression, then we've now eliminated oppression because our capitalism is highly regulated (albeit too much so for some voters and not enough for other voters). And all pre-capitalist societies were did not have oppression - monarchies around the world, feudalism in Europe and Japan, Rome and Greece, Genghis Kahn, biblical patriarchies, African empires, Aztecs and other Native Americans, etc. Or perhaps you need to reconsider this simple attribution of the source of oppression.
As for environmental destruction - alas, socialist governments have had an even worse record in the past century. But there is a more fundamental problem which actually transcends this economic distinction. The socialist as well as capitalist nations of the world have competed for economic growth, which has been seen as the key to improving the lot of their citizens (even if unevenly distributed). All economic systems which are based on and optimized for exponential growth are inherently unsustainable. If we really want to have a sustainable planet, we need a new form of economics which is not oriented towards (physical) growth. This is a really, really hard lift because we now have hundreds of years of history conditioning us to believe that growth is good, as we have benefitted from it. Growth impact =growth in population times growth in per capita consumption and waste products. Weening ourselves from that conceptual framework is actually much harder than capitalism vs socialism, it's more like the cultural differences between an advanced technological global society and bands of hunter-gatherer tribes. We need a technological society organized as different from our current society as those wandering tribes, but in a different and more complex way than those tribes.
But that's a different story needing great depth of exploration and challenging previously unquestioned assumptions. For now we have to survive the next decade, so we can go back to the subjects closer at hand.
I've enjoyed your takes, but what always amazes me in discussions around wealth inequality is that I have yet to see anyone mention financial literacy, or the lack there of. I humbly consider this to be, if not the fundamental cause, then surely the cure to wealth inequality.
As you stated, there will never be an even distribution of wealth, just as there are not an even distribution of marketable skills. Until recently, this seems to have been an acceptable and tenable truth. In fact, there once was a time in this country when the prevailing desire amongst the middle and lowers class was simply that their progeny became at least better off than they were. I'm not sure if that's true anymore, but if it is, financial literacy (which merely informs tough decisions that still need to be made) all but ensures that will take place...short of government malfeasence anyway (creating otherwise unnecessary economic hardship, ie harsh inflation/deflation/stagflation).
The interesting thing is just how rampant this illiteracy is. Even, and perhaps particularly among the "educated", aside from those trained in finance, of course. It is astounding to me that so many can espouse an opinion on the merits of capitalism without personally understanding what money is, let alone how it can be leveraged. To me, it's analogous to watching people play monopoly without ever buying any of the spaces for themselves. They simply make their way around the board, hoping to survive on the stipend of passing go, and perhaps be lucky enough for a "bank error in their favor". Seriously, I didn't realize how good that analogy is until writing it out, because that pretty much sums up what I see when I observe most people navigate their financial lives - including my own until I became literate.
You're onto something, but the problem you're looking to is how 99.9% of the worlds population not being active participants in the market system(s) means the wealthy that do at a high and frequent level are largely uncontested. The general population is supposed to be the 'invisible hand' of the market that brings it to bear, but until more people are active in that process rent seekers will never be dealt with, nor their negative influence and impact resolved.
Actually the "invisible hand" turns out to be the elite who bought the government on the "free market". Sorry but libertarian BS was all bought and paid for by the scumbag Koch brother trust fund babies.
Where is this "unregulated capitalism" you speak of? Or do you simply mean "capitalism isn't as regulated as I'd like it to be or in the way I'd like it to be" (which is to regulate it out of existence)? And you claim that something that largely doesn't exist is the "underlying cause of all oppression"? Husband beats wife in socialist country? Unregulated capitalism is to blame!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh. You're serious. As was said by others - you have made a huge, unsupported assertion. The burden of proof is on YOU. A good start would be to look at non-capitalist based economic structures and the countries that work with them and find ones without oppression. You won't. America is the most ethnically diverse country with the most opportunities for people of all colors. Our only other competition is Canada, which is about the population of a few of our states, and is only multiethnic in a few of their bigger cities.
There is nothing wrong with saying, yes, racism can exist AND saying no to a form of argument that is in of itself dangerous. Non-falsifiable claims are not only the thing of nightmares for scientists, but also the stuff of real nightmares where witches burn in the public square. Try reading Kafka’s “The Trial”.
Just send all your money to George Soros. He will pass it along to BLM, and you can stop weeping.
Cuz we all know Soros is the only billionaire funding movements in America and abroad, right sparky ?
Yeah, but he's a Jewish billionaire and that makes him a "special target" for the rightwing.
Which is sort of odd since Trump and almost everyone else in DC fight over who gets to toss Nutlessyahoo's salad.
Which is a comical assertion given where the vast majority of anti-Jewish hatred has come from in my life-time. Where is actual anti-Semitic violence going on in the U.S.? Big, very progressive cities.
Ahh.... I knew it wouldn’t be long before the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” would get thrown in by some fascist.
No, Pumpkin... some of us see the $$$ is coming from scumbag Soros..
One of your favorite Nazi tropes, that? Tell us more, Eva.
It just goes to show that many still don't know that the majority of Black Americans do not support BLM the organization. But do support the movement.
Speaking for long-dead black authors now? That might be OK for a black man but if you're not....well, you know the name you get.
The fact that you can't tell if I am white or black should be viewed as progress. By the way, did you know that there is only one race? The Human race. I just use black and white to avoid confusion because most people don't know this fact.
", but you still aren't answering the question: What alternative(s) are you proposing?"
Matt doesn't have to answer this question.
Typical troll response, actually.
Put your own thinking cap on and come up with some ideas.
White denialism is a Kafka trap and although many people might not be well enough informed to identify them as what they are, they most definitely know when they are in one, they most definitely know that they are flawed from a logical, common sense and critical thinking standpoint. A Kafka trap is “a fallacy where if someone denies being x it is taken as evidence that the person is x since someone who is x would deny being x.” It has long been identified as manipulation, egregious and historically been a tool to justify gross injustices like the witch trials. Critical race theory is saturated in Kafka traps. For example, white people deny being racist because they clearly are too racist to see their own racism, white people deny systematic racism because they can’t emotionally confront that they benefited for racism. Minorities that speak against systematic racism are too engulfed in racism to see the racism. Then even crazier ones are logic, reason and the identification of a Kafka trap is a tool of the “masters” thus cannot be used to deconstruct critical racial theory. Then if you defend the science, linguistics, logic. Then it is said science, logic and linguistics are all forms of whiteness and thus they are invalid in arguing against the concept. It becomes the rambling of a crazy person really quickly. How would this feel. To a minority. Systematic racism makes black people losers and to deny the fact you’re a loser is simply because no one likes being a loser or to you simply deny the fact you’re a loser because your self-image has been draped in being a loser you can’t even recognize winning in life because you’re such a loser. It’s the exact same logic. Fundamentally it’s not far from critical race theories’ central tenants to beguine with. A quick history of critical theory sources from Hegel to economics through Marx. It migrated from Hegal to philosophy by way of a few philosophers in the Frankford school. It then continued to reproduce in the philosophy departments in America. Now it is still by all accounts a philosophy but is seen by the populous as a scientific theory which it is not its a philosophic theory. That’s why its proponents still call it critical race THEORY. It does not hold up to critical thinking as a core principle, nor does it hold up to any varieties of the scientific method. Enough intellectual talk. Whatever your religion walk with me for a second through one atheistic theory about why religion is false. The theory is called the god of the gaps coined by Richard Dawkins. It was to combat the idea that god is real because we don’t know why we got here so it must be god. Then theologians said. Well ok we know there was a big bang. But we know god exists because what about before that, it must be god. Dawkins argued that just because you think you know the answer doesn’t make it the answer. More so that frame of mind stops you from finding the real answers. Be that small answers around the bigger question or big answers that reduce the rest to small questions. So to directly answer the questions you are essentially saying some form of the following statement is inherently true, “THE current problem with our social issues is RACISM NOW.” Not echoes from a history of racism (historical race issue), not past laws on the books that are racist (historical race issue), not a poverty issue coupled with a willingness to commit crime in the black community that results in less lawyers in the courtroom or more low quality less connected lawyers (cultural and economic issue), lack of education (economic and cultural issue), dependence on the government (political issue) and broken home (political, economic and cultural issue). Here is the point I’m making. The current dominant ideology is one of racial victimization. If everyone hangs their hat on that before taking a rational look at all things the real problems thus real solutions will be overlooked. “Does” structural racism exist or “did” structural racism exist? Does structural racism exist or do the byproducts of structural racism exist now? Is racism even relevant in 2020? Is racism bigotry between people or a structure? They all assume racism a primary role. You gave two very good examples of real problems. “The racial wealth gap is as bad as it was 50 years ago.” That would be an economic issue. If it were to be addressed it could be that for 100 years the united states issues interest free mortgages to American descendants of slaves under the premise they were historically bared from owning land and redlined. on a 40 year mortgage a person pretty much pays the holding company pretty much double the house face value. Thus on a 400,000 house a person would save 400,000 in interest plus create generational wealth. People might squak but it offers black people a easier way up to wealth. It is also a good viable solution. Most white mean wealth is in home equity not a bank account. Financial problem financial solution. Next “black incarceration rates are still horribly out of proportion.” Judicial reform through both removing unjust victimless laws, back dating both release for crimes removed and automatic expungements. A fixed pay back of any release white, black or brown from these stricken laws of $15,000. We will save that since their incarceration cost more than that a year anyway to tax payers. Since it disproportionately effects black people it will disproportionately help black people. I think that speaks to policing too. Take the focus off of crime prevention to crime response. That would reduce cops on hand, increase detectives and make traffic cops actual traffic cops. Essentially reducing the overall needed force. It would also stop stop and frisk and pulling over suspicious drivers, two things noted as reasons blacks are effected by justice more. Lastly only hire cops to police a community that live in. That way their salary remains in the community they are policing, their taxation as well. There are rational solutions but chasing systematic racism (yes racism exists) is like chasing terrorists in the Bush era. Yeah they existed too but it was much more of a mind fuck to the public than a actual relevant threat to the people and was sold to the masses with the same threatening vigor.
This comment could be a blog post on its own.
Please, don't ever stop posting. few people have the chops nor the patience to take on all of the bullshit step by step like you try to do. Thanks.
Opening up well funded schools and after school programs, along with daycare facilities in impoverished neighborhoods (IE actual reparations) That would do a hell of a lot more than making Kafka racism traps for white people.
Good point. But it's not that easy, alas. In my state, differences in local-tax funding between geographic areas are equalized via state-wide funding, so all schools receive relatively equal funding. Yet they do not achieve very equal outcomes. Some of the disparity could indeed have to do with racism, but it's clear that one cannot explain all of it (or perhaps even a majority of it) based on race. Poverty is a larger factor, but even that is only a partial explanation.
It takes a real song and dance routine to pretend that culture makes no difference. Some subcultures emphasize and valorize different things than other subcultures, and that results in different outcomes. If your racial-ethnic group really rewards and values chess, there will be more good chess players; if it respects some sport, that population is likely to excel in said sport (statistically speaking). The subcultures which valorize education tend to do well in the US.
It can be challenging to disentangle this from socio-economic class, since socio-economic classes tend to have different cultures, and different cultures produce different socio-economic class results. There is a feedback loop, which alas tends to keep those at the bottom from succeeding as the same rate. However, culture is more malleable than some other factors; if that shifts, and if we can substantially improve the equality of opportunity (see equal school funding above as one factor), then there is a change to break that cycle.
But without any accompanying cultural change, just throwing more money at schools will not get the results we want. It takes both; a subculture (of any race) which does not actively promote behaviors which raise one's income and class, will not flourish just by having more money available for education, etc.
There is no one white culture or one Black culture (nor for any other group). What I speak about differences between subculture applies within every racial group, in fact far more so than between groups. But there are statistical differences between the distributions of subcultures between larger groups as well. Not every Asian family will emphasize education, but at the aggregate level it's more culturally common among Asian families - and that shows in different outcomes.
[At this point, if there are any wokefolks here, they will roll their eyes theatrically, sigh heavily, and throw down #modelminority like a football flag, and think that hashtag and superior attitude, somehow magically exempts them from facing critical thinking or hard facts. Let's not bother to go there.]
facts
Race the construct, created by xenophobic European aristocrats to pose their superiority with pseudo scientific language and myth.
Starting a discussion from a lie gets you more lies.
Want job equity? Federal job guarantee.
Want health equity? single payer healthcare.
Want educational equity? Federal spending in the same measure as incarceration.
Know why we cant have these and so much more? The real power, the FIRE sector.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/splinternews.com/the-dangerous-myth-of-taxpayer-money-1819658902/amp
Race is a biological reality. See David Reich in the NYT. Quote "But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among “races.”". Sorry, but reality bites hard.
DNA analysis has shown greater genetic variation between West Africans and East/Nilotic Africans-Kenya, Ethiopia,etc. than between West Africans (from West Africa, not intermixed in the Western Hemisphere) and Western Europeans. It really is only skin deep.
Let me offer one more comment. Apparently, genetic variation in dogs is two times greater than in human. However, most people can still tell the difference between dogs and humans.
You have made two pretty common mistakes. First, African-Americans came from a relatively small area in West Africa. They do not represent the genetic diversity of Africa (at all). The second error is confusing genetic variation with genetic distinguishability. Sure Africa has genetic diversity. However, that doesn’t make using genetics to distinguish Europeans from Africans hard at all. See “Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies” (NCBI/PMC). Risch was able identify race with 99.86% accuracy. Not bad for something that doesn’t exist. Note that Risch did not look skin color genes at all. Of course, Risch is just one source. Take a look at “The Inconvenient Science of Racial DNA Profiling” in Wired or “How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of 'Race'” by David Reich in the NYT. If race was only ‘skin deep’ it would not be trivial to identify race from genes. But it is.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-genetics-science-africa/
https://www.sapiens.org/body/is-race-real/
I could go on, but so could you. Neither of us is an expert, but one of us thinks he knows all the answers because he can find at least one "expert" who agrees with his preconceptions.
My question is why it's so vital for you to establish that races exist. And I believe it's because you are in fact a racist. Why? Well, examine the following quotation from Adolph Reed:
"It is easy in the dubious shorthand of our prevailing race discourse to lose sight of the reality that racism is simply and quintessentially the belief that race is not merely a statistical reification but instead refers to populations defined by actual biological difference. And that belief is quintessentially racist whether or not it is linked to claims regarding inferiority or superiority. That is, racism is the belief that race is a category that defines and encapsulates natural populations. It does not. A claim that black people are especially vulnerable, as black people, to Covid-19 or any contagion is as preposterous as a claim that unicorns are especially vulnerable."
I believe professor Reed's definition of racism is the best one I've seen. In that sense, I'm not a racist because I find the very idea of race to be useless. Some words and concepts simply cause more confusion and difficulty than I'm willing to put up with in my discourse. For another, take "anti-Semitism," a hopelessly inaccurate term that most people use synonymously with "anti-Jewish" even though there are many Semites who are not Jews and Jews who are not Semites. The simplest way out of the linguistic swamp is to say "anti-Jewish" or "Jew-hating" when that's what's under discussion. Similarly, I find "ethnicity" a perfectly meaningful concept that doesn't carry the baggage and inherent errors of "race." And then it's rather easy to see that people who insist on using "race" as a meaningful, natural word/concept for distinguishing and defining human populations are furthering agendas that I don't accept. You, Peter, are a textbook example of someone with an enormous investment in the idea of race. And it's pretty clear why.
What's clear is that you do not understand that it is mostly Black people who are now insisting on identifying humans by their races so that they can claim a win in the race to who has been most victimized intersectionally.
A have a quote for you, that you won’t like.
“As Thomas Sowell succinctly stated in his book The Quest for Cosmic Justice, “there is only so much divergence between prevailing theories and intractable reality that a society can survive. Yet theories of equality are unlikely to be re-examined—or examined the first time—when they provide a foundation for the heady feeling of being morally superior to a benighted ‘society.’””
“divergence between prevailing theories and intractable reality”
I wonder what that means.
“My question is why it's so vital for you to establish that races exist”
I sort of like believing in reality. How about you? I know that fantasies and emotions are a lot more soothing and “nice”, than reality. But to quote from Philip Dick “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away”.
“And I believe it's because you are in fact a racist”
Name calling proves you have no argument, just bitterness. Predictable.
You can quote from National Geographic and 100 other publications. However, you can’t change reality. The fact that race can be easily determined from a drop of blood (which is true) makes all of the Nation Geographic articles a bunch of hooey. You do know what an ‘existence proof’ is? You have heard of white swans and black swans?
See “Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies” (NCBI/PMC). Risch was able identify race with 99.86% accuracy. Not bad for something that doesn’t exist. Note that Risch did not look skin color genes at all. Of course, Risch is just one source. Take a look at “The Inconvenient Science of Racial DNA Profiling” in Wired or “How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of 'Race'” by David Reich in the NYT. If race didn’t exist it would not be trivial to identify race from genes. But it is.
“reality that racism is simply and quintessentially the belief that race is not merely a statistical reification but instead refers to populations defined by actual biological difference”
Numerous studies have shown that race can be very accurately determined from a drop of blood. I guess that makes reality racist. Good to know.
“A claim that black people are especially vulnerable, as black people, to Covid-19 or any contagion is as preposterous as a claim that unicorns are especially vulnerable”
Where have you seen that one? New to me. There are (so far unproven) claims that certain blood types might be more vulnerable. A fascinating and related point is that 1% of Europeans are invulnerable to HIV (CCR5 Δ32). Higher infection rates for blacks (and Hispanics) are probably a consequence of geographic locale, occupational differences, mass transit use, etc.
“You, Peter, are a textbook example of someone with an enormous investment in the idea of race. And it's pretty clear why.”
I sort of like believing in reality. How about you?
It isn’t hate to speak the truth. J. K. Rowling.
lol, what race? Show your work.
Some sources state “race is not a biological reality”. That’s a commonplace view on the left, but is not actually true. A good parallel might be the Sun orbiting the Earth. Everyone “knew” that this was true, but of course it wasn’t. The biological reality of race has been demonstrated many times. However, since it is not a PC idea, the science just gets ignored. A few useful data points.
See “Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies” (NCBI/PMC). Risch was able identify race with 99.86% accuracy. Not bad for something that doesn’t exist. Note that Risch did not look skin color genes at all. Quote
“We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity. On the other hand, we detected only modest genetic differentiation between different current geographic locales within each race/ethnicity group. Thus, ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population. Implications of this genetic structure for case-control association studies are discussed.”
Take a look at “The Inconvenient Science of Racial DNA Profiling”. A scientist by the name of Tony Frudakis was able to identify the race of a serial killer in a police investigation in Louisiana. The police in Louisiana were looking for a white male killer based on (mis)information received early in the case. They were wrong. Frudakis examined DNA samples collected in the investigation and told the police that the killer was probably 85% Black and 15% Native American. Based on this new information the police starting examining new suspects and found the actual killer (who matched Frudakis’s description rather well). Tony Frudakis found that race could be determined from genes with 100% accuracy. Not bad for something that doesn’t exist.
Take a look at “How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of 'Race'” by David Reich in the NYT. If race didn’t exist it would not be trivial to identify race from genes. But it is. Quotes
“Groundbreaking advances in DNA sequencing technology have been made over the last two decades. These advances enable us to measure with exquisite accuracy what fraction of an individual’s genetic ancestry traces back to, say, West Africa 500 years ago — before the mixing in the Americas of the West African and European gene pools that were almost completely isolated for the last 70,000 years. With the help of these tools, we are learning that while race may be a social construct, differences in genetic ancestry that happen to correlate to many of today’s racial constructs are real.”
And
“Recent research on the human genome challenges the basic assumption that human races have no biological basis. In this article, we provide a theoretical synthesis that accepts the existence of genetic clusters consistent with certain racial classifications as well as the validity of the genomic research that has identified the clusters, without diminishing the social character of their context, meaning, production, or consequences.”
It turns of the Razib Kahn has commented on this. See ““To classify humanity is not that hard””. Quote
“The idea that human phylogeny is impossible is in the air, I have heard it from many intelligent people. I have no idea why people would be skeptical of it, the way it is presented by many scholars makes the implication clear that phylogeny is impossible, that differences are trivial. Both these are false impressions. I do not believe that the fact that mixed-race people’s real problems obtaining organs with the appropriate tissue match is a trivial affair. Human genetic differences have plenty of concrete impacts which are not socially constructed.”
A number of companies (23andMe, Ancestry.com, etc.) can easily identify the ancestors of anyone using a tiny DNA sample. If race had no bilologial basis, this would be impossible. But, of course, it is very possible.
It turns out that Stephen Hsu has commented on this. See “Metric on the space of genomes and the scientific basis for race”. Quote
“Now plot the genome of each human as a point on our lattice. Not surprisingly, there are readily identifiable clusters of points, corresponding to traditional continental ethnic groups: Europeans, Africans, Asians, Native Americans, etc. (See, for example, Risch et al., Am. J. Hum. Genet. 76:268–275, 2005.) Of course, we can get into endless arguments about how we define European or Asian, and of course there is substructure within the clusters, but it is rather obvious that there are identifiable groupings, and as the Risch study shows, they correspond very well to self-identified notions of race.”
It turns out that we now have AI on this topic. AI has been found to determine race with considerable accuracy from X-rays. If race doesn’t have a biological basis, how exactly does this work? See “Reading Race: AI Recognizes Patient’s Racial Identity In Medical Images” in arXiv
Well over two hundred years ago, Blumenbach found that he could classify skulls by race. It sad but true, that our understanding of our own species has declined (in some respects), since then.
There is actually a funny version of this. Quote
“Forensic anthropology and the concept of race: if races don't exist, why are forensic anthropologists so good at identifying them?”
Why indeed? If race had no biological significance, then it would be impossible to determine race from skeletons. But, of course, it is.
Ultimately, the debate should be moving toward solutions, so I agree it's fair to ask if he has alternative solutions. But that doesn't mean there isn't also value is pointing out when other proposed solutions might be useless endeavors, or make things worse. It is clearly possible to be able to identify a wrong solution, and articulate why it's wrong, without necessarily knowing the right solution. Further, to the extent we are still searching for the right solution, part of the criticism of the book appears to be that a core tenet of its philosophy is to preclude further debate. That is a scary proposition in an area where we, as a society, have such a record of failure in our past attempts. The alarming trend in essays online, and potentially with the ideas in the book from what I gather, is to dismiss our quest from the last few decades to "lift all boats" as futile, and instead adopt a quest to "sink all boats." That philosophy must carry a heavier burden of persuasion because it is on its face less idealistic. A post-racial society is almost universally agreed to be a worthwhile goal, but pursuing a perpetually-racial society needs a loftier defense.
You wouldn't know it from Matt's review or most of the discussion here, but DiAngelo agrees that a post-racial society is the ultimate goal. Based on years of having difficult conversations with white people, she notes that most white folks want to ignore existing racism and just jump to this post-racial reality without doing any hard work. This is the fantasy position that should require the heavier burden of persuasion / proof. It seems to be the one that Matt supports, but how would I know if he won't share his approach?
I’ll offer a proposed solution for discussion. Treat the failure of local communities to provide blacks with safe neighborhoods, protection from police abuse and satisfactory education outcomes as civil rights violations. This could provide state and or the federal government the leverage to bring local politicians and powerful police and teachers unions to the table to force much needed change.
Oops. Just just stepped on a liberal third rail. Several, actually.
Interesting proposal. We don't see the teacher's unions and the police unions targeted at the same time very often, due to partisanship. Democrats usually won't criticize teacher's unions and Republicans usually won't criticize police unions.
That makes me think you might be interested in analyzing the political leadership in the cities with the largest problems of unsafe neighborhoods for Black folks, and where police are most often accused of mistreatment. It would appear after a generation of electing Black people, or Democrats, to local power in those cities, that such a simple solution doesn't work. That convinces some that racism must be so deeply embedded that we need to burn everything down and rebuild from scratch (liberal democracies don't often emerge from the ruins, absent some other power stepping in as after WWII). Others believe we need to rethink the prescriptions, as some wrong assumptions about effective approaches to needed reform may be wrong.
Education is a case in point, as you bring up. It's badly failing minority students in many locations, even with Black superintendents, boards and teachers. Blaming that entirely on racism provides a handy excuse, but not solutions. "It'll all be magically fixed once the last remaining vestige of implicit bias is rubbed out" rings pretty hollow. In locations where the large majority of power is in Black hands, things often are worse rather than better. I don't think that's because there aren't competent Black teachers and administrators, but perhaps because the focus has shifted toward empowering the folks who drape themselves in anti-racism like somebody draping themselves in the flag, to avoid accountability. "Look over there!". But the students deserve better.
So the problem of trying to use civil rights to fix things is that it doesn't apply to the worst locations with the lowest outcomes, where the school administration is already dominated by Black folks.
It might help in some places tho, where white administrators or local politicians are driving the problems; racism does exist and in some cases has explanatory value. But the problem is - will that fix it there, or just turn those locations into similar situations to the existing Black dominated cities with especially bad problems, as referenced above? If getting schools under Black administrations had been successful in improving their outcomes, then trying to expand that would be a promising strategy. Alas, that's not the case.
So maybe the roots of the problems are somewhere else, somewhere where reformers are unwilling to look. Your mention of the teacher's union is one of those, which is why I'm interested in your views on this.
This is exactly right! The minute you focus on the possibility of a post-racial society most white people want to skip the hard work. This is her point!
..but her entire premise is based on racist tropes.
She wrote 2020's Mein Kampf and people cheer this shit???
Maybe they want to maintain their rights as full citizens and are not willing to go along with the destruction. Change does not automatically equate to better.
Honestly, isn't it about time we all fought it out and rebuilt?
I think so.
She appears to have difficulty conversing with everybody.
I appreciate your response and agree with you about identifying wrong solutions. Yet I don't believe that "a core tenet of [white fragility's] philosophy is to preclude further debate"; I feel that the preclusion rather lies with readers who remain unwilling or unable to understand the book.
Perhaps other readers understand the book but have drawn different conclusions than you.
You know the phrase "a remedy worse than the ailment?". Yeah, sometimes not doing anything can be better.
"and Black incarceration rates"
"that white folks unwillingness"
"rife with white denialism"
"why white folks don't need to do anything"
"for white folks to have meaningful conversations"
"helps perpetuate these racist structures"
That's what capitalizing black does.
So, that’s your way of blowing The whole problem off. Great!
The problem of writers treating people unequally based on their race? Easy fix. They just need to leave their racist views out of their written work. Like, don't capitalize color when referring to people's race. Right now, we have at least two major news distributors, AP & the NYT, intentionally emphasizing skin color as a basis for describing people differently based on race. This is racist ideology in action - real negative change.
As I have pointed out, AP instituted this policy change a couple weeks ago and the NYT has followed suit this week. They are deliberately stirring up racial discrimination with these policy changes. Their rationales for taking these actions are total nonsense - pure propaganda like we have come to expect from our IC-fed mainstream media.
And it appears that Mr Taibbi may have jumped on this runaway leftist racist train as well. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what he does about "the problem."
Yeah, sorry, you won't get away with labeling me as being on some runaway leftwing racist train. ROTFLMAO. But I do prefer to capitalize Black as a symbolic recognition that Blacks DO have a very special history in this country, and the term black is applied to them in ways much different from the term white has been applied to whites. I do believe Blacks have earned some degree of special treatment in this country. They are not simply a group with non-white skin color. Sorry. My ancestors and yours made sure of that, and even enshrined those differences in the constitution.
I do get your point, but using capitalization has only a very minor effect. I would rather concentrate on the more important issues, and not get derailed by the comparative trivia.
Poverty, including black poverty, has been on the decline for decades since we ended the misbegotten war on poverty. Thus the racial wealth gap you cite is a fake statistic; the gap has increased because the middle class has gotten richer faster than the poor have gotten richer - but they've ALL gotten richer. That's a good thing.
Citing higher black incarceration rates as proof of racism is like citing higher male incarceration rates as proof of sexism. Evidence of unequal outcome is not proof of unequal treatment, and applying diversity mandates to the prison population is silly on the face of it.
What you call "white denial of racism" assumes the commenters are white, as though blacks like Coleman Hughes, Larry Elder, or numerous other black pundits who happen to agree, aren't black. By today's standards, you've made a racist assumption.
Fantastic.
I agree with virtually all your points, and Coleman Hughes is one of my heroes, as well...and I have used the Males commit more crimes must mean they are discriminated against/not discriminated against argument myself. There is simply NO scientific justification for refusing to recognize that Racism HAS played a role in differential treatment within the Legal System. That fact does not dispute the fact that Blacks disproportionately commit crimes of violence due to their own subcultural deviant values. Both conclusions are valid and justified.
The problem with the "White Fragility/Whiteness Studies" is that it elides the structural/institutional impacts of historical racism with the phenomenon of personal racist attitudes, and then goes on to focus almost exclusively on the second component, when the core problem resides in the legacy impacts from the first component. (I think this is an outgrowth of the rise of the notion that "the personal is political", which became viewed as a primary focus by the American Left in the 1980s, once the "right/center" Reagan/Tip O'Neill Establishment Democrat majority Congressional coalition reigned triumphant and banished the Left as a political force at the national level.)
Addressing structural impacts- with the notable exception of one institutional fixture- entails a shift away from government arbitrated by wealthy private interests toward implementing ideas associated with social democracy. That's an ambitious goal, and a very tough fight. And it isn't really the wheelhouse of most modern American liberals. As social critics like Barbara Ehrenreich have noted, the braintrust, the leadership, and the financial backers of the Democrats are now primarily drawn from the ranks of the professional-managerial class. They're much more comfortable with the "personal is political" approach. Sadly, so many of them have lost the common touch that they can't even process how terribly flawed and limited that approach is, as an officially ordained solution.
My own perspective continues to be that no major progress will be made in addressing race-related injustices until the War on Drugs is ended, repealed, and replaced by a system of comprehensive drugs law reform. The War on Drugs is the "one institutional fixture" that I alluded to above. As long as it continues, it comprises an intractable obstacle. For example, as long as the illicit criminal economy has a controlling interest in mostly black and Hispanic neighborhoods, "black-on-black crime" will rage on. That undeniable phenomenon is a chief talking point of the right wing. It's an effective forking tactic because it's an indisputable reality. (Save your whataboutism. I'm starting with the hard questions. I can at least save issues like the rampant nationwide corruption of the police by the illicit drugs trade for the next comment, can't I?) Only the dismantling of massive criminal economy by pointedly effective drugs law reform will solve that problem. No amount of gun control will do it. Disarming the police won't do it. Abolishing the police department won't do it. Seminars on White Fragility won't do it.
Only after American political leaders confront the issue of replacing the War on Drugs with a rational policy that doesn't perpetuate the economic- and cultural- power of the criminal underworld in this country, from the bottom to the top, will we be in any position to take the next steps to ameliorate the problem.
Any questions, or is this post going to get the same blank silence those observations have overwhelmingly received for the last 20 years (especially from chickenshit liberals)?
"As social critics like Barbara Ehrenreich have noted, the braintrust, the leadership, and the financial backers of the Democrats are now primarily drawn from the ranks of the professional-managerial class. "
Thomas Frank's "Listen LIberal!" is another brilliant dissection of the growth of the professional class, its takeover of the Democratic Party, and also the expansion of professionals' class interests (if not their class consciousness). Well worth a read, and very well written and documented.
Yes, I've been reading Thomas Frank since he wrote What's The Matter With Kansas? about 15 years ago.
The two books from the 1990s that I recommend are Shadows Of Hope by Sam Smith, and Partners In Power, by Roger Morris.
I hate saying "ain't nothing changed". It sounds so hopeless. But 25 years on, the Democratic Party brain trust (such as it is) and the people I refer to as the Orthodox Liberal Establishment have yet to demonstrate that they've learned anything from any of those critiques. For all the unsparing and frequently scathing character of observations in those books, they were ultimately intended as constructive criticism, not Enemy Action.
Reading "Listen, LIberal" led me to formulate my view that ALL of the 99%, all colors, need to develop a set of political demands to roll back legislation **passed by Democratic administrations** within the past 30 years. We cannot change the past of slavery. It is hard to gather statistics on the consequences of slavery. But we damned well can change recent legislation passed by our supposedly left party that has destroyed all of our 99% communities. Including bank bailouts, under Obama. Just add to taht single-payer healthcare, and we would be in a whole lot better shape. I cannot have any respect for hooligans who pull down statues and cannot put a sentence together to make single political demand. The 99% should be demanding rollbacks of specific legislation passed since 1993 by Clinton--Bush 2--Obama. What's going on now is a big circle jerk.
Thank you. Listen Liberal has become my Bible. I recommend it to everyone. Also great is his next book, Rendezvous with Oblivion.
The brief summary provided at The Independent sounds good. I'll order it from our covid-enshrouded library. They DO have it!
I wonder what Frank is working on RIGHT NOW.
I'd argue that the Left is congenitally incapable of recognizing the single greatest feeder of disparate outcomes: children raised in stable two parent homes. In communities full of fathers, children enjoy a huge comparative advantage. And where public primary and secondary education could act as a leveller, it only serves to further accumulate comparative advantage for the lucky.
Exactly. Fine, take away the War on Drugs, and not much changes until there are intact families -- and this goes increasingly for whites too.
But drug dealers get more girls. A situation that won't change until that criminal opportunity is obviated by legalizing the business, along with permitting medical addiction maintenance.
The "comparative advantage" concept is largely undone by the fact that most people get involved in the illicit drugs business as minors, and it's the most lucrative business opportunity around for poor teenagers.
You observations are valid. But they're also invalid, because illicit drug dealing is the one crime that reliably pays. Especially for teenagers. Especially the poor ones. Money, status, girls...
It’s always been all about the benjamins. Whether it’s purveyors of illegal drugs buying elected officials or the purveyors of legal drugs buying elected officials. With the expansion of campaign spending allowed by Citizens United, they don’t even have to be covert about it. I don’t see any meaningful legislative change taking place without campaign finance reform. That is unless voters, who give congress a 15% approval rate but an 85% re-election rate, wake up and vote them out.
@Mascot - Killed it spot on, there are structural issues yes. Racism is a real thing. But it's not the big bad wolf. To keep calling it that will allow the real big bad wolf to keep taking big bad bites out of our overall prosperity, happiness and cohesion.
That is a great point, although I think also unfair if intended as a critique of DiAngelo and other “whiteness” scholars. That would be like critiquing people for studying car exhaust pollution because factories contribute to air pollution more significantly. The study of one thing does not mean it presupposes it is the most important. (Side note: Your point also made me think about people who focus on turning off the water when they brush their teeth vs corporations that have been given free reign to destroy the planet...I agree we lose when we focus too much on the individual when combating systems of power). I would bet that 99% of people who study white identity also agree we need criminal justice reform (including ending the War on Drugs). However, look at what is currently happening with schools dissolving their partnerships with police, defunding police departments, etc. and books like White Fragility and How to Be An Antiracist sustaining #1 spots on bestseller lists for months. I think there is a relationship there that may not be directly causal, but surely there is some connection. Seeking to understand how racism and oppression functions in this country must include a discussion of how the idea whiteness operates at a social and political level. Hoping the war on drugs is next!!
You state “The problem ..is that it elides the structural/institutional impacts of historical racism (perhaps that might be better phrased “the structural/institutional determinants that sustain racism across generations”?) with the phenomenon of personal racist attitudes, and then goes on to focus almost exclusively on the second component, when the core problem resides in the legacy impacts from the first component.” I think herein lies the area that could most profit from some reconceptualization of the core construct of culture in second edition of Robin’s book, for you’re right about where the source of the problem(s) lie. In one sense, given her conceptualization of culture, she has no choice but to focus on attitudes and the interpersonal dimension. For one, but I hasten to add this same criticism has been leveled at Thomas Kuhn’s “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” and it did not prevent it from becoming perhaps the most influential book in the Philosophy of Science of the 20th Century and the core concept of paradigm becoming a household word, Robin qualifies ‘culture’ with at least a dozen distinct terms: western, white, mainstream, European, hegemonic (I believe), etc. Greater precision here would be constructive. This is because – and these ideas are presently under peer review so I should be a bit guarded – culture is presented as largely inescapable (except for one passing mention, which receives no further explanation, of potentially massively important “exceptions”) and essentially omnipotently determinative. Given such a conception of social structure, there is little reason one could expect policy shifts in the American political economy to have any transformative effect, again, if the central determinant of the transgenerational transmission of increasingly implicit racially biased attitudes is cultural/structural. But there are alternative conceptualizations of structure that open the door for a recursively transformational relationship between the interpersonal/attitudinal and the cultural/structural. Therein lies, I think, greater hope for progress on multiple fronts of social/racial justice.
No questions, just applause. 🙂
"ameliorate the problem" > make that "problems." A whole host of them. Some of them related to the American legacy of racial injustice, some wider in scope. But until the power of the political economy of illicit drugs is undone, everything else is tail-chasing. Costly, ineffective, exhausting.
Maybe you'll face the answer once you get tired of that game.
You say there's something wrong with "massively increas[ing] the focus on race, at both a societal and individual level," but you don't explain why there's something wrong with that. You've written two books on structural racism: so, you achieved just the right focus on race? A massive focus on race is not the same thing as a "simplistic binary view of the world." That you equate DiAngelo's book with separating "human beings into rigid categories of good people and bad people" indicates that you do not understand her book. DiAngelo's book is not about intentionally bad or hateful human choices: it's about counter-productive yet habitual ways of seeing and interpreting the world. Perhaps if, instead of using the terms white supremacy and white privilege, we might start speaking of white-valence. White Fragility is not about people intentionally trying to hold onto white supremacy or privilege: it's about our resistance to letting go of habitual ways of viewing the world. We're not resisting because we're bad; it's because we don't want to be bad, and because it's natural to resist change. And even if we're not intentionally choosing to be bad, people do have a right to be very angry.
Bravo. This is the critical distinction that Matt and many of the white people in this comments section fail to make: Being white in America doesn't make us bad, but by marinating in the structural racism of America, we've absorbed -- mostly unconsciously -- "bad" (racially unhelpful) beliefs / world views that cause us to be unconsciously complicit with these racist systems. Becoming aware of our racial bias is the heavy lifting, which most of us want to avoid (including myself), and while DiAngelo's approach may not be the most artful or appealing to some, at least she recognizes the need for the hard work. Yes, there is some research that training aimed at addressing unconscious bias is not effective, but these involved short term efforts (e.g., exposure to 1 workshop) -- of course a workshop or two will not be effective against bias that has built up over decades. So, what each white person can ask themselves is, "Do I care enough about my POC friends and fellow citizens to do the hard work, or am I just going to find excuses to stay in my white comfort bubble?"
Massively increasing the focus on race in the current environment means, actually, not being able to see the person approaching you on the sidewalk as antoher hu;man, but first and foremost noting, "It's an African American--how must I now compose my face?" I don't want to live that way. So, the end effect is to avoid black people. Check out the first definition of "racism" in Merriam Webster. This is what we are now doing/getting. Many people of color do not welcome this newly racialized atmosphere where everything is about race.
What's a unit of structural racism? How do you know you're making it better if you can't measure it? If you can measure it by indirect measures, why not use make the problem about fixing those indirect measures instead of the un-seeable and un-measurable structural racism.
Exactly
"people do have a right to be very angry".
It was a shame to ruin a perfectly good effort with such a baseless assertion in the last sentence.
Ignoring, for a moment, that you didn't make an argument for why people should adopt your way or anyone else's way of viewing the world over their own. Hearing it is one thing, but assuming that it is worthwhile is entirely another. One could almost suspect that your way might harm the person adopting it.
Well said!
Respectfully, if I'm reading you correctly, here and previously, white folks are 'resistan(t) to letting go of habitual ways of viewing the world. Does this resistance afflict other races? Does it afflict you?
The other (also broken) angle one must struggle with in order to make sense of the 'Fragility' philosophy here is that if everyone is inescapably damned, then no one is. Which is to say, if our race makes it impossible for us to adequately understand or sympathize with another race, then how can we reasonably be blamed for whatever in-sensitivities spring forth from that un-bridgable divide? What sense of common moral law is there to adhere to?
I think that DiAngelo's observations of white fragility are spot on. It's why white people cannot deal with race. Your prescription for political/social change is perfectly in line with what DiAngelo and generations of people of color have noticed -- that white people get all agitated and defensive about their "objective" world view that race is irrelevant, when clearly white supremacy has been a major factor in the oppression of the working class.
Matt, you're having a white fragility tantrum.
You've said this exact same thing, multiple times now, on multiples dates. So sorry he hasn't deigned to respond to your weak attempt at a Kafka trap. Maybe it's time to move on with your life
well I have not hear he say it, so apparently there's still an audience for those who dare to speak truth power.
"You say you're not white and fragile, so you're white and fragile, insecure honky." Jesus, it's like a circular religious fundamentalist logic trap made by a child! Racist drivel. "White people cannot deal with race." You mean like the white farmers being massacred in South Africa? Or what white people exactly do you mean in your racist, pathetic blanket generalisation? Laughable third-grade anti-intellectual drivel.
The people who cannot deal with race are the (largely white) academics who have talked themselves into a corner. Abandoning the friendship/love/nonviolence ethic means abandoning the scandalous response to the absurd and terrible reality of racism. MLK knew all whites in the US were beneficiaries of racism, and he knew it might prevent many (most) of them from being truly anti-racist, but he still appealed to them in the name of love because love is genuinely transformative (over a long time) — not being loved, mind you, but being loving.
Too many people think love is "feeling nice feelings" though, so they miss the point and come to the conclusions of fundamentalist religion — the impure are just intractably guilty and damned. It's infantilizing and it sets up a permanent structure that constructs a racial group based on appearance (people with pale skin are "white") and that builds in a system that silences and condemns them forever, reproducing the very conditions it was supposed to remedy — "anti-racism" is "anti" the way that the white chess pieces are "anti" the black ones - merely on the other team. But this is what a world emptied of love and grace as transformative, radical realities is like. Hell. Everyone engaged in self and mutual torment and immiseration.
So where does that leave black people who think DiAngelo's theories are off the mark? I suppose if they are men (e.g. Adolph Reed), you can toss in a little misogyny to try to get them back into the PC fold. It can't simply be that there are legitimate criticisms of "white fragility" and that not all critics are having any sort of tantrum in pointing out her theory's flaws.
Matt makes substantial criticisms of DiAngelo's work. It's no tantrum. He isn't dismissing her every idea, but he's not simply rolling over and accepting her as some sort of essential thinker on the subject the way corporate America and the PC identity politics sycophants are doing. The problem here isn't discussing racism, but rather putting the issue in terms that allow corporations to isolate racist attitudes, ideas, and behaviors in the workplace from the capitalist economic system that fosters and preserves them. Perhaps listen to Matt's and Katie Halper's interview with Professor Reed before concluding that Matt's pushing the view that race is irrelevant. Or more importantly, that racism is irrelevant.
So what is it that you want? Other than money? Because every solution seems to boil down to "Give me something". So what is it that you want from white people that doesn't involve money?
White people: get off your rear ends and fight racist policies. Organize other white people to do the same. Support anti-racist policies. Organize other white people to do the same. Stop raising your children to be "colorblind." It doesn't help, and it harms them and others.
How about an end to racist policies and ideas? Now there's a thought...
Can you be more specific?
Couldn't agree more Matt. What a much needed article. Thank you for writing it and continuing to add such valuable resistance to this disturbing trend. I am all too familiar from working in the social justice space. It took me a little while to wake up from the dogma. It makes me think of what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in the Gulag Archipelago, "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil." Thanks again.
It must be yugely entertaining for you, Matt, what with all the right-wing ideological simpletons trying to get their foot inside your door with their fawning...
Wow, that's nice. Maybe you should give Matt's Hate, Inc. a whirl.
It’s not dangerous to assume that we are complicit in the culture of white supremacy.
What’s dangerous is to not look at the ways that system has embedded itself within us and how it plays out through us.
Someone finally asks that we look at the depths of the roots of racism and how we perpetuate it and you claim that’s dangerous??
I think that DiAngelo's observations of white fragility are spot on. It's why white people cannot deal with race. Your prescription for political/social change is perfectly in line with what DiAngelo and generations of people of color have noticed -- that white people get all agitated and defensive about their "objective" world view that race is irrelevant, when clearly white supremacy has been a major factor in the oppression of the working class. Matt, you're having a white fragility tantrum.
Then you are as stupid as she is. Who the hell is listening to a wealthy white woman that admits she's a racist and thinks everyone else is a racist? Maybe to the other Karen's of the world believe she's enlightening, but the rest of us can see through her BS a mile away.
You can post that over and over, we still dont give a fuck what you think.
"The issue is DiAngelo's prescription for dealing with racism is to massively increase the focus on race, at both a societal and individual level."
- Matt Taibbi expressing a sentiment that's uncannily similar to one expressed by that great champion of human rights, Chief Justice John Roberts, here:
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
You might have gotten a better hearing here if you had just said this, which I think has merit. I don't at all agree that this is the point DiAngelo is making but if she were making this point it would be a problem.
I would sincerely be interested in a succinct paragraph or two, if you (or anyone who agrees with your statement) feel(s) so inclined, to explain the point the DiAngelo is making, in particular addressing how Matt got DiAngelo's point wrong. I want to understand this better.
Her point is to sell books and secure consulting gigs. Everything else flows from there.
This focus on DiAngelo as some profiteering corporate goon is so disingenious. Matt also wants to sell books and secure interviews to promote himself, doesn't he? Just stop.
Big difference is Matt is writing coherent arguments and DiAngelo, not so much. BB, you seem to be suffering from some type of fragility.
I agree that it's not a good line of argument.
But it's also not completely irrelevant to observe that the richest anti-racist activist in the US just happens to be white, using her privilege to go to the top. Her book was estimated by industry sources to have paid her more than $2 million (and there have been many sales since then), and she gets tens of thousands for gigs and speeches.
That doesn't make her views any more or less true (and thus it's better omitted as a talking point in most cases; this is one of the rare excpeptions when I will discuss it), but it IS revealing about how she REALLY feels about systemic racism and how whites should combat it rather than profit from it. In my value system, a person of any race earning money from a book they wrote and speaking/training business they do is OK, but in hers she should hate herself all the way to the bank, or rather she should disdain benefitting from her privilege rather than exploiting her positionality regarding racial tensions to move herself into the 0.1% while preaching to others against benefitting from white privilege.
While it doesn't directly affect the truth or falsehood of her assertions, it does affect the degree that we consider her to be a sincere and good faith advocate of her views.
u seem fragile BB
I think the point that Matt misses is that the book doesn’t condemn any white person for any moral shortcoming. It points out that we exist inside a racist structure that (unless we are actively hating minorities), is not of our making. As a white male who was raised in a small all white town, I found the book to be extremely elucidating. I am now more clearly able to see the plight of a black man or woman in the US. I think the book is there to help shine a light on things about racism that I never would have thought of. I found it extremely elucidating and am having an attack of cognitive dissonance to be in such a strong disagreement with one whom I admire so much
Matt Hartie If only that is what the book was saying. I don’t think it is quite as innocuous as you interpret it to be. Just to pick out a few quotes from the book that Matt cited: “Anti-blackness is foundational to our very identities… Whiteness has always been predicated on blackness.” “[A] positive white identity is an impossible goal.” “[S]trive to be less white.” In other words, all white people are born with the original sin as defined by the amount of melanin in their skin. To interpret DiAngleo’s thesis as taking the onus off the individual white person but putting the onus on every white person because of the “racist structure” we live in is nothing more than linguistic trickery. (And, I might add that there are many white people who have grown up and continue to exist with no advantage for being white whatever. Yet even white people who were raised in dirt poor circumstances, received minimal education, and perhaps with drug-addicted parents, are somehow privileged by the institutional/structural racism that exist in this country. I am not buying it one bit.)
To those of you who are onboard with DiAngelo, I beg you to read (or listen to) thoughtful criticisms of her book. Matt’s article is a good start, but he is not alone (i.e., “left” and thoughtful). I would suggest starting with Coleman Hughes. There are many fantastic thinkers out there who fear her thesis (and most of CRT, in general) is a dangerous trend.
Please do not stop posting every fucking place you possibly can. Your voice is desperately needed.
The problem might have less to do with the book itself, than its fanatical followers.
For example, watch what happened when DiAngelo's ideas were implemented at Evergreen College:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH2WeWgcSMk
So if the book helped you, I think that's good too. But those of us inside universities (and media) are seeing incidents like Evergreen happening at our workplaces. Hence Matt's article.
Yes. Thank you for making this point about how this shakes out in actual application by the fans. Diangelo's book CAN make a contribution, merely as a starting point for people who have never given much thought to race or racism, even as they/ we obliviously live inside of its structures. But she begins and ends her analysis of "racism" as a personal and interpersonal phenomenon, so this thing that should be a first step is also the last step--her passing references to the words "institutional" and "culture" and "systemic"notwithstanding.
I know firsthand how her admirers can apply her techniques to excess. The real goal is to help employees BELIEVE that this approach is all we really need to correct racism. The real benefit to the corporations sponsoring these kinds of work shops is that they get to offload to the individual the entire responsibility for solving "racism," as if the disparate outcomes for black and brown people are not systemic. Large corporations helping to train individual employees to "not touch a black person's hair" are simultaneously sending their lobbyists to Washington to fight any changes that might actually narrow the wealth gap, or support Medicare for all or Free tuition, or any other thing that would put a floor under people and reduce inequality.
If she had put her work in the context of the past 400+ year history of institutional racism and built a bridge to understanding and addressing it in its current forms, I would be very happy with her approach--as a FIRST step. But as it stands, it redirects people away from the root causes and (inadvertently) supports the status quo.
The brilliance of her approach is that she starts with the "good" news that although every white individual is racist, it's not their personal fault and thus nothing to feel guilty about. No guilt trip here!
But unless you agree with her, and dedicate yourself to a lifetime of fighting this evil, then you do have something to feel guilty about after all, because you have unfairly benefited from the system and are responsible for dismantling it. It's like a one two punch - the left hand feints and misses you, just so the right can connect when your guard is down.
Others have pointed out the cultural background upon which she is drawing - the Christian concept of original sin, which even Athiests and non-Christians in her audience will be very familiar with. You didn't eat the apple so you bear no direct responsibility for that - but you still need to dedicate your life to seeking partial redemption (just as if it was your doing), or else.
I have a good and thoughtful friend who also managed to distill something useful from the book, tho he had to read it twice and make a major effort. So I will credit that it may have given you some useful insights - more power to you and I'm truly glad that you care about the disadvantages that some of our Black fellow citizens face.
But a good deal of the book has a different effect which is not so laudable, unfortunately. I cannot recommend it. For example, John McWhorter talks about how condescending it is toward Black people, treating them as more fragile and systemically unable to meet white people on an equal basis. Pity is not respect.
I'd be quite interested in what cognitive dissonance you are experiencing.
next.20.yrs, DiAngelo is making a pretty simple point: After years of doing diversity and anti-racism training, she's noticed a particular pattern in the way many white people respond to being challenged about their racial world view, which she calls our "script." One of the script lines that appears right on the back cover is: "It's focusing on race that divides us." Which is exactly what Matt is saying. Contra Taibbi, she says white unconsciousness about race and racism must first be addressed. This is the simple argument that you can't solve a problem you don't even acknowledge exists. Now, Matt acknowledges not only racism, but structural racism, which is much more than can be said for many white folks on this comments section. But Matt does not appear to be willing to acknowledge the individual *psychological* effects each white person (and people passing as white) acquires simply be living in America's systemic racism. I can understand this -- I resist it myself -- it's the heavy lifting I mentioned earlier, and I struggle with it mightily. Matt, and lots of other liberal leaning people (not even mentioning conservative folks) poo-poo self examination. It's seen as weak and unnecessary and it makes them super uncomfortable. Maybe I'm wrong and Matt does lots of introspective work -- I invite him to correct me! But I suggest that Matt's piece is primarily an expression of his unconscious discomfort at being challenged -- he wrote 2 books so he's supposed to be an "expert" on racism! -- but how else do you explain the hyperbole of his statement that this is the "worst book ever written?" I've conceded Matt's point that DiAngelo lacks art and humor, but I think he lacks a willingness to take up the challenge of critical self examination, and lots of white folks here are cheering him because they don't want to do it either.
Excuse me: My take on this is EVERY PERSON FEELS THIS WAY! Whatever their racial makeup is! No one wants to be challenged about their racial biases, or accused of racial bias without a chance to defend themselves. The author of the book DiAngelo is writing and stating her "Opinion" not "Fact." I respect Matt Taibbi for putting this "front and center" instead of speaking in "lock step" with the current climate in this country which is quite toxic at the moment.
The point is: do NOT make generalizations about others. Unless you are a "mind reader" and know what is in someone's heart you don't know what they think. Period.
BB Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I did read the book and understand that DiAngelo is addressing systemic racism as an issue that persists and continues to negatively affect black persons in all aspects of their lives. However, I am having a hard time understanding how this points us in a positive (or even true) way forward. If acknowledging that white people are unconscious about race and racism and thus resist addressing it, what would be the way going forward if , as a thought experiment, every white person acknowledged (in a way that satisfied DiAngelo’s definition) the existence of structural/systemic racism and the benefit that confers to each individual white person? How would that solve the problem of structural racism? I suspect, although I could be off base on this, is that the answer is something like a universal consciousness in our institutions that would no longer confer privilege to white people and black people would have the equal opportunities they do not have at present. Or as one earlier comment put it, “DiAngelo agrees that a post-racial society is the ultimate goal.” I am struggling to understand how this collective guilt of white people simply because they are privileged by their skin color – an assumption which is taken as truth , but should be more carefully discussed - will ultimately lead this country into the promised land. I am not arguing, just honestly trying to understand. I may be daft but so far, a lot of this just isn’t making sense to me.
I think DiAngelo's answer to your question of "how this collective guilt of white people simply because they are privileged...will ultimately lead into the promised land..." is on page 144. There, she says that the reason for her techniques is to improve relationships with black people. These improved relationships will automatically lead to "institutional change." If it were a formula, it would be "constant acknowledgmeent of my supremacists thoughts + apology to black people as needed+ offers to them to repair the damage done by my insensitivity = good relationships which lead to individual commitments to institutional change.
In other words, what you are sensing is her very flawed theory of how change happens. She doesn't distinguish root causes from symptoms with any consistency, and she shows little understanding of the vast political power that put these institutions in place over four centuries. More importantly, her writing shows little to no understanding of the political-economic forces that keep discriminatory policies, practices, and outcomes in place today.
"I think he lacks a willingness to take up the challenge of critical self examination, and lots of white folks here are cheering him because they don't want to do it either."
What about non-white folks who hate the book? Shouldn't they be less susceptible to the racial stress that causes them to respond in problematic ways? https://www.thebellows.org/im-black-and-afraid-of-white-fragility/
Mmm yes, she dictates that any white person who holds liberal values such as MLKs words quoted in the article has only to agree with her or is simply following “the script.”
The failure of her book and your posts is the assumption that others who come to different conclusions than you are failing to acknowledge issues or failing to engage in self-assessment. Your blithely refer to individual psychological effects but apparently do not understand the importance of the term “individual”. In other words, you may need to get your mind around the idea that something you “struggle mightily” with is YOUR problem, not everyone’s.
Similarly, the author may need to consider how she interacts with her audience and who her audience is. There is no significant demographic group that does not acknowledge racism (and the few who disavow it are extremely unlikely to have any interaction with her) and attempting to treat her perception of people’s response to her as applicable to 200-250 million Americans is patently absurd.
What is particularly disingenuous in her framework (and in your acquiescence) is her attempt to define “It's focusing on race that divides us." as a part of a “script.” That belief is both morally and intellectually viable and for many Americans is the result of significant consideration. You (and she) are entitled to believe differently but you are not entitled to disavow – with no basis – the legitimacy of this belief and strategy.
There is an underlying reality to the nature of race relations in this country. The worst transgressions against people of color are occurring in major communities that have been controlled by “progressives” for decades. The most segregation, the worst educational opportunities and the most violent crimes against people of color have developed – deliberately or not – as a result of Democrat machine politics. Minneapolis is overwhelmingly leftist, yet somehow Derek Chauvin spent nearly 20 years on their police force (acquiring an average of a formal complaint per year while doing so). Perhaps, the failure to self-assess is a primarily leftist issue?
She is 100% making that point.
You duplicitous mainsplaining creep. You have the temerity to blast her for daring to employ the vernacular of one of the 20th Century’s most influential sociologists, Pierre Bourdieu, whose concept of habitus means a great deal more than your google translation, but perhaps that’s just where your level of comprehension is. But after creaming for egghead language you tell us her sin is a “simplistic binary view of the world…[with] rigid categories of good people and bad people…”. There is a 69 page chapter (in my e-pub) explicitly designed to debunk the good people bad people binary. I realize the language may have been hard to grasp, but FYI- the chapter in which she does the very opposite of what you’re saying is called “The Good/Bad Binary.” Why don’t take the time to read at least that damn chapter before you fabricate more BS about a book you cleary did not read or that went over your head.
hi Brett,
I appreciate your objections to Matt's often byperbolic style. That being said, I HAVE read every word of DiAngelo’s book. I also joined an online “forum” designed for white people (most were women) to help each other employ Diangelo’s techniques for uncovering and accepting their own 'deeply internalized' beliefs of their own racial superiority, and all the ways that manifested in the way we spoke, asked questions, etc. --in order to--as you have noted-- to improve our relationships between white and black people
Based on all that reading and direct engagement, I think I understand the difference in what you, Brett, understand to be the “good-bad binary,” and the “binary” to which Matt refers—which is DIFFERENT. When DiAngelo explains the “good bad binary,” she is referring to the false belief people have that only “bad” people can be “racist.” Hence, “white fragility” ensues, as we who are white attempt to defend our honor based on not wanting to be “bad.”
Matt, on the other hand, is NOT referring to THAT kind of "good" and "bad" when he mentions “binary.” He is referring to the shaming that is inherent in DiAngelo’s advice to white people to restructure their behaviors based on a constant search for opportunities to apologize to black people, and then atone for their sins. And using the word “sin” is not an over-statement; original sin means you are born with it. Essentially, she IS saying we are born INTO it, and it is inescapable. And if we want to be antiracist, we need to spend all of our lives, every day and in every moment examining our thoughts for their inherent racism.
Whether or not you, or I , or Matt agree or disagree that this is good advice, I believe this praxis of DiAngelo’s is what Matt is referring to as a “binary.”
In practice, I can affirm first hand that what Matt describes is what happens, whether or not this is exactly what DiAngelo originally intended. In online forums, her fans chide one another, try to scoot each other more deeply into “the work,” and advise each other how to plumb the depths of every statement they make for its inherent “superiority.” Typical from the moderators, (some small number of whom may be black), is the advice, “stop centering yourself in the way you tell this story,” or “re-write this avoiding all use of the words, “I,” “Me,” or “mine.” This avoidance of the word “I” is a pretty artificial way to actually relate a direct observation or experience. To the devotees, however, expressing this academically in the third person and passive voice feels like “doing the work.”
And--you guessed it--any question asked about the utility of avoiding the word "I" was met with "you are showing your fragility."
I wish I were exaggerating. I don’t even know if DiAngelo actually recommends this in her workshops, but based on her fans application of what they think is her advice, my guess is that she does.
So naturally, Matt picked up on this. The division of people into lifelong victimizers and their victims, and a constant need to “work that" and accept the “discomfort” of it all does inspire the word, “binary.” More specific than “bad” or “good,” however, would be “victimizer and victim.” You will never be "woke" if you are white; but you need to devote yourself to enforcing the language of those who are, by virtue of their lived experience, which they too were "born into."
As cloying and weird as all this is, my main objection is DiAngelo's obviously flawed theoryof change--which is that even though supremacy is "institutional," the way it is challenged and changed is exclusively in the realm of the personal and interpersonal. See page 144 for her theory of progression from "apology" to "repair" to automatic "institutional change.
Thank you Trudy,
I appreciate your acceptance of my charge that Matt engages in frequent (and I would add a grotesque level of) hyperbole. I assume we agree also that doing so is profoundly unhelpful to those who in good faith seek, as you have obviously done, to engage seriously with the important work of seeking, on a personal/interpersonal level to lower the probability that we personally inflict harm on those who, through the accident of their birth, exist in a society that does that plenty of that without need of our assistance.
I also appreciate that you have read the book, for I really am not all convinced that Matt has. (Btw, if you are on Quora, and if this would interest you, I am, when time permits, opening a “space” – not quite sure what that means – for open, honest, respectful, collegial debate about Robin’s book among those who attest to having actually read it. Your experience in the forums you describe would be of great value, I’m sure.). But I’m still not wholly convinced that Matt’s not using binary and good/bad in the way I asserted – in a direct contradiction of the way Robin seeks to employ that construct. First, if you will allow me to offer a few reasons I have little confidence in Matt’s good faith. Consider these selections:
He viciously attacks her ad hominem by saying, DiAngelo isn’t the first person to make a buck pushing tricked-up pseudo-intellectual horseshit…
Really? On what basis does he claim her work is grounded in tricked up pseudo-intellectual horseshit. Like you, Trudy, I’ve read her book, twice in fact. And her dissertation, and about half of her 29 peer-reviewed articles. (Disclosure: I have a book manuscript under review that contains a chapter that criticizes her construct of culture but otherwise offers a defense of the fields of scholarship Robin grounds her work in.) The multidisciplinary field of inquiry into implicit cognition, for example, is one of “the largest, and fastest growing, subfields of psychology” (Bertram and Payne 2010, ix). Within 15 years of the foundational article by Greenwald and Banaji published in 1995, a PsycINFO search generated 15,000 references – that was a decade ago (2010, ix). The Greenwald and Banaji article has been cited nearly 7,500 times (Google Scholar 19 March, 2020), while Greenwald et al.’s (1998) report on their Implicit Attitudes Test experiments has been cited 12,331 times (Google Scholar 19 March, 2020). And Matt has the cojones to dismiss her work as tricked-up pseudo-intellectual horseshit???? I’m sorry, he really does deserve the disdain he elicited from me.
Then he ascribes to Robin the view, “If your category is “white,” bad news: you have no identity apart from your participation in white supremacy….
Trudy, you have to admit that she could not be clearer in her opposition to this unidimensional thinking. In fact, it is Matt himself who elsewhere slams her “for her writing style [that] is pure pain. The lexicon favored by intersectional theorists…” Throughout this tantrum dressed up as column, he demands to have it both or even multiple ways. But clearly, she can’t be one of those damned intersectionalists and believe one has a unidimensional identity. Again, he either cannot understand her work, or he is intentionally misrepresenting it. I don’t know him, this was my first and last encounter with the man, so others can make the call. But neither possibility is complementary, and both undermine his authority to speak, and to speak with the dismissive venom as he does throughout.
Yes, he then next says, “DiAngelo writes like a person who was put in timeout as a child for speaking clearly.”
This is where Matt switches from his complaint about her simpleton lexical style characterized by the redundant use of the root term white, presumably, because of her limited ability, to a populist anti-intellectualism for daring to employ the vocabulary essential to express adequately Bourdieu’s critical conceptual contribution of habitus. And to drive home the limits of his switch to anti-intellectualism in the paragraph immediately after his infantilizing assault on her unacceptably simplistic writing style, he offers us a google translation of her use of Bourdieu that does about as much service to the construct of habitus as saying that the construct of wellness means simply not being fat.
And then there’s this lament: “DiAngelo instructs us there is nothing to be done here, except “strive to be less white.””
That sentence is taken from the final chapter of the book. It is lifted without any context whatsoever. It would be wholly reasonable for Matt’s readers to infer she uses skin darkening cream, or adopts a mode of speech scholars used to call “Black English.” But in fact, the rest of that paragraph is a complete non sequitur, referring back to the very opening passages in which she describes some of the constitutive elements of her construct of white fragility. What she really has to say about striving to be less white is to attempt “to be less racially oppressive…be more racially aware,…be better educated about racism, and to continually challenge racial certitude and arrogance. To be less white is to be open to, interested in, and compassionate toward the racial realities of people of color.” What could possibly be objectionable about that?
And finally to the issue of his conception of the good/bad binary. I really do appreciate the depiction of your experience. But let’s look at his text – from the column and a reply.
From his column he asserts plainly that:
“[i]t” (I can’t remember now if “it” refers to her childish linguistic style or her egghead overintellectual one, but whichever), “banishes ambiguity, nuance, and feeling and structures itself around sterile word pairs, like racist and antiracist, … that reduce all thinking to a series of binary choices.
Now you claim that what “he is referring to [is] the shaming that is inherent in DiAngelo’s advice to white people to restructure their behaviors based on a constant search for opportunities to apologize to black people, and then atone for their sins.” You go on to make it clear that “sin” is not hyberbolic. “[O]riginal sin,” you note, ‘means you are born with it. Essentially, she IS saying we are born INTO it, and it is inescapable.”
This is an interesting passage from you Trudy. You lost me, only partly though, in your claim that DiAngelo prescribes for us a shaming or shameful experience in her extensive prescription / discussion of apology in the “Where do we go from here?” chapter. As for the matter of shaming, I think she’s quite clear that the practice of antiracism (which indeed includes a good deal of discussion about apologies to people of color when we become aware, or are made aware, that we have exhibited some racist behavior) is not at all a guilt-ridden process, for like any ‘infection,” we are not responsible for contracting it – but once we know we have it, it sure as hell becomes our responsibility to do something about it. It is precisely because it might be said to be our original sin, that we did not seek our racist attitudes or beliefs, that we better understand now the high prevalence of implicit racially biased attitudes. And shame and guilt, Robin claims, are the exclusive domain of the denialists – not those who seek out ways to make amends to those we may have harmed.
I said you only partly lost me here. Though you liken the source or origin of our racism to the concept of original sin, of course the only place the concept of sin shows up is in the preface written by Michael Dyson. Robin assiduously avoids, it seems, any connotation of sin. But in my manuscript under review, I do argue that her conception culture merits interrogation. This is not the place to explore that critique, but I’m reminded of the ways in which certain notions in Radical feminism about the inescapable ubiquity of patriarchy, a construct that has done much to shed light on structures and systems of gender oppression, has by virtue of its inescapability an uncomfortable family resemblance to the biological determinism of gender traits sold and naturalized as being grounded in biology.
And from his reply to a commenter her doubles down:
“The issue is DiAngelo's prescription for dealing with racism is to massively increase the focus on race, at both a societal and individual level.” Well, what’s wrong with that? In the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, we are well advised by all, except Trump, to increase our focus on the problem of a contagion. It seems to most people wholly rational to radically increase our focus on infectious disease, not, as the president did, dismantle our institutional apparatus designed to deal with the problem of infectious disease. I don’t think my analogy is without merit.
He goes to claim, “Her simplistic binary view of the world - one is either on board with her conception of "antiracism" or a white supremacist ,,,because in this theology the bad people are unredeemable agents of systemic evil and therefore not deserving of rights.”
Well, I haven’t a clue what he means by not deserving of rights, but that’s hardly the only time goes so far astray from her book that one can’t really be expected to know what he means. But this language of ‘theology’, and a choice between racism and antiracism is only a razor thin conceptual distance from that which she spends the whole of chapter 5 dispelling.
Trudy, there seems like obvious common ground between us for a reasoned, continued debate about his column. But I must confess, it’s 8:28 here in Bangkok, and I’ve worked all night. So I must grab a bit of a nap before I restart my day. I did want to say again I appreciate your effort to educate me on the practice of the forum you described. I have no experience with those, and I don’t know if that’s what my Quora space would end up being. But perhaps we’ll have a chance to continue this further.
Best regards,
b
Hi Brett,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
based. on your comment, I re-read Matt’s article. And yes, I do still think Matt is NOT using “binary” in any way that has anything to do with Robin’s use of “binary” in the context of “fragility.” (in fact, I think he’d agree with all she wrote about that). So her rejection of “binary” in one context (“fragility”) doesn’t in any way mean that she has not engaged in “binary thinking” in other contexts.
I wouldn’t state as starkly as he does his feelings about her “sterile,” forced choice pairs, but I do agree that her prescriptions result in some oppressive dynamics. In the forums that I mentioned, people applying her techniques engaged in “outing,” shaming and banning.” DAILY, they would gang up on participants, following the lead of a moderator. They applied all the “binary” words that Matt mentioned—e.g., center, de-center, platform, de-platform, etc.) This does reflect DiAngelo’s approach; it also reflects a real lack of sophistication with the material and the process.
The unspoken rule was “never challenge a moderator.” It should be noted that 5 out of 6 moderators were white. Participants were to accept all “feedback,” immediately apologize for their error and atone for it by re-reading the material or offering some form of repair, like paying for a black woman’s groceries (seriously, they posted contact info for a list of black women on Venmo). Frequently, they would advise participants to apologize to the one black moderator for “expecting a black woman to ‘do labor’ for you.” Labor” was another jargon word. I sincerely doubt that this is what DiAngelo originally intended, but Matt’s point is that this is where it can lead.
I think Matt likely agrees with robin that racism is embedded in every institution and that we are all affected by it. However, I think he mis-reads her when he concludes that she is saying that we who are white are “nothing more than our racism” and that we were “born with it.” She says we were born INTO it. That’s a very important distinction. If he thinks she is saying that Caucasians are genetically wired with supremacy as their biologically determined essence, that’s crazy. But he does use the word Hitlerian, so I think he did go there.
Ironically, some of what DiAngelo describes as “whiteness” is similar to what James Baldwin describes as “whiteness.” I mention this because I am guessing that Matt would agree with Baldwin. So when Matt writes in his criticism of DiAngelo, ““If your category is “white,” bad news: you have no identity apart from your participation in white supremacy….” He would also be criticizing Baldwin who says something similar. But DiAngelo’s presentation of “whiteness” is so awkward and simplistic that the similarity between her concepts and Baldwin’s eloquence is easy to miss.
Here are two quotes from Baldwin on whiteness:
“Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.”
“America became white—the people who, as they claim, "settled" the country became white—because of the necessity of denying the Black presence, and justifying the Black subjugation.”
He also says that the only way white people can be liberated is if black people are—IN EVERY POSSIBLE REALM. In other words, “whiteness” defined as dominance and supremacy goes away when black people have equal power.
However, despite the similarity between Baldwin’s and DiAngelo’s definitions of “whiteness,” DiAngelo’s CONCLUSIONS are profoundly different from Baldwin’s.
DiAngelo says: “To be less white is to be open to, interested in, and compassionate toward the racial realities of people of color.”
Baldwin says, ““The only thing white people have that black people need, or should want, is power.”
In other words, “sensitivity training” for white people ain’t it We need policy and change that addresses the real hurdles and dangers and lack of access that black people navigate each day.
You mentioned “guilt” and your belief that DiAngelo is not promoting guilt: YES, you are correct that she SAYS her approach is not about “guilt.” But saying and doing are two very different things. Her advice—as Matt points out-- consists of abject apologies to black people by white people, and humble offers to “repair the harm I did to you in the racist statement I made about your hair...” I have black and brown friends and associates who laugh about the advice to white women to buy groceries or offer other favors to black people--not just because it is embarrassing and awkward, but because it actually changes nothing that matters to them.
You wrote: “but once we know we have it [racism], it sure as hell becomes our responsibility to do something about it.” I totally agree. But what IS that something that we do? Her analysis of WHY white people have such a hard time with racism and with dialogue about racism is fine; but her analysis of what to DO about it focuses more on white people’s comfort (ironically) and need for approval than it does on black people’s needs. In my view, her approach is (ironically) yet another way for white people to make themselves the main topic.
While I do in fact still engage in facilitation of work sessions with people on the issue of internalized racism, I never do it without an analysis of power (all 7 types) and how power is distributed. In other words, the personal and interpersonal (DiAngelo’s world) cannot be considered apart from the wider context of how justice, injustice, and inequality are structured and are self-perpetuating Radically changing policy and economics and removing the retrograde “leaders” that we have are the only “amends” and “repairs” that interest me.
Finally, yes, you are correct that she doesn’t say “sin.” I used that word to convey what MATT thinks she is saying about white people’s lifelong inheritance of irremediable racism. Matt also believes that DiAngelo wants people to feel shame for the equivalent of original sin (and I agree with him, for reasons I stated earlier). She can SAY that she doesn’t feel or want other to feel guilt; her methods scream that she does.
Thank you for the invitation, but I probably won’t do much, if anything in the Quora realm, just due to a severe lack of time. I do read and write when I have time, and respond to others but I don’t do well with ongoing commitments.
Here is an interesting review of the book titled, “I’m black and afraid of white fragility.”
https://www.thebellows.org/im-black-and-afraid-of-white-fragility/
Take care,
Trudy
thanks so much Trudy. really. Again, dawn has broken over thailand and I have exams to grade by 9:00. I did try to craft a quick reply suggesting we share common ground of critique re; the language of apology in the final chapter, but the website frequently freezes and I lose my post, which just happened. Just know I appreciate your deeply thoughtful response and that I fuller reply is forthcoming. best wishes, b
Ah yes, the humanities "peer review" process, brought to you by the same people who made the phony "rape culture in a Seattle dog park" the paper of the year, and "peer reviewed" and accepted as valid what, 20 others or so before realizing they were being punk'd with what any sane person would immediately recognize as an "Onion" article?
Don’t know the difference between humanities and social sciences I see. But you are referring to those three singularly ideologically motivated critics of the academy and especially virulent critics of feminism (9 of the 11 targeted journals represent Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) who submitted 21 bogus papers to 11 academic journals, which the hoaxers represented as being “leading journals in their respective fields.” Far from your claim 20 other s were accepted, 2/3 of them were rejected. Seven, however, indeed making quite outlandish claims, but claims represented to the journals who for many reasons have to assume submissions come in good faith, as being supported by real data the authors had dutifully collected, but which it turns out were all total fabrications, were accepted.
“Peer review is simply not designed to detect fraud. It doesn’t need to be. Fraud is uncovered in due course, and severe professional consequences deter almost all such behavior. Nor is the peer-review process designed to weed out every crazy idea. Given the self-correcting nature of scholarship, it is far better to let through a few bad ideas than to publish only those that are so self-evident as to be without controversy (Bergstrom 2018).
But who did they target? Leading journals like they claim? Hardly. These cowards committed the worst form of academic misconduct and submitted to journals that were the least able to defend against scum bent on perpetrating academic misconduct. A “leading journal” in the field would be the American Political Science Review, American Anthropologist, Quarterly Journal of Economics, etc.. These outlets have been publishing 118 years, 130 years and 133 years, respectively. The ones they targeted, like Porn Studies, Fat Studies, Feminist Theory, etc. Years in publication: 4 years, 6 years, and 23 years, respectively. Why does age matter? The number of reviewers for one. The American Political Science Review has a stable of scholars standing ready to accept articles to review numbering 4005. The numbers for the targeted journals? Most are so new they don’t even have a count. But the 4005 reviewers of the APSR is essentially the size of the library circulation of the targeted journal Hypatia. Yeah, your intellectual heroes are truly of the brave and noble sort. Like schoolyard bullies. And those who stand and watch and cheer as bullies beat up little kids, they’re a class act too.
So Trudy, I don't agree that DiAngelo's theory of change necessarily rules out or invalidates all actions outside the "personal and interpersonal" realms. As I read her, she is saying the personal and interpersonal are both powerful and necessary, but not exclusive. I'm curious though. I'm impressed with your ability to explain Taibbi's pov on DiAngelo because it flat out baffled and appalled me. I'm also impressed with your experiences of people online dogmatizing DiAngelo's methods of expanding self-awareness, which I agree, is a negative outcome. But please, what theory of change would you prescribe to eliminate racism from American culture?
Hi Gary,
I too "do not agree that DiAngelo's theory of change necessarily rules out or invalidates all actions outside the "personal and interpersonal" realms1" DiAngelo's book is a FIRST STEP for people who have given little thought to either race or antiracism. DiAngelo's writing suggests that the first step is also the last step, as she states there will be a natural progression to institutional change more or less automatically. So,her theory of change doesn't "rule out" the next steps, but it does nothing to show any understanding of the bridge to them. Her theory appears to me to be, "self awareness" leads to "greater sensitivity" and "apologies" which will result in "good relationships." Those good relationships will in turn lead to "institutional change."
Did you read page 144? There, in one paragraph, she states this. While she uses the words, "institutional racism" several times, there is no focus on defining it--either the history of what created it and what has held it in place for 400 years, or what it will take to dismantle the policies that have disparate outcomes for black and brown people, at every level and in every part of our economic and political systems.
I guess the second part of your comment is asking me what is MY theory of change. Any fundamental change has to address the various means by which a government can be IMPELLED to change its priorities, its policies, and its structure of economic and political power. James Baldwin said, "the only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power." I think he would say to DiAngelo, save the apologies about touching my hair; just keep your foot off my neck.
Change is about the distribution of power: we have a system that allows only rich people access to governing. We have two corporate parties that use "race" only as symbols and as ways to divide and to protect the status quo and their own financial interests. Any theory of change that does not disrupt the tiny ruling elite is just tinkering and symbolism, and not much else.
I'm guessing that BLM organizers' next steps don't include Robin DiAngelo workshops. I'm guessing they know that sensitivity trainings by Robin DiAngelo are not going to get anyone's neck out from under anyone else's knee. So while her work doesn't "rule out," prevent, negate, or block the "next steps," her work distracts from the rest of the story, by feeding the delusion that well meaning white EMPLOYEES (not even their companies!) can fix all this by just being more sensitive.
I think it would be interesting to ask HER how she thinks her work could lead to the kinds of changes described by Baldwin, Frederick Douglass's, or current change agents like Cornell West or even a moderate like Marc Lamont Hill. Does her book need to do everything? No. No one's does. But those criticizing her work know that without admitting to what your book DOESN'T do, you can do harm.
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Trudy. It was a pleasure to read. But you still didn’t answer my question. I’m not clear on what your theory of change would be. You alluded to some sources that hint at an answer: James Baldwin, Cornel West and Frederick Douglass—all heroes of mine. So I can guess at your answer and reckon it’s probably somewhere near the realm of where my answer would be, if it were fully formed. And, while I’m not close to despair—and I don’t think I ever will be, even at the point of death—I don’t think, at this juncture, the owners will ever take their feet off our necks, nor do I have a lot of hope that we worker bees are likely to develop the kind of solidarity necessary to forge a new society in which the pillaging owners can be thrown off and then contained. It is in the development of the latte—some form of lasting, resilient solidarity among a significant majority of working people—where the solution, the stairway to the answer, is to be found. That solidarity will need to be grounded in the heart as well as the mind in the way love for one’s family is grounded in both.
Here’s the problem: When you look at history, the slaves have never overthrown the slaveholders. Never completely. We’ve never ever really come close. And by “overthrown,” I mean, we slaves have never gotten the slaveholders to get their feet off our necks and keep them off. Of course, I’m using the word “slavery” in it’s broadest sense of workers trapped in an economic system that holds them to a minimum of material prosperity unless they adopt the values and methods of the slaveholder, which I would define by historical analogy as the values and methods of capitalism.
I see it working generally this way: Once a person accepts the values of capitalism, i.e. that one goes into business to make and horde money (to build a better life for oneself, a true believer would say), and that there’s nothing wrong with paying your employees the lowest wage you can (because it’s their own damn fault if they’re willing to permit themselves to be satisfied with that), then that person becomes free to climb the ladder to material heaven. So goes the American Dream. Private jets. Worldwide mansions. Fabulous lifestyle. The other alternative, if one wants to get ahead but isn’t comfortable with the risk involved in going into business for oneself, is to rise in the management hierarchy, and essentially serve Massa as an overseer. This management alternative works just as well in the public as it does the private sector. Massa rewards people willing to manage the slaves well, and one can end one’s career in a nice new spacious McMansion in a gated community with a golf course and country club. No private jets, but you might be able to drive a Jag or Mercedes in the three-car garage while keeping yourself well away from the dangerous and distasteful unwashed masses and the viruses they carry.
Just as DiAngelo points out how white supremacy is so much a given that it goes unnoticed by the white majority, so the values of capitalism form the given parameters around which the world is seen as naturally turning. That paradigm is necessarily hierarchical and selfish. One can be benevolent with one’s family only. Everyone else is a potential competitor (which means enemy). My vision of the solution begins with the recognition that the paradigm of capitalistic selfishness must be broken and replaced with a paradigm of solidarity based upon a recognition of our necessary, mutual interdependency.
Yes, this is an incredibly utopian, pie-in-the-sky vision, riven with problems and seeming impossibilities. For one thing, people don’t know how to live this way. The norm is the nuclear family and this paradigm would require communal living, the pooling of resources and a significant loss of privacy. The individual would have to willingly allow herself to be subsumed into the community and find joy and comfort in that. The ideas of ownership and exclusivity would have to be reworked. The effect of a switch from the current capitalistic paradigm to this communistic paradigm would create dizzying difficulties in the area of sexual relationships alone. Indeed, the traditional family would have to break down and dissolve itself into a much broader sense of family, ultimately one that embraced all of humanity.
People have never pulled this off. They’ve made some good starts. The anarcho-syndicalism of Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War was promising. The early Christians pulled it off for a few centuries before the Roman empire annexed them to give the world the grim blessing of Catholicism. I think it was probably the norm in certain matriarchal Neolithic communities before they were overrun by waves of Caucasian migratory hordes. It is possible, but far from probable under contemporary conditions.
There is one potential ace in the hole: the fact that capitalism is certain to destroy the earth. Right now it looks like it will either be by nuclear holocaust or by global warming. I might be possible, if we plant enough seeds of the communistic paradigm and begin actually practice communism, working out the kinks as we go, refining the theory and the practice in the decades before capitalism finally careens off the cliff, we might be able to instill some seed communities that can grow the world back again the way it should be, in harmony with nature and knit together in mutual interdependence, and yes, love.
I don't understand how so many of the simple tons posting here can't grasp that Matt isn't accusing her of saying racists are good or bad. We get that - she thinks everyone is racist. Is one of the central, most ridiculous premises in the book. The issue is that she hold such a simple dichotomistic worldview. Christ sake bud, your ability to understand what you read without reading into it your own strawman, bad-faith arguments, is straight up laughable. YOU are the one missing the point!
I think that DiAngelo's observations of white fragility are spot on. It's why white people cannot deal with race. Your prescription for political/social change is perfectly in line with what DiAngelo and generations of people of color have noticed -- that white people get all agitated and defensive about their "objective" world view that race is irrelevant, when clearly white supremacy has been a major factor in the oppression of the working class. Matt, you're having a white fragility tantrum.
Its fine with us that you THINK she is spot on. You are entitled to your opinion. Now, try to make a logical case supporting your opinion. Kindly base it on measurable data.
No, you're indulging in the assumptions of someone who employs a communications double-bind that serves the goal of making their correspondent wrong, unless they assent to the claim being offered. A tactic that depends on the speaker arriving at a predetermined conclusion about the inherent nature of the person responding, and then satisfying themselves that their assumption has been proved correct no matter what response is offered in return.
That doesn't demonstrate superior insight; it demonstrates conceit. It's a discreet form of bigotry.
Really: once a given "white person" is informed that all white people are fragile, the double bind ensures that the response supports the claim, whether agreement ("yes, I am a fragile white person, because white">>"Yes, you are, exactly as I said.") or disagreement ("I haven't the faintest idea what you might be talking about">>"Then why so sensitive, all of a sudden?")
Why so sensitive? Because "fragility" is a synonym for "weakness." And few human beings are inclined to respond positively to someone who makes the claim that they're inherently weak (or dull-witted, or unstable, or incompetent) simply on account of their group membership status. Especially when the claim is made by someone who's never met them, and may not even know their name.
Really: how much weight do you think the exact same claim makes, with only the direct object being changed?
"(I know that*) because you're on the Left, you're touchy and easily offended."
"No, I'm not. That claim is groundless."
"Ooh- touchy, aren't you?"
Same trap.
Well stated response; I enjoyed reading it.
Note that double-binds like these bury the actual subject and predicate, which are the words that I put in parentheses in the example above. The assertion is dependent on the tacit opening- "I know..." followed by an assertion offered as if it were a statement of fact, without support, as if its truth were so obvious that none were needed.
A statement of that sort isn't a fact claim; it's a turf claim. It's a sneaky means of asserting dominance in the conversation.
Honest and productive communication is only possible between equals. A discourse based on the ground rule that "I am going to TALK, and YOU are going to LISTEN"- i.e., that takes place with an insistence that there are some points that are not open for disagreement or dissent- is not an authentic conversation. It's forced indoctrination.
A great many people put on the spot by a double-bind claim recognize the trap that it contains, and respond by rejecting it as an insufferably arrogant imposition. They are not wrong.
The interesting thing is that some of them recognize that problem only when it happens to be the case that they're the target.
Stop posting this, you fucking idiot. Saying something stupid multiple times doesn't make it true.
Re: sister_h
The voice in your head that's compelling you to repost this inane comment ad nauseum is possibly an indication that it's past time to take your meds.
I know that EVERYBODY on earth feels affinity for their own race, tribe, ethnic group, language and religion. And almost all people regard "the other" with varying degrees of suspicion, alienation, fear. This is universal and cannot be ended, period. That behavior and inclination is genetically transmitted to each new generation. Nature, in the form of evolution, designed humans in this way to prevent what is called "genetic drift", which would quickly result in the weakening of the core genome of modern humans. That core genome has made us strong, resistant to many ailments, extremely intelligent, and able to create the modern world we all live in. Evolution is still working on us, we are a work in progress, but we are getting stronger with each generation. No need to tamper with success.
Are you being serious? A basic corollary of evolution theory is that genetic diversification strengthens, not weakens the genome. Weaknesses in the genome are weeded out by natural selection, not fear of "the other", which is only related to natural selection in that, on balance, fearing the unknown tends to keep you from getting killed. That doesn't mean it doesn't have downsides, one of which is that it can lead a population to become rather vulnerable (genetically or otherwise) to a sudden novel threat.
fight fight fight fight
Hear! Hear!
I come to this discussion at a late stage because I've been in comments in this stack that -only- Donald Trump opposes Critical Race Theory and that CRT is "bad -- very, very bad".
I am not a scholar on race, but I'm willing to try alternate methods of solving the problem -- no matter how flawed some purists insist those methods are.
Matt, I think DiAngelo’s main point is that we should stop thinking about racism in terms of bad racists and good non-racists. That racism is a structure we all grow up in. That you have to think about it, notice it, in order to combat it. Deciding to not focus on race doesn’t do much to change racist structures in society. I don’t love her writing style either but I think you were too quick to dismiss some of her points and you mischaracterized others in my opinion.
Kate, it is "good non-racists" who spearheaded the abolition of slavery not just in the USA but in Britain and Africa. It is really the height of impertinence and opportunism or someone like DiAngelo to run what comes down to "reeducation camps" that constantly reinforce racial memes. But then home wrecker DiAngelo sounds like an an opportunist also in her private life. Why didn't she marry an African American instead of stealing someone else's husband?
That may be what DiAngelo claims she is describing, but Matt's point is that her book actually promotes logical fallacies and crazy Kafka traps which will do nothing but antagonize ordinary people and probably make actual racism worse.
In summary: if you agree with her, then she’s right. If you disagree with her, then she’s right.
There’s nothing wrong with teaching people to recognize defensiveness and overcome it, not with teaching people to be aware of what their words/actions can cause others to feel.
If that’s all DeAngelo taught, I’m 100% certain that Matt would have no problem with it.
But that’s not all she’s saying. Not by a long shot. The fact that it’s what you’re implying makes me wonder if you’re arguing in good faith (or, at the very least, if YOU aren’t the defensive knee-jerker in this equation).
and there's your logical double-bind.
It's worth noting that African-Americans in the contemporary era have been known to be subjected to similar traps, upon offering public vocal dissent from a particular ideological party line that's "commonly supposed" to be the approved "pro-black" position.
It's possible to think someone is wrong on an issue of that sort and then go on to disagree with the content of their views, without sarcastically questioning or disdaining their "blackness" (if they're African-American) or pre-emptively judging them as "racist" (if their ancestry is European.) It's the difference between opening up a topic for debate and seeking to shut it down.
"It's worth noting that African-Americans in the contemporary era have been known to be subjected to similar traps..."
The term "African-American" is a racist term. Black and African-American are not synonyms. African-American is a 21st century term typically and incorrectly used to distinguish blacks from full-fledged Americans, who are of course, white. It's a term that was coined for the political purpose of Identity Politics, a strategy devised by the left. The true connotation of African-American is "victimized" American.
Oh, come on.
African American is analogous with Italian /Irish/Arab/ and many other such terms. It became popular adn in many ways preferable to other options within my own lifetime and memory.
Viz., "Most of us became familiar with the ethnonym African American in the 1980s, when Jesse Jackson began popularizing it as an alternative to black. (An ethnonym is a name by which an ethnic or racial group is known.) But the term is much older than that: recently, I found an example dating back to the earliest days of the American republic."'
For more of this discussion see https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/4216-the-origin-of-african-american
Wrong, dummy.
As the product of Italian and Acadian immigrants who was taught that we are all "Americans" and that to assimilate and to thrive meant becoming "American" was the only way to succeed and not starve to death I disagree with your bullshit.
Stop drawing lines based on race publicly, privately.
We are all just people. People who live under the rule of law and that rule is SUPPOSED to be equal.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The founding principals are still solid and have tremendous value for ALL of us.
Some would have us believe that racism is systemic, and that everyone is at each others' throats 24/7, but it's just not true.
Blowing up a small percentage of events and holding them up as examples is willfully deceiving the public at large in any case.
CNN/FOX/MSNBC all have a vested interest in fomenting civil unrest.
Remember that THEIR masters are the enemies of us all.
Scott, calm down.
I didn't draw these lines.
Take it up with Jesse Jackson.
Interesting. Good link. Thanks.
All of the terms of "race-based nomenclature" are noisy. I think you're out of line in calling out "African-American" as "racist", and I suspect that you're only doing so because it seems like an easy, cheap shot to take in a game of "turnabout." As if we didn't have enough of those already, being hurled in all directions. I'm in this discussion to untangle the noise, not to throw more chaos firecrackers on the bonfire.
Also, I'm not here in service of an ideological zero-sum game. That's tired, to me.
As I said, I think "African-American" is a noisy term. But it's a useful one, in some ways. It's intended to refer to the subset of African diaspora people- a population that didn't order anything about their relocation to the New World, or what happened when they got there- that ended up in what became the US, and lived under the unique set of rules devised by "white" (mostly English) Americans. Which makes them different from Haitians, or Jamaicans, or Bahamaians, or Brazilians, or Africans from Africa. Because- this won't go down easy, but it's true- in a lot of ways, of all the slave-owning national regimes of the Western hemisphere, the US was the national regime that made it the toughest on African diaspora people. The US damaged its black African diaspora population to an extent that didn't occur in the Caribbean island nations, which had black majority populations. All of the Carribbean nations were emancipated decades before enslaved people in the US. The attitudes of the islanders toward their own ethnic identity are a lot more secure and confident- which helps to account for how black Caribbean immigrants currently tend to achieve upward mobility in the US faster than black Americans. Jamaicans never had to contend with the reality that they were vastly outnumbered by a population of a different ethnicity, with the levers of power controlled by men whose attitudes overwhelmingly fell in the range between unwelcoming and openly hostile.
TLTR. My point is logically irrefutable. Black and African-American are not synonyms, no matter how many words you string together in order to deny that simple reality. I understand the 21st century Identity Politics creation of the term. Leftists should refrain from trying to reason. To be more effective influencing those of little knowledge, stick to emoting.
"TLTR" = ignorant aliterate
It's time for that to stop being a hip thing.
Slavery was ended in the Carribbean 186 years ago. Slavery was ended in the USA 155 years ago. So now we have an explanation for why Caribbean immigrants do better.
Slavery was ended in Saint Dominique (Haiti/Dominican Republic) in 1804.
Slavery was ended in Jamaica in 1834.
The islands of Saint-Dominique and Jamaica had the largest slave populations in the region.
Slavery was abolished in France's other colonies- in the Caribbean and elsewhere- in 1848.
The French slave trade from Africa was finally abolished in 1826.
Slavery was abolished in the other British colonies in 1838.
The British slave trade from Africa had already been abolished in 1807. One major unintended result was the rise of the domestic slave breeding industry in the US, and the formal division between temporary indentured servitude with provisions for manumission- henceforth reserved for whites- and perpetual slavery henceforth for the population with any traceable African ancestry, identified as "colored" or "black."
Slavery was ended by the US in 1863 (actually 1865.) Within 11 years after the Union victory in the Civil War in 1865, , the former slave states- and many other parts of the country- imposed systems of official race-based exclusion that amounted to apartheid rule. In fact, some of those provisions were Federal laws. The most severe of those laws were in place and unmodified until the late 1940s, largely unchallenged until the 1950s and 1960s. So within 11 years of gaining freedom, the vast majority of the formerly enslaved population found themselves living under something like legally enforced apartheid rule, until the mid-1960s.
Maybe it's because they lived in absolute squalor and learned the fucking value of a solid republic that guarantees rights to all.
Something Haiti or the Dominican Republic never had.
They do well because they know what it's like to live in an environment where you have jack shit and then they have every opportunity imaginable when they move here.
You can still live a better life here versus in the Carribbean.
Race is being pushed forward as a "big issue" because the scummy politicians only care about it when they can benefit from it during election years.
It's the same shit every four years.
I love how you try to re-paint Carribbean history with your racist brush though. Good work.
African American here. You have this wrong. A large swath of African descended Americans adopted this term to give cultural rooting that others like Italian Americans, German Americans and others enjoy who did not forcibly have their heritage and cultural roots interrupted via enslavement. In other words they know who they are and from whence they came. Your equation of it to so called victimized American is intellectually childish at worst and reductionist at best.
Intellectually childish, eh? What an intellectually mature argument you make! - Not
Where did you come up with this "cultural rooting" idea? Is that from some sociological theory or did you devise this theoretical construct all on your own? Whichever it is, it's BS. You're claiming victimhood due to slavery - plain and simple. Have you been enslaved? No. Do you descend from slaves? Maybe, but even if you do, a large portion, if not a majority, of the black population in America today, did not. But that's not important to you because you're gonna milk this slavery routine for all you can get.
You claim to be an African American. What country in Africa did you come from? How old were you when you came to America? How many years have you been in America? If you are truly African American, you did not descent from slaves.
If you were born in America, then you're an American, just like me. You deserve no special privileges and neither do I. And BTW, when referring to Italian Americans and German Americans for your comparison, you're talking apples and oranges. Those are countries - not continents. To treat them equally to African Americans, you would refer to them both as European Americans. But you're into dividing people, not uniting them. I guess you yearn for tribal culture with the accompanying blood feuds, etc.
I don't know where my ancestors came from so that kinda blows your "they know who they are and from whence they came" BS. Most people don't. It doesn't matter. It's not important unless you make it important in your mind. I'm an American. It's my misfortune to have to share the country with orgs like Black Lives Matter, which is more accurately called Feel White Guilt. The guilt trip doesn't work on me because I'm not that easily bamboozled.
"Cultural roots interrupted" - what a crock!
Kurt, how often do you talk with white folks about racism? I suggest that if you did, you recognize what jvmack and DiAngelo are saying: White people seem to slip into an unconscious script about why they're not racist / why racism doesn't exist, etc. I see this in most of my conversations with white people about race, too. Don't take our word for it -- try it out. And also ask some Black folks if they're willing to share their experiences of racism with you.
Gee, I can't speak for Kurt, whom I do not know, but if you're active on social media, it's rather impossible to avoid speaking with all sorts of people about racism these days.
Last I checked, I've been white for pretty much all of my seventy years (I probably wasn't enculturated into whiteness in early infancy, but I'll let that go). And I try to avoid making gross generalizations about any group of people based on characteristics like melanin. But I'm enough of a product of American white culture (or at least the greater NYC liberal Jewish segment c. 1950-present) to know that no one can be raised here without being tainted by the history of the continent and the current nation that occupies the area between Canada and Mexico. To say "I'm not racist" is a bit silly, but it's also ridiculous to expect the average American to say, "Well, of course, I'm racist. Now, what?" which is what I generally say if it comes up.
Thing is, I have no difficulty owning the life I lived. I didn't go around harassing black people (or members of any group). I didn't keep black people out of clubs or activities. I went to summer camp as a teenager with black kids from Alabama (one of whom, Reggie Davis, is Angela Davis' younger brother; also the younger brother of Ben Davis, later an all-pro defensive back for the Cleveland Browns, who was a domestic exchange student at my high school a couple of years ahead of me). My parents were politically active and about as anti-racist and anti-war as they could be in suburban NJ in the '50s and '60s. Still, I knew very few black people until high school and relatively few at that time. Only in college did I have a chance to meet and go to school with more than a couple of black people. I worked with black people in a printing company during my last two summers in high school, but we didn't hang out together after work (nor did I hang out with anyone else after work from that job, for a host of reasons).
Fifty odd years later, I'm sure that when I hear people say that they're not racist and/or that racism doesn't exist, such people are unlikely to understand me when I say unhesitatingly that I assume that everyone in this country is infected by racism; that all white people are racist (though not necessarily to the same degree or in the same ways) and that no one can live here for very long without catching the effects of living in a racist society. I won't go so far as to say "All black people, all brown people, all PEOPLE in this country are in fact racist" because that opens up a dozen cans of worms that distract from productive conversation. But what it means is that it's impossible to be here and escape from the impact that racism brings to bear on American life - social, economic, psychological, cultural, etc.
I've spent a huge percentage of my life in Michigan now, working in math education and teacher-education in Detroit, Flint, Muskegon, Grand Rapids, Pontiac, Monroe, and other urban districts, mostly with black and Latinx students, parents, and other educators. I have seen all sorts of data that make clear the existence of racism, its impact, and the severe conditions in which the majority of people of color live in these cities. I'm more than aware of the pervasiveness of mass incarceration and the profits being made from sending millions of young, mostly black, mostly male people to prison directly from schools that function in many ways as preparation for life in jail.
And absolutely none of that makes me disagree with the vast majority of what Matt has written or what people like Kurt have said about it. DiAngelo's book strikes me as vapid nonsense written by someone who's figured out how to make a nice $$ by exploiting a moment in a long tragic history. And for the most part, I think she's got virtually nothing insightful to offer that hasn't been said more profoundly and clearly and constructively by many others (many of them black or Latinx or Asian or Native American, etc.) for the better part of 170 years or so. She's a flavor of the month, a hustler, and her work isn't going to help anyone except herself and her mini-cult.
Critical race theory isn't some monolith in which everyone doing work is a wonderful, selfless human being whose every word must be attended to carefully and worshipfully. Like any other field, it's got hucksters and charlatans and fools. And we do NOT benefit from assuming that everyone in it is a profound thinker because clearly she isn't. Kow towing to her and her work is a very bad idea. I can just as easily claim to be a critical race theorist and come out with a bunch of jargon and bilge that will help me get a piece of the nice dollar (to steal from Bill Hicks) that DiAnglelo has glommed onto, but my problem is that I actually care about things like truth, equity, human decency, and other inconvenient ethical issues that would make me have to shoot myself were I to go the route she's chosen. I feel about her much as I feel about Jordan Peterson and other academics and pseudo-intellectuals who have imbecilic viewpoints grounded in little but personal psychology and wishful thinking that they gin up with jargon and fluff to better foist it all upon some gullible segments of the public (including corporate culture).
There are far better people out there fighting racism and educating people about it. Why anyone would be suckered by someone like DiAngelo eludes me.
Re: Michael Goldenberg on June 29th
Please accept this belated acknowledgement of your thoughtful comment.
Thank you, Thom.
Hey everyone maybe it's possible to appreciate Matt's critique and at the same time take White Fragility as useful in other ways, and then move on with life. Rather than once again forcing ourselves into one camp or another.
I mean, the book seems to be saying "Hey white people, listen more, be less defensive, don't think you have all the answers, and be more forgiving around racial trauma." Everything else aside, seems like some good advice.
What if someone's response is "But I don't identify as white because race is just a social construct"?
DiAngelo's response would obviously be "But you *ARE* white. I can tell!", which seems pretty um, what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah. Racist.
Everything else aside, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" seems like good advice. So, if you believe that it's good advice, then you must be a Christian, right?
Obviously not. Because there *is* everything else. And it *can't* be set aside.
I've heard plenty of stories of racism from POC. Funny thing is I've experienced similar or worse to most of them, including unjustified arrests, only as a white man I couldn't categorize any of it as racism.
When racism takes on the extreme definitions of the modern Left, then it becomes both impossible and ridiculous to expect discussions about it with Mr and Mrs Dayton, Ohio. No one but professionals can be expected to have discussions with the terminally destructive.
Please don’t presume to know the extent to which I have or haven’t spoken with people (of whatever color) about racism.
My original comment stands: cultural awareness/cultural humility is founded upon individuals (*all* individuals in a given interaction) being aware of their own biases and being willing to listen with an open heart.
Either you agree with me on this or you don’t. Please don’t try moving the goalposts.
If it takes claptrap like White Fragility to get some people to realize that, then so be it, I guess. However, it seems to me that this book's witch hunt approach will only bamboozle the gullible, but will otherwise alienate people who would be open to learning those simple principles you present. Humility is the root of wisdom. Everyone knows something you don't know. (And visa versa, and the inversion of that.) Everyone has biases. Work on metacognition. Not everyone will agree with you. Good people disagree.
“not” should be “nor” in paragraph 2
For me, I'm sure defending myself against the thought of being a racist (I'm 74 and no one cares anymore), when I write, at least to some extent.
Having been a fan of Matt Taibbi for years, I find it highly unlikely that he’d critique DiAngelo’s book without having read it first. He’s one of the last few who values integrity above all else.
I read the book and thought Matt did a good job of pointing out how flawed it is. Matt isn't writing a dissertation and besides he promised that this article is part of a larger piece he will make available this week. Beyond that, I wonder if you even read Matt's article. Nowhere did he state "racism is over." DiAngelos' book and CRT in general is a perfect example of a Kafkatrap. I suspect you haven't spent much time reading or listening to critics of CRT and this book, in particular. That might be worth your time.
That’s mostly because DiAngelo HAS no valid arguments. She has a lot of false assumptions, begged questions, and a totally fascist philosophy. Only intellectually inadequate people could ever find her work convincing at even the most elementary level.
Racism will never be over as long as people like DiAngelo are around to deliberate poison the intellectual atmosphere, while parroting a mirror image of Nazism. A special place in hell is reserved, it is said, for people like her.
The man quotes the book at length, and gives critical analyses of the main themes in it. How is it possible that he has not read it?
How is it possible to quite a book that you've never really read? Ever heard anyone quote the bible, especially passages that conform to their personal, ideological beliefs, Leviticus, for example, who you just know have never read the bible? It's easy: just read enough critical reviews of a book, or listen to enough like-minded bible-thumpers, and you have plenty of material to craft your own ill-informed, bad-faith, fundamentally misrepresentative review. Happens all the time in the echo chambers of opposition to DiAngelo's book, such as Aero magazine, Quilette, etc.
<i>White Fragility</i> doesn’t <em>have</em> an argument. The point Matt is making is that DiAngelo and her ilk have abandoned “argument” for bullying and kafkatrapping.
'kafkatrapping' is a great word. Chuckling.
It's a coinage of Eric Raymond's. "To deny the accusation proves your guilt."
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122
It's comical until they send you to the fucking Gulag.
Some of her followers (what you call "her ilk" may have gone off the rails into bullying and kafkatrapping, but if you think she has too, I would suggest you read the book more carefully. The lady is careful and she knows what she's talking about.
I think it's laudable for someone to obtain an awareness of racial injustice, and to work to overcome it. But no one should fool themselves that they're going to get anywhere with that project by jettisoning informal logic standards for double-minded thinking, or by failing to confront the absurdly high noise quotient found in the tangled semantics of "race" and "color."
Otherwise, what you get is
1) the demand for common assent to the imposition of logical double-binds as a foundational premise for "anti-racism"- a premise that anyone is on firm ground in rejecting as an insult to the standards of informal logic, which are not to be twisted.
Note that even "white supremacist" racists are on firm ground in rejecting a logical double-bind when it's imposed on them. Incidentally, the use of that lazy, sloppy tactic allows them to shift the subject of discussion to the ludicrous illogic of such demands. Easy turf to argue on.
The actual focus of a coherent, effective antiracist effort directed at "white supremacists" should be to focus on the logical flaws of THEIR double-mindedness. By contrast, invoking a logical double-bind as a requirement for people of European ancestry to qualify as "antiracist" only compounds the murk and confusion.
2) a failure to draw the obvious lesson from the historical reality that the insistence on color-coded terminology and ancestral heritage as reified categories was originally the idea of the slaveowner caste. Why imagine that reiterating and restoring that emphasis will somehow have a positive effect? You actually think that there's a way to rehabilitate that terminology? It was wrong in the first place. Those terms have a place in the discussion. But only conditionally, in a commonly understood context that references the historical past, and always with full awareness of the inherently high quotient of bogosity involved in pigeonholing any individual or group within the confines of a single category. Especially a general category with an elusive definition.
("Class", "caste", "ethnicity", "ancestry", "heritage", "legacy", "nationality"...all of those words have some precision to their definitions. Whereas defaulting to referencing racial categories and "color" in discussions of human society, culture, and history have a way of introducing more mush than clarity. Particularly the more distant the audience for the conversation.)
It should also be understood that opposition to white supremacy is only part of a wider task, which is struggling to overcome oppression, injustice, and cruelty, per se. In that regard, no one should be celebrating Twitter pack swarms, doxxing random strangers, hounding people out of their jobs, or any of the other aspects of cancel culture. What possesses anyone to imagine that these tactics support the pursuit of justice? They're mimicking the unjust behavior of the oppressors! Those tactics are anti-due process, anti-privacy rights, and anti-civil liberties. I don't buy the argument that the tactics are justified by the targets...it's identical to the argument of the Ku Klux Klan, c.1867.
thank you for this insightful comment. I was just hoping you could elaborate on the term "logical double-bind". What I understand. to mean is the way in which critical race theory allows the constant creation of scenarios where both action and inaction can easily deemed "racist" by its priesthood and therefore grounds for moral censure, which has a deeply chilling effect on people that I think is pretty much the point of critical race theory. Let me know if this tactic is what you meant.
I would add to this another disturbing feature of critical progressive theories in general , which is how they allow constant shifting of goalposts in what's orthodox, what's minor deviation, and what's outright heresy. Again, the point is: keep the control targets confused as to what action will allow them to get on with their fucking lives; only the critical theory priesthood knows; come to them for supplication or else.
UB, I've added a couple of other comments elaborating on hallmarks of the double-bind and its problems elsewhere in the comment thread, as responses to another poster who was trying to impose the "white fragility" double-bind on our host Matt Taibbi. You may find the extra clarification worth your time to review.
Thanks!!
I think you get the general concept. According to the Wiki entry, "a double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, with one negating the other."
There are several different types of double bind. But the one most commonly employed to attempt to gain political advantage consists of a negative characterization with accusatory overtones that's directed at an individual (or a group member), and then insists that any disagreement or denial on the part of the target is proof of the veracity of the accusation.
It's a form of turf (power) claim masquerading as a fact claim.
Very well said. I am still trying to sort out the logical soundness of being anti-racist. I think it depends on the intent. The historical construction of race classifications as a way to oppress is different than acknowledging the privilege that now comes with those classifications. So I think it’s more about evoking race in order to remove the negative impacts of those classifications. That takes a high level of awareness from everyone in understanding the nature of how/why we are invoking race.
The language of "race" and color- the fouled-up semantics and connotations embedded in the terminology- lead to problems like confusing confronting the historical reality and redressing authentic grievances with attributions of "blood guilt", and "blood libel" (which are racist concepts.) The acknowledgement of the often horrible truth of racial injustice is about legacy impacts carried from the past, and the necessity to address those impacts so that they diminish and disappear. A task that's considerably tougher in some respects than it was in 1866, due to the negative legacy impacts of sharecropper indenture and the prison farm system, de jure segregation (Jim Crow), and weaponizing criminalized drug population against scapegoated populations, including African-Americans.
By contrast, imputations of blood guilt ultimately merely serve personal egomania. No matter who indulges in that move. One of the dubious rewards that result from someone adapting racism to suit their own preferences when they find it advantageous. Shifting the goal to who is to be the master, rather than dismantling the concept.
Upvoted to infinity
It’s easy to agree that illiberal activity is a net negative. I’m less interested in the assertion that the broader enterprise of examining and mitigating white supremacy is somehow responsible for every bad actor inside the tent, anymore than every small gov’t advocate owns the worst excesses of the Tea Party movement or Christianity owns the sermons coming out of Westboro Baptist Church. You’re making actual points about efficacy, which is levels beyond what this piece is trying to accomplish.
No one can fully predict the outcome of an action. Forget anticipated consequences, and do the right thing.
As best I can tell from my vantage as a psychologist, white fragility as defined by DiAngelo fails as a empirical psychological construct. It is defined so broadly and variously as to be untestable.
What? Racist rhetoric fails under closer scrutiny??? Shocker!
Specifically, what is DiAngelo's argument in White Fragility that Matt Taibbi didn't address?
All of her arguments are predicated on racial lies and stereotypes.
It's Mein Kampf, Yale edition.
I wish I didn't have to be elitist here, but she's "University of Washington edition." Yale would imply she's an intellectual.
"This is what DiAngelo's book describes: how people in power can stop defensively clinging to their power."
Actually, RD spends her time giving this message to *employees*, a group which by definition has the least power in the contexts she works in. The people in power are the ones who hire RD; the employees don't attend by choice. Interesting how this overriding power dynamic is obfuscated by RD's racialist approach. That's great for the people who hire her, which I'm sure is just a coincidence.
Excellent point.
The existence of racism doesn't validate a silly strategy to dismiss all counter-arguments, disagreeable anecdotes, as and anti-interests as "fragility".
Matt is doing you a favor by steering the Left's arguments away from the absurd and therefore assisting them in staying relevant longer.
Some on the Right will think that Matt should have allowed the Left to continue to derail without a logical correction from a voice of the slightly less-extreme contingent.
Anyone who upper-cases "Hate" sets my antennae twitching. Enuff with the rhetorical uppercasing. It is puerile.
Speaking of editorial standards, MW has a new definition of "racism" :
"1: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2
a: a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles
b: a political or social system founded on racism
3: racial prejudice or discrimination"
It sure seems like DiAngelo's book is an example of the first definition.
Clearly you have read DiAngelo because you mimic her gobbiglock so well. Literally nothing in your post specifically identifies an argument Matt made that is incorrect with supporting evidence. Which "random quotes" do you object to? Inquiring minds want to know. Essentially your argument is exactly what he is objecting to: ad hominem "your a racist" attacks with zero substance.
Is DiAngelo defensively clinging to power when she continues as a professor at University of Washington where just 2% of the professors are black?
Can you hear the boot steps coming for you Matt? I doubt they will be able to talk you into firing yourself? Thank you for keeping alive nuance in these difficult discussions.
Another incredible piece. Thank you for your mental clarity and moral courage - a rare combination during this unhinged "hinge of history"
My first run in with Anti-Racist activists was my fellow Middle School students. They questioned every student about their Christian Faith while quoting a fake bible verse of God creating black people with a curse. They then assaulted any student who refused to denounce their faith. My parents explained to me what racism was when I got home, my best friend was black and I didn't initially understand the concept of race at my age. Turns my teachers were orchestrating it.
In high school I ran into a similar group that was allied with radical LGBT activists. When they weren't manufacturing fake hate crimes against themselves, they liked to harass the Catholic girls running a bake sale for the homeless. In community college part of our student fees for the Diversity + Inclusion center went to buying baseball bats. There was no baseball team, but their were some very aggressive SJW types. Evergreen State was mild compared to Austin, TX.
My Freshman year at college my first C was by the teacher of my mandatory diversity and inclusion course. I got A's in calculus and physics. The C was b/c the Prof would sabotage the grades of the white male students. She even made a false accusation of cheating to the honor council against one of the students who made the mistake of debating her.
These were between 4 and 11 years before Trump ran for president. My experiences in the professional work force have been far worse.in terms of cultural authoritarianism. I have never voted for a Republican for federal office in my life. I am likely voting for Trump in 2020 simply b/c these people scare me.
I am sympathetic, but think this through. A Trump victory will give these people far more power. In 2016, they cried. They are much more empowered now and a Trump victory will probably see, not crying, but riots the next day. I am not saying that the country should be bullied into voting for the Democratic candidate, but I am saying that if you are only considering Trump in order to fight back against this insanity, that strategy might backfire.
Trump is a faux-populist corporatist, con-man and Biden spent his career as the legal arm of credit card companies and debt collectors.
There is no real choice in this election just like with Clinton. We the People are screwed either way.
Can't disagree there. But my crystal ball says if Trump is re-elected, the SJW, Woke, and CRT's will seize more power. If Biden is elected, we can hope he (or more precisely, his puppet masters) will provide plenty of window dressing to appease this crowd but the craziness will subside. Otoh, a Trump election and the ensuing riots will end in a Trump law and order response, which will put us perilously close to some kind of civil war.
Don't look now but y'er soakin' in it.
The Cold Civil War is well under way. Skirmishes began two decades ago (Bush vs. Gore, Rathergate, the un-personing of Sarah Palin.) It's been raging since the day Trump won in 2016. It will go from cold to hot before 2030, Trump or no Trump.
I welcome it, and the opportunity for moral clarity it will provide. The greatest Rectification of Names in 2000 years.
Man oh man. You can't be advocating for a hot civil war, can you? And on top of that, assert that a hot civil war would be the beat means to provide moral clarity in troubled times?
Those positions are crazy, to me. Just as crazy as the wokeness we're all here talking about. In fact, that is precisely what America's enemies want; for us to break and devour ourselves. That would sure make it easier for them, wouldn't it?
We need to find a peaceful path through this craziness. We need to build trust in institutions again; not blind trust, but trust that is build on observable outcomes in institution aims and goals. Evaluated, measured, contingent trust. Contingent on those institutions performing their stated aims.
We need to pump the brakes on the idea of another hot civil war, and get down to the real work of talking through our differences, and aiming for a level of compromise that doesn't diminish our values, but does allow us to live better lives.
So, to that end, what's important to you, John Skookum?
Nobody wants a civil war, not even the people who think they do. China is the elephant in the room here, the time for trolling and provocation is over. They're in a fragile position themselves, Americans just have to have a ceasefire along with the recognition of that fact. Few people seem to know how bought our politicians are by China though. It's like They Live.
This cold civil war began the day after Appomattox for the South. Those traitors began plotting the course for reinventing slavery under a different name with a Reign of Terror on newly enfranchised Black American citizens and extended that to every state in the union to some degree. Three NC cops were recently recorded accidentally of course their eagerness to start a hot race war and slaughter (their word) as many blacks as they could.
So acquiesce to the terrorists pulling down our history and denying entire racial groups agency? You're insane. God help us if Trump isn't re-elected. No one will be opposing the neoliberal establishment at that point. If you think you guys aren't next for the purge, you're underestimating how entrenched these power structures are and will become without massive corporate and bueaucratic breakups by a strong executive branch. It's scary that we've arrived at this, but we have to look at it soberly.
Statues are not history. Statues have traditionally been made to honor people of great character or great achievements. Tearing down a statue is not erasing history, it's tearing down a statue. The history you speak of was written by the elite's who won and is never accurate to begin with.
Is it okay to tear down MLK monument on the Mall?
So we surrender to the iconoclastic demands of domestic terrorists and their billionaire stringpullers because "statues are not history"? Or were you just being pedantic during the biggest cluster of crises the republic has faced in recent memory? So many of you sheltered liberals aren't even serious about this, you just use politics as a vehicle to show off how much knowledge you attained in school. We don't have time for your depressive AKSHUALLY BS. We get it, you read books. Noted.
Comments like that are no less crazy than the Hillarycrats predicting the advent of unstoppable Brownshirt fascism in November 2016, after Trump won the election.
Step away from the monitor and go for a walk.
“will provide plenty of window dressing to appease this crowd “
The most disappointing thing in this is that until recently I believed that both Dems and Reps while having different approaches to solve the country’s problems they had a core agreement In the basics: USA is a democratic representative republic; The individual rights enshrined in the constitution are not negotiable. The need to defend and protect the USA is a priority above all. Individual liberties and system of justice reigns above all.
But this is not what we’ve seen in the last 4-8 years. Democrats are willing to dismantle the country for votes. The so called “voter supresssion of minorities” is just a fold for let illegals vote. They are more willing to defend illegal aliens than to protect american workers, they want to make a state out of the federal capital city for those votes, they are willing to dismantle the police, the electoral college vote, even the Supreme Court only for votes. So sad!
It's always amusing when you trumphumpers start out a comment like that trying to pretend you're not rightwing fascists but immediately give it away by projecting what you're doing the country onto Dems. It must be part of the indoctrination by Cult of Trump that makes you think you have a cloak of invisibility.
The civil war is here at our doorstep. Time to prepare and be ready to defend your family and property, because the government will NOT do it. BLM wants revenge and submission.
go buy yourself an ice cream cone.
Gad, that's (you're) pitiful.
White Supremacist Paranoia and Fragility in one rancid package.
Not really. We've got spoiled children running around claiming victimhood while destroying our country. Reality sucks don't it? It's gotta be true....I saw it on CNN
My BS Detector has picked up the very strong signal of a White European Kultur Kampf Krieger.
I’m a republican and make no fuss about it. I voted for Trump because he was the republican candidate. I don’t suffer from TDS but live constantly furious about Trump unpresidential behavior, specially the stupid tweets.
But there is ONE issue for me tops it all: Freedom of Speech. That sacred, first amendment enshrined in the US Constitution.
It’s been said, that great minds talk about ideals. Moderate minds talk about events. Small minds talk about people.
Trump as person is a pain in the b...tt, bombastic and unlikable guy, but he has not enforced a policy of silencing people. He isn’t the one that has cancelled someone for saying “All lives matter” or for saying “man and woman are different”. He isn’t the one stopping and protesting a conservative speaker in a school. The progressive left is the one that calls anyone who doesn’t agree 120% with them “a racist” “a Hitler” a transphobic, deplorable or whatever. And if it just stayed at insult level,it wouldn’t be a proble, but today real people lives are being destroyed. Jobs terminated, over the slightest thing.
Like anyone else I want a return to normal politics of respect and disagreement Which is why I voted for Clinton in 2008 Dem primaries and then for McCain and Romney is 2008 and 2012. But those two were demonized. Talk about the “boy who cried wolf”. I didn’t think of Sarah Palin, but I did think of Freedom of Speech. So here I go again...
You: "Trump as person is a pain in the b...tt, bombastic and unlikable guy, but he has not enforced a policy of silencing people."
He and all the Rethuglicans are doing everything possible to keep people from voting in Nov. and if that isn't "silencing" nothing is.
No! Nominating Biden is a severe form of voter discouragement. Silencing is shouting down or physically attacking someone who is speaking or asked to speak. Silencing is "Shut Up!" Silencing is firing someone for what they say. Silencing is taking away a person's voice. Silencing is repealing the First Amendment in fact, if not in law. Silencing is how we treat lambs.
It's ALWAYS the lesser evil. The electoral system is terribly flawed. We've needed Ranked Choice Voting for a very long time. The powers that be, including the media, don't want it because they have this game down. As it stands, there's really only one party. And ultimately, no real choice because there is a shadow govt that's been pulling all the levers behind the curtain for the past 75 years or so.
BArack Obama knows that party too well, regarding Michael Flynn to James Comey on January 5th 2017: "Make sure the RIGHT people are on it!"
Did he mean the LEFT people? Trump is at least more fun to watch because they can't control him as easily as they've been able to handle real professional politicians.
Sad to say, but you are correct.
You are right, but you go too easy on Biden. (1) Usurious interests rates that are outlawed in the rest of the USA are allowed in Delaware. Credit card debt peonage is a terrible problem for all, but esp. the poor. So Biden has directly contributed to the immiseration of all people who must rely on their credit cards for any kind of credit or cash to tide them over. Including, obviously, blacks. (2) Biden was in the forefront of the trend to for-profit prisons. "As head of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Biden not only supported the war on drugs that led to mass incarceration, he co-authored many of the laws that led America to have the world’s highest per capita prison population. He pushed The Comprehensive Control Act of 1984, which expanded federal drug trafficking and civil asset forfeiture without proof of guilt, and the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988 that increased crack cocaine and overall drug offense penalties." Read more here:
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2020/mar/3/bidens-current-prison-reform-stance-counter-his-abysmal-record/
Biden is an effing liar, hypocrite, and little girl fondler. As a champion of black folk , Biden is sick joke. (Never saw video of him fondling a young black girl, though; in the videos I have seen the girls were all white.)
A Trump victory already saw riots virtually "the next day." Remember? So, what's new there? Those who riot are responsible for their behavior. Or for being dupes, if that is what they are. Holding the election of a politician hostage to a threat of violence is political extortion. We are supposed to have a smooth transition of power in this "democracy," remember? Such extortionist threats make me even think of voting for Trump.
On the face, that seems like a good argument. But like you said, "think this through." You are saying that the rioting will only get worse if this president is re-elected. I want to know, what would make the rioting get better? I suppose it's better if we learn to tolerate it as normal and natural.
BLM and related groups are pushing hard for a Biden win, even diverting funds they receive to Biden's campaign. A perceived "win" and they have little to riot about. I think Biden and team will provide plenty of window dressing and signaling that these groups' demands will be addressed. Of course, they will not (see, e.g., Obama) but smoke and mirrors almost always work.
I may be misreading, but you seem to be saying that people are using rioting and violence to hold the country hostage, and if we give them what they want, they'll stop. That's not how it usually works. People who play that way just up their demands, until they control you completely.
Stockholm Syndrome. You become sympathetic to those who hold you hostage. After all , they hold your fate in their hands, and so you would hope you could understand and trust them,.
Or as Churchill said: You had to choose between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.
Agreed, it never works this way. Most people learn this lesson if they have children. "Let them eat cake"
Yes, I am saying that. But I was not saying we should acquiesce to the bullies. I was talking about outcomes in responding to the original post where the OP was so fed up, he was considering a vote for Trump. All I am saying is that is not a reason to vote for Trump as it is very likely that a Trump victory will give the mob more power. (To which a Trump response may cause an eruption this country cannot stand.) If you believe that the DNC (the actual arm in control) will give in to the demands of BLM and related groups, I believe you are naive. The DNC will give lip service, they will provide window dressing, but there is no way they will let those demands take over. Again the point is: a Trump victory will give these groups more power and ultimately could result in something like a civil war. Whereas a Biden victory will placate the mob without really giving them what they want.
I don't think the traditional Dem establishment can control the hard left any more. An example: Ilhan Omar made some clearly antisemitic statements. Nancy Pelosi, to her credit, tried to bring a resolution to the floor condemning antisemitism without naming Omar directly but clearly pointed at her. Omar pulled together progressive allies from the CBC and elsewhere, and Pelosi found she didn't have the votes. In the end, the resolution was watered down to condemn every kind of bigotry including islamophobia, and Omar cheerfully voted for it and claimed a victory against islamophobia. Along the way, Omar and AOC rubbed it in by accusing Pelosi of disrespecting women of color. Pelosi was subdued.
And I would love to hear your thoughts on my assessment of the potential outcomes, which was the entire point of my original reply to the OP. So far, this has not been addressed in any of these comments.
That just-so fable doesn't exactly explain the response to the 1967 Kerner Commission report. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/22/the-history-of-the-riot-report
"
next.20.yrs@gmail.com19 hr
BLM and related groups are pushing hard for a Biden win, even diverting funds they receive to Biden's campaign. "
this is one of the very concerning aspects brought up by the "person of color" who wrote the letter to the UCBerkeley History Department: that the dept. was collecting donations for BLM, and those funds are going directly to ActBlue. So, the UCBerkeley History Dept has been hopelessly politicized and "partisanized."
You've just described the way Republicans (i.e., the New Dixiecrats) have been trying to peel black voters away from Democrats for the past 52 years.
There were riots the day after Trump was inaugurated. There were riots before he was inaugurated. There will be riots until somebody stops them.
Oh, I don't know about that. It will definitely push this zit to a big fat head and maybe even pop it... but I don't really worry about it.
I bet people sat around in the 1930s watching these radical ideologies spring up all over the world were mighty nervous, too. This sure resembles that era. Our masters are orchestrating another big purge.
I am 73. Grew up in working class Los Angeles in the 1950's and 60's. Where I lived we had no black people. It was just whites and Mexicans, who called themselves Chicanos. We got along fairly well, a few racially motivated fights between two boys. The word "racism" was unknown. People spoke of somebody being "prejudiced" if they expressed dislike for Mexicans. Again, in my part of LA there were literally no blacks. Most of us had never heard of Watts or Compton or any of the black neighborhoods.
The result of my upbringing is, I have no feeling for black people. Never worked with any black people except a bit in the Army, never had any black friends, never lived around any. So I don't feel any kind of obligation to "repent" for my racism because I don't have any thing to apologize for. I just do not care about the whole concept, and I bet whole lot of white people feel the same. I am voting for Trump, again. If Biden wins the election, we are never going to see the end of the riots and looting.
You're an example of white fragility, If not exactly (but close) how Matt renders DiAngelo's take:
"The concept, as articulated in books like former corporate consultant Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility (Amazon’s #1 seller!) reduces everything, even the smallest and most innocent human interactions, to racial power contests."
The Marxists and their ridiculous new word usage. Very amusing, but pathetic and a lot of loser perma victims buy right in and parrot the idiocy. The above poster Mike, doesn't care about your little feelings and uber evolved outrage. And I don't either. Blacks are going to find NORMAL, DECENT people of all races wanting to avoid them. Sucks for decent Black people.
Bravest guy in America! Hope to hear more from you when you're released in a year or two from re-education camp!
Just so you know, I’m in corporate HR and I also think that this book is racist garbage. Not all of us are wokerati, hell bent on making everyone’s life miserable. Frankly, I see a big part of my job these days as insulating my people from bile like DeAngelo’s.
There *is* important work that needs to be done about race and identity in corporate America. Anyone who contests that is as clueless as DeAngelo. But so much of what is out there (and held up by the press as a balm for a manufactured wind) is counter-productive at best and toxic at worst. We need more Cornell Wests and fewer Rubin DeAngelos.
Yes beautifully said!
It would be a shame if no one actually read this book because of this uninformed commentary, especially the target audience of “well-meaning” leftists, specifically progressives, who choose to act as if racism is something other people do.
The current strain of leftist anti-identitarianism and anti-essentialism has been fascinating to watch unfold, whether in the more prescient and thoughtful takes such as Richard Rorty’s and Jonathon Haidt’s and the less illuminating such as Mark Lilla’s or Matt’s. Identity politics clearly undergirds much of the illiberal excess on the left, and in the hands of activists and children it exhibits the same banality and misapplications as other -isms. Plenty there to trouble us.
And yet it is no less useful for whites to come to terms with racism as a white problem to be solved by whites; with white identity as the invisible hand in our collective culture; or with the thesis that racism and implicit bias are profuse in whites across the ideological spectrum, not just the leftist fantasy of a sin peculiar to rightists. These and other barely controversial propositions can be explored in this book.
Hand-wringing over identity politics strikes me as futile. The grievances are too legitimate and too damaging to wave away with calls for a new nationalism/patriotism or with sophistic attempts to discredit it by handcuffing it to the latest list of illiberal “outrages” as Matt does here. So another white guy reacts to the concept of white fragility by cranking out several thousand irony-shattering words that only serve to exemplify it. We can do better.
Who would have guessed that someone who buys DiAngelo's claptrap would come along and try to refute Taibbi's takedown by 1) saying "well, he just exemplifies white fragility" and 2) by calling him a "white guy"?
There’s no doubt that charges of passive racism (silence is complicity) put whites in the bind you describe. Why not acknowledge that and wrestle with it honestly?
Your reference to this as a takedown is revealing and helps me clarify my reaction. Matt does seem to be devolving into the culture of “owning” and “destroying”
opposing viewpoints that passes for discourse among the logic-you-with-facts crowd. It dawns on me that Matt’s work may be more of that mode than I realized. So thanks for that.
Hysteria about "white supremacy" is the McCarthyism of our time (with no help from Joe Stalin). From "reds under the bed" we have gone to "white supremacists under the bed". Guess what? It ain't real. The richest ethnic groups in America are non-white. "White supremacy" is a useful myth however.
One of the characteristics of our time is that hysteria is frequently inversely related to the facts. In China under Mao, "capitalist roaders" were supposedly everywhere and subverting everything. At that time, the number of actual "captialist roaders" (outside of jails and death camps) was around zero. China has vast number of very real "capitalist roaders" these days, but no hysteria. Hitler was hysterical about the supposedly omnipotent "Jews". The power of penniless refugees is not apparent to me. Hitler knew better. Not to be outdone, Stalin had his "doctors plot" (also involving Jews) and his famous show trials. Khrushchev admitted that it was all a fraud.
Now we have "white supremacy" and "racists under the bed". The very magnitude of the mania shows how false it is. The dominants ideology of our time is "diversity" (really racial quotas). For ever real Klan sympathizer, America has 100 (or 1000) "diversity" fanatics determined to find the "reds under the bed" (make that "racists under the bed").
Racism is very powerful in America, PC racism that is. Just the facts. Let’s try college admissions. Quote
“How much harder is it for an Asian-American applicant? Mr. Zhao and the complaint cite 2009 research by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade that found an Asian-American student must earn an SAT score 140 points higher than a white student, 270 points higher than a Hispanic and 450 points higher than an African-American, all else being equal. So if a white applicant scored 2160 on the SAT, lower than last year’s Harvard average, an Asian-American would need to hit 2300, well into the 99% percentile, to have an equal chance at getting in.”
So racism is actually quite real in the U.S. Anti-Asian racism is pervasive and profound.
If “white racism” and "white supremacy" were even trivially real, whites would be the richest group. The truth is otherwise and the numbers aren’t even close. Average family income for Indian Americans ($107,390), Jews ($97,500), Taiwanese ($85,566), all Asians ($74,245) is greater than Whites ($59,698). As can you see, non-white ethnic groups are at the top and Jews earn (far) more than non-Jewish whites. "White supremacy" is a useful myth however. Don't give it up.
One or two cherry-picked data points don't carry enough weight to falsify white supremacy as a historical reality in this country. That said, your imagining that they do may be simply an honest mistake.
You've misapprehended the phenomenon of white supremacy, which is- fortunately- more about legacy impacts than present-day official policies. But- unfortunately- the burdened past accounts for a lot of present-day injustice.
There's a tendency by many Americans to use the word "history" as a synonym for "nothing to see there, move on." If only it were that simple.
The self-ordained wokies have different problems in regard to superficial approaches to history: it's as easy to cherry-pick data points that serve to conflate the impact of the past with the present- as if nothing has changed- as it is to dismiss the past as over and done with.
Neither extreme gets a researcher within range of authentic historical insight.
There's also the fallacy of Presentism, which gets exploited for the purpose of partisan ideological narratives of all sorts- including both neoJacobin statue-topplers on the Left and the lunatic fringe of White Supremacists who would reimpose slavery as a "natural economic order." Historical scholars worth their salt view Presentism as a flaw to be avoided. It's a travesty of the discipline.
The very high incomes of Jews and some Asians (dark-skinned) are hardly cherry-picked data points. Japanese-Americans were intensely discriminated against for 100+ years. They were locked up in internment camps during WWII. They are (by some measures) the most successful group in America.
Jews have been discriminated against forever. They are (as a group) highly successful.
Real "white supremacy" disappeared about 60 years ago. In the period when "white supremacy" was real, black and white incomes slowly converged. Since the Civil Rights act of 1965, convergence has slowed or stopped.
You're still relying on less than a handful of cherry-picked data points, and they don't gain any more probative value just because you insist that they aren't cherry-picked. All you have is a useless shorthand summary that you imagine closes the case.
"But- unfortunately- the burdened past accounts for a lot of present-day injustice. "
Actually it is the RECENT past---legislation passed since the Clinton 1990s---that most burdens black and whites and everyone other color in the 99%. All of this antiracism hoo-hah is basically Dem-sanctioned noise to misdirect attention away from this fact. Read Thomas Frank, "Listen, Liberal," and then come back to this thread with your book report.
This is not ot deny effects of racism. But the current program isn't going to lead anywhere, politically. It is based on shoving noses into racism and racializing every tiny thing. That is obvious. It is not going to lead to any kind of real political movement. Why isn't BLM making speicific political demands: single-payer health care; cancellation of student debt; money spent on infrastructure and houseing instead of trillions going to Wall Street; etc. The movement's demands are childish and pathetic. They will never lead a genuine poitical movement that improves the conditions of the whole 99%. "Color-tested" is similar to "means-tested." FDR's genius was to grasp that SS must be for all. Later, Medicare must be for all. Not "just" for the poor. Whining about grievances does not substitute for a genuine poltiical program. It is truly pathetic that Biden ---one of the worst of the racist, two-faced Dems---is profiting from this race kabuki.
"But the current program isn't going to lead anywhere, politically. It is based on shoving noses into racism and racializing every tiny thing."
You don't have to lecture me on that point; we agree, as my other posted comments should show.
"Actually it is the RECENT past---legislation passed since the Clinton 1990s"
The worst impacts of legacy racism derive from formerly enslaved people given their "freedom" in 1865-66- "freed" to make their own way in the world their ancestors were carried off to. With zero assets, no real estate property, no social capital, and no literacy skills. And then later on, after some of them managed to make it anyway, they got their most successful communities burned to the ground and they were subjected to forced expulsion. (The same thing happened in the same era to the Chinese in parts of California, fwtw.)
That's the real core of the injustice.
On the positive side, for milennia it's been the historical norm for nations and empires to cover up disgraceful and unpleasant history like that, and here we are in the United States of America, airing it out. Which is part of what American idealism is all about.
How does one go on to prove present white-supremacy to Peter?
“How does one go on to prove present white-supremacy to Peter?”
You might try facts. After all It is trivial to prove that the Earth is flat and that the Sun orbits the Earth (every day actually).
It is equally trivial to prove that non-Jewish whites earn (far) more than Jews and that whites earn (far) more than Asians.
Of course, Jews and Asians are massively overrepresented in jails and prisons and are killed by police at very disproportionate rates
Worse, overt bigotry against Jews and Asians is tolerated (if not encouraged), whereas bigotry towards whites is harshly punished.
Wait… Hold on a minute… None of that is true.
Just stick to ‘the Sun orbits the Earth” and if you don’t agree, you will be severely punished.
They’re not under the bed and they’re not a fantasy. Only the disingenuous and willfully blind fail to acknowledge the facts.
Facts are a problem. Let's try a few.
If “white racism” and "white supremacy" were even trivially real, whites would be the richest group. The truth is otherwise and the numbers aren’t even close. Average family income for Indian Americans ($107,390), Jews ($97,500), Taiwanese ($85,566), all Asians ($74,245) is greater than Whites ($59,698). As can you see, non-white ethnic groups are at the top and Jews earn (far) more than non-Jewish whites. "White supremacy" is a useful myth however. Don't give it up.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/178098736933840/?ref=share
I see: only "facts" that support your skewed world view matter to you.
Got it.
what facts?
This is an excellent post. Historically, the degree of hysteria in a witch-hunt tends to be inversely proportional to the number of witches being hunted.
Witches are a huge problem. They are everywhere. The best proof that a person is a witch, is that they deny it. That's proof of witchcraft.
Not true, they generally reside in DC.
Except a good post would have facts where the poster inserted his opinion.
Overwhelming the top positions of wealth and power in this country are held by whites. This doesn’t mean there are not millions of poor white people who are struggling. Regarding the statistics on the Asian populations you provided, I would say you have intentionally left out any statistics on the wealth/income/education levels of black and brown skinned people because you can have one of two reactions to those gaps: 1. There is something biologically or behaviorally wrong with black and brown people or 2. Systemic racism exists. To your other points: Asian population (specifically Indian, Korean, Taiwanese, many Chinese, etc) statistics reflect waves of wealthy and highly educated immigrants who attain highly skilled positions (both recently, but starting in the 1960s). There are also poorer Asian subpopulations that are not discussed as often. I would also add that anti-Asian racism is very much alive and well and it is almost more socially acceptable to stereotype and mock Asians than any other racial group in the US. My last point would be that colorism has always been a part of the racism of this country, and a myriad of studies and data have shown that darker skinned people (even within a race) fare worse in this country.
“Overwhelming the top positions of wealth and power in this country are held by whites”
A typical statistic is that 3 Supreme court members are Jewish. Jews are not 33% of the US population. A similar pattern can be found in Congress (8.4% Jewish) and the Federal courts (19% of appellate court judges are Jewish). Do you really want to claim that non-Jewish whites are biased in favor of Jews… Or will you go for the “Jewish conspiracy” theory…
“I would say you have intentionally left out any statistics on the wealth/income/education levels of black and brown skinned people”
Sorry, but my intent was to show that Jews and Asians are more successful in America than non-Jews and non-Jewish whites. That just happens to be true.
“To your other points: Asian population (specifically Indian, Korean, Taiwanese, many Chinese, etc) statistics reflect waves of wealthy and highly educated immigrants who attain highly skilled positions (both recently, but starting in the 1960s).”
That turns out to be “untrue”. Asians in America were highly successful long before the 1965 law change. See below from the New York Times.
“Success Story, Japanese-American Style By William Pettersen New York Times (1923-Current file); Jan 9, 1966”
“Asked, which of the country's ethnic minorities has been subjected to the most discrimination and the worst injustices, very few persons would even think of answering: "The Japanese Americans." Yet, if the question refers to persons alive today, that may well be the correct reply.”
“The history of Japanese Americans, however, challenges every such generalization about ethnic minorities, and for this reason alone deserves far more attention than it has been given. Barely more than 20 years after the end of the wartime camps, this is a minority that has risen above even prejudiced criticism. By any criterion of good citizenship that we choose, the Japanese Americans are better than any other group in our society, including native-born whites.”
Actually, Asian-Americans were known to be highly successful much further back, as were Jews. By 1920, Jews were already 20% of the entering class at Harvard. Quotas (bad, very bad) were then imposed to keep Jews out of Harvard. Now (good, very good) we have quotas to keep Asians out of Harvard.
It is quite true, that the post-1965 Asian immigrants to the US were/are considerable more elite than the earlier waves. The earlier waves were distinctly down-scale, at least when they arrived. So were the immigrant Jews of the period (downscale as a group).
However, the earlier waves of Asian immigrants were highly successful anyway as mentioned above (as were the Jews of the same period). Of course, they faced much higher levels of discrimination and prejudice, but were highly successful in spite of the obstacles they faced.
However, Asian success did not end with the earlier waves. Today, the children of poor Asian immigrants are excelling in the very same public school systems where NAMs are failing. For example, 75% of the kids going to the Stuyvesant (one of the specialized high schools in New York City) are Asian. Their parents are hardly rich. Around half of the kids are eligible for free lunches. The kids eligible for free lunches are disproportionately Asian.
Indeed, a generation ago Scientific American published a study showing that the children of poor Vietnamese immigrants were thriving in the same schools where black and Hispanic children were failing. See Nathan Caplan, Marcella Choy, and John K. Whitmore, “Indochinese Refugee Families and Academic Achievement,” Scientific American (1992), 36-42. Quote
"The scholastic success of Asian children is well recognized. Their stunning performance—particularly in the realm of science and mathematics—has prompted American educators to visit Japanese and Taiwanese schools in an effort to unearth the foundations of these achievements. Experts recommend that American schools adopt aspects of their Asian counter-parts, such as a longer school year or more rigorous tasks, in order to raise the scholastic level of US. students. Yet there is no need to go abroad to understand why these children do so well. The achievement of Asian-American students indicates that much may be learned about the origins of their triumph within the American school system itself.
More specifically, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, devastating political and economic circumstances forced many Vietnamese, Lao and Chinese-Vietnamese families to seek a new life in the US. This resettlement of boat people from Indochina offered a rare opportunity to examine the academic achievement of their children. These young refugees had lost months, even years of forma schooling while living in relocation camps. Like their parents, they suffered disruption and trauma as they escaped from Southeast Asia. Despite their hardships and with little knowledge of English, the children quickly adapted to their new schools and began to excel."
That's the longest straw man fallacy to date ! congratulations ! So please explain why there are so few minority billionaires that just so happen to be political king makers here in the US ? Every election both fake parties report on the ring kissing ceremony every candidate must do and every one of them are white.
Who needs fact-based understanding when you can just rely on emotion?
I think it’s asking a lot for those suffering racism to not be emotional. And with so much science positing that facts don’t change people’s minds — with highly educated people being particularly resistant — I think emotional engagement is unavoidable.
'Those suffering from racism' hmm, it is actually a form of racism to lump all 'white people' together as if they are a monolith. Tell that to proud Irish, who were being enslaved by the British long before the white man discovered the African slave trade. The W.A.S.P. discrimination against Catholics and Jews has nothing to do with skin color. If you choose to see it through that prism, it would be white on white crime [although Jews are technically not white, and many dont even look white]. This all still exists today to varying degrees. Not to mention the hard left violating the civil rights of Jews on college campuses around the world.
As well, There were riots in the streets of Boston in the 70s when forced integration of schools happened, and it had little to do with white vs black racism. The Irish didnt want to break up their communities and schools they came here to start. Many of them asked why the solutions to other people's problems should happen at their expense.
And I havent even gotten to the rot within the BLM movement, the Dem Party, and many some of black culture that normalizes bigots like Louis FaraKKKhan, the black David Duke. He is the equivalent of a Grand Wizard of the KKK. Yet he was given a prominent position at Aretha Franklin's funeral next to Bill Clinton, He smiled for pics with Eric Holder after... and thats after years of pis with Barack Obama, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, and many many more.
Bottom line: there is a tragic irony in the fact that racism is also color blind. It is possible for non-racists to be proud of who they are, and be color blind about judging people by the content of their character, and not by the color of their skin. I am firmly in the MLK camp on this. And as a proud Jew myself, I am proud of how many devout Jews walked with Dr. King to fight for the equal rights of black people and all minorities in America.
I’m honestly not sure how/if this is replying to me?
Yes, all manner of people are oppressed. We agree.
Sounds like a fancy way of embracing and privileging the irrational over the rational.
I can't think of an instance where that has ever worked out well. Can you?
I guess my retort is that emotions are too often invalidated as “irrational” and that privileging facts over emotion is often a
tactic to foreclose debate.
You also presuppose that the facts are agreed upon, which seems like a stretch these days.
If you understand that it is "asking a lot for those suffering racism to not be emotional", what do you understand of the emotional response to being falsely accused of being racist?
Trudy’s response is the nuanced, informed one.
What you’re describing is the pain of being called racist as it’s commonly understood (bad white person with active hostility toward brown and black people). It’s also part of the fragility the book describes. As painful as that is, does it really measure up to being an object of racism?
If you think of racism as a system more than an act, and worry more about that system than your own innocence, it helps reframe things. At least it did for me.
By most thoughtful definitions, "everyone" is "racist." "Racism" simply means having conscious or unconscious biases, preferences, beliefs--and without POWER to enforce discrimination, it is merely bias. Institutional racism, by far the most damaging form of racism, is prejudice plus power (P + P = R). Structural inequity should be the focus of activism, IMHO.
So personal accusations in some sense technically can't be "false," (i.e., we all have biases) but I think the more important question is: "what part does individual confrontation (such as that which DiAngelo trains people to do) play in reducing inequality?" I've read her book, I've participated in anti-racism forums and book clubs, and I conclude that the individual and interpersonal "self growth" realm mostly misses the mark, if we want to make any progress in our lifetimes that improves the material conditions, health and safety of regular folk. Regular, individual white folk who aren't part of organized bigoted groups are doing little to hurt people of color directly. But bringing about policy, systems and structural change does require that regular folk recognize that discrimination and inequity are real.
The police kill far more whites (see the cases of Justine Damond and Tony Timpa) than blacks. Of course, whites don't riot (these days). I tried Google with "justine damond" and "police killing" and got 2,420 hits. By contrast, "george floyd" with "police killing" got 2.3 million hits. "tony timpa" with "police killing" got 2,750 hits. Some lives are more important than others.
do you think in percentages when you quote these figures? Google it. Black people are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than are white people. They are far less of the population than white people. So it is not meaningful to say, "police kill far more whites..." As for the media, when there is a PATTERN, it tends to show up. There IS a pattern and practice of excessive use of force against black people. Under-reported for a variety of reasons is that the people killed most, REGARDLESS of race, are those in mental health crisis.
...and especially unavoidable for those emotionally suffering from perceived racist acts...
The police kill far more whites (see the cases of Justine Damond and Tony Timpa) than blacks. Of course, whites don't riot (these days). I tried Google with "justine damond" and "police killing" and got 2,420 hits. By contrast, "george floyd" with "police killing" got 2.3 million hits. "tony timpa" with "police killing" got 2,750 hits. Some lives are more important than others.
Whites riot from either winning or losing sporting events. WTF planet have you been living on ? Cops kill powerless people which include all races.
The context is rather clearly police activity and yes, white people don't riot in response to police killing of whites. Sports riots do occur. However, they seem to attract people of all races. The worst sports riot in modern times was in Egypt.
So you're saying there were no whites rioting in the Floyd riots ? Are you serious ??? What a steaming load of generalization ! White people never riot unless other races are included... Do you actually believe that horse shit ? Can you back your BS claim ?
You're leaving out a few points in order to provide that conclusion:
1) Situations of chronic injustice have a way of eventually leading to eruptions on the part of the aggrieved populations. A particular event is merely the tinder for the fire; what really counts is the amount of kindling that was gathered around it. Consider the 1770 Boston Massacre; in isolation, it was simply a matter of the British troops firing in self-defense on a mob that was tormenting them, and those troops were in fact acquitted of murder charges (defended in court by John Adams, no less.) In context, the harassment and violence was about popular opposition to the wider policy of being remotely policed by the British Crown. And one thing led to another.
2) We're in the era of the Phone Camera now. So a lot of things that used to be relegated to hearsay accusations are now documented. And sometimes that visual evidence is so dramatic, and the aspects of what's depicted are so indisputable, that it draws a lot more attention than text accounts of the event.
3) The video evidence of the rioting, vandalism, looting, and arson in regard to the most recent civil disorders makes it clear that (some) whites do riot, along with (some) African Americans, Latinos, and Asians. All of which is deplorable, and counterproductive.
Fortunately, the rioting is at an order of magnitude less than what it was in the 1960s. And most of the wishful thinking about the prospect of it increasing appears to be coming from the White Supremacist Right.
"And most of the wishful thinking about the prospect of it increasing appears to be coming from the White Supremacist Right."
How strange then that the tens of thousands *doing* the actual rioting are all members of the White Apologist Left.
I know there have been tens of thousands of protesters, if not hundreds of thousands. That much is indisputable.
But I challenge you to find me an authoritative estimate that the number of "rioters" (i.e., those committing arson, looting, vandalism, and other serious crimes) have numbered in the "tens of thousands."
Otherwise, it's going to appear that you're one of the people indulging in wishful thinking, with that exaggeration.
According to my link searches, as of June 4- after a week of protests and civil disorder- the total number of arrests hit 10,000 nationwide. https://apnews.com/bb2404f9b13c8b53b94c73f818f6a0b7
However, most of those arrests have been for failure to disperse or curfew violations. Arrests for failure to disperse- which include most of the curfew violations- are not in the same class of offense as rioting or looting, and those charges are very often dismissed once the purpose of breaking up a spontaneous mass protest has been served.
I don't want to underplay the rioting or the violence. It's a bad, wrong thing. But I'm old enough to recall the Watts riots of 1965, the riots in 159 cities nationwide in 1967, and the riots in inner city neighborhoods across the country in 1968 in the aftermath of Martin Luther King's assassination. Some of those riots lasted up to a week, and several required the deployment of the National Guard to return order to the streets.
The death toll from the week-long 1967 Detroit riot alone was 43 people. That's nearly three times the number of people killed in this recent wave of civil disorder. But no one then was granting serious credence to the possibility that the entire nation was on the verge of a civil war, other than the extreme fringes of the Left and the Right. The protests we've seen over the last couple of months have a vast multiethnic group of participants with a much, much greater proportion of nonviolent protesters, compared to the fraction carrying out criminal acts of violence and rioting.
Incidentally, the 1967 Detroit riot was widely reported in the American press of the day as "the deadliest riot in American history", or "the deadliest riots since the 1863 anti-draft riots in New York during the Civil War." Both claims are incorrect, although almost no one realized it at the time. I only found out within the last few years that the deadliest and most costly riots in US history were carried out by white people who marched into black neighborhoods in several cities and burned them to the ground. Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921 was worse. Wilmington NC in 1898 was worse. There were several other "riots" by American whites targeting the black population that had a death toll similar to Detroit, some of which were carried out to drive out the entire black population. In California, similar campaigns were carried out against the Chinese, in cities like Rio Vista in the Sacramento Delta.
@Evan Rentschler "logic-you-with-facts crowd" -- So reason, science, logic, and epiricism is useless and counter-productive when discussing race? How foolish is that?
It’s a reference to a certain internet “type” who insists on arguing over the formatting in the third pie chart in Appendix F in order to derail debate and avoid engaging in a humane manner.
This comment should be pinned to the top of the page.
Racists don't care about the people they dehumanize by stuffing them into a category.
It's the hallmark sign of racism.
How? If being color blind is racist, and paying attention to color is racist, and basically everything is racist, then nothing is. And you have no argument. It's hysterical, and also incredibly frightening, that people think everything now is about color, and we can't escape it, and we're doomed to behave in XYZ ways b/c of our color, BUT BY GOD KEEP DEMONIZING WHITE PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY'RE THE ENEMY. When frankly, my dear Scarlett, white people have no more control over the situation of their birth then you do.
The example of Jackie Robinson is telling. White people were racist for keeping him out. Then they were racist for letting him in. And now, when we celebrate "42" day each year in MLB, then that's racist, too. Because it's racist to think that Jackie had anything at all going for him as a man who put up with a lot of abuse while pioneering the participation of blacks in baseball, which white men allowed, which was racist, but thinking Jackie was great is racist, and OMG does the circle ever end??
When loving each other is dismissed as a solution, then society has no hope. You've written yourself into a corner and there's no way out.
The scam anti-racists that Taibbi is condemning want to create a situation where the problem can never be solved and that the solution is to hire more and more anti-racist consultants to find more and more racism so that more consultants need to be hired.
Real anti-racists, like MLK Jr want to heal society so that the most virulent forms are racism are banished and we can all just get along. I am Jewish. Every so often a non-Jewish friend will make a seemingly anti-Semitic comment. Instead of shaming them and forcing an apology, I ask them what they meant. At this point their eyes open wide and they start apologizing like hell. My response is, you don't need to apologize; you did not hurt me or hurt my feelings; I know you are a good person. Just tell me what you meant. They then tell me. I am not trying to win an argument or score points or make them feel bad. Later on, they might be talking and then interrupt themselves to say they are going to use another potentially anti-semitic term. We talk about the term and then get on with talking.
I think the other scam is trying to make simple interactions like that into overly-legalized gyrations. So rather than saying "what do you mean?" we have to say: “Would you be willing to grant me the opportunity to repair the racism I perpetrated toward you in that meeting?”
Language must now become a tortured obstacle to actual communication.
No, “paying attention to race” is NOT racist. And who is saying whites were racist for letting Robinson play? And who is saying we shouldn’t celebrate him (as DiAngelo says, we just need to tell the true/whole story). Your whole argument is based around refuting a point that no one is making.
1. Ad hominem, that Matt's opinion doesn't matter because he's another 'white guy
2. Non sequitur, conflating individuals with populations
3. Straw man, asserting that Matt is attempting to 'wave away' legitimate grievances by exposing the POMO sophistry of Di'angelo
We can indeed do better, it starts with the Socratic method.
I dispute the straw man claim. If anything, Matt is the one foisting one on his readers by focusing on the essentialist aspects of DiAmgelo’s argument while ignoring all practical applications the text offers.
As for ad hominem, I indulged myself while responding to someone who asserts that this is the “dumbest thing ever written.” Everyone is welcome to their opinion, but Matt’s ratio of gonzo to thoughtful got the better of him throughout the post.
It is interesting that the most prominent leftist purveyors of anti-identitarian arguments are white guys. There’s a thin line between ad hominem and observation.
That's not "interesting", it's the inevitable consequence of *specifically targeting* white guys as reprobates, sinners, and oppressors. Wow, it's interesting that my anti-rabbit eradication program seems to be resisted mainly by rabbits. Interesting! P.S. I'm not white in the slightest
"It is interesting that the most prominent leftist purveyors of anti-identitarian arguments are white guys."
Not true. Many people of color recognize that the hegemony of the thought police and the heads I win tails you lose version of ferreting out racism north south east and west is bad for them personally and for African Americans generally.
There are certainly notable exceptions like John McWhorter and Francis Fukuyama in recent times, but I could expand the list of White males with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Michael Tomaskey and the list goes on.
I’d add that one of the more interesting storylines this election cycle is black voters supporting Biden in droves. One reasonable interpretation is that identity politics carries far less weight than perceived electability for many black Dems, at least this year.
“one of the more interesting storylines this election cycle is black voters supporting Biden in droves.”
I thought that the only reason Biden carried the nomination after an abysmal start was that he was going to get a huge boost from black voters in South Carolina, and other states. How is it an “interesting” storyline, if it was entirely expected? And how can you read a “reasonable interpretation” into something that was taken for granted from the outset?
There was nothing to guarantee that Biden would win South Carolina. In fact, until he did, it was virtually a "Hail Mary." Rep. Clyburn's endorsement certainly gave it the boost it needed, but there was no certainty until it happened. Until that primary win, Biden's campaign was barely on life support. One thing that Biden's S. Carolina win made clear is that (if you must make generalizations) black voters, as a block, are pragmatic. But there is clearly no monolithic "black vote."
As you say, Biden got off to a poor start. If you buy the narrative that many black voters’ primary concern is an electable Dem, it’s just as plausible that black voters might have looked elsewhere.
Clyburn’s endorsement also appears to have been crucial in S.C. I’m not sure that was preordained.
You may have access to a lot more inside information than I do. It never seemed a given to me.
wtf is a "people of color"? The book focuses on the foundational divide in America, which is black and "white." White meaning a social caste, not a phenotype, that includes pretty much everyone OTHER than native black people.
I expect you understood my point despite your dissatisfaction with the nomenclature preferred by quite a few people of color. Such as the historian, member of the UCBerkeley history faculty, who recently wrote a letter making this very point.
Logic and debate (and the attendant avoidance of logical fallacies) wasn't resolving Black/white racial gaps rapidly enough and needs to be abandoned under the latest "thinking" on the left.
Right.. now it's time to smash store fronts a la "krystalnacht" and REALLY do something.
Fucking assholes.
I wasn't aware logical debate was ever happening surrounding this issue on either side of the fake left/right paradigm that obscures the true top/bottom divide.
Please show us examples of how the fake left/right were resolving racial gaps created as cover for the elite......
I'm not familiar with the fake left/right paradigm you are pointing to (but open to the possibility). I think back to Milton Friedman vs. Phil Donahue or Baldwin vs. Buckley type of vigorous discussions. I'm not sure there are many recent examples (featuring established intellectuals vs. youtube personalities) due to pressures around platforming as endorsement (perhaps Jordan Peterson vs. Michael Eric Dyson).
But, but, the greeks had slaves?
And Muslims still do today...
Why the deflection?
as do Israelis and Indians and US corrections facilities
As does the U.S. where immigrant seasonal farmworkers are exploited and barely paid a subsistent wage.
So, why didn't you use it instead of throwing out unsupported accusations?
Elevation of collective identity over individual identity only ends in Hatfields and McCoys. When has it ever ended well?
The grievances won't be solved by more identitarianism, only worsened. Growing up in mostly black schools, I saw the disempowering nature of bad parents telling their kids the system was rigged against them, robbing them of agency.
If the refs are biased against you, walking off the field isn't the thing to do. Keep playing, and try to win in spite of the biased refs. The racists have less power than they ever have, but the identitarian message is a way to feel ok in the short term as you walk off the field. In the long term, you fall into the helpless despair of victimhood.
It's obvious you didn't grow up in a diverse place, with lots of friends of different races. You'd realize how weird and unnatural this all is if you had. People are individuals first. Immutable characteristics are the least interesting thing about anyone.
The book sucks. I read it. It has no data behind it, and even less scientific thought. In fact, these idiots in the grievance disciplines don't even use the scientific method. It's just a bunch of sweeping generalizations that could be ranted by a drunk uncle, disguised with fancy jargon that fails to hide it's absurdity.
"The book sucks. I read it. It has no data behind it, and even less scientific thought. In fact, these idiots in the grievance disciplines don't even use the scientific method. It's just a bunch of sweeping generalizations that could be ranted by a drunk uncle, disguised with fancy jargon that fails to hide it's absurdity."
New York Times Book Review after reading Mein Kampf, c. 1935.
Your last paragraph describes exactly how I feel every time I listen to Jordan Peterson.
I actually do have a lot friends of different races. I’ve never found that it made me immune to bias, and I’ve done and said things that my friends excused or were too nice to point out over the years as ignorant or biased.
I don’t know what data would satisfy people on this topic. I’m in a position to discuss the book’s ideas with black family members on a continual basis and most of what she’s writing about is reflective of their experience. Again, I don’t espouse every tenet it proposes, but I’ve found it helpful the last couple of years.
As for identitarianism, I’m neither for nor against. It’s simply something that must be acknowledged and understood. I don’t think we can move forward until that happens.
You "don't know what data would satisfy people on this topic"?
Then what's your basis for arguing at all, since you admit that you have no idea of how to convince others?
Sounds like an excuse for substituting opinion for evidence.
You’re verging on non sequitur. Demands for evidence or data to support every point are a transparent bid to derail discussion. “What data would satisfy...” is a rhetorical comment on this bad faith mentality which you seem to be (unconsciously?) exhibiting.
Apparently you don't know what a non sequitur is.
Providing evidence/data for one's opinions is an elementary obligation of intellectually honest discussion. If you do not accept that obligation then I'd say it is you who are exhibiting "bad faith".
Your statement that "I don’t know what data would satisfy people on this topic. " seems to make it plain that your opinion has no evidentiary basis, or at least not one you're prepared to present.
Great comment.
The real grievances are real, but that does not make the bullshit less bullshit. White fragility is just bullshit.
Except for the many examples of it being expressed right here in real time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4SAIOp7Q3U
I remember as a young child I started spouting this kind of crap to a black man. He told me I was full of it. There is something deeply condescending in the idea that small psychological biases in well-meaning people are powerful enough to destroy the lives of tens of millions of people.
Bingo, the black men I work with and deeply respect shake their head at this crap and see it for what it is, another white liberal egghead profiting from the color of their skin... their words, not mine.
I'll bet that's not what they say when you're not around. I'd wager they have a few stories they could tell about YOU. It's a specialized kind of survival tactic called "code switching." Look it up.
Yes, because you're a mind reader. Group identity is the predictor of what people think in your sick worldview. Every single human interaction revolves around power in the minds of the racialists. Individual thought and identity don't exist. We are all just mouthpieces for our collective groups. That's the bullshit that underpins your view of reality. It's sad.
People who believe in your non-sense are exactly the same as white nationalists. Switch out a few words, and it's a stormfront post. They love your ideology, because it mirrors theirs and validates their entire view, and helps them recruit. White nationalists believe in a wall that divides the races, and see it everywhere. You see the same wall everywhere as well. You are just on the other side of it. The fact that the wall is a fabricated social construct that only exists if you believe it is lost.
Tell a kid in a trailer park in eastern Kentucky that he's privileged, and see how that goes. The world you live in is one where the poorest white kid can go to Harvard with no issues, and the richest black kid can't get a job. It's deeply insulting and is a view held by losers to validate their own lack of success. You can either tell yourself you can do better and try to improve things you can control, or you can focus mental energy on things you can't control, and pretend that they are why you failed. We all know what the racialists do. I've never met an ethno-nationalist who wasn't a complete loser.
people like "angelO" *are* mind readers. Swallowing critical race theory wholesale is proven to sharpen the sensitive emotional antennae of the progressive.
here we see the progressive in his natural habitat, where he or she speaks for black people without the slightest trace of irony, let alone shame.
Absolutely. One need look no further than the policies enacted during the '60s that were purported to "right the scales" and correct the damage from slavery and Jim Crow. The government successfully destroyed the black family, and made it explicitly clear to blacks that they couldn't compete on a level playing field.
No one is guilty of anything due to the color of their skin, and until we stop making an issue of it, nothing will get any better.
How would you have corrected the damage done by slavery and Jim Crow? Has anything been done that works in your opinion?
The same goddamn way every aggrieved population corrects the damage done. Stop being a victim and move up and on. Truly, this country has thrown money and resources at the disadvantaged black population since the 1960's. Is it perfect? No. But at some point we need to wonder if there is more than purported racism and the legacy of slavery that perpetuates the "damage." CRT is NOT a positive and helpful way forward! (And don't accuse me of white fragility for saying that b/c you have no idea how much melanin I have in my skin. )
So it’s up to POC? Whites have no responsibility?
Apparently whites have ALL the responsibility. That is the problem.
pssst: there's no such thing as POC.
Every ethnic group has a distinct history. All except two are immigrants, and only one was brought here in chains, had its labor stolen for 250 years, followed by 150+ yrs of de jure and de facto subjugation, terrorist attacks, unchecked discrimination, forced physical isolation, mass incarceration, and state-sanctioned lynching.
To lump that group in with immigrant groups makes no sense historically, socially, or politically. In fact, it allow others to hoover up the meager benefits (e.g. affirmative action) that were created to remedy the effects that singular history.
The government destroyed the black family when it allowed slavery, enforced black codes, allowed blacks to be excluded from the trillions in wealth-building handouts that went to white people, invented&maintained a system of redlining, initially excluded most blacks from Social Security, added white women to anti-discrimination legislation and affirmative action programs meant to redress past wrongs done to native blacks, etc. Shall I go on?
Even Morgan Freeman agrees with you on that one. Go to 1:11 on this clip and hear for yourself https://youtu.be/kOiQgleiRtU
And condescending that once the small group has "purged" their guilt then the real problem will be solved, systemic issues be damned. Like making a walk of atonement and then going back to being an asshat.
Hear ye! Hear ye!
We need an updated version of the B.S. Bingo game for race-speak in 2020: "we can do better" should be on there alongside "wrong side of history". I guess "this is not okay" as well. I need to write down 21 others.
"There is still much to do" is quite a good one, too. :)
"problematic"? I feel like that has been around for 5 or 10 years and may belong to an earlier era?
'Problematize'.
Yep, agree totally. Laughable drivel.
Michael Tracey had a great riff on this new form of HR speak:
"To everyone who has been hurt by my poasts over the past several weeks: I hear you. I see you. Right now, I'm just taking the time to listen. I want to give you the space to go f*ck yourself"
It's telling that you casually ignore Matt's most important point: the usefulness of Ms. DiAngelo's worldview to our corporate masters.
As someone who works for a major corporation it has been interesting to see the book recommended by employers. And as someone who read it “before it was famous” it’s been equally interesting to watch its sudden rise.
I’m certainly in the camp that struggles with essentialism, and while I think implicit bias is an irrefutable fact I think there needs to be much more study of how biases manifest in behavior. Despite those positions I found the book to be full of challenging ideas for me to reflect on and apply to my own experience. I was motivated to do so so YMMV.
Ah so you work for a "major corporation".
No wonder you approve of the book.
Evan, although I disagree with you, I commend you for your civility. It is encouraging to read.
I might point out, regarding implicit bias, that, even if you have great trust in the accuracy of social psychology experiments, many of which have been discredited in recent years, the experimental data does not unequivocally support it.
Thanks, Lex. I don’t usually do much online except read, but if I’m going to discuss something I try to operate in good faith.
I’ve followed implicit bias studies enough over the years that I think it very much exists and is even measurable. As I’ve noted a couple of times here, it seems less clear how it manifests as behavior, especially under stress. It seems to have become a more polarizing concept than I ever expected, so I’m always looking to see if there’s a motive behind a given study beyond honest curiosity.
Evan, as you might have guessed, I am skeptical of social psychology. There seems to be too much opportunity for the experimenter to pass along cues, even unconsciously. I was trained as a physicist, and electrons really don't care whether you are smiling or not when you adjust the voltage. People do.
However, this possibly argues against me, since people (= experimental subjects) presumably don't want to be considered biased! However, it's history that a lot of social psych research (from Milgram to Amy Cuddy) has been discredited.
That’s a healthy skepticism in my book. It’s exceedingly difficult to craft conditions which don’t exert some influence.
Wow, very erudite sounding. But do fix the danglers!!
("As someone who works for a major corporation it has been interesting to see the book recommended by employers. And as someone who read it “before it was famous” it’s been equally interesting to watch its sudden rise. "
lol I bet the first wave of brownshirts also acted superior to other racists for having read Mein Kampf first.
Fucking racists. Racist everywhere.
In the ever expanding list of things that can no longer be said, I don't see White Fragility, but an emerging Black Fragility. One does not overcome the state of their birth by discovering novel things to be upset about. I totally understand how many of these things are offensive and insulting, I don't see how recognizing and highlighting them leads to success for a group of people that needs success in this society more than anyone else.
Black Fragility is
- assuming that anything that happens to you is specifically because you are black, or because of "bias"
- responding with immediate denial and fragility when someone confronts you about the black crime rate
-demand white people be more conscious of their "bias" while being utterly dishonest about why they might have those "biases" in the first place
-being responsible for 52% of all homicides yet refusing to talk honestly about it
-insecurely redefining "racism" to mean "systems of oppression" so you can be personally racist to white people and then claim "it's not actually racism, I don't have systemic power"
-responding with threats of violence whenever challenged, unable to take any criticism without responding violently
-having to pretend that psychopathic career criminals, in many cases caught on camera committing heinous crimes or attacking people, were innocent good boys shot by the cops for no reason
Wow, Quazar. Though I don't use the term racist, you're certainly prejudiced.
I know what you think you're doing, but you're not doing it.
Increasingly rhetoric like what I wrote above will become more and more common. So will the idea of "black privilege"
Black privilege:
- being able to violently loot, riot, commit violent attacks against innocent people, yet be fawned over by a complicit media apparatus, so terrified of being called racist, that they'll go out of their way to enable your violence
- be able to be the highest per capita perpetrators of interracial violent crime but never get challenged on this by media or society
-the ability to violently attack people, falsely accuse that person of calling you an n word, and then get away with it
- the ability to threaten white people, go out of your way to intimidate them, then claim to be victims when they fight back or arm themselves
- the ability to violently attack police and then claim to be a victim of police brutality when they arrest you
- the ability to commit minor crimes like fly tipping and then call any white person who challenges you a "Karen", post them online, and ruin their life
Black people don't have any special impunity for any of the criminal offenses you listed there. Some of the offenders have been known to try to play the system by using race, and sometimes they've succeeded, but white offenders have a record of doing that too, and a lot more effectively.
I want a system where no criminal gets to work the system that way, but it used to be that only white people could do it. So I don't wonder that there's some confusion in the process of getting to that goal.
I know it is 11 months later, but have to say this. I do NOT know you. We don't even know the same people. But the things which YOU are perceiving are exactly what I perceive, and your conclusions are exactly the same as mine. This Concordance is not a coincidence, nor an accident. Keep fighting and writing, please. Nobody dares say these things, but they need to be said, although there is a constant battle to suppress them. Good luck to you. Everyone like you is a beacon of hope to the rest of us who fight this uphill battle against the new Fascism promoted by the Progressive Propagandists.
The accuser is usually the doer. What you describe as Black Privilege is exactly what White Supremacists nations such as US, France, Belgium, Spain and the UK have been doing for the past 400 years.
White Supremacy: being able to violently invade, loot, commit attacks against innocent people, yet be fawned over by a complicit media apparatus, so terrified of being called Unpatriotic, that they'll go out their way to enable more violence through war.
-be able to be the highest per capita perpetrators (whites are a minority of world population) of violent crime against people of color and never get challenged by mainstream media
-the ability to violently attack people, falsely accuse those people or nations of being communists, terrorists, or dictators and then get away with it (Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War I & II, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya just to name a few)
-the ability to threaten democratically elected brown and black people, go out of your way to intimidate them, then claim to be victims when they fight back or arm themselves
-the ability to violently attack their military, defense force, & civilians and then claim to be a victim of when they fight back or detain your spies (agent provocateur)
-the ability to commit war crimes against humanity like bombing hospitals and then call any non-white person who challenges you a radical, socialist, terrorist, or communists!
Quazar this will be a fight to the bloody end. I will not let you drag Black people in the mud without a fight. History is not on your side.
Well, it's clearer that ever that you have delusions of grandeur in addition to being a poser and clearly a young, naive self-appointed white-splainer for the entire black community whose just discovered evil in the world and knows just how to combat it. Let me guess, you just finished your first year in college and now consider yourself both and expert and a crusader but most of all desperate to seem "woke."
Now there's the proof of my first comment: White Supremacy = White Fragility.
Hey, thanks, trumper.
Respect.
You can read white responses to "White Fragility" antagonistically, but DiAngelo can be read antagonistically as well, namely by reading "white fragility" as one attempt among many by the professional-managerial class to position itself as universally understanding the needs of all races insofar as the needs of capital are concerned (hence, why so much of this is phrased in terms of "politeness," as a "basic level" of civil discourse in work and casual environments), and mandating new policies and ways of speaking which are supposed to resolve the problems of racism without transforming the capitalist system. Conveniently, this requires workers' induction into new discursive norms through education and training, which can further be used to discipline the workers this class oversees for capital. That is, racism isn't being "solved" by whites and won't be because, to the extent it remains a problem, it isn't an individual but systemic problem of capitalism, yet the banner of "anti-racism" is being used by this class to assert its moral and intellectual importance to capital through the attempted imposition of new norms which they would be needed to enforce, until technology is able to monitor and discipline workers similarly, with little or no intervention needed from such people. At that point, perhaps there will be yet another panic.
So foolish: Racism isn’t a systemic problem of capitalism, it’s a systemic problem universal to all organisms that have evolved systems of perception that categorize threat levels into known and unknown (explored, familiar territory vs. unexplored and unfamiliar).
Unfortunately for creatures that have evolved the ability to abstract, the negative aspects of our pre-cortical motivational systems —(the seeking (explorative impulse), fight (anger), flight (Fear), shame (separation sensitivity), lust drive, and care—underpin all our actions and all our thinking.
Hebrew and Christian religion identified this concept as original sin. Paul called it the Ancient Man. These woke (born again) zealots have rediscovered it as “implicit bias.” And like Calvinists, they believe we are all damned unless chosen. Hence the need to virtue signal to display a chosen status.
Every natural system is purposed within a social whole into a specific form which allows for certain expressions, rather than being directly transmitted from nature to immediate expression. Every choice is necessarily bounded by the set of choices which seem available to us, and what seems available isn't necessarily the same between a prehistorical man living in a cave, a 15th century Chinese peasant and a 20th century French aeronautics engineer. That is, nature expresses itself within the given material and social context rather than abstractly, from "nature" as such. I don't find this sort of crude biological reduction convincing in the least, for a few separate reasons in addition to the one above (e.g. what do we mean when we talk about "nature," or these conceptual derivations from human forms of organizing the world like biology?), but it should be obvious that human nature isn't a sufficient explanation for what specifically is happening here.
Pontificate as you wish, but you must identify the problem before you can craft a strategy.
Your assertion that racism is a systemic problem of capitalism is beyond naive. The problem of racism and original sin is billions of years old in the making. Our nervous systems have been developed into what they are, built as they are on the architecture of our ancestors, and our conscious minds are not able to fully regulate it (which seems to be what our frontal cortex is for).
Biology therefore provides a context, as nature has a way of selecting that optimum strategy. Sure the environment of prehistoric man and today is different. But 10,000 years is a short time, and that is similar than dissimilar. The biology of the man is unchanged.
For example, BLM and leftist organizations like it maintain the bizarre goal of "disrupting 2-parent family structures." In BLM orthodoxy, homosapien pair-bonding is bizarrely reframed as the product of whiteness circa 500 BC and onward, and not the optimal strategy for coping with the negative aspects of neotony over a period of 5 million years.
These terrible strategies are pushed at a horrific cost. Yet, no matter how much verifiable data refutes the foolishness; the ideological madness is resilient, metastasizing and rebranding. There is always an ephemeral and elusive force to blame. Each religion has its own preferred bogey man. This one prefers the terms structural racism, implicit bias, etc.
While I appreciate what you are trying to say, it seems that you have confused prejudice with racism. Racism is not biology, It is a manifestation of power. Prejudice on the other hand is exactly what you are describing here- fear of the other.
The "old Adam" as it were... and the only way to address is the way which no one will speak of.
"the target audience of “well-meaning” leftists, specifically progressives, who choose to act as if racism is something other people do."
Fuck off, talk about yourself. If you're racist, deal with it. Don't assume others are
“ Identity politics clearly undergirds much of the illiberal excess on the left, and in the hands of activists and children it exhibits the same banality and misapplications as other -isms.“
lmao what in the hell is this even trying to say. Was this generated by a “think piece” AI?
I work on predictive algorithms/deep learning algos for a living. The way the grievance disciplines teach students like this guy is similar to training NLP algorithms:
Feed them training data (shitty unscientific essays), have them write their own essays, and grade them not for writing skill or knowledge of content, but for how much they parrot the professors radical beliefs. When the student is perfectly mimicking, the training is complete.
Not unlike a deep learning text generator, they don't understand what they are writing. They just spew it out.
The (oppressed group here) studies majors really are the Special Olympics of Academia, and I feel guilty for denigrating the athletes by comparing them to these morons.
Nice theory, but I’m too old to have learned much at the academy.
You can always ask me to clarify something I’ve written. Or you can make baseless claims about my motivations that reinforce your worldview. Whatever floats your boat.
I think you need to clarify your criticisms of Taibbi's piece. All I see you doing is dismissing his points without addressing them
I think I’ve made my thoughts clear. If you disagree you’ll have to ask clarifying questions.
I've already asked you a number of questions which you've avoided answering. I see no reason to think that past isn't prologue.
C-/D response. How about this irony: your over reliance on Roget’s Thesaurus renders your response unreadable. You’re still using SAT vocabulary in 2020?! Have you no decency? Nice try with the verbal sophistry, but as that great American moralist of the 90s stated, “that dog won’t hunt.”
It’s the way I talk. Sorry?
Ewan Rentschler seems to be doing some strategical online opposition.
Wouldn't suprise me if it is a paid "troll" group of some sorts. Saw the same thing in the comment section on Taibbi his Planet Of The Humans article.
I should be clearer. America discriminates against poor people. So long as globalization continues poor black people will never get ahead; it is literally impossible for them to do so. No amount of action by white people can change that--except ending globalization.
All of our mainstream political dialogue until 2016 was designed to cover for the fact that globalism in its current form is a race to the bottom and only benefits those who can afford to benefit from it. The parties are split in just the right way to ensure nothing ever changes beyond superficial identity and morality policing BS. Trump was the first breakaway from that, and Bernie almost the second, but they really put their foot down on that one. Are any of you principled progressives willing to acknowledge the threat a puppet president like Biden poses for the republic? I won't ask you to vote for someone you hate, but please don't directly consent to the end of American democracy. Look what they did to your guy, and how they bought off Warren, these people are possessed.
This is very insightful, Rem.
It's cute how you think elections matter and that Trump isn't a globalist. He's just looking for leverage to increase his own fame and fortune. Didn't you read his book ?
You seem really committed to reinforcing outdated narratives and playing GOTCHA with people's words. You aren't arguing in good faith, or even offering any relevant specifics, you're trying to derail the discussion.
What's outdated about us living in a plutocracy ? The parties aren't split, they're owned. It matters not who wins any election in any of the 5 eyes allied nations anymore.
"give up, you've already lost" nice try shill
This is very interesting because I think anti-globalism in itself is a form of racism. Why? While I agree that globalism ultimately benefits the rich ruling class the most, it’s impossible to deny that globalism also helps poor countries to get out of their economic rut?
The way I like at it is, why should Western countries be the only ones that benefit from capitalism? What’s wrong with the citizens of Asia, Africa and Latin America now having access to capital to command the buying power that most of the developed world has enjoyed for decades?
The transition mechanism is the missing ingredient. If you can find a place where there are 25 million literate 12-year-olds available to work 72 hours per week for $1 per day, plus living in barracks and eating cold rice, you may profitably replace 5 million US heads of family making $22 per hour in a 35-hour week with health benefits and pension plans. If the 25 million pre- adolescents produce exactly the same as 5 million US heads of family, the transfer of profit -- the 'surplus value' -- generally goes to the consumer, the employer, and the capitalist. You can see how the transition is a form of colonialism, only it is sponsored by the self-colonizing government that encourages both slave labor and child labor. Your argument has merit, but the details of the transition process can be ugly, and end up exploiting the production workers, in fact forcing them into conflict with one another.
So if I understand correctly, the problem isn’t the wealth transfer to poorer countries but the way the wealth is transferred, which you believe is a form of neo-colonialism.
While I see why one would think that, I have disagree. Just speak to anyone in former developing nations that have benefited from globalism they don’t see it that way. While exploitation will happen at first, the citizens of China, Vietnam, and numerous other countries that have benefitted from globalism will differ in their view that they’ve been exploited.
What they now have is newfound wealth and confidence. Yes, it comes at the cost of the working class of richer countries in the West, it’s unfortunate, but we’re creating a much more balanced world now because of globalism.
Except for some vicious imbalances in America and Europe, you're right. Naturally, you don't talk to many 12-year-old wage slaves -- or to their parents -- in less-developed countries, but I'm sure the oligarch and Mandarin classes in those countries would love to bathe eternally in "globalization." It's interesting that you describe a world where the wealthiest 1/10th of 1% have Quintupled their share of total wealth since 1977-78 as "more balanced." When the new generations keep experiencing deteriorating lifestyles -- now 42 years and counting -- welcome to Orban, Trump, Brexit, Le Pen, and -- of course -- the Klepto-Autocrats such as Xi and Putin.
LOL @ this: "Yes, it comes at the cost of the working class of richer countries in the West, it’s unfortunate"
Who gave you the right to just callously throw their lives away like that? "It's unfortunate", really?
Do you even know how hilariously stereotypically modern-leftist it is, to dismiss the native working class in the process of virtue-signaling / fetishizing Other?
THINK about what you are saying. "It's unfortunate" to throw millions of people on the scrapheap but hey ho, whatever? Don't be ridiculous.
so $22 X 35 X 5 =$3,850 US cost/week; $1 X 6 X 25 = $150/week. The phrase "Globalization" is a euphemism for "Huge Labor Glut."
Gosh, Filius, your rosey view of globalism suggests to me that you do not understand very much about gloablism and international finance. For example---just one small one---I expect you don't understand a jot about tax havens, a prime mechanism of globalism that facilitates the creaming off and hidingn of profits made off the back of from developing nations that globatlists "invest" in. Please watch The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np_ylvc8Zj8
Obviously this is somewhat off the USA racism topic, but it is central to the globalist agenda, and this is what has to be challenged for peope of all colors to have a chance at decent lives.
What you consider a rosey view, I consider realistic. The facts bear out that people in the developing world are better off now than they were before globalism. What exactly would be a better plan?
Poor countries? What about poor people?
I care about poor people, in poor countries.
The irony of that view is that globalization has, by far, improved the material well-being of more people of color in the last 30 years than any other system over any other time period going back to the beginning of recorded history. It is just that they are Chinese, Vietnamese, Nigerian, Brazilian, etc. instead of African-American.
Which groups are benefiting? The nine year olds in work-slave camps in China making your iPhone?
People still believe this propaganda about child slaves in China?
People still believe there were WMD's in Iraq and that supply side trickle down economics is a viable economic policy. Why not ?
Yeah! Some of them are political prisoners too!
You seem to know a lot about propaganda and China.
Not working out so well for the ME or South America and Africa these days though. It's a protection racket that loots and pillages one part of the world to lift up another. Let's not forget who has improved their material well being the most...the wealthy are stealing money from the our left pocket and putting it back into our right pocket after taking a cut for themselves.
you got crickets on this salient point, skutch, because obsessing about race frees people from looking at class, and wealth distribution. that globalisation has slightly helped the extreme poor into the only sort of poor category, while jettisoning rich people into the multi millionaire and billionaire status, is too icky for folks to concentrate on, never mind work to change. too many people's daddies are bankers, too many people want wealth themselves. safer to scream about white people than actually fix poverty and discrimination. And filius, there really is not much a of a middle class left in America, so that problem is solved too.
the fix is simple if unsavory to many, progressive income taxes which favors the middle class, small business and the firms themselves; only hurts well connected professionals, financiers and corp execs aka big political donors.
The minute I read the pompous phrase 'We can/must do better," especially in a post talking about 'whites'..I tune out.
This is a topic of the utmost seriousness to me. While I enjoy Matt’s snarkiness when applied to political theater or partisan media, this piece does little to advance the conversation and he comes off as incoherent and out of his depth. A thoughtful disagreement with DiAngelo would be incredibly helpful, but this made no effort to be that. So yes, I think we can do better when discussing racism than Matt does here. Much better.
You exemplify the problem Taibbi is discussing well.
How?
Matt, when are you going on Rogan's podcast?
He better go on again soon
Rubin Report would be good too.
No no no. Rubin is a total fraud and a Koch bro funded tool. He has no values except lining his pockets and he has no self-respect.
He lets his guests openly disrespect him on his own show. I almost feel sorry for him as he’s obviously a troubled dude. But I could never take him seriously as a political or cultural commentator.
I'm not a fan of Rubin as I don't find him very smart or engaging, but I am all for this message getting out across ALL long-form platforms. I don't care if Rubin is your definition of a "fraud" or if he is a Koch bro tool (which is a silly statement), every faction of this country needs to hear this message b/c we are in deep trouble.
Rubin was unfairly maligned by these same woke people engaging in the current e-guillotine shenanigans. We need to welcome anyone who's willing to cross the aisle in good faith, Rubin is as inoffensive as they come as far as I'm concerned. The stakes are more than just "he said mean things". These are radicals trying to dramatically restructure our culture and the information we consume. We need to move past that juvenile BS, it's being exploited to avoid shining a spotlight on the corporate oligarchy running our lives (as they drain us for all we're worth until they can move to China's untapped potential with zero human rights or labor laws). Think about how egregious Spygate was and how the media still won't acknowledge their dangerous coverage of the saga. When media is working hand in glove with intelligence you might want to think about things beyond "Rubin is icky". I hope you're a teenager.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. And if you knew my views on economic policy, you might think I'm a Koch tool too. And yet I think we'd also find critically important areas where we agree, because we're both here.
Rubin is alright he’s just not exceptional.
Now THAT's comedy.
I love it when trumpers don't know they're being pnwd.
huh? I'm confused. Who are you saying is / are "trumpers?"
Thanks Matt, I know it's probably uncomfortable to take a stand on this stuff, but I'm glad somebody is doing it. What's so objectionable about this kind of identitarian world view is not just that it doesn't make a lot of sense, but that it may be actively hurting many of the progressive causes we've all spent a lot of time working towards. I'm glad there's someone with your level of commitment and credibility paying attention.