I think this was a really good piece. People want to keep using this framing because it is good for their careers. They are not interested in the electoral consequences
Obama wisely (imo) tried to manage backlash. We're now going to see what happens when that isn't a major concern for Ds. The Tim Scott speech looks like a key test. I suspect we're underestimating the importance of it. He has provided the rallying point for a rightward-leaning people to reject the America is Racist theme, and many people are going to be sympathetic to it. I think it will prove powerful, but let's see.
Activists are going too far in racially everything. When called on it, they say, well that's what activists are supposed to do..."we're activists, after all." OK, but then let's talk about the role of pragmatists. Pragmatists have a key role here, and it is to push back on activists when they go too far. Right now, that's not working well because being a pragmatist is held to be the same as being sympathetic to the right, while activists are elevated in moral status. The mix is off. And I fear we are going to soon the backlash build and the overall mission undermined. But again let's see.
At what point in the history of this country has the right needed any prompting to loudly reject an "America is racist" frame and to harshly punish anyone who said differently. Give me the year on that.
I'm struck by your phrase, "when called on it." If you wondering why people might see "pragmatist" and the right as identical on this issue, it's because some of us cannot pretend that racism doesn't permeate everything about this society. Some of us experience it to one degree or another every day. We may be able to take Matt's advice and communicate differently give the political reality. Indeed, any black person who regularly navigates white spaces is a veteran at letting all kinds of racist shit go. But if I experience or observe a racist act and decide to speak on it, and some self-described pragmatist fixes his mouth to "call me on it", why should I see that asshole as anything other than identical to conservatives on these issues. I would at the very least conclude that we have different overall missions.
I object to the tweets at the beginning of the article because they mis-assign the burden of proof: it’s. It Matt’s job to prove not every class issue should be racialized; it’s on the activists to prove it should.
Or maybe Obama was just speaking from 2010’s Overton window, before the fashion of the day was to infuse race into everything. (Even articles about how you shouldn’t infuse race into everything.)
I generally agree with this sort of thinking. It seems that the gains (politically) from making explicit race-motivated appeals are directly counteracted by reflexive opposition from white voters. And that "race-neutral" public programs will disproportionally benefit oppressed minorities simply due to the fact that they are disproportionately likely to need these benefits. This is something that makes a lot of sense to me. However, the opposition argument that I hear frequently - and can't rebut - is that if this were true why didn't the New Deal coalition fix racism? The greatest period of liberal economics in this country's history also coincided with some of the most fraught racial politics. And clearly it wasn't enough to ameliorate racism. Maybe this is missing the point of the piece (there should be "race-neutral" programs and "race-motivated" policies, but don't mix the two). However, I can definitely understand the arguments of the racial justice coalition, that focusing on race-neutrality often leads to further solidification of the racist status-quo.
When the study suggests that class based arguments perform better than blended class-race arguments, what does it mean specifically? Is that the race-class narrative specifically, or just any old argument that blends race and class?
A more generous interpretation of injecting race into race neutral policy arguments is that politicians are (at some cost) signaling that they won't permit a racist implementation of the proposals.
If you start off with the idea that a policy will be ignore race, it's really easy in implementation to maximize overall utility by screwing over minorities. cf. Covid vaccinations. You always apply the 80-20 rule and it's always the same 20 that doesn't get shit.
So if we recreate public swimming pools in Alabama, say, when we do so we are going to ensure that they will be equitably distributed, available to all, not segregated, etc. This isn't always the easiest/fastest thing to do!
It's not surprising that once they're reminded of this (there will be black people in that pool) some people who support the "race blind" implementation of the policy will not do so. Which is better politics? It seems like there's reasonable room for disagreement.
I read this article and also read that the feds want to ban menthol cigarettes, likely because they are the favorites of African Americans. For the life of me I cannot figure out why anyone would do this. Not only is it really paternalistic, and racist, I think. But it will just allow more dumb police enforcement and risk lives thereby. They will be Newport stops. And, if the police only find weed in the Newport pack, well they have to let the person go. WHAT ARE THEY THINKING? Will they never learn?
I always thought that the rationale for banning menthol and other flavoured cigarettes was that they were more appealing to children. Already banned in the EU.
And I'm pretty sure this will be a regulatory change banning the sale of such products in shops, not an actual ban on the possession of such a substance, as with drug laws.
If progressives fully embrace the class narrative, they'll find themselves supporting the unpalatable, unsophisticated white underclass--many of whom voted for Trump. It's easier to march alongside a biracial Ivy League classmate, whom you can actually relate to, and call it social justice.
Bernie had one thing right--he wasn't scared of including poor white people in his movement. I met more than a few people who were on the fence between Bernie and Trump, crazy as that sounds.
Yeah, a lot of white progressives see white working class folks (exp men) as the political enemy, but also as people they don't want to associate with in any social context. Progressives pick their allies the way they would choose guests for a dinner party or a backyard picnic.
This is a good article. But you personally Matt, have a motte and bailey problem.
I’ve been reading you for close to 20 years and you’re the only Substack I ever even considered buying, so this little heel turn, which is tough to ignore since I’ m a black dude, legit makes me sad. I largely grok your reasonable, though imperfect argument about the downsides of racialized marketing of policies, even if the policies have significantly disparate racial impacts. But you have an increasingly visible hostility to / rejection of other concerns many black folks have that is entirely separate and apart from your issue with essentially policy marketing. It’s the difference between “That’s a counterproductive way to solve the problem” and “I don’t believe you when you say this is a problem” And when you get called on the latter, you jump in the motte of the former. Not asking you to think differently or anything, just pointing it out.
If you ask me, your concerns seem to stem from this mindset: "if you're not 100% with me, then you're 100% against me."
If a person has beliefs which are largely anti-racist, but sees some anti-racist ideas as clearly illogical, how is that person supposed to behave? Is it possible to question *aspects* of anti-racism without being labelled an "anti-anti-racist?"
If so, how? (Not a rhetorical question--I think it's important to suss this out. I bet we agree that criticizing aspects of anti-racism should be allowed and encouraged.)
In this Matt Y. piece on Ibram X. Kendi, he criticizes one aspect of anti-racist thought. This excerpt serves as a summary of his thesis: "Identifying a racial gap and declaring it to be racist is often insufficient. Such an approach impedes actually thinking about problems — particularly in media, academic and nonprofit circles, where the accusation of racism can carry severe consequences. And so to avoid controversy, people avoid important debates rather than risking offense."
Maybe you disagree, but is the opinion expressed here so unreasonable that we can write him off as engaging in bad faith?
If it's not unreasonable enough to accuse him of racism or bad faith, but it still makes you uncomfortable, then how could he have stated his opinion in a way that would not result in this discomfort?
If you ask me, your concern seems to stem from the fact that you aren't engaging with what I've written and have instead decided to attribute Ibram X Kendi's views to me and then express your disagreement with those views. I mean, Knock yourself out. I never said that you, Matt or anyone else couldn't critique Kendi or anyone else. But Matt's article isn't about that and thus my response to his article is not about that.
I agree with that, and I think it's worth underlining that this article was pretty good.
My sense if that Matt is generally sharp, but often a bit glib and dismissive towards the positions that he's arguing against, and I appreciated that this post took seriously some of the criticisms that he's received, acknowledged that there are complicated issues at play, and wrote a clear version of his position.
Incidentally, I'm saying that to myself as much as to you. I don't comment much here, and I realized that I was more likely to comment when I wanted to object to something, and that I want to show support as well.
>But you have an increasingly visible hostility to / rejection of other concerns many black folks have that is entirely separate and apart from your issue with essentially policy marketing.
I'd be interested to hear this fleshed out more or have you point me towards these instances. I generally read this ongoing take of Matt's as the 2nd "policy marketing" part but would like to examine his/my potential blind spot.
Another example of the bailey is Matt’s quote from this very piece.
“A pet theory that I developed in the past but didn’t put into my previous piece is that we’re seeing carryover from college campus dynamics. If YOU convince an RA that a fellow student is doing something racist, the RA will probably put a stop to it, whereas simply observing that something is bad for poor people probably won’t get YOU anywhere. Connecting something to racism, in other words, can be a very powerful argument in certain contexts. But not in electoral politics." I think this is really insightful. My observations of how wokeness works in the left is primarily with it being weaponized *constantly*."
This line of thinking could have been taking directly from the black crime section of Daily Caller or to be frank, the writings of segregation opponents back in the first half of the last century. I capitalized YOU in his quote because, either black people are being written out of Matt’s universal you (which is common and problematic on its own), or if black people are included, his pet theory then is that black people are just making up the challenges that we face navigating through a society that has consistently seen us as pariah class. If the latter is true, not only does smart political marketing, but also objective fairness calls for ignoring the concerns of black people.
“Racism is not an ever-present force in the lives of black people, but rather a tool that the wily negroes wield at innocent well-meaning white people, thus we should appropriately ignore them because they’re lying” is a much more nakedly racist argument than the motte of ”we should communicate via non-racial frames when possible”. I dunno, it’s all so sad. I’m surprised this is what Matt apparently has always thought of us. So it goes…
I don't dispute that you have good reasons for hearing him that way but that's not what I'm picking up from his argument. And if we disagree on that, I guess we can at least agree that neither one of us knows for sure what's in his head.
My guess is he's viewing that argument through the very specific lens of elite college and fortune 500 company politics. That's a very small slice of american life, and not necessarily a representative one, but it's one that Matt Yglesias is probably very familiar with. If I had to guess, the ratio of truly racist incidents to examples of "weaponizing wokeism" is much different in those elite environments than it is in most of the rest of the country. I didn't read it as disputing that racism ever occurs. I went to a fairly elite college and when i read that RA college example, I didn't even picture a Black person telling the RA about a racist incident. In my mind's eye it was probably a white person and it could have been about any issue an elite school would take issue with, i.e. Trans-rights, immigrants, body-shaming etc.. I also picture that recent Teen Vogue firing of a black woman for 10 year old racist tweets, which I know Matt disagreed with and tweeted about. In those environments you will get more points in an argument for framing it in those terms than you would framing it about discrimination against poor people.
And then that leads, I thought, to his bigger point, which is that the rest of America is actually NOT always like that. Focusing on a racial dimension will help persuade your RA that you're witnessing an injustice, but it might not help you persuade voters to elect you in a presidential election (trump beat hillary). I don't think his point is that the racial framing shouldn't be believed by liberals, just that elite colleges prepare liberals to expect that framing things as social justice will persuade more people than it ultimately might
You are certainly welcome to extend to Matt the benefit of the doubt that I may have given him a year ago, but as I said, if Matt wrote that part with the assumption that black people aren’t part of the universal you, it’s problematic in its own right. We do, you know, exist after all.
And your comments about the Teen Vogue lady also come from the same place that ignores that, how, & why black people, on balance, look at that situation quite differently. Maybe we see one person fired unfairly because of intense racial sensitivity, weigh that against the literal millions of black people who have had their careers hampered by racism over the generations, and conclude that erring on the side of over sensitivity is the lesser evil, even if it leads to unfair outcomes from time to time. Maybe we stare distressed but unsurprised at how many white people are ready to go to war over the former while offering nothing more than nods and platitudes about the latter.
Anyhow, what I really want to write is that you’re doing the same motte and bailey that Matt’s doing. What you call Matt’s bigger point (which is actually much less important) - the sub-optimal marketing of policy preferences by forefronting racial impact is tangential to, but discreet from, all those baileys such as the ratio you mentioned (which we’ll get back to in a bit). You and I and Matt have no disagreement that racial frames will draw hostility from some whites, annoyance from others, and intense uncomfortability for a plurality and thus should be used very carefully. So, let’s put that aside.
Your assumption that the ratio of truly racist incidents to examples of "weaponizing wokeism" is much different in elite environments than elsewhere would face hostility from the overwhelming majority of the black people who travel in those circles. I say this as a member of that cohort who has for a lifetime consorted socially and professionally within that group. Now, many of us would be extremely reticent to make a public claim of racism, even in the face of some truly oppressive shit, because all of us know how career limiting it is to make white people uncomfortable about such things. Indeed a core competency of a modern corporate negro is the marrow-deep awareness that many white people believe as you seem to that racism is something that happens amongst the lesser classes and thus any grievances we might have are likely at best in our heads, or at worse are as you put it, weaponized wokeism.
Your explicit argument is that at least in elite circles racism is not an ever-present force in the lives of black people, but rather a tool that the wily negroes wield at innocent well-meaning white people, thus should be appropriately ignored because the negroes are lying.
I understand the folly of trying to explain all of the ways that’s a terrible thing to believe, so believe what you like. My point, again, is that it is a separate argument from the” market policy preference better” argument. And if you are of the belief that black people, even in elite circles, are just making it all up, own that. Say it with your chest and don’t go running back to the motte.
You seem to be putting a lot of words in my mouth and assuming a lot of thoughts in my head. (i took lifted weaponized wokeism from your earlier comment, for example) i'm mostly trying to point out the perspective that I think Yglesias has, in response to your interpretation of the same. The point wasn't to communicate my own beliefs, although it sounds like we do all 3 agree on realpolitick political messaging part. And I'm fairly certain I didn't say black people are usually lying about racism or anything like that.
But yes, with respect to elite vs lower-class environments, I do really think that racial issues play out differently. I say this as someone who grew up in a blue-collar, non-elite community and family, but works with Ivy league elite types now and for much of my adult life. The two have differences in just about every aspect of communication, behavior, conflict resolution, rates of interracial marriage, etc.. I'd be amazed if someone could convince me that racism was the one thing that was exactly the same.
And the reception that framing a message in "social justice" terms gets is yet another difference between those communities, so consequently you see social and racial justice framings much more in elite circles, and much less in blue collar ones.
Again, I don't usually think you or anyone else (or at least rarely anyone else) is lying about experiences like racism. In fact, I take what you said, a random internet stranger, into account as I formulate my perception of the world, I'm thinking "is there a lot more anti-black racism among elite ivy league types than I thought, what am I failing to notice, what do various Black people I worked with think, etc..." I'd like to hear more. The worst I ever usually assume is the kind of perspective-ignorance that we all have, since it's thoroughly impossible to walk a mile in the shoes of every other category of person on the planet
I have no particular insight into what’s going on in your or Matt’s head; I’m responding to very specific things that you both have written. When Matt writes, “my observations of how wokeness works in the left is primarily with it being weaponized *constantly*." and when you write, “If I had to guess, the ratio of truly racist incidents to examples of ‘weaponizing wokeism’ is much different in those elite environments”, I take you at your word that you mean these things.
And when I read the quote, “I'd be amazed if someone could convince me that racism was the one thing that was exactly the same.” How can I understand that as anything other than agreement with my earlier hard-learned observation that it would be folly for me to attempt to convince you that the racism black people experience, in this case corporate black people, actual exists. You’re explicitly forefronting your resistance to accepting the idea. Fwiw, no one is saying it’s exactly the same; it’s actually incredibly different, but that doesn’t mean there is any less of it.
But let’s back up. The whole objective of Matt’s piece is to advocate that Democrats avoid racialized marketing of policies when possible given the political downsides. I agree with this. One of the key places that it gets push back is from black people and our allies who fear the removal of anti-racist signals and frames indicates as a retreat from commitments to anti-racism in general. That Democrats loudly court and count on black votes and then don’t advocate for black causes and concerns at nearly the same volume is a common perception in black communities. So for an advocate of non-race-framing policy marketing, part of gaining purchase for that idea is mitigating the concerns of black voters (and allies) that it really is just about effective policy marketing and not a rejection of efforts to diminish racism and/or racial disparities. Thus, Matt linking favorably to the Daily Caller and carving out a lane as America’s most preeminent anti-anti-racist liberal does damage to his own cause. In a neat bit of irony, Matt has a marketing problem for his non-race-framing policy marketing argument and would be better off if he jettisoned all the anti-anti-racism bullshit clogging up the bailey.
How about this re-tweet and endorsement. It’s just bean bag for politicos on either side to stitch together cherry-picked interviews to make a pwnage, so it’s dog bites man for Daily Caller to make this one. But I think it is notable that Matt endorsed it. The video purports to illustrate that empathy with a righteous protest bleeding into rioting is a phenomenon distinctive to liberal whites and rejected by black people. This is not true. Which means, in effect, what we have here is a set of white people who hate black people lying to other white people, who may or may not hate black people, that black people are appalled by the riots of last year. We all know the reason Daily Caller is making this argument - as a way to avoid talking about the protest themselves and the specific and continual acts that brought them about. Given the Daily Callers ideological objective, this makes sense; but for someone with purported progressive views on racism, not so much. Further, just linking to a consistently white nationalist website founded by Americas pre-eminent white nationalist on a racial question is hella suspect. These aren’t anodyne, but rather purposeful choices and they have nothing at all to do with racial-neutral marketing of policy preferences. The most generous read I can come to is that this is Matt looking to troll (what people who oppose racial equality call) the “wokes.”
I can't even tell that he's endorsing it - I'd give it, like 70%? "This is a good bit" could have a sarcastic meaning; pretending that it's an attempt at comedy and not political commentary. I'm confused by MY's one-liners all-the-time and I wish he wouldn't do them.
Of course Republicans will try to frame a progressive policy as reparations or as unfairly favoring blacks. The best response might be to say and show that it's not necessarily a racial issue, that it helps many people in need. It's hard to make that argument if you initially frame it as a racial equity issue. This is exactly what they want. They tend to win with this framing. With a race-neutral message, you can shame them for bringing race into the issue.
There's a question here of what we are trying to accomplish, or prioritize. Are we trying to change the on the ground reality for disadvantaged folks, black and other? Or trying to force a racial reckoning, an admission that a lot of policies have been tinged by racial animus, or fear. That's really hard to accomplish. Lots of people want to have good thoughts about themselves and the history of their country. Not just white Americans. Look at how unpopular it is for most countries to admit they might have committed genocide or war atrocities generations or centuries ago. Ridiculously hard. This happens across the world. It takes a long long time for these ideas to become acceptable for many people.
There's a limit to what can be accomplished with politics. It's mostly about incremental changes, trying to make real improvements. If it becomes a referendum on justice and accountability for past actions, then reaction and polarization set in. Attitudes typically don't change because of political action or rhetoric. As Matt refers to with the Wil and Grace example, attitudes change with stories about people, when other folks are humanized and people feel a sense of commonality...feel it as an emotion. Emotion comes first. People use facts and logic to support how they feel, right? So feelings have to change first. And confrontational political action can be and often is counterproductive.
Not to say there shouldn't be political action, but frame it in a way that will not make people have to admit really bad behavior in the past, because that rarely works. Use race-neutral framings when there is evidence that this is at least as effective as race-based framings.
I'm persuaded by your argument. One strong counter-argument you don't mention: the importance of signalling to the Democratic activist base that the national party is taking racism seriously. I know that people who want to see economic arguments framed in terms of race are a minority, but they're also people who are very likely to vote, doorknock, donate, etc.
I think this was a really good piece. People want to keep using this framing because it is good for their careers. They are not interested in the electoral consequences
"it’s much more important to actually help people than to avoid discomfort"
Hell yes it is. Kudos to Matt for sticking with this line despite the pushback he'll get from overly-woke ideologues on Twitter.
Postal banking: https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/why-we-need-the-post-office-to-close-the-racial-wealth-gap/
Obama wisely (imo) tried to manage backlash. We're now going to see what happens when that isn't a major concern for Ds. The Tim Scott speech looks like a key test. I suspect we're underestimating the importance of it. He has provided the rallying point for a rightward-leaning people to reject the America is Racist theme, and many people are going to be sympathetic to it. I think it will prove powerful, but let's see.
Activists are going too far in racially everything. When called on it, they say, well that's what activists are supposed to do..."we're activists, after all." OK, but then let's talk about the role of pragmatists. Pragmatists have a key role here, and it is to push back on activists when they go too far. Right now, that's not working well because being a pragmatist is held to be the same as being sympathetic to the right, while activists are elevated in moral status. The mix is off. And I fear we are going to soon the backlash build and the overall mission undermined. But again let's see.
At what point in the history of this country has the right needed any prompting to loudly reject an "America is racist" frame and to harshly punish anyone who said differently. Give me the year on that.
I'm struck by your phrase, "when called on it." If you wondering why people might see "pragmatist" and the right as identical on this issue, it's because some of us cannot pretend that racism doesn't permeate everything about this society. Some of us experience it to one degree or another every day. We may be able to take Matt's advice and communicate differently give the political reality. Indeed, any black person who regularly navigates white spaces is a veteran at letting all kinds of racist shit go. But if I experience or observe a racist act and decide to speak on it, and some self-described pragmatist fixes his mouth to "call me on it", why should I see that asshole as anything other than identical to conservatives on these issues. I would at the very least conclude that we have different overall missions.
correction, racializing everything
Midwest farmers are filing a a lawsuit b/c of the race-based farm loan forgiveness under the American Rescue Plan: https://www.thecentersquare.com/minnesota/midwest-farmers-among-those-challenging-biden-administration-loan-forgiveness/article_bdc704c4-a911-11eb-847f-43e4933153f7.html
As an “AAPI” (whatever that means) this explains why I found Elizabeth Warren (the 2019 incarnation) so hard to listen to.
I object to the tweets at the beginning of the article because they mis-assign the burden of proof: it’s. It Matt’s job to prove not every class issue should be racialized; it’s on the activists to prove it should.
Or maybe Obama was just speaking from 2010’s Overton window, before the fashion of the day was to infuse race into everything. (Even articles about how you shouldn’t infuse race into everything.)
I generally agree with this sort of thinking. It seems that the gains (politically) from making explicit race-motivated appeals are directly counteracted by reflexive opposition from white voters. And that "race-neutral" public programs will disproportionally benefit oppressed minorities simply due to the fact that they are disproportionately likely to need these benefits. This is something that makes a lot of sense to me. However, the opposition argument that I hear frequently - and can't rebut - is that if this were true why didn't the New Deal coalition fix racism? The greatest period of liberal economics in this country's history also coincided with some of the most fraught racial politics. And clearly it wasn't enough to ameliorate racism. Maybe this is missing the point of the piece (there should be "race-neutral" programs and "race-motivated" policies, but don't mix the two). However, I can definitely understand the arguments of the racial justice coalition, that focusing on race-neutrality often leads to further solidification of the racist status-quo.
When the study suggests that class based arguments perform better than blended class-race arguments, what does it mean specifically? Is that the race-class narrative specifically, or just any old argument that blends race and class?
A more generous interpretation of injecting race into race neutral policy arguments is that politicians are (at some cost) signaling that they won't permit a racist implementation of the proposals.
If you start off with the idea that a policy will be ignore race, it's really easy in implementation to maximize overall utility by screwing over minorities. cf. Covid vaccinations. You always apply the 80-20 rule and it's always the same 20 that doesn't get shit.
So if we recreate public swimming pools in Alabama, say, when we do so we are going to ensure that they will be equitably distributed, available to all, not segregated, etc. This isn't always the easiest/fastest thing to do!
It's not surprising that once they're reminded of this (there will be black people in that pool) some people who support the "race blind" implementation of the policy will not do so. Which is better politics? It seems like there's reasonable room for disagreement.
I read this article and also read that the feds want to ban menthol cigarettes, likely because they are the favorites of African Americans. For the life of me I cannot figure out why anyone would do this. Not only is it really paternalistic, and racist, I think. But it will just allow more dumb police enforcement and risk lives thereby. They will be Newport stops. And, if the police only find weed in the Newport pack, well they have to let the person go. WHAT ARE THEY THINKING? Will they never learn?
I always thought that the rationale for banning menthol and other flavoured cigarettes was that they were more appealing to children. Already banned in the EU.
And I'm pretty sure this will be a regulatory change banning the sale of such products in shops, not an actual ban on the possession of such a substance, as with drug laws.
If progressives fully embrace the class narrative, they'll find themselves supporting the unpalatable, unsophisticated white underclass--many of whom voted for Trump. It's easier to march alongside a biracial Ivy League classmate, whom you can actually relate to, and call it social justice.
Bernie had one thing right--he wasn't scared of including poor white people in his movement. I met more than a few people who were on the fence between Bernie and Trump, crazy as that sounds.
Yeah, a lot of white progressives see white working class folks (exp men) as the political enemy, but also as people they don't want to associate with in any social context. Progressives pick their allies the way they would choose guests for a dinner party or a backyard picnic.
This is a good article. But you personally Matt, have a motte and bailey problem.
I’ve been reading you for close to 20 years and you’re the only Substack I ever even considered buying, so this little heel turn, which is tough to ignore since I’ m a black dude, legit makes me sad. I largely grok your reasonable, though imperfect argument about the downsides of racialized marketing of policies, even if the policies have significantly disparate racial impacts. But you have an increasingly visible hostility to / rejection of other concerns many black folks have that is entirely separate and apart from your issue with essentially policy marketing. It’s the difference between “That’s a counterproductive way to solve the problem” and “I don’t believe you when you say this is a problem” And when you get called on the latter, you jump in the motte of the former. Not asking you to think differently or anything, just pointing it out.
I bet we agree that criticizing aspects of anti-racism in good faith* should be allowed and encouraged
If you ask me, your concerns seem to stem from this mindset: "if you're not 100% with me, then you're 100% against me."
If a person has beliefs which are largely anti-racist, but sees some anti-racist ideas as clearly illogical, how is that person supposed to behave? Is it possible to question *aspects* of anti-racism without being labelled an "anti-anti-racist?"
If so, how? (Not a rhetorical question--I think it's important to suss this out. I bet we agree that criticizing aspects of anti-racism should be allowed and encouraged.)
For example:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/not-all-anti-racist-ideas-are-good-ones-the-left-isnt-being-honest-about-this/2021/02/22/c83d4870-7179-11eb-b8a9-b9467510f0fe_story.html
In this Matt Y. piece on Ibram X. Kendi, he criticizes one aspect of anti-racist thought. This excerpt serves as a summary of his thesis: "Identifying a racial gap and declaring it to be racist is often insufficient. Such an approach impedes actually thinking about problems — particularly in media, academic and nonprofit circles, where the accusation of racism can carry severe consequences. And so to avoid controversy, people avoid important debates rather than risking offense."
Maybe you disagree, but is the opinion expressed here so unreasonable that we can write him off as engaging in bad faith?
If it's not unreasonable enough to accuse him of racism or bad faith, but it still makes you uncomfortable, then how could he have stated his opinion in a way that would not result in this discomfort?
If you ask me, your concern seems to stem from the fact that you aren't engaging with what I've written and have instead decided to attribute Ibram X Kendi's views to me and then express your disagreement with those views. I mean, Knock yourself out. I never said that you, Matt or anyone else couldn't critique Kendi or anyone else. But Matt's article isn't about that and thus my response to his article is not about that.
I agree with that, and I think it's worth underlining that this article was pretty good.
My sense if that Matt is generally sharp, but often a bit glib and dismissive towards the positions that he's arguing against, and I appreciated that this post took seriously some of the criticisms that he's received, acknowledged that there are complicated issues at play, and wrote a clear version of his position.
Incidentally, I'm saying that to myself as much as to you. I don't comment much here, and I realized that I was more likely to comment when I wanted to object to something, and that I want to show support as well.
>But you have an increasingly visible hostility to / rejection of other concerns many black folks have that is entirely separate and apart from your issue with essentially policy marketing.
I'd be interested to hear this fleshed out more or have you point me towards these instances. I generally read this ongoing take of Matt's as the 2nd "policy marketing" part but would like to examine his/my potential blind spot.
Another example of the bailey is Matt’s quote from this very piece.
“A pet theory that I developed in the past but didn’t put into my previous piece is that we’re seeing carryover from college campus dynamics. If YOU convince an RA that a fellow student is doing something racist, the RA will probably put a stop to it, whereas simply observing that something is bad for poor people probably won’t get YOU anywhere. Connecting something to racism, in other words, can be a very powerful argument in certain contexts. But not in electoral politics." I think this is really insightful. My observations of how wokeness works in the left is primarily with it being weaponized *constantly*."
This line of thinking could have been taking directly from the black crime section of Daily Caller or to be frank, the writings of segregation opponents back in the first half of the last century. I capitalized YOU in his quote because, either black people are being written out of Matt’s universal you (which is common and problematic on its own), or if black people are included, his pet theory then is that black people are just making up the challenges that we face navigating through a society that has consistently seen us as pariah class. If the latter is true, not only does smart political marketing, but also objective fairness calls for ignoring the concerns of black people.
“Racism is not an ever-present force in the lives of black people, but rather a tool that the wily negroes wield at innocent well-meaning white people, thus we should appropriately ignore them because they’re lying” is a much more nakedly racist argument than the motte of ”we should communicate via non-racial frames when possible”. I dunno, it’s all so sad. I’m surprised this is what Matt apparently has always thought of us. So it goes…
I don't dispute that you have good reasons for hearing him that way but that's not what I'm picking up from his argument. And if we disagree on that, I guess we can at least agree that neither one of us knows for sure what's in his head.
My guess is he's viewing that argument through the very specific lens of elite college and fortune 500 company politics. That's a very small slice of american life, and not necessarily a representative one, but it's one that Matt Yglesias is probably very familiar with. If I had to guess, the ratio of truly racist incidents to examples of "weaponizing wokeism" is much different in those elite environments than it is in most of the rest of the country. I didn't read it as disputing that racism ever occurs. I went to a fairly elite college and when i read that RA college example, I didn't even picture a Black person telling the RA about a racist incident. In my mind's eye it was probably a white person and it could have been about any issue an elite school would take issue with, i.e. Trans-rights, immigrants, body-shaming etc.. I also picture that recent Teen Vogue firing of a black woman for 10 year old racist tweets, which I know Matt disagreed with and tweeted about. In those environments you will get more points in an argument for framing it in those terms than you would framing it about discrimination against poor people.
And then that leads, I thought, to his bigger point, which is that the rest of America is actually NOT always like that. Focusing on a racial dimension will help persuade your RA that you're witnessing an injustice, but it might not help you persuade voters to elect you in a presidential election (trump beat hillary). I don't think his point is that the racial framing shouldn't be believed by liberals, just that elite colleges prepare liberals to expect that framing things as social justice will persuade more people than it ultimately might
You are certainly welcome to extend to Matt the benefit of the doubt that I may have given him a year ago, but as I said, if Matt wrote that part with the assumption that black people aren’t part of the universal you, it’s problematic in its own right. We do, you know, exist after all.
And your comments about the Teen Vogue lady also come from the same place that ignores that, how, & why black people, on balance, look at that situation quite differently. Maybe we see one person fired unfairly because of intense racial sensitivity, weigh that against the literal millions of black people who have had their careers hampered by racism over the generations, and conclude that erring on the side of over sensitivity is the lesser evil, even if it leads to unfair outcomes from time to time. Maybe we stare distressed but unsurprised at how many white people are ready to go to war over the former while offering nothing more than nods and platitudes about the latter.
Anyhow, what I really want to write is that you’re doing the same motte and bailey that Matt’s doing. What you call Matt’s bigger point (which is actually much less important) - the sub-optimal marketing of policy preferences by forefronting racial impact is tangential to, but discreet from, all those baileys such as the ratio you mentioned (which we’ll get back to in a bit). You and I and Matt have no disagreement that racial frames will draw hostility from some whites, annoyance from others, and intense uncomfortability for a plurality and thus should be used very carefully. So, let’s put that aside.
Your assumption that the ratio of truly racist incidents to examples of "weaponizing wokeism" is much different in elite environments than elsewhere would face hostility from the overwhelming majority of the black people who travel in those circles. I say this as a member of that cohort who has for a lifetime consorted socially and professionally within that group. Now, many of us would be extremely reticent to make a public claim of racism, even in the face of some truly oppressive shit, because all of us know how career limiting it is to make white people uncomfortable about such things. Indeed a core competency of a modern corporate negro is the marrow-deep awareness that many white people believe as you seem to that racism is something that happens amongst the lesser classes and thus any grievances we might have are likely at best in our heads, or at worse are as you put it, weaponized wokeism.
Your explicit argument is that at least in elite circles racism is not an ever-present force in the lives of black people, but rather a tool that the wily negroes wield at innocent well-meaning white people, thus should be appropriately ignored because the negroes are lying.
I understand the folly of trying to explain all of the ways that’s a terrible thing to believe, so believe what you like. My point, again, is that it is a separate argument from the” market policy preference better” argument. And if you are of the belief that black people, even in elite circles, are just making it all up, own that. Say it with your chest and don’t go running back to the motte.
You seem to be putting a lot of words in my mouth and assuming a lot of thoughts in my head. (i took lifted weaponized wokeism from your earlier comment, for example) i'm mostly trying to point out the perspective that I think Yglesias has, in response to your interpretation of the same. The point wasn't to communicate my own beliefs, although it sounds like we do all 3 agree on realpolitick political messaging part. And I'm fairly certain I didn't say black people are usually lying about racism or anything like that.
But yes, with respect to elite vs lower-class environments, I do really think that racial issues play out differently. I say this as someone who grew up in a blue-collar, non-elite community and family, but works with Ivy league elite types now and for much of my adult life. The two have differences in just about every aspect of communication, behavior, conflict resolution, rates of interracial marriage, etc.. I'd be amazed if someone could convince me that racism was the one thing that was exactly the same.
And the reception that framing a message in "social justice" terms gets is yet another difference between those communities, so consequently you see social and racial justice framings much more in elite circles, and much less in blue collar ones.
Again, I don't usually think you or anyone else (or at least rarely anyone else) is lying about experiences like racism. In fact, I take what you said, a random internet stranger, into account as I formulate my perception of the world, I'm thinking "is there a lot more anti-black racism among elite ivy league types than I thought, what am I failing to notice, what do various Black people I worked with think, etc..." I'd like to hear more. The worst I ever usually assume is the kind of perspective-ignorance that we all have, since it's thoroughly impossible to walk a mile in the shoes of every other category of person on the planet
I have no particular insight into what’s going on in your or Matt’s head; I’m responding to very specific things that you both have written. When Matt writes, “my observations of how wokeness works in the left is primarily with it being weaponized *constantly*." and when you write, “If I had to guess, the ratio of truly racist incidents to examples of ‘weaponizing wokeism’ is much different in those elite environments”, I take you at your word that you mean these things.
And when I read the quote, “I'd be amazed if someone could convince me that racism was the one thing that was exactly the same.” How can I understand that as anything other than agreement with my earlier hard-learned observation that it would be folly for me to attempt to convince you that the racism black people experience, in this case corporate black people, actual exists. You’re explicitly forefronting your resistance to accepting the idea. Fwiw, no one is saying it’s exactly the same; it’s actually incredibly different, but that doesn’t mean there is any less of it.
But let’s back up. The whole objective of Matt’s piece is to advocate that Democrats avoid racialized marketing of policies when possible given the political downsides. I agree with this. One of the key places that it gets push back is from black people and our allies who fear the removal of anti-racist signals and frames indicates as a retreat from commitments to anti-racism in general. That Democrats loudly court and count on black votes and then don’t advocate for black causes and concerns at nearly the same volume is a common perception in black communities. So for an advocate of non-race-framing policy marketing, part of gaining purchase for that idea is mitigating the concerns of black voters (and allies) that it really is just about effective policy marketing and not a rejection of efforts to diminish racism and/or racial disparities. Thus, Matt linking favorably to the Daily Caller and carving out a lane as America’s most preeminent anti-anti-racist liberal does damage to his own cause. In a neat bit of irony, Matt has a marketing problem for his non-race-framing policy marketing argument and would be better off if he jettisoned all the anti-anti-racism bullshit clogging up the bailey.
How about this re-tweet and endorsement. It’s just bean bag for politicos on either side to stitch together cherry-picked interviews to make a pwnage, so it’s dog bites man for Daily Caller to make this one. But I think it is notable that Matt endorsed it. The video purports to illustrate that empathy with a righteous protest bleeding into rioting is a phenomenon distinctive to liberal whites and rejected by black people. This is not true. Which means, in effect, what we have here is a set of white people who hate black people lying to other white people, who may or may not hate black people, that black people are appalled by the riots of last year. We all know the reason Daily Caller is making this argument - as a way to avoid talking about the protest themselves and the specific and continual acts that brought them about. Given the Daily Callers ideological objective, this makes sense; but for someone with purported progressive views on racism, not so much. Further, just linking to a consistently white nationalist website founded by Americas pre-eminent white nationalist on a racial question is hella suspect. These aren’t anodyne, but rather purposeful choices and they have nothing at all to do with racial-neutral marketing of policy preferences. The most generous read I can come to is that this is Matt looking to troll (what people who oppose racial equality call) the “wokes.”
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1387136463977033735
Thanks for the reply and context.
I can't even tell that he's endorsing it - I'd give it, like 70%? "This is a good bit" could have a sarcastic meaning; pretending that it's an attempt at comedy and not political commentary. I'm confused by MY's one-liners all-the-time and I wish he wouldn't do them.
Of course Republicans will try to frame a progressive policy as reparations or as unfairly favoring blacks. The best response might be to say and show that it's not necessarily a racial issue, that it helps many people in need. It's hard to make that argument if you initially frame it as a racial equity issue. This is exactly what they want. They tend to win with this framing. With a race-neutral message, you can shame them for bringing race into the issue.
There's a question here of what we are trying to accomplish, or prioritize. Are we trying to change the on the ground reality for disadvantaged folks, black and other? Or trying to force a racial reckoning, an admission that a lot of policies have been tinged by racial animus, or fear. That's really hard to accomplish. Lots of people want to have good thoughts about themselves and the history of their country. Not just white Americans. Look at how unpopular it is for most countries to admit they might have committed genocide or war atrocities generations or centuries ago. Ridiculously hard. This happens across the world. It takes a long long time for these ideas to become acceptable for many people.
There's a limit to what can be accomplished with politics. It's mostly about incremental changes, trying to make real improvements. If it becomes a referendum on justice and accountability for past actions, then reaction and polarization set in. Attitudes typically don't change because of political action or rhetoric. As Matt refers to with the Wil and Grace example, attitudes change with stories about people, when other folks are humanized and people feel a sense of commonality...feel it as an emotion. Emotion comes first. People use facts and logic to support how they feel, right? So feelings have to change first. And confrontational political action can be and often is counterproductive.
Not to say there shouldn't be political action, but frame it in a way that will not make people have to admit really bad behavior in the past, because that rarely works. Use race-neutral framings when there is evidence that this is at least as effective as race-based framings.
I'm persuaded by your argument. One strong counter-argument you don't mention: the importance of signalling to the Democratic activist base that the national party is taking racism seriously. I know that people who want to see economic arguments framed in terms of race are a minority, but they're also people who are very likely to vote, doorknock, donate, etc.