A progressive defense of respectability politics

September 19, 2015 3:36 PM

....The politics of respectability is a tactic of public relations that is, per se, neither necessarily good nor necessarily bad. A sound assessment of its deployment in a given instance depends on its goals, the manner in which it is practiced, and the context within which a given struggle is being waged. Its association with esteemed figures and episodes in African-American history suggests that the politics of respectability warrants a more respectful hearing than it has recently received... Recall the dignified black teenagers who desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, while bands of snarling, foulmouthed white hooligans sought to torment them. Remember the determined activists who demanded service at segregated lunch counters while screaming white thugs doused them with ketchup and mustard. A vivid snapshot is provided by none other than James J. Kilpatrick, the racist journalist who fiercely opposed the civil-rights movement yet expressed grudging admiration for the youngsters who carried off the sit-ins with such splendid tact:

Here were the colored students, in coats, white shirts, ties, and one of them was reading Goethe and one was taking notes from a biology text. And here, on the sidewalk outside, was a gang of white boys come to heckle, a ragtail rabble, slack-jawed, black-jacketed, grinning fit to kill. . . . Eheu! It gives one pause.

An underlying optimism animates respectability politics, a belief that even in the teeth of recalcitrant bigotry and cruel indifference, blacks can still wrest from this society more liberty and equality... I confess that I remain upbeat.

Lifting As We Climb
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