you will absolutely positively have to break up with actual white people
January 25, 2021 7:16 AM Subscribe
Tressie McMillan Cottom (sociologist, writer, UNC professor, and 2020 MacArthur Fellow; previously) on the glut of recent stories “about how the recent Presidential contest slash white supremacist insurrection slash Trump legacy has torn apart many families”: Breaking Up With White Supremacy Was Always The End Game.
"...It also isn’t my ministry to write a secular Pentateuch for the people who have broken up with the white people who tether them to whiteness but I do believe there is one. I believe there is not only a way to live after the break-up but that you do not start living until you break-up. My own little altar to pragmatic hope has me believe that living in a death cult is lonely. It isn’t lonely because you are alone. The death cult of white supremacy never wants for members. It is lonely because your needs are not being met. Your needs are not being met because you cannot have any needs in a death cult. Every emotion, every want, every desire has to serve the cult. There is never any left over for the followers.
That kind of deep loneliness can only be met and satisfied when you develop a you that isn’t built on the cult. That’s what I think comes after the break-up: a you with authentic desires that can be named and met by others who can now see you because you finally exist."
There are few writers whose work I so actively love than Tressie McMillan Cottom, even her tweets. She hits so close to the heart of the "zeitgeist" (or whatever). Just can't get enough of her stuff. Pure brilliance - and an extremely well-deserved MacArthur Fellowship that actual kinda sorta redeemed my faith in that particular institution.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:51 AM on January 25, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:51 AM on January 25, 2021 [9 favorites]
This puts a label on something that I saw myself.
Last fall, a friend of mine started saying stuff like "I don't even recognize the place where we grew up" after the George Floyd protests in the Twin Cities and I just....dropped him.
And it has felt very weird since then: I knew he was 100% wrong & racist but I didn't have anything to turn to that would confirm I had done the right thing. I don't need someone to pat my head, but it would feel nice to have something positive to weigh in my hand when I think about closure and loss. It would also give me something to offer to other people when I see them making this same choice.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:01 AM on January 25, 2021 [10 favorites]
Last fall, a friend of mine started saying stuff like "I don't even recognize the place where we grew up" after the George Floyd protests in the Twin Cities and I just....dropped him.
And it has felt very weird since then: I knew he was 100% wrong & racist but I didn't have anything to turn to that would confirm I had done the right thing. I don't need someone to pat my head, but it would feel nice to have something positive to weigh in my hand when I think about closure and loss. It would also give me something to offer to other people when I see them making this same choice.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:01 AM on January 25, 2021 [10 favorites]
How to accomplish tedious and dangerous work. Today we can use automation, but the mature technology in this space is slavery.
White supremacy is a component of systemic racism, a 17th century hack to emulate automation on human bodies.
With slavery mostly gone, white supremacy would have been a tool without a purpose, but the street finds its own uses for things.
posted by otherchaz at 8:14 AM on January 25, 2021 [14 favorites]
White supremacy is a component of systemic racism, a 17th century hack to emulate automation on human bodies.
With slavery mostly gone, white supremacy would have been a tool without a purpose, but the street finds its own uses for things.
posted by otherchaz at 8:14 AM on January 25, 2021 [14 favorites]
Great essay all around, and really helpful in putting an empathic finger on a big chunk of the Why of not just the recent spasm of Families Torn Apart In Aftermath concernpieces, but the entire last four years' drumbeat of Understanding The Trump Voters and Why These "Independents" Continue To Support Despite pieces as well. Breaking up is indeed hard and horrible, and all the moreso when working up the will to finally rip the bandaid away, and that's a very insightful metaphor to apply. Thank you for posting!
posted by Drastic at 8:37 AM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Drastic at 8:37 AM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
She puts almost as frankly as the nugget: what do you call a Nazi sympathiser? A Nazi. What do you call someone who has white supremacist friends? A white supremacist. Any group that seeks to lessen the humanity of others has a strict border: either you are for it, or you are against it. If you try to straddle the line, it will rope you in. You can't only somewhat take the trash out. You have to put it out by the street, you can't just leave it in the hall, or on the porch. It will still rot and the stink pervades.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:39 AM on January 25, 2021 [48 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:39 AM on January 25, 2021 [48 favorites]
brainwane: Listen, there are two things that people melt down over: safety and identity.
This is an incredibly helpful nugget and I am going to hold onto it.
The insight I read recently was that identity and safety are linked evolutionarily. Humans can only survive as a group, so being ostracized from our group would have been a death sentence to our ancestors.
posted by Popular Ethics at 9:25 AM on January 25, 2021 [11 favorites]
This is an incredibly helpful nugget and I am going to hold onto it.
The insight I read recently was that identity and safety are linked evolutionarily. Humans can only survive as a group, so being ostracized from our group would have been a death sentence to our ancestors.
posted by Popular Ethics at 9:25 AM on January 25, 2021 [11 favorites]
I recently cut my eldest sister off from my life over her support for Trump and her conspicuous silence on his insurrection. In the last 3 years or so, she's gone pretty much full MAGA, with a gab account and everything.
She said (approximately): "If you cut me out of your life, that says more about you than it does about me."
I think it says plenty about both of us. And I'm OK with what it says.
posted by tclark at 9:48 AM on January 25, 2021 [64 favorites]
She said (approximately): "If you cut me out of your life, that says more about you than it does about me."
I think it says plenty about both of us. And I'm OK with what it says.
posted by tclark at 9:48 AM on January 25, 2021 [64 favorites]
Listen, there are two things that people melt down over: safety and identity.I appreciate the sentiment as a sound bite, but it’s used as a false dichotomy (“they’re safe, so it must be identity”) and I think there’s at least a third thing going on there that you could shoehorn into “safety” and/or “identity,” but is kind of distinct from either. It’s complacent inertia. It’s more the privilege of thinking the burden of serious change is always going to fall on other people. Marginalized populations are looking to fix things. Dominant populations are always looking for a path to get “back to normal.” When the last four years have turned Uncle Carl from a source of embarrassing racist jokes at Thanksgiving into a raging aspiring Brownshirt, first, nobody’s surprised it was Carl who went over the edge, and second, there is absolutely no ethical way back to a “normal” where everybody politely ignored what a dick Carl always was. You can’t unboil the frog.
Historically even we progressive white people get to put on our white savior hats and cluck our tongues at the persistence of white supremacy from a position of relative safety. It’s such a shame how this affects people less fortunate than me! Everything’s peachy for me, so we just need to fix things up for other people. The difference here is we’ve turned a corner where white supremacy is finally affecting white people directly, even if in just the small way that there’s no way to rationalize prioritizing Carl’s genetic connection to us over the reality of his being a truly terrible person, and that shift isn’t of our making.
The challenge for us now is to own the discomfort and not let it distract us from what it is we’re really uncomfortable about. There’s a lot of pressure on us to get distracted, to deflect it with catchphrases like “political correctness” or “cancel culture,” or even in our own families where there are people who think a holiday dinner free of internal conflict is more important than asking Carl not to tell that goddamned stupid joke about Chinese people dropping silverware again this year. All these distractions are specifically designed to imply that the blame for conflicts over white supremacy rests with people who object to it rather than the people who perpetuate it. Your rift with Uncle Carl isn’t the fault of Black Lives Matter. It’s Carl’s. Rather than asking why we need to lose that relationship, it’s probably important for us to be looking within ourselves to understand why we’ve been maintaining it up to now.
posted by gelfin at 10:02 AM on January 25, 2021 [41 favorites]
One nitpick about this essay (and discussion of race in the USA) is the use of "white" when an author means White-Anglo or White-of-Western-European-Descent (there's gotta be a catchier term for that). There are plenty of White Latines walking around (we are huge in Florida). Which is to say there are plenty of people of Latin American countries descended from white, colonialists but who are minorities/people-of-color in the USA.
Of course, in context it's clear what she means. As I said it's a nit. Still, it's good to be precise when we can.
posted by oddman at 10:22 AM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
Of course, in context it's clear what she means. As I said it's a nit. Still, it's good to be precise when we can.
posted by oddman at 10:22 AM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
I struggle a lot with this. I love the man that raised me dearly and I know and have evidence that he was a good man who tried really hard to help as many people as he could throughout his life. I also know, and saw with my own eyes, that he was really, really racist and he did his damndest to indoctrinate me into the cult of white supremacy. He did a damn good job of it too and I struggle with all the work he and our society have done to convince me that I'm a good person just because I'm white.
Before he passed, we had conversations on why I couldn't back his beliefs. And I feel that he genuinely understood that because he taught me that everyone is equal and deserves a fair shot, that I could not, in good conscience add an asterisk to that statement of "except for everyone who isn't like me."
I feel like, if he'd had the time and the exposure, he could have met me where I was in regards to white supremacy because I do truly believe he was a good man. But he never quite got there before the end.
After he passed, I had a number of his students of color reach out to me and tell me that he was kind and generous to them. That he treated them with more respect that other teachers. That he helped them where others wouldn't, and it provides some comfort that even though his brain thought racist thoughts, he didn't always act on them. But, and this is the hard part to live with, I wonder about all the students that didn't reach out. I wonder about all the white students that he gave sly support to in their hateful thoughts. I wonder about the ones he decided weren't worth helping and I know, that despite the good he did, he did some damage too.
And it's hard to take the lessons he taught me about fairness and justice and know they came from someone who considered an entire groups of people less just based on the color of their skin or their accent. I want to love him and honor him, but I feel like his whole existence has an asterisk. "My dad, a good man*"
*for a racist.
But then again, I feel like our whole country has an asterisk. So it's par for the course.
posted by teleri025 at 10:31 AM on January 25, 2021 [59 favorites]
Before he passed, we had conversations on why I couldn't back his beliefs. And I feel that he genuinely understood that because he taught me that everyone is equal and deserves a fair shot, that I could not, in good conscience add an asterisk to that statement of "except for everyone who isn't like me."
I feel like, if he'd had the time and the exposure, he could have met me where I was in regards to white supremacy because I do truly believe he was a good man. But he never quite got there before the end.
After he passed, I had a number of his students of color reach out to me and tell me that he was kind and generous to them. That he treated them with more respect that other teachers. That he helped them where others wouldn't, and it provides some comfort that even though his brain thought racist thoughts, he didn't always act on them. But, and this is the hard part to live with, I wonder about all the students that didn't reach out. I wonder about all the white students that he gave sly support to in their hateful thoughts. I wonder about the ones he decided weren't worth helping and I know, that despite the good he did, he did some damage too.
And it's hard to take the lessons he taught me about fairness and justice and know they came from someone who considered an entire groups of people less just based on the color of their skin or their accent. I want to love him and honor him, but I feel like his whole existence has an asterisk. "My dad, a good man*"
*for a racist.
But then again, I feel like our whole country has an asterisk. So it's par for the course.
posted by teleri025 at 10:31 AM on January 25, 2021 [59 favorites]
My own little altar to pragmatic hope has me believe that living in a death cult is lonely. It isn’t lonely because you are alone. The death cult of white supremacy never wants for members. It is lonely because your needs are not being met. Your needs are not being met because you cannot have any needs in a death cult. Every emotion, every want, every desire has to serve the cult. There is never any left over for the followers.
This cynic in me thinks that this seems, frankly, very wrong. It’s depressing to admit, but whenever I see people discuss the benefits of allowing diversity into their lives, of how it makes their world richer - it seems like so much pfaff. ( still think about reading Ijeuma Oleo’s So You Want To Talk About Race and thinking that it provided essentially no carrot for a white person beyond a) the priceless but intangible benefit of being morally correct, and b) the terrifying threat that those who are oppressed will one day be justified in destroying you.)
More specifically, white people are developing an explicit white racial identity that maps onto politics because politics is all a white identity has ever been about (insofar as politics is about power).
Conor Friedersdorf wrote an essay about this in 2015 -I didn’t agree with his side of the argument (“Stop talking about whiteness!”) but I thought his analysis was decent and it bummed me the heck out. Once fighting racism truly costs white folks -not just identity in TV shows, but schools and cash money- the fight stops.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:34 AM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
This cynic in me thinks that this seems, frankly, very wrong. It’s depressing to admit, but whenever I see people discuss the benefits of allowing diversity into their lives, of how it makes their world richer - it seems like so much pfaff. ( still think about reading Ijeuma Oleo’s So You Want To Talk About Race and thinking that it provided essentially no carrot for a white person beyond a) the priceless but intangible benefit of being morally correct, and b) the terrifying threat that those who are oppressed will one day be justified in destroying you.)
More specifically, white people are developing an explicit white racial identity that maps onto politics because politics is all a white identity has ever been about (insofar as politics is about power).
Conor Friedersdorf wrote an essay about this in 2015 -I didn’t agree with his side of the argument (“Stop talking about whiteness!”) but I thought his analysis was decent and it bummed me the heck out. Once fighting racism truly costs white folks -not just identity in TV shows, but schools and cash money- the fight stops.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:34 AM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
I think breaking up with white people is the easy part. Breaking up with whiteness, though, can only be done by building real and intimate spaces of multiracial mutual interest. That's difficult in a lot of ways, not least just demographically and logistically. My heart is hopeful when I see activism that includes this multiracial community element, and where white people are willing to step back and provide support more than leadership.
Part of white identity is the perception that "I can just fix the situation by doing X" and we have to let go of that. Breaking up with whiteness is a long slow process that can't be done all at once, just because you decide to do it. Most of us white people are stuck being pretty darn white for the time being. But we can and should cut the most toxic people out of our lives when we can.
"Death cult" is apt not just for white supremacy but for the colonialist capitalist consumerist extractionist patriarchy that pervades everything. We can try to build a better handbasket before we reach our destination, we can try to put our energy into building positive things wherever we can, but the older I get, the more I understand that all these problems will outlive me. As this great article suggests, that's part of the point. The death cult is designed to make you give up on struggling against it. Bringing voices like this into the fore is a real blow against the death cult. We are powerful together, and we can each make choices that help. Thanks for the post.
posted by rikschell at 10:35 AM on January 25, 2021 [10 favorites]
Part of white identity is the perception that "I can just fix the situation by doing X" and we have to let go of that. Breaking up with whiteness is a long slow process that can't be done all at once, just because you decide to do it. Most of us white people are stuck being pretty darn white for the time being. But we can and should cut the most toxic people out of our lives when we can.
"Death cult" is apt not just for white supremacy but for the colonialist capitalist consumerist extractionist patriarchy that pervades everything. We can try to build a better handbasket before we reach our destination, we can try to put our energy into building positive things wherever we can, but the older I get, the more I understand that all these problems will outlive me. As this great article suggests, that's part of the point. The death cult is designed to make you give up on struggling against it. Bringing voices like this into the fore is a real blow against the death cult. We are powerful together, and we can each make choices that help. Thanks for the post.
posted by rikschell at 10:35 AM on January 25, 2021 [10 favorites]
But then again, I feel like our whole country has an asterisk.
teleri025, I love the way you put that. Thank you.
posted by brainwane at 10:47 AM on January 25, 2021 [5 favorites]
teleri025, I love the way you put that. Thank you.
posted by brainwane at 10:47 AM on January 25, 2021 [5 favorites]
The real breaking point will occur, perhaps after people have abandoned their friends and family over their disagreements about Black Lives Matter and consider themselves to be saints, but then find that they are being asked to integrate their school districts and give up their housing value.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:49 AM on January 25, 2021 [19 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 10:49 AM on January 25, 2021 [19 favorites]
One nitpick about this essay (and discussion of race in the USA) is the use of "white" when an author means White-Anglo or White-of-Western-European-Descent (there's gotta be a catchier term for that)
The usual terms are "anglo" or "nonhispanic white."
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:08 AM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
The usual terms are "anglo" or "nonhispanic white."
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:08 AM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
Are there any measures for “goodness” in a school district that aren’t effectively proxies for whiteness? Any hope of building a better metric which puts a premium on an integrated district that has good outcomes with low racial disparity? Or is the entire concept of “goodness” in schools so tied with whiteness that we should just toss the idea entirely?
When we (kidless) were looking to buy a house, our realtor kept mentioning the “goodness” of various school districts until we blatantly told her to stop. We didn’t though explain that we wanted her to stop because “goodness” in realtorspeak regarding school districts is so much a proxy for “whiteness”. Maybe we should have; it’s probably important for realtors to know that that shit sounds super racist to modern ears (even if some of those ears are white).
posted by nat at 11:13 AM on January 25, 2021 [8 favorites]
When we (kidless) were looking to buy a house, our realtor kept mentioning the “goodness” of various school districts until we blatantly told her to stop. We didn’t though explain that we wanted her to stop because “goodness” in realtorspeak regarding school districts is so much a proxy for “whiteness”. Maybe we should have; it’s probably important for realtors to know that that shit sounds super racist to modern ears (even if some of those ears are white).
posted by nat at 11:13 AM on January 25, 2021 [8 favorites]
Such a clear essay! Part of the break up is also rejection - when you leave someone you leave their friend group, you leave a sense of belonging, and you get (often personally) REJECTED right back. It is important to remember that there is a cost to speaking up and leaving - it is worth paying the cost - but it is a real cost that you might want to prepare for and it might take you multiple steps and it won't all go to plan. And no one is going to pat your head and say "good job." Which sucks because a pat on the head and a "good job" would go far to as a balm to all the rejection you just unlocked.
We should be open about this - you will be rejected as your anti-racism takes form, you will be as outcast as if you were that race or even more so because you are a betrayer. You will loose standing and friends.
posted by mutt.cyberspace at 11:13 AM on January 25, 2021 [10 favorites]
We should be open about this - you will be rejected as your anti-racism takes form, you will be as outcast as if you were that race or even more so because you are a betrayer. You will loose standing and friends.
posted by mutt.cyberspace at 11:13 AM on January 25, 2021 [10 favorites]
If this is a derail, please flag it for deletion and/or ignore it. In late December I got an email from a progressive friend of mine that included the following deeply offensive (to me) cartoon (without the caption). I told him to never send me anything political again. He is a Marxist white academic type in his 60s. I am a white self-identified progressive type in my 60s. I found this cartoon deeply upsetting for reasons I cannot fully articulate, and I welcome any white person (I get that people of color have more important things to do than educate me) who wants to help me figure out why it’s so upsetting.
I will note that my friend was dismissive of what he called identity politics, which I’ve only heard before from right wing assholes. There’s no point in me having an argument with this dude but I’m wondering if at some point this may be someone I might have to break up with. It’s all identity politics, it’s just that the white people have been in charge in the US for its entire fucking history.
I was deeply moved by the appointment of an indigenous person to the Department of the Interior because of relatives who are also indigenous people. And also, of course, because of the shameful history our government carries and my white ancestors because of their treatment of indigenous peoples. My friend was all, “I am not impressed that Biden is appointing People of color because that’s just identity politics. Although that particular appointee is cool so that’s fine. But I don’t get excited about the gesture, I care about which specific individual is appointed.”
This is not a mature reaction but I wanted to slap that guy. Luckily, we are on two separate continents so I was unable to act out inappropriately. But who gives a fuck if he gets excited? He’s a white man with white privilege who feels like a victim because he’s poor and talks about being a good ally but then dismisses the qualities that non-white people bring to the cabinet of the President of the United States.
I’m not an idiot. I understand that having Margaret Thatcher, for example, as the prime minister of Britain was not some feminist wet dream. She was a nightmare. She made many lives worse. But when do people of color get to be as mediocre as white men? My white friend dismisses so-called identity politics without noticing his own white privilege except in a formulaic, not very convincing way. The white cartoonist who drew that cartoon is another white guy who seems to think that bringing non-white people into the cabinet is utterly insignificant.
I am not a Biden stan. This is not about Biden and this is not about the Democratic Party. This is about a kind of glib dismissal of bringing marginalized people into the government in a way that literally has not been done before. I don’t need to justify my feelings, I understand that I get to feel my feels. But I would be super grateful if anyone can help me understand, in a more nuanced or sophisticated way, why both my friend and that stupid cartoonist are full of shit. And if I’m full of shit, tell me.
Great post, miles per flower. I really appreciate it!
posted by Bella Donna at 11:26 AM on January 25, 2021 [16 favorites]
I will note that my friend was dismissive of what he called identity politics, which I’ve only heard before from right wing assholes. There’s no point in me having an argument with this dude but I’m wondering if at some point this may be someone I might have to break up with. It’s all identity politics, it’s just that the white people have been in charge in the US for its entire fucking history.
I was deeply moved by the appointment of an indigenous person to the Department of the Interior because of relatives who are also indigenous people. And also, of course, because of the shameful history our government carries and my white ancestors because of their treatment of indigenous peoples. My friend was all, “I am not impressed that Biden is appointing People of color because that’s just identity politics. Although that particular appointee is cool so that’s fine. But I don’t get excited about the gesture, I care about which specific individual is appointed.”
This is not a mature reaction but I wanted to slap that guy. Luckily, we are on two separate continents so I was unable to act out inappropriately. But who gives a fuck if he gets excited? He’s a white man with white privilege who feels like a victim because he’s poor and talks about being a good ally but then dismisses the qualities that non-white people bring to the cabinet of the President of the United States.
I’m not an idiot. I understand that having Margaret Thatcher, for example, as the prime minister of Britain was not some feminist wet dream. She was a nightmare. She made many lives worse. But when do people of color get to be as mediocre as white men? My white friend dismisses so-called identity politics without noticing his own white privilege except in a formulaic, not very convincing way. The white cartoonist who drew that cartoon is another white guy who seems to think that bringing non-white people into the cabinet is utterly insignificant.
I am not a Biden stan. This is not about Biden and this is not about the Democratic Party. This is about a kind of glib dismissal of bringing marginalized people into the government in a way that literally has not been done before. I don’t need to justify my feelings, I understand that I get to feel my feels. But I would be super grateful if anyone can help me understand, in a more nuanced or sophisticated way, why both my friend and that stupid cartoonist are full of shit. And if I’m full of shit, tell me.
Great post, miles per flower. I really appreciate it!
posted by Bella Donna at 11:26 AM on January 25, 2021 [16 favorites]
Bella Donna, because Ted Rall's view of the world is extremely simplistic and insulting in it's over-simplification?
posted by kokaku at 11:37 AM on January 25, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by kokaku at 11:37 AM on January 25, 2021 [10 favorites]
brainwane: Listen, there are two things that people melt down over: safety and identity.
This is an incredibly helpful nugget and I am going to hold onto it.
The insight I read recently was that identity and safety are linked evolutionarily. Humans can only survive as a group, so being ostracized from our group would have been a death sentence to our ancestors.
This really sums it up. We’re capable of individual morality and choice, but despite what libertarians will try to tell us, primates like humans do not and cannot thrive completely cut off from a group of some kind. It is terrifying on a primal level to leave one group without knowing you have another to go to, even when you 100% know that it’s the only right thing to do.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:00 PM on January 25, 2021 [6 favorites]
This is an incredibly helpful nugget and I am going to hold onto it.
The insight I read recently was that identity and safety are linked evolutionarily. Humans can only survive as a group, so being ostracized from our group would have been a death sentence to our ancestors.
This really sums it up. We’re capable of individual morality and choice, but despite what libertarians will try to tell us, primates like humans do not and cannot thrive completely cut off from a group of some kind. It is terrifying on a primal level to leave one group without knowing you have another to go to, even when you 100% know that it’s the only right thing to do.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:00 PM on January 25, 2021 [6 favorites]
Re: the cartoon linked by Bella Donna - what so many cishet White men don’t seem to comprehend is that there is absolutely no shortage of highly qualified candidates for these positions who aren’t cishet White men. They have somehow developed this impression that hundreds of qualified people who look like they do are being passed over for unqualified candidates who tick off a diversity Bingo card. When you have equally qualified candidates, there is absolutely nothing wrong with making “this candidate’s background gives them a perspective that has been traditionally missing from this institution, and we can benefit from hearing it” the deciding factor.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:11 PM on January 25, 2021 [30 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:11 PM on January 25, 2021 [30 favorites]
then find that they are being asked to integrate their school districts and give up their housing value
They never really get asked to do that though - that's the 'systematic' portion of system. The rules are already baked in, really difficult to change, and only questioned when someone big tries to change them (via major zoning changes in the case of school districts), and it's easy to object to abstract zoning changes on many fronts (for example 'modern apartments tend to be ugly or "built cheap"' is an architectural stance - even though it is covering for systematic racism) or if they are forced by some higher government authority, and everyone decries government over-reach.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:17 PM on January 25, 2021 [7 favorites]
They never really get asked to do that though - that's the 'systematic' portion of system. The rules are already baked in, really difficult to change, and only questioned when someone big tries to change them (via major zoning changes in the case of school districts), and it's easy to object to abstract zoning changes on many fronts (for example 'modern apartments tend to be ugly or "built cheap"' is an architectural stance - even though it is covering for systematic racism) or if they are forced by some higher government authority, and everyone decries government over-reach.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:17 PM on January 25, 2021 [7 favorites]
Well a story of consequences... I visibly broke up with my FIL and his partner. They were sending cc'd email to all the family members with first anti-science stuff and then straight up Trump supporting bs. I gave a warning across the bow and then I said "I'm blocking your email and anyone that sends me racist garbage."
Family drama ensued but interestingly, it gave me a chance to speak to a lot of family about why I'd taken that step (because they were attempting to repair the rift.) One person took it really badly and probably won't be speaking to me again, more people tried to talk me out of it and then shrugged...and then some people, admittedly mostly younger cousins, quietly said they understood. I hope that over time the discussion will have some kind of impact.
I don't know if it was a good or a bad -- it wasn't exactly a world strategy on my part, I just cannot with racist shit and I'm too old to shut up about it -- but my experience was more that I cracked the facade than that I lost a tribe. In some ways these people were never my tribe anyway so the emotional stakes for me were low, but even so, I wasn't ejected entirely.
posted by warriorqueen at 12:22 PM on January 25, 2021 [9 favorites]
Family drama ensued but interestingly, it gave me a chance to speak to a lot of family about why I'd taken that step (because they were attempting to repair the rift.) One person took it really badly and probably won't be speaking to me again, more people tried to talk me out of it and then shrugged...and then some people, admittedly mostly younger cousins, quietly said they understood. I hope that over time the discussion will have some kind of impact.
I don't know if it was a good or a bad -- it wasn't exactly a world strategy on my part, I just cannot with racist shit and I'm too old to shut up about it -- but my experience was more that I cracked the facade than that I lost a tribe. In some ways these people were never my tribe anyway so the emotional stakes for me were low, but even so, I wasn't ejected entirely.
posted by warriorqueen at 12:22 PM on January 25, 2021 [9 favorites]
So many of these family-in-distress stories talk about the loss and I am sure that loss is great. But if people are willingly cutting their family out of their lives there must also be something gained? I think those are stories worth telling, too. In fact, they may be the stories that end up being the only ones worth telling.
This is the part that caught me - that reminded me of what's wrong with all the news articles and emotional thinkpieces about "oh noes, Trumpists feel threatened because everyone hates them; shame on everyone for not offering sympathy to these poor misunderstood rednecks." Or poor misunderstood business majors. Or poor misunderstood upper-middle-class housewives. And so on. They're more-or-less valid articles, useful perspectives - but they're not being balanced by an equal number of "I walked away from my racist family and THINGS ARE SO MUCH BETTER NOW" articles. (They're not even being balanced by "here's how much better those communities would be for everyone, if they stopped letting racism set their political agendas" articles.)
We get the high-profile pieces about "I was raised in an actualfax CULT but I got away and found the real truth that whoa, diversity is beautiful," but we don't get "my family was liberals, leftists, queer-rights activists... and unconsciously but thoroughly racist. I got into fights with them about the importance of BLM protests and stopped going to family gatherings and... it's not always easy, but I feel more true to myself, and I trust my new friends and community in a way that I couldn't before."
Stories about "I escaped from a fascist cult" are popular. Stories about "political differences are tearing my family apart" are popular. Stories about "I stepped away from casual, polite, never-stated-aloud white supremacy that refused to acknowledge itself, and I'm happier now" are not.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:24 PM on January 25, 2021 [29 favorites]
This is the part that caught me - that reminded me of what's wrong with all the news articles and emotional thinkpieces about "oh noes, Trumpists feel threatened because everyone hates them; shame on everyone for not offering sympathy to these poor misunderstood rednecks." Or poor misunderstood business majors. Or poor misunderstood upper-middle-class housewives. And so on. They're more-or-less valid articles, useful perspectives - but they're not being balanced by an equal number of "I walked away from my racist family and THINGS ARE SO MUCH BETTER NOW" articles. (They're not even being balanced by "here's how much better those communities would be for everyone, if they stopped letting racism set their political agendas" articles.)
We get the high-profile pieces about "I was raised in an actualfax CULT but I got away and found the real truth that whoa, diversity is beautiful," but we don't get "my family was liberals, leftists, queer-rights activists... and unconsciously but thoroughly racist. I got into fights with them about the importance of BLM protests and stopped going to family gatherings and... it's not always easy, but I feel more true to myself, and I trust my new friends and community in a way that I couldn't before."
Stories about "I escaped from a fascist cult" are popular. Stories about "political differences are tearing my family apart" are popular. Stories about "I stepped away from casual, polite, never-stated-aloud white supremacy that refused to acknowledge itself, and I'm happier now" are not.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:24 PM on January 25, 2021 [29 favorites]
But I would be super grateful if anyone can help me understand, in a more nuanced or sophisticated way, why both my friend and that stupid cartoonist are full of shit.I won’t attest to it being nuanced or sophisticated, but I think you’d be on the right track thinking about “meritocracy,” imagining it’s possible to factor out “soft” considerations and focus solely on some definition of objectivity that excludes caring about things like representation among marginalized groups. It’s a very Silicon Valley move that, despite its pretense of Spock-like rationality, demonstrably results in privileged groups remaining solidly privileged.
There’s also the tacit “magical negro” angle, where it’s not enough that we have POC in influential positions. Their demographic exceptionalism has to be accompanied by professional exceptionalism we’d never think to demand of a standard-model old white guy. POC in leadership roles don’t “count” unless they’re inspiring, transformational figures towering astride history. The subtle corollary is, “if this is who he hired, he might as well have just staffed his cabinet with old white guys.” We know who Biden is, but we expected him to do what, hire a Sanders cabinet? Yet somehow in this comic we ended up at the odd implication that the race of the nominees itself constitutes some sort of hypocrisy.
And that’s the charitable take. Less charitable is how much this resembles a straight-out abusive snark about “diversity hires” dressed up in annoying “more-liberal-than-thou” clothing.
I get that the people in question have some arguably legitimate beefs about policy issues, but boy was this ever a catastrophically tone deaf (and non-sequitur) way of framing them. There’s a whole lot of “shoulda known better” to go around here.
posted by gelfin at 1:36 PM on January 25, 2021 [9 favorites]
We get the high-profile pieces about “I was raised in an actualfax CULT but I got away and found the real truth that whoa, diversity is beautiful,” but we don't get "my family was liberals, leftists, queer-rights activists... and unconsciously but thoroughly racist. I got into fights with them about the importance of BLM protests and stopped going to family gatherings and... it's not always easy, but I feel more true to myself, and I trust my new friends and community in a way that I couldn't before.”
Depending on what is meant by “unconsciously but thoroughly racist” seems, in some sense, like an edge case in the current scheme of things: there’s a huge gap between knowing you’ll fight about politics at Thanksgiving and knowing that you’ll never be able to have Thanksgiving again. (It also seems like it skips the part of the story where the teller tries to make their family be conscious of their racist positions, which seems like a very big part of any such story, and would really be the crux of it: forcing people who consider themselves on-board with the cause to accept that they must do more.)
posted by Going To Maine at 1:41 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Depending on what is meant by “unconsciously but thoroughly racist” seems, in some sense, like an edge case in the current scheme of things: there’s a huge gap between knowing you’ll fight about politics at Thanksgiving and knowing that you’ll never be able to have Thanksgiving again. (It also seems like it skips the part of the story where the teller tries to make their family be conscious of their racist positions, which seems like a very big part of any such story, and would really be the crux of it: forcing people who consider themselves on-board with the cause to accept that they must do more.)
posted by Going To Maine at 1:41 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Another thought about that cartoon: Biden is choosing people based on what he thinks is best for his platform and what he wants to accomplish. One of the things he wants to accomplish is to address white supremacy and improve conditions for non-white Americans. He's quite capable of finding non-white folks who are qualified AND hold beliefs about their areas of responsibility that align with Biden's goals.
It's really insulting to assume that, just because you're enlightened and you are against white supremacy, that all people with non-pasty pigmentation think just like you or, if they don't, are not properly enlightened so are inferior. White democrats have a really terrible track record of making such assumptions about what Latinx and black folks want and believe while assuming the party will l get votes just because "we're not the racist party" even though making assumptions like this is ... actually racist.
posted by zenzenobia at 2:57 PM on January 25, 2021 [8 favorites]
It's really insulting to assume that, just because you're enlightened and you are against white supremacy, that all people with non-pasty pigmentation think just like you or, if they don't, are not properly enlightened so are inferior. White democrats have a really terrible track record of making such assumptions about what Latinx and black folks want and believe while assuming the party will l get votes just because "we're not the racist party" even though making assumptions like this is ... actually racist.
posted by zenzenobia at 2:57 PM on January 25, 2021 [8 favorites]
Continuing the cartoon derail, I (progressive white male) thought it was a bit funny but oversimplistic . I think the point is meant to be “what does it matter if the person charging you 300% for payday loans is black or white” or more on point, “what does it matter whether a black or white person is ordering drone strikes on Afghan weddings?” But it feels early to make that judgement. Despite the inevitable cry of “ well when CAN we criticize? Not before elections, during or after ... blah blah.” I would say “when a specific policy decision is made that you disagree with AND for which you have a practical alternative that’s workable in today’s America.
I’m a bit tired of leftists champing at the bit to ding Biden from the left, like, before he’s done anything. There are people so cynical they can’t be hopeful about the current administration. I mean, a leftist white friend of mine recently said “fuck Stacey Abrams. She’s a corporate stooge.” So. Uh.
posted by freecellwizard at 3:30 PM on January 25, 2021 [13 favorites]
I’m a bit tired of leftists champing at the bit to ding Biden from the left, like, before he’s done anything. There are people so cynical they can’t be hopeful about the current administration. I mean, a leftist white friend of mine recently said “fuck Stacey Abrams. She’s a corporate stooge.” So. Uh.
posted by freecellwizard at 3:30 PM on January 25, 2021 [13 favorites]
objectivity [...] a very Silicon Valley move that, despite its pretense of Spock-like rationality, demonstrably results in privileged groups remaining solidly privileged.
IME when there were public objective standards they proved to be enough of a crack in the wall that Silicon Valley &co. introduced `cultural fit'.
posted by clew at 3:44 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
IME when there were public objective standards they proved to be enough of a crack in the wall that Silicon Valley &co. introduced `cultural fit'.
posted by clew at 3:44 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Certainly eliminating toxic people of all sorts from your life is a good practice and Tressie is great at telling the story in writing.
As a contrast, Daryl Davis had some experience in the other direction. . "Seek to understand first, then be understood." He takes time to fully listen and ingest a viewpoint that tells him he's inferior. Doesn't correct or tell the person they're stupid or backward. In reference to earlier discussion, Daryl makes them feel safe and allowed in their identity, and then, Voila! They change on their own... But of course this works because Daryl is black. Is there an analogy for whites?
posted by danjo at 3:47 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
As a contrast, Daryl Davis had some experience in the other direction. . "Seek to understand first, then be understood." He takes time to fully listen and ingest a viewpoint that tells him he's inferior. Doesn't correct or tell the person they're stupid or backward. In reference to earlier discussion, Daryl makes them feel safe and allowed in their identity, and then, Voila! They change on their own... But of course this works because Daryl is black. Is there an analogy for whites?
posted by danjo at 3:47 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
This cynic in me thinks that this seems, frankly, very wrong. It’s depressing to admit, but whenever I see people discuss the benefits of allowing diversity into their lives, of how it makes their world richer - it seems like so much pfaff.
This is certainly one of those things where the world view is different enough that failures of imagination are natural. It's like someone who has never had alternate experiences trying to imagine not-capitalism. It is hard, and possibly sometimes necessary to take it on faith from folks who have had some of the alternative experiences that it does, in fact, make one's life just... easier. It's not that everything will become unicorns and rainbows, but there's perhaps a load lifted that you didn't even know you were carrying. A lack of security that you thought was just normal and how everyone felt, but that other people don't actually have to worry about. You won't necessarily become the most wonderful version of yourself that you want to be, especially not overnight, but you can replace extra self-doubt and self-recrimination with the sort of clear-eyed evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses that enables you to move forward and improve. The world will be richer not necessarily in the sense of affirmatively adding positive qualities, but in a cessation of the depressing and degrading and harmful and dangerous qualities. Not attainment, but the opening up of possibilities that had been closed off.
posted by eviemath at 4:04 PM on January 25, 2021 [6 favorites]
This is certainly one of those things where the world view is different enough that failures of imagination are natural. It's like someone who has never had alternate experiences trying to imagine not-capitalism. It is hard, and possibly sometimes necessary to take it on faith from folks who have had some of the alternative experiences that it does, in fact, make one's life just... easier. It's not that everything will become unicorns and rainbows, but there's perhaps a load lifted that you didn't even know you were carrying. A lack of security that you thought was just normal and how everyone felt, but that other people don't actually have to worry about. You won't necessarily become the most wonderful version of yourself that you want to be, especially not overnight, but you can replace extra self-doubt and self-recrimination with the sort of clear-eyed evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses that enables you to move forward and improve. The world will be richer not necessarily in the sense of affirmatively adding positive qualities, but in a cessation of the depressing and degrading and harmful and dangerous qualities. Not attainment, but the opening up of possibilities that had been closed off.
posted by eviemath at 4:04 PM on January 25, 2021 [6 favorites]
The world will be richer not necessarily in the sense of affirmatively adding positive qualities, but in a cessation of the depressing and degrading and harmful and dangerous qualities. Not attainment, but the opening up of possibilities that had been closed off.
This is a generally positive statement, and I am always happy to have it affirmed, but it seems to assume that my life, as a white person is somehow hard in ways that are particularly tied to my colorblindness. I mean, I don’t particularly feel that whiteness has closed off possibilities to me, and indeed, one of the central tenets of white privilege is that whiteness has only afforded people like myself even more opportunities and privileges.
One of the reason’s Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “The First White President” at the start of the Trump administration was so effective was that it argued that white privilege was effectively a national security threat: any ideology that can give us Donald Trump is actively dangerous to the United States. There are clear costs associated with white supremacy, to say nothing of how it marks us as a nation betraying its ideals, but those fuzzy benefits that I can’t imagine… well, I can’t imagine them, and that is indeed the rub.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:29 PM on January 25, 2021 [8 favorites]
This is a generally positive statement, and I am always happy to have it affirmed, but it seems to assume that my life, as a white person is somehow hard in ways that are particularly tied to my colorblindness. I mean, I don’t particularly feel that whiteness has closed off possibilities to me, and indeed, one of the central tenets of white privilege is that whiteness has only afforded people like myself even more opportunities and privileges.
One of the reason’s Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “The First White President” at the start of the Trump administration was so effective was that it argued that white privilege was effectively a national security threat: any ideology that can give us Donald Trump is actively dangerous to the United States. There are clear costs associated with white supremacy, to say nothing of how it marks us as a nation betraying its ideals, but those fuzzy benefits that I can’t imagine… well, I can’t imagine them, and that is indeed the rub.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:29 PM on January 25, 2021 [8 favorites]
I had to tank a bunch of relationships with friends and family in the immediate aftermath of the Trump era. It was sickening to see how quickly they all became open about their bigotry, suddenly feeling mainstream. The ones I still talk to, I do so mainly because I think they're smart/sensitive enough to reach. And we do HAVE to reach some of them. Alienation only works in certain cases. But sentimentality is gutted.
Kevin Divine said it pretty well, from inside the calamity:
This is bigger than the people I love. The system's broken, not breaking. It's done.
posted by es_de_bah at 4:40 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
Kevin Divine said it pretty well, from inside the calamity:
This is bigger than the people I love. The system's broken, not breaking. It's done.
posted by es_de_bah at 4:40 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
I mean, I don’t particularly feel that whiteness has closed off possibilities to me, and indeed, one of the central tenets of white privilege is that whiteness has only afforded people like myself even more opportunities and privileges.
There are clear costs associated with white supremacy
Not hard or costs in the sense of closed off economic or educational opportunities or anything like that, no. Think more along the lines of how patriarchy pressures boys to lose touch with their emotions. White supremacy requires that white people close off a part of our emotional, human selves in order to participate. It's like folks who grow up in families or communities with abusive dynamics will just think that is normal and not necessarily even notice all of the harms those dynamics are causing them. Or people whose life experiences or ideology lead them to think that cutthroat competition is just "human nature". There's a lack of options or possibilities for people in such situations. The benefits of getting therapy to regain emotional self-knowledge, or learn non-abusive family or community dynamics, or seeing people successfully cooperating, like the benefits of confrontating white supremacy and being (effectively) a race traitor as a white person, are not that life will necessary become good, or easy; the benefits are that life will become less shitty in certain internal, emotional ways. And that means that one will then be able to effectively work toward life bring actually good in more genuine cooperation with other people. The possibility that it opens up is the possibility of, collectively, creating an emotionally healthy, truly supportive community and society.
My point though was that that's just a possibility, not an immediate benefit to white people who are able to break up with white supremacy as a system. It still requires putting in the work and effort of creating community, for example. But it's not even a possibility without confrontating white supremacy, so opening up that possibility is one of the benefits thereof. As another analogy, you know the Pulp song "Common People"? Jarvis Cocker sings about how this rich young woman could live just like working class people, but it's never going to feel the same for her because she'll "never fail like common people", because she will always have her family resources to fall back on as a safety net - "but still you'll never get it right, 'cause when you're lying in bed at night watching roaches climb the walls if you called your dad he could stop it all.". Think that, but for some more nebulous emotional well being qualities. Breaking up with white supremacy won't get rid of all the various economic or health problems that an individual white person may face. They'll still be living in the same world as white people who haven't done so, i.e. roaches in your home still suck. But it will help get rid of a number of the fears and insecurities that exacerbate that situation.
posted by eviemath at 9:04 PM on January 25, 2021 [10 favorites]
There are clear costs associated with white supremacy
Not hard or costs in the sense of closed off economic or educational opportunities or anything like that, no. Think more along the lines of how patriarchy pressures boys to lose touch with their emotions. White supremacy requires that white people close off a part of our emotional, human selves in order to participate. It's like folks who grow up in families or communities with abusive dynamics will just think that is normal and not necessarily even notice all of the harms those dynamics are causing them. Or people whose life experiences or ideology lead them to think that cutthroat competition is just "human nature". There's a lack of options or possibilities for people in such situations. The benefits of getting therapy to regain emotional self-knowledge, or learn non-abusive family or community dynamics, or seeing people successfully cooperating, like the benefits of confrontating white supremacy and being (effectively) a race traitor as a white person, are not that life will necessary become good, or easy; the benefits are that life will become less shitty in certain internal, emotional ways. And that means that one will then be able to effectively work toward life bring actually good in more genuine cooperation with other people. The possibility that it opens up is the possibility of, collectively, creating an emotionally healthy, truly supportive community and society.
My point though was that that's just a possibility, not an immediate benefit to white people who are able to break up with white supremacy as a system. It still requires putting in the work and effort of creating community, for example. But it's not even a possibility without confrontating white supremacy, so opening up that possibility is one of the benefits thereof. As another analogy, you know the Pulp song "Common People"? Jarvis Cocker sings about how this rich young woman could live just like working class people, but it's never going to feel the same for her because she'll "never fail like common people", because she will always have her family resources to fall back on as a safety net - "but still you'll never get it right, 'cause when you're lying in bed at night watching roaches climb the walls if you called your dad he could stop it all.". Think that, but for some more nebulous emotional well being qualities. Breaking up with white supremacy won't get rid of all the various economic or health problems that an individual white person may face. They'll still be living in the same world as white people who haven't done so, i.e. roaches in your home still suck. But it will help get rid of a number of the fears and insecurities that exacerbate that situation.
posted by eviemath at 9:04 PM on January 25, 2021 [10 favorites]
But if people are willingly cutting their family out of their lives there must also be something gained?
Tressie McMillan Cottom is a fantastic writer and I really appreciate this post. I definitely agree that the last thing the world needs right now is one more hand-wringing article in a major publication about white folks' conflicted emotions about racism. Time and the Associated Press aren't anyone's therapist, and these articles are getting to feel like 2021's version of "What are we going to do about poor white people?" Enough.
That said, if I can vent for a moment: I also think that, big picture, there's probably nothing to be gained. Sometimes bad things are just bad. In November, my brother's accelerating descent into racist YouTube-fueled rage finally broke me. I cut ties and I can't foresee a world in which we speak again. I'm now cycling through stages of grief not because I miss the person he's become, but because I find myself mourning the once-thoughtful brother I loved, who I saw less and less of over the past decade until he disappeared entirely. Unless, perhaps, the person I loved was a mirage all along.
He's my only sibling. We used to be close. We both have a history of mental illness and went through a bunch of traumatic shit together, and 2020 was a banner year for pathology for each of us. I feel like I'm abandoning him, or the him he used to be, if he was. I feel like I've abdicated responsibility for turning him away from the shit he's gotten into, and for his safety, and for keeping people safe from him, even though on a logical level I know I'm not capable of accomplishing any of those things. Even so, I am going to be so fucked up if I eventually find out he's hurt himself or that he's hurt someone else.
All I've accomplished is stepping aside so he can't take shit out on me. That's it. There's no moral to this story, no resolution, no lesson, no redemption, no punishment exacted, no reconciliation, no revelation, no greater good, nothing to be gained. And in the meantime, all of those cut-off people are still out there enacting and propagating hate. It's rotten the whole way down.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 12:07 AM on January 26, 2021 [21 favorites]
Tressie McMillan Cottom is a fantastic writer and I really appreciate this post. I definitely agree that the last thing the world needs right now is one more hand-wringing article in a major publication about white folks' conflicted emotions about racism. Time and the Associated Press aren't anyone's therapist, and these articles are getting to feel like 2021's version of "What are we going to do about poor white people?" Enough.
That said, if I can vent for a moment: I also think that, big picture, there's probably nothing to be gained. Sometimes bad things are just bad. In November, my brother's accelerating descent into racist YouTube-fueled rage finally broke me. I cut ties and I can't foresee a world in which we speak again. I'm now cycling through stages of grief not because I miss the person he's become, but because I find myself mourning the once-thoughtful brother I loved, who I saw less and less of over the past decade until he disappeared entirely. Unless, perhaps, the person I loved was a mirage all along.
He's my only sibling. We used to be close. We both have a history of mental illness and went through a bunch of traumatic shit together, and 2020 was a banner year for pathology for each of us. I feel like I'm abandoning him, or the him he used to be, if he was. I feel like I've abdicated responsibility for turning him away from the shit he's gotten into, and for his safety, and for keeping people safe from him, even though on a logical level I know I'm not capable of accomplishing any of those things. Even so, I am going to be so fucked up if I eventually find out he's hurt himself or that he's hurt someone else.
All I've accomplished is stepping aside so he can't take shit out on me. That's it. There's no moral to this story, no resolution, no lesson, no redemption, no punishment exacted, no reconciliation, no revelation, no greater good, nothing to be gained. And in the meantime, all of those cut-off people are still out there enacting and propagating hate. It's rotten the whole way down.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 12:07 AM on January 26, 2021 [21 favorites]
This cynic in me thinks that this seems, frankly, very wrong. It’s depressing to admit, but whenever I see people discuss the benefits of allowing diversity into their lives, of how it makes their world richer - it seems like so much pfaff.
Here's the thing, white supremacy is just one part of the "conservative moral hierarchy." ("God above Man / Man above Nature / the Rich above the Poor / Adults above Children / America above other countries / Men above Women / Whites above Nonwhites / Christians above non-Christians" etc.) I think there's a sense in which the definition of "conservative," or a big part of it, is believing that such a hierarchy exists, and that social order and personal security is maintained by everyone keeping their place in it willingly, instead of constantly fighting each other for the top position.
The benefit of "breaking up with whiteness" is that you get to break up with the rest of that hierarchy too. For women, poor people, children, gay people, non-Christians... this is a pretty good deal, because our place in the hierarchy is not great even if we are white. This is probably why you see more support for racial social justice movements from women, poor people, young people, gay people, non-Christians... Even the ones who are white.
It's like folks who grow up in families or communities with abusive dynamics will just think that is normal and not necessarily even notice all of the harms those dynamics are causing them
Yes, being a part of that hierarchy in any position makes you vulnerable to abuse (literal abuse, not just metaphorical) from the people higher up the chain than you, who will experience no consequences for it, because being further up the moral hierarchy means getting the benefit of the doubt in any dispute about morality with someone lower down it. That's what "moral hierarchy" means, I think. If you grow up in this system, you might accept literal abuse at the hands of people higher up as your due, and cope with it by passing on that abuse to people lower on the hierarchy than you. And this will seem normal. And trying to hold the people above you to account would mean YOU can be held to account for the things you have done to the people below you. It's like how organized crime makes people break some kind of law as an initiation ritual, so that they're complicit, and can't turn in the people above them without turning themselves in.
It's just like that, in that there's a cost to leaving a gang, but there's a lot of benefit too. Because staying in the gang means you'll be drafted into conflicts constantly, abused by the people above you, and denied the opportunity to make your own choices. That's true of staying in conservative/white supremacist families too.
We’re capable of individual morality and choice, but despite what libertarians will try to tell us, primates like humans do not and cannot thrive completely cut off from a group of some kind. It is terrifying on a primal level to leave one group without knowing you have another to go to, even when you 100% know that it’s the only right thing to do.
Yeah, I wasn't really able to form my own identity until I discovered the internet and then went to college, which gave me new groups to be part of. This is so common, of course, that it's led to conservatives deciding college is an evil tool of liberal indoctrination. But what it really is, is a chance to form a new social group, independent of your family.
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:36 AM on January 26, 2021 [24 favorites]
Here's the thing, white supremacy is just one part of the "conservative moral hierarchy." ("God above Man / Man above Nature / the Rich above the Poor / Adults above Children / America above other countries / Men above Women / Whites above Nonwhites / Christians above non-Christians" etc.) I think there's a sense in which the definition of "conservative," or a big part of it, is believing that such a hierarchy exists, and that social order and personal security is maintained by everyone keeping their place in it willingly, instead of constantly fighting each other for the top position.
The benefit of "breaking up with whiteness" is that you get to break up with the rest of that hierarchy too. For women, poor people, children, gay people, non-Christians... this is a pretty good deal, because our place in the hierarchy is not great even if we are white. This is probably why you see more support for racial social justice movements from women, poor people, young people, gay people, non-Christians... Even the ones who are white.
It's like folks who grow up in families or communities with abusive dynamics will just think that is normal and not necessarily even notice all of the harms those dynamics are causing them
Yes, being a part of that hierarchy in any position makes you vulnerable to abuse (literal abuse, not just metaphorical) from the people higher up the chain than you, who will experience no consequences for it, because being further up the moral hierarchy means getting the benefit of the doubt in any dispute about morality with someone lower down it. That's what "moral hierarchy" means, I think. If you grow up in this system, you might accept literal abuse at the hands of people higher up as your due, and cope with it by passing on that abuse to people lower on the hierarchy than you. And this will seem normal. And trying to hold the people above you to account would mean YOU can be held to account for the things you have done to the people below you. It's like how organized crime makes people break some kind of law as an initiation ritual, so that they're complicit, and can't turn in the people above them without turning themselves in.
It's just like that, in that there's a cost to leaving a gang, but there's a lot of benefit too. Because staying in the gang means you'll be drafted into conflicts constantly, abused by the people above you, and denied the opportunity to make your own choices. That's true of staying in conservative/white supremacist families too.
We’re capable of individual morality and choice, but despite what libertarians will try to tell us, primates like humans do not and cannot thrive completely cut off from a group of some kind. It is terrifying on a primal level to leave one group without knowing you have another to go to, even when you 100% know that it’s the only right thing to do.
Yeah, I wasn't really able to form my own identity until I discovered the internet and then went to college, which gave me new groups to be part of. This is so common, of course, that it's led to conservatives deciding college is an evil tool of liberal indoctrination. But what it really is, is a chance to form a new social group, independent of your family.
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:36 AM on January 26, 2021 [24 favorites]
OnceUponATime, you said what I was trying to convey much more succinctly and clearly, thanks!
posted by eviemath at 7:55 AM on January 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 7:55 AM on January 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
But I would be super grateful if anyone can help me understand, in a more nuanced or sophisticated way, why both my friend and that stupid cartoonist are full of shit. And if I’m full of shit, tell me.
Well, I don't know any of you (or the offensive and dumb comic in question) so I can't determine the full-of-shittitude of any of the parties involved.
But if you're interested in my perspective as a young organizer of color, I would ask just how valuable is diversity-by-itself when so many cases of police brutality against people of color have happened in blue cities+blue states where people of color are well represented in the halls of power. How much more PoC representation did Baltimore and Maryland need to have in order to not murder Freddie Gray?
Or from another angle: why are the most vulnerable populations so brutalized on a daily basis in cities where people of color run the show and conservatives have not held power for decades?
My personal take is that relatively comfortable and well-meaning people really focus on diversity because they see the systems we live under as oppressive due to bugs that can be addressed with reforms. Unfortunately, this hypothesis has failed miserably over and over again at every level of American government.
At this point, I don't get excited about a person of color or queer person or woman reaching a level of office unless their politics mean they will actually help marginalized communities (like the ones I am in). So Deb Haaland makes me really happy. But I only have sadness when a woman of color who once joked about prison inmates begging for water becomes someone with a lot of political power. Maybe it's just my radical politics, but I don't think that's a good thing to say, regardless of the race of the joke-teller.
And if the only people you know who are suspicious/dismissive of identity politics are white conservatives, then I think that speaks more to the racial and political diversity of your relationships and networks than anything else. We certainly exist; the problem is that we're not usually friends with the white people who care about these things nor on forums like Metafilter (the overlap is fairly strong between these two circles).
posted by Ouverture at 3:50 PM on January 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
Well, I don't know any of you (or the offensive and dumb comic in question) so I can't determine the full-of-shittitude of any of the parties involved.
But if you're interested in my perspective as a young organizer of color, I would ask just how valuable is diversity-by-itself when so many cases of police brutality against people of color have happened in blue cities+blue states where people of color are well represented in the halls of power. How much more PoC representation did Baltimore and Maryland need to have in order to not murder Freddie Gray?
Or from another angle: why are the most vulnerable populations so brutalized on a daily basis in cities where people of color run the show and conservatives have not held power for decades?
My personal take is that relatively comfortable and well-meaning people really focus on diversity because they see the systems we live under as oppressive due to bugs that can be addressed with reforms. Unfortunately, this hypothesis has failed miserably over and over again at every level of American government.
At this point, I don't get excited about a person of color or queer person or woman reaching a level of office unless their politics mean they will actually help marginalized communities (like the ones I am in). So Deb Haaland makes me really happy. But I only have sadness when a woman of color who once joked about prison inmates begging for water becomes someone with a lot of political power. Maybe it's just my radical politics, but I don't think that's a good thing to say, regardless of the race of the joke-teller.
And if the only people you know who are suspicious/dismissive of identity politics are white conservatives, then I think that speaks more to the racial and political diversity of your relationships and networks than anything else. We certainly exist; the problem is that we're not usually friends with the white people who care about these things nor on forums like Metafilter (the overlap is fairly strong between these two circles).
posted by Ouverture at 3:50 PM on January 26, 2021 [7 favorites]
But I would be super grateful if anyone can help me understand, in a more nuanced or sophisticated way, why both my friend and that stupid cartoonist are full of shit. And if I’m full of shit, tell me.
I think it's really, really context dependent. I have definitely seen shitty people (usually someone who doesn't have to worry about representation) use things like that Ted Rall cartoon as a sort of cudgel against the idea of making room for women and people of color, or to suggest that anyone from an underrepresented group hasn't earned their position. I have also seen people use cartoons like that to air legitimate concerns about tokenism and about how they are being asked to feel grateful for the promotion of individuals who share their background but are actively working in the service of oppression.
I remember learning about Geraldine Ferraro's VP candidacy when I was a kid. It was years after the fact, but it made little me feel so excited and hopeful to think that things were changing and that maybe, as I got older, there would be greater equality for women and a place for me in the world. Now I'm an adult and I feel incredibly frustrated when someone asks me to feel excited that the failed CEO of Quibi almost landed a cabinet position, or, in general, when I see the scant openings available to women and people of color go to people who are committed to defending offshore banking, mass incarceration, and the status quo.
I feel like it's fair to be disappointed when a scarce seat at the table is given to someone from your same background despite or because that person is committed to doing stuff that stinks. I think it's also true that representation matters and that breaking barriers is no small feat. It's kind of both.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:09 PM on January 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
I think it's really, really context dependent. I have definitely seen shitty people (usually someone who doesn't have to worry about representation) use things like that Ted Rall cartoon as a sort of cudgel against the idea of making room for women and people of color, or to suggest that anyone from an underrepresented group hasn't earned their position. I have also seen people use cartoons like that to air legitimate concerns about tokenism and about how they are being asked to feel grateful for the promotion of individuals who share their background but are actively working in the service of oppression.
I remember learning about Geraldine Ferraro's VP candidacy when I was a kid. It was years after the fact, but it made little me feel so excited and hopeful to think that things were changing and that maybe, as I got older, there would be greater equality for women and a place for me in the world. Now I'm an adult and I feel incredibly frustrated when someone asks me to feel excited that the failed CEO of Quibi almost landed a cabinet position, or, in general, when I see the scant openings available to women and people of color go to people who are committed to defending offshore banking, mass incarceration, and the status quo.
I feel like it's fair to be disappointed when a scarce seat at the table is given to someone from your same background despite or because that person is committed to doing stuff that stinks. I think it's also true that representation matters and that breaking barriers is no small feat. It's kind of both.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 6:09 PM on January 26, 2021 [9 favorites]
Another thing about the cartoon. While I am all for Cabinet positions and similar roles being filled with the best person for the job regardless of political ideology, it’d a bit strange to expect a President to go out of his way to fill them with with people whose politics are too awful different from his own. Especially if there’s no shortage of qualified candidates from both sides of the aisle.
Say Dr. Rufus X. Sarsaparilla, member of the Kangaroo Party, is universally acknowledged to be far and away the world’s foremost authority on pronouns. President Albert A. Armadillo of the Aardvark Party would do well to offer him the post of Secretary of Pronouns, regardless of the fact that their respective political views might make it hard for them to get things done. But if there’s an equally qualified Kangaroo Party candidate, doesn’t it make sense to appoint them instead?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:12 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Say Dr. Rufus X. Sarsaparilla, member of the Kangaroo Party, is universally acknowledged to be far and away the world’s foremost authority on pronouns. President Albert A. Armadillo of the Aardvark Party would do well to offer him the post of Secretary of Pronouns, regardless of the fact that their respective political views might make it hard for them to get things done. But if there’s an equally qualified Kangaroo Party candidate, doesn’t it make sense to appoint them instead?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:12 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Ouverture, I have flagged your comment as fantastic.
... why are the most vulnerable populations so brutalized on a daily basis in cities where people of color run the show and conservatives have not held power for decades?
My personal take is that relatively comfortable and well-meaning people really focus on diversity because they see the systems we live under as oppressive due to bugs that can be addressed with reforms. Unfortunately, this hypothesis has failed miserably over and over again at every level of American government.
Quoted for truth. Thank you.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:08 AM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
... why are the most vulnerable populations so brutalized on a daily basis in cities where people of color run the show and conservatives have not held power for decades?
My personal take is that relatively comfortable and well-meaning people really focus on diversity because they see the systems we live under as oppressive due to bugs that can be addressed with reforms. Unfortunately, this hypothesis has failed miserably over and over again at every level of American government.
Quoted for truth. Thank you.
posted by Bella Donna at 1:08 AM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
I just happened to read this recently so I dunno, but this outline of "integrationism" and how liberalism swallowed up black nationalism I think might be relevant? The other posts of the series too, on how the 1960s civil rights movement got rolled back, and Reagan, and Reconstruction.
(From a Christian perspective but as an atheist I got a lot from it.)
posted by away for regrooving at 2:29 AM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
(From a Christian perspective but as an atheist I got a lot from it.)
posted by away for regrooving at 2:29 AM on January 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Awesome link, away for regrooving. Much, much appreciated.
posted by Bella Donna at 12:55 PM on January 27, 2021
posted by Bella Donna at 12:55 PM on January 27, 2021
It's kind of an aside, but that Ted Rall cartoon also reminded me of this thing I think of as Star Trek Voyager Diversity, wherein the goal is to have multiple white people but one of each (for some value of "each") when it comes to other groups.
So, like, one Vulcan played by a Black guy, one Asian dude, one painfully notional "Native American" played by a Latino guy, one Klingon/Latina woman, one alien in full-face makeup who's played by a white guy, exactly two white women (one a sex object), and two white dudes (one a hologram). It's a rainbow in which six of nine (ha) actors are male and five of nine are white but look: Diversity!
In a work environment it can feel less like genuine representation and more like you've been essentialized and assembled into a cabinet of curiosities. A former supervisor of mine ascribed to this model and would try to highlight our team's diversity (which they were proud of!) by introducing each of us to external partners by our name and our nationality. The only exception was white dudes, who were introduced with their name and area of expertise. Oh, and my citizenship wasn't interesting/exotic enough at the time so I was instead introduced by my name and the country my family immigrated from 100 years ago. Definitely a step up from not letting people into the room, but pretty alienating all the same.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 12:47 AM on January 28, 2021 [7 favorites]
So, like, one Vulcan played by a Black guy, one Asian dude, one painfully notional "Native American" played by a Latino guy, one Klingon/Latina woman, one alien in full-face makeup who's played by a white guy, exactly two white women (one a sex object), and two white dudes (one a hologram). It's a rainbow in which six of nine (ha) actors are male and five of nine are white but look: Diversity!
In a work environment it can feel less like genuine representation and more like you've been essentialized and assembled into a cabinet of curiosities. A former supervisor of mine ascribed to this model and would try to highlight our team's diversity (which they were proud of!) by introducing each of us to external partners by our name and our nationality. The only exception was white dudes, who were introduced with their name and area of expertise. Oh, and my citizenship wasn't interesting/exotic enough at the time so I was instead introduced by my name and the country my family immigrated from 100 years ago. Definitely a step up from not letting people into the room, but pretty alienating all the same.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 12:47 AM on January 28, 2021 [7 favorites]
I just shouted at my aunt about white supremacy on the phone until she hung up on me! After having introduced the subject in more calm moments pre-insurrection. But all through I kept asking her to oppose white supremacy, invoking our PoC relatives, little kids some of them, and what their lives will be like—but she refused. I even asked her to simply write Trump a letter asking him to not tweet white power videos, and she showed no sign of willing to take that tiny step.
I haven't even read the OP yet, I was simply inspired by seeing the title.
I don't know if I broke up with her yet, but burn bridges burn! Woo hoo!
posted by XMLicious at 6:06 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
I haven't even read the OP yet, I was simply inspired by seeing the title.
I don't know if I broke up with her yet, but burn bridges burn! Woo hoo!
posted by XMLicious at 6:06 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Coming down from the adrenaline rush and thinking about everything more solemnly—the adrenaline spikes because this is actually dangerous. Beyond issues of race, this is why they forced Socrates to poison himself: because he got fed up with tyranny and wouldn't shut up about it.
But white people like myself who might confront white supremacy occasionally after luxuriating in its benefits our entire lives aren't heroes of history or anything. When it comes to standing up for what's right or suffering for it on this axis, nearly every last one of us is way, way at the back of the line and late to the party.
posted by XMLicious at 7:24 PM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
But white people like myself who might confront white supremacy occasionally after luxuriating in its benefits our entire lives aren't heroes of history or anything. When it comes to standing up for what's right or suffering for it on this axis, nearly every last one of us is way, way at the back of the line and late to the party.
posted by XMLicious at 7:24 PM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
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This is an incredibly helpful nugget and I am going to hold onto it.
posted by brainwane at 7:39 AM on January 25, 2021 [31 favorites]