I get a lot of praise, here and elsewhere, for the patience I demonstrate in my conversations. And I really do try my best. But before I give the impression that I always succeed, I think it’s time to prove that occasionally, I can be just as irrational and reactive as the next person. In my article Who Cares If America Is A Racist Country?, I criticised the notion of asking philosophical questions when there are real, concrete issues to address. After all, the only people who benefit from debating whether America is a racist country are the politicians and podcast hosts who earn votes or advertising dollars by doing so.Instead, I argued that focusing on helping people affected by racial inequality would be a much better use of that energy. A regular reader and commenter, named Michael, wasn’t happy to leave the question unanswered:
"But how do you talk about the end of slavery as if white people are the heroes of that story without recognising that they were also the villains?"
The real and significant division is not between white and black. The division is between those who oppose the whole idea race and skin as being valid measures of an individual, and those who reject the whole idea of individuals and insist on seeing only the racialized collectives. This is the division that matters, and today, within each side of this division we find both Black and white individuals, except on the one side they see themselves as individuals while on the other side they see themselves as "bodies."
You know this. But it is very difficult to avoid being drawn into accepting and using the frameworks of one's opponents. I think this is what happened here in this discussion.
Steve QJ you wrote "In fact, I'm speaking out against these idiots. I'm actually putting my neck on the line. The entire reason I speak out against them is that they cause the kind of "race issue fatigue" you seem to be expressing here. "
Yes you are and you have. I've read the last 5-6 of your articles and you take issue with the "woke" crowd often. And I believe you're correct re: "race issue fatigue. " In fact I think we as people are experiencing general info overload fatigue. What with Covid, Afghanistan, political harping and etc. I myself feel like a tidal wave has swamped my brain. The past two Sundays I tried an experiment. No social media, news, or other electronic input (with the exception of one football game on T.V. I read a book, cooked and played with the dog. I do these things anyway, but stayed off my phone and laptop. This was refreshing and I find myself already looking forward to this Sunday.
Have compassion for yourself. Instead of digging in your heels, you introspect, recognizing where you have projected past frustrations onto the interaction. That kind of self-awareness can be so hard, and allowing others to bare witness to it is even more difficult. Thanks for modeling that process for readers and in general for doing this work.
Also, I think the problem of black political actors like Obama, being seen to represent all black people, either as a scapegoat and or some kind of symbol of anything, is also a problem that black politicians AND activists perpetuate and take advantage of when they act as brokers or operatives that supposedly speak for people, that they may or may not represent. The problem goes both ways and is endemic across the board, with I think mostly negative consequences. Anytime anyone says "we" xyz, without representing an actual constituency or group they themselves have organized, that have put that person in a position to speak for them, its a problem. The benefits of "faces in places" type identity politics, often are pretty slim, esp when you are talking about either extremes, centrist neoliberal Dems, who don't confront capitalism as well as hashtag activists who aren't doing actual offline, non symbolic organizing.
I don't where else to put this request, but I guess here is as a good as anywhere. I'm really glad that you have decided to do this full time. I'd like to give you more support that just the 5 bucks for the subscription. Could you please start a Patreon account so I can give you a bit more money each month?
I go into this in my next response, but this sentence really is breathtaking.
"The Constitution guaranteed equal rights for all but it took 90 years and hundreds of thousands of white lives sacrificed before we could even rid ourselves of slavery?"
Yes breathtaking and as you said indicative of Michael's ignorance. I'm currently working on a historical fiction piece that occurs during and right after over 200 black men women and children were massacred in East St. Louis Illinois in 1918. My point is the sacrifice of white people Michael mentions is to severely narrow the focus. Like wearing glasses with only a small hole in the center so all one can see is right in front of them.
Michael needs to hit the history books..since its inception? Race got invented to justify racism, and racism was the disciplining practice that arose to enact for the brutal enslavement and capitalist extraction of free labor of Africans and West Indian Africans in the US...if we aren't very clear on what racism actually is (the practice or action of a double standard based on ancestry) can't see any of this clearly...
The thing that triggered me about Michael's post was his statement that "As it turned out, Obama veered leftward and eventually started stoking racial animosity". It's hard to take anyone seriously who would make a claim like that. Michael, please give me an example of two statements in sequence which show him "veering leftward" and any statement whatsoever which shows him "stoking racial animosity". These statements went from Fox news to his mouth without ever passing through his brain.
Slightly off-topic and possibly just recency bias, but some of the discussion here reminded me of an excellent book I just finished, Amy Chua's Political Tribes. Highly recommend it if you haven't read it already.
I was surprised to see you seemingly repeat the myth that the 3/5 clause means that anyone is just 3/5 of a person. In the text, it is only about how many seats a state gets in Congress, and it meant that slave states got less than they would have with 5/5. (In the 14th Amendment, the number is changed to 0/5 to pressure ex-slave-states to grant black suffrage.)
No reference is made to race, only to status of free or other, so states got as much representation for free blacks as for anyone else.
A small point: the phrase "...black people were only three-fifths of a human being..." is inaccurate.
First, it was slaves, not black people, who were counted as three fifths of a person. You can argue that this is a semantic difference because nearly all blacks were slaves but the distinction is far more than semantic in application.
Second, what were the alternatives? If slaves would have been counted as a whole person, the south would have had many more representatives in the House and progress toward abolition that much harder to achieve. If slaves would not have been counted at all, then the argument would now be that "black people weren't considered human beings at all in the constitution."
Should slaves have been considered whole people for purposes of representation (the argument that slave-owners were making) or should they have not been considered people at all for purposes of representation (the argument abolitionists were making)?
Just an aside, Obama did NOT have radical
Left politics, they were actually neoliberal, the right wing of the democratic party, much closer to Reagan than FDR and the New Deal...
"But how do you talk about the end of slavery as if white people are the heroes of that story without recognising that they were also the villains?"
The real and significant division is not between white and black. The division is between those who oppose the whole idea race and skin as being valid measures of an individual, and those who reject the whole idea of individuals and insist on seeing only the racialized collectives. This is the division that matters, and today, within each side of this division we find both Black and white individuals, except on the one side they see themselves as individuals while on the other side they see themselves as "bodies."
You know this. But it is very difficult to avoid being drawn into accepting and using the frameworks of one's opponents. I think this is what happened here in this discussion.
Steve QJ you wrote "In fact, I'm speaking out against these idiots. I'm actually putting my neck on the line. The entire reason I speak out against them is that they cause the kind of "race issue fatigue" you seem to be expressing here. "
Yes you are and you have. I've read the last 5-6 of your articles and you take issue with the "woke" crowd often. And I believe you're correct re: "race issue fatigue. " In fact I think we as people are experiencing general info overload fatigue. What with Covid, Afghanistan, political harping and etc. I myself feel like a tidal wave has swamped my brain. The past two Sundays I tried an experiment. No social media, news, or other electronic input (with the exception of one football game on T.V. I read a book, cooked and played with the dog. I do these things anyway, but stayed off my phone and laptop. This was refreshing and I find myself already looking forward to this Sunday.
Have compassion for yourself. Instead of digging in your heels, you introspect, recognizing where you have projected past frustrations onto the interaction. That kind of self-awareness can be so hard, and allowing others to bare witness to it is even more difficult. Thanks for modeling that process for readers and in general for doing this work.
Also, I think the problem of black political actors like Obama, being seen to represent all black people, either as a scapegoat and or some kind of symbol of anything, is also a problem that black politicians AND activists perpetuate and take advantage of when they act as brokers or operatives that supposedly speak for people, that they may or may not represent. The problem goes both ways and is endemic across the board, with I think mostly negative consequences. Anytime anyone says "we" xyz, without representing an actual constituency or group they themselves have organized, that have put that person in a position to speak for them, its a problem. The benefits of "faces in places" type identity politics, often are pretty slim, esp when you are talking about either extremes, centrist neoliberal Dems, who don't confront capitalism as well as hashtag activists who aren't doing actual offline, non symbolic organizing.
I don't where else to put this request, but I guess here is as a good as anywhere. I'm really glad that you have decided to do this full time. I'd like to give you more support that just the 5 bucks for the subscription. Could you please start a Patreon account so I can give you a bit more money each month?
I go into this in my next response, but this sentence really is breathtaking.
"The Constitution guaranteed equal rights for all but it took 90 years and hundreds of thousands of white lives sacrificed before we could even rid ourselves of slavery?"
Yes breathtaking and as you said indicative of Michael's ignorance. I'm currently working on a historical fiction piece that occurs during and right after over 200 black men women and children were massacred in East St. Louis Illinois in 1918. My point is the sacrifice of white people Michael mentions is to severely narrow the focus. Like wearing glasses with only a small hole in the center so all one can see is right in front of them.
Michael needs to hit the history books..since its inception? Race got invented to justify racism, and racism was the disciplining practice that arose to enact for the brutal enslavement and capitalist extraction of free labor of Africans and West Indian Africans in the US...if we aren't very clear on what racism actually is (the practice or action of a double standard based on ancestry) can't see any of this clearly...
The thing that triggered me about Michael's post was his statement that "As it turned out, Obama veered leftward and eventually started stoking racial animosity". It's hard to take anyone seriously who would make a claim like that. Michael, please give me an example of two statements in sequence which show him "veering leftward" and any statement whatsoever which shows him "stoking racial animosity". These statements went from Fox news to his mouth without ever passing through his brain.
I remember reading this conversation in Medium!
Slightly off-topic and possibly just recency bias, but some of the discussion here reminded me of an excellent book I just finished, Amy Chua's Political Tribes. Highly recommend it if you haven't read it already.
I was surprised to see you seemingly repeat the myth that the 3/5 clause means that anyone is just 3/5 of a person. In the text, it is only about how many seats a state gets in Congress, and it meant that slave states got less than they would have with 5/5. (In the 14th Amendment, the number is changed to 0/5 to pressure ex-slave-states to grant black suffrage.)
No reference is made to race, only to status of free or other, so states got as much representation for free blacks as for anyone else.
A small point: the phrase "...black people were only three-fifths of a human being..." is inaccurate.
First, it was slaves, not black people, who were counted as three fifths of a person. You can argue that this is a semantic difference because nearly all blacks were slaves but the distinction is far more than semantic in application.
Second, what were the alternatives? If slaves would have been counted as a whole person, the south would have had many more representatives in the House and progress toward abolition that much harder to achieve. If slaves would not have been counted at all, then the argument would now be that "black people weren't considered human beings at all in the constitution."
Should slaves have been considered whole people for purposes of representation (the argument that slave-owners were making) or should they have not been considered people at all for purposes of representation (the argument abolitionists were making)?