The Literature of White Liberalism
August 31, 2020 7:22 AM Subscribe
Whether white people’s racial or emotional literacy can meaningfully contribute to abolitionist projects or Black freedom struggles is a long-contested story, particularly in the U.S. left. In its class-first and class-only zeal, the New Left purposefully expelled Black feminist and women of color epistemologies from left politics in the latter half of the twentieth century and thus bequeathed a disdain for and ignorance of Black feminism that the millennial and zoomer left must now scramble to resolve. Indeed, what is particularly interesting about the furor over the literature of white liberalism is how many—and which—white people think they are already too woke for its lessons.
The true import of the literature of white liberalism, then, is not the impact it has on white liberals—who are at the twilight of their power—but its impact on nominally multiracial yet white-majority left formations. For decades these formations have rejected radical Black and minoritized thought in favor of white-centered class reductionism, regarding BIPOC as elements to be “included” into a multicultural fold rather than as a transformational intellectual force. How will the left’s historical negation of minority thought be accounted for in a moment when the work of Black feminist abolition is driving the nation’s largest uprisings in fifty years?
The true import of the literature of white liberalism, then, is not the impact it has on white liberals—who are at the twilight of their power—but its impact on nominally multiracial yet white-majority left formations. For decades these formations have rejected radical Black and minoritized thought in favor of white-centered class reductionism, regarding BIPOC as elements to be “included” into a multicultural fold rather than as a transformational intellectual force. How will the left’s historical negation of minority thought be accounted for in a moment when the work of Black feminist abolition is driving the nation’s largest uprisings in fifty years?
"unlike previous moments in which fiction supposedly becomes the portal to empathy for the Other, the contemporary literature of white liberalism eschews the novel" - I am curious about this.
What happened to the novel in this moment?
Or is the energy happening in non-mainstream novels?
posted by doctornemo at 9:14 AM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
What happened to the novel in this moment?
Or is the energy happening in non-mainstream novels?
posted by doctornemo at 9:14 AM on August 31, 2020 [3 favorites]
The term "majority-minority" pops up in the article and it got me thinking about how bizarre it is that we're framing a demographic shift in the US using that phrase.
If you look at demographics in terms of race, which is what the words "majority" and "minority" are referencing, the coming decades are going to bring about a wildly lopsided plurality in which there are still way more non-Latino White people in the US than people from any other individual racial group. That's the future that white supremacists are wringing their hands about: one in which White people are still, by far, the largest demographic group but not by quite as much. In that context, the term "majority-minority" and the idea of White people being outnumbered only make sense if you think of race as a binary, zero sum, us-versus-them battle in which "us" is White people and "them" is all of the other races slapped together. I guess the assumption is that Black, Latino, Asian-American, Native American, and biracial folks are going to assemble into an Avengers-style racial monolith to oppress non-Latino White people in the way that non-Latino White people have been oppressing everybody else all along.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:43 AM on August 31, 2020 [30 favorites]
If you look at demographics in terms of race, which is what the words "majority" and "minority" are referencing, the coming decades are going to bring about a wildly lopsided plurality in which there are still way more non-Latino White people in the US than people from any other individual racial group. That's the future that white supremacists are wringing their hands about: one in which White people are still, by far, the largest demographic group but not by quite as much. In that context, the term "majority-minority" and the idea of White people being outnumbered only make sense if you think of race as a binary, zero sum, us-versus-them battle in which "us" is White people and "them" is all of the other races slapped together. I guess the assumption is that Black, Latino, Asian-American, Native American, and biracial folks are going to assemble into an Avengers-style racial monolith to oppress non-Latino White people in the way that non-Latino White people have been oppressing everybody else all along.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:43 AM on August 31, 2020 [30 favorites]
What happened to the novel in this moment?
Or is the energy happening in non-mainstream novels?
I'm curious too, especially considering what feels to me like a current flourishing of art by Black people. It makes me wonder also about the difference between literary texts and what the author suggests are essentially self-help, quasi-theological texts, and how the inclusion of novels on anti-racist reading lists threatens to "reduce Black art to a hastily constructed manual to understanding oppression, always with white people as the implied audience."
Where would something like John Keene's Counternarratives (the best book I've read this year) fit in an anti-racist reading list? Could it?
posted by jshttnbm at 10:29 AM on August 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
Or is the energy happening in non-mainstream novels?
I'm curious too, especially considering what feels to me like a current flourishing of art by Black people. It makes me wonder also about the difference between literary texts and what the author suggests are essentially self-help, quasi-theological texts, and how the inclusion of novels on anti-racist reading lists threatens to "reduce Black art to a hastily constructed manual to understanding oppression, always with white people as the implied audience."
Where would something like John Keene's Counternarratives (the best book I've read this year) fit in an anti-racist reading list? Could it?
posted by jshttnbm at 10:29 AM on August 31, 2020 [4 favorites]
In its class-first and class-only zeal, the New Left
This is an interesting characterization of the New Left, given that it’s not uncommon for the New New Left to assert that the (original) New Left failed by turning its back on old school class and union politics. I suppose if you take “New Left” to mean “the white college student Left” you can argue both assertions are true.
Personally I can’t shake the feeling that some entries in the corpus of “antiracism literature for white people” amount to a politics of consciousness-raising, and I’m not sure how well that worked for the New Left. But I was impressed by the way Ta-Nehisi Coates approached it, in convincingly pointing out the material ways that even liberal-minded white people benefit from the racial caste system.
posted by atoxyl at 10:51 AM on August 31, 2020 [12 favorites]
This is an interesting characterization of the New Left, given that it’s not uncommon for the New New Left to assert that the (original) New Left failed by turning its back on old school class and union politics. I suppose if you take “New Left” to mean “the white college student Left” you can argue both assertions are true.
Personally I can’t shake the feeling that some entries in the corpus of “antiracism literature for white people” amount to a politics of consciousness-raising, and I’m not sure how well that worked for the New Left. But I was impressed by the way Ta-Nehisi Coates approached it, in convincingly pointing out the material ways that even liberal-minded white people benefit from the racial caste system.
posted by atoxyl at 10:51 AM on August 31, 2020 [12 favorites]
Ijeoma Oluo on Twitter: "I hope Bernie wins & then Bernie bros realize that it does nothing to fill the chasm in their souls or make them remotely likeable."
Huge grain of salt to go with that particular author's assessment of what the left is or isn't doing right.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:05 AM on August 31, 2020 [9 favorites]
Huge grain of salt to go with that particular author's assessment of what the left is or isn't doing right.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:05 AM on August 31, 2020 [9 favorites]
Because Kendi opts instead for a strict racist/antiracist binary, his threshold for who is “racist” is fairly low: anyone not actively antiracist is racist.
I'm really ambivalent about the notion of "allyship" in this work; it's a nice enough sounding word, I guess, but I'm not convinced that cheerleading progressive change while the victims of oppression are doing all the heavy lifting is any more useful or morally defensible than sending thoughts and prayers. A child that's spilled a glass of milk can be expected to be an "ally", fetching the towels and dustpan while parents deals with mopping up the broken glass, but an adult should be on the floor cleaning up their mess themselves.
posted by mhoye at 11:39 AM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
I'm really ambivalent about the notion of "allyship" in this work; it's a nice enough sounding word, I guess, but I'm not convinced that cheerleading progressive change while the victims of oppression are doing all the heavy lifting is any more useful or morally defensible than sending thoughts and prayers. A child that's spilled a glass of milk can be expected to be an "ally", fetching the towels and dustpan while parents deals with mopping up the broken glass, but an adult should be on the floor cleaning up their mess themselves.
posted by mhoye at 11:39 AM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
The article isn't by Oluo, so I'm not sure why you're posting that quote as though it were some kind of gotcha.
The author is Melissa Phruksachart. According to her bio, she is Assistant Professor of Film, Television, and Media at the University of Michigan.
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:50 AM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
The author is Melissa Phruksachart. According to her bio, she is Assistant Professor of Film, Television, and Media at the University of Michigan.
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:50 AM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
The post is a forceful defence of "the literature of white liberalism," as instantiated by various books, of which one is by Oluo.
posted by Beardman at 11:59 AM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Beardman at 11:59 AM on August 31, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm not convinced that cheerleading progressive change while the victims of oppression are doing all the heavy lifting is any more useful or morally defensible than sending thoughts and prayers.
Some other people I've heard express similar sentiments have switched to referring to themselves as "accomplices" rather than "allies".
posted by solotoro at 12:05 PM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
Some other people I've heard express similar sentiments have switched to referring to themselves as "accomplices" rather than "allies".
posted by solotoro at 12:05 PM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]
The post is a forceful defence of "the literature of white liberalism," as instantiated by various books, of which one is by Oluo.
I'm not sure we read the same article—this one seems more like a gracious critique than a straight-up defense:
The literature of white liberalism is an antiracist technology that attempts to engender forms of white self-consciousness that can allow for more lubricated social relations. This is not bad in and of itself given the toll that aggressions, both micro and macro, have on the everyday lives of Black, Indigenous, and people of color. If white and non-Black people of color learned to take feedback on their anti-Black racism, imagine what else could be accomplished. But such change requires far more than reading. Importing these books into college classrooms and HR retreats does little if the structure of the organization is not also called into question; after all, classrooms and workplaces have never been safe spaces to undo white solidarity, especially for BIPOC. Alternate spaces of affinity and trust that intentionally imagine outside of capitalism are necessary for radical antiracist work. White-majority left movements—or at least their media correspondents—have shown themselves to be, so far, uninterested in decoupling antiracism from the workplace imaginary.
posted by jshttnbm at 12:10 PM on August 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
I'm not sure we read the same article—this one seems more like a gracious critique than a straight-up defense:
The literature of white liberalism is an antiracist technology that attempts to engender forms of white self-consciousness that can allow for more lubricated social relations. This is not bad in and of itself given the toll that aggressions, both micro and macro, have on the everyday lives of Black, Indigenous, and people of color. If white and non-Black people of color learned to take feedback on their anti-Black racism, imagine what else could be accomplished. But such change requires far more than reading. Importing these books into college classrooms and HR retreats does little if the structure of the organization is not also called into question; after all, classrooms and workplaces have never been safe spaces to undo white solidarity, especially for BIPOC. Alternate spaces of affinity and trust that intentionally imagine outside of capitalism are necessary for radical antiracist work. White-majority left movements—or at least their media correspondents—have shown themselves to be, so far, uninterested in decoupling antiracism from the workplace imaginary.
posted by jshttnbm at 12:10 PM on August 31, 2020 [6 favorites]
If a white man wants to lynch me, that's his problem. If he's got the power to lynch me, that's my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it's a question of power. Racism gets its power from capitalism. Thus, if you're anti-racist, whether you know it or not, you must be anti-capitalist. The power for racism, the power for sexism, comes from capitalism, not an attitude.There is so much transformative power in Carmichael's above analysis and it is telling (and depressing) how just little of that same Black radical tradition lives on in the writing and frameworks of the very well-off anti-racist writers reviewed here.
It seems the Black Misleadership class has its next generation of intellectuals who have successfully set an agenda that centers the perpetuation of their own already-established success and comfort at the expense of everyone else.
DiAngelo, in her own words, demonstrates the limitations of liberal antiracism: "white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color". The other authors in this review may not explicitly claim this, but as a result of their careers, class position, and how capitalism centers the voices of the well-off, well-to-do white progressives are ultimately the white people they spend the most time around. Fannie Lou Hamer these folks are not.
As a result of how white supremacy and capitalism have structured the lives and worlds of white progressives, who are generally more well off than their reactionary counterparts, rarely come into contact with people of color, unless those people of color also inhabit a similar class position. For example, something tells me the people of color that white Mefites are most close to aren't poor Yemenis terrified of bipartisan drone strikes/cluster bombs or poor homeless people of color in LA's Skid Row terrified of bipartisan policing.
"Radical relativity" is not at all radical if it just means treating your friends of color better. As someone who is that friend of color for a whole lot of white people, it's certainly appreciated! But liberals have not convinced me that it won't just settle into a new form of liberal triumphalism and complacency.
posted by Ouverture at 12:43 PM on August 31, 2020 [18 favorites]
Space Coyote, some of Sanders's followers harassed Oluo on social media for years, and after Warren left the race Oluo supported Sanders. Her discernment isn't in need of salt. Incidentally, Oluo's next book, due in December, is Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America; neither the political endorsement nor joking about gift-wrapped research data endeared her to those followers.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:49 PM on August 31, 2020 [12 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:49 PM on August 31, 2020 [12 favorites]
Yeah, 'gracious critique' is about right. The last two graf's sum up the thesis (the one jshttnbm just linked, along with this) :
And where are we at? Alongside decades of liberal institutional failures to clean up, we've got an above-average number of actual-fascists who need punching. But at the same time, we need new white people coming into the fight to not replicate the previous failures. And that requires education of one form or another, because the naive approach is exactly that Frail Savior phenomenon what we've seen fail over and over and over again. So we get reading lists!
And it turns out it's really easy to read books and do nothing, especially in the context of white fragility. Read some books, declare yourself woke, and never do another thing to fight racism! It's easy! So we get critiques of reading lists.
This isn't obviously a total failure, though. If every white person reads some books and shows up to their PTA with naive solutions, you're probably in an even worse spot. I think we need a combination of leadership who has really internalized this stuff, and worked past the known failure modes of white liberal antiracism. But we also need a large mass of others who recognize those failure modes, can call them out when they appear at the PTA, and (vitally!) can respond productively to being called out themselves.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:05 PM on August 31, 2020 [15 favorites]
"Antiracism’s historical entanglements and contemporary misadventures with liberalism are, to return to Jodi Melamed, “official antiracisms”—palatable, dematerialized forms of antiracism sanctioned by the state, capital, and elite institutions that crowd out radical antiracisms that refuse to disentangle racism from capitalism, patriarchy, and settler colonialism. Alarmingly, far too many critiques of the literature of white liberalism are willing to throw out antiracism itself in order to win a nihilistic woke war. In the end, multiple truths need to be articulated and held: “white fragility” is a satisfying term for an actually existing phenomenon; liberal antiracisms have never been enough; Black intellectual publics contain a multitude of perspectives; and white-majority left movements need radical relationality, now more than ever."We're in an interesting place historically, which I think the 'Nice White Parents' podcast illustrates well. [fanfare!] It's pretty obvious (cf, The New Jim Crow) that previous efforts to end white supremacy have just transformed it, and some of the most lasting+damaging transformations have been carried out by white liberals who were trying really hard to be helpful. How does that work? The combination of a white savior complex with white fragility can do a lot of damage: You get people who want to Do Something to fix race but who are afraid/unwilling to actually talk about race and thus fail to collaborate on solutions... And therefore the solutions end up benefitting the white benefactors more than the people they're supposedly helping. (This plays out in a dozen ways in Nice White Parents: Generations of overzealous parents starting programs to 'fix the school' without proper involvement of the BIPOC community, which end up almost exclusively benefiting white parents.)
And where are we at? Alongside decades of liberal institutional failures to clean up, we've got an above-average number of actual-fascists who need punching. But at the same time, we need new white people coming into the fight to not replicate the previous failures. And that requires education of one form or another, because the naive approach is exactly that Frail Savior phenomenon what we've seen fail over and over and over again. So we get reading lists!
And it turns out it's really easy to read books and do nothing, especially in the context of white fragility. Read some books, declare yourself woke, and never do another thing to fight racism! It's easy! So we get critiques of reading lists.
This isn't obviously a total failure, though. If every white person reads some books and shows up to their PTA with naive solutions, you're probably in an even worse spot. I think we need a combination of leadership who has really internalized this stuff, and worked past the known failure modes of white liberal antiracism. But we also need a large mass of others who recognize those failure modes, can call them out when they appear at the PTA, and (vitally!) can respond productively to being called out themselves.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:05 PM on August 31, 2020 [15 favorites]
Thanks for this post. I found it a thought-provoking comparison of the perspectives, goals, and drawbacks of the books most circulated now as addressing liberal colorblind racism and the white narrative of white innocence. I spent a couple of hours reading through it, and through Phrucksachart’s fascinatingly diverse assortment of embedded links, some of which were very useful to me.
As a white educator who teaches semester after semester of a large, intro-level social problems class to a student body that is mostly-Midwestern and 2/3 white, I have spent years seeking ways to better navigate the white fragility that presents a major barrier to my white students’ ability to learn about race, anti-Blackness, implicit bias, structural racism, the social construction of racial categories. . . really, anything beyond “KKK bad.” I appreciate every new tactic I encounter and can try adding to my pedagogy, because over the years, I’ve gained some efficacy at sidestepping triggers of fragile white resistance, and getting the materials I am presenting through—but it’s only a modest gain. And this review essay provided more food for thought, so again, thanks.
posted by DrMew at 1:06 PM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
As a white educator who teaches semester after semester of a large, intro-level social problems class to a student body that is mostly-Midwestern and 2/3 white, I have spent years seeking ways to better navigate the white fragility that presents a major barrier to my white students’ ability to learn about race, anti-Blackness, implicit bias, structural racism, the social construction of racial categories. . . really, anything beyond “KKK bad.” I appreciate every new tactic I encounter and can try adding to my pedagogy, because over the years, I’ve gained some efficacy at sidestepping triggers of fragile white resistance, and getting the materials I am presenting through—but it’s only a modest gain. And this review essay provided more food for thought, so again, thanks.
posted by DrMew at 1:06 PM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
more like a gracious critique than a straight-up defense
I thought it was mostly framed as a pushback against a perceived leftist dismissal of white liberal antiracism, but fair enough. I guess it depends on one's priors. If you come to the review broadly sympathetic to books like DiAngelo's, then maybe the gracious criticism of those books is what stands out; if instead you're sympathetic to the leftist critiques of DiAngelo, then maybe what stands out is the idea that the left has been too quick to write off what is of value in said literature.
posted by Beardman at 1:14 PM on August 31, 2020 [11 favorites]
I thought it was mostly framed as a pushback against a perceived leftist dismissal of white liberal antiracism, but fair enough. I guess it depends on one's priors. If you come to the review broadly sympathetic to books like DiAngelo's, then maybe the gracious criticism of those books is what stands out; if instead you're sympathetic to the leftist critiques of DiAngelo, then maybe what stands out is the idea that the left has been too quick to write off what is of value in said literature.
posted by Beardman at 1:14 PM on August 31, 2020 [11 favorites]
This article comes down on the side of individualism, individual action, and primacy of identity. It's a side to come down on, but it would be nice to just own it, acknowledge the other side, and put up a defense, or at least acknowledge that the extent of class-based leftist thought on race does not begin and end at, in the author's words:
> (“our editor is brown” or “I have a BIPOC friend/comrade,” etc.)
Of course, the author doesn't really engage with a class analysis. Not very dialectical on her part.
Individualistic struggle (and the politics of identity and individual perspective) vs. collective struggle (the idea that there can be any shared goal that can be strived for in common as groups of people). Should the left spend the rest of it's exitence in critique? or should it coallase around a set of principles and ideas that it can agree on, and fight for those principals? Has the critical lense brought us anything if in moments of possibility it can only demand more critique?
> These politicized forms of healing, justice, and transformation are unapologetically process-oriented, prefigurative, and de-accelerationist, uninterested in the erotic throb of “winning” that has undergirded mainstream millennial socialism
Well, there you go then. No point in organising to win, I guess it's not about winning anyway.
posted by durandal at 5:35 PM on August 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
> (“our editor is brown” or “I have a BIPOC friend/comrade,” etc.)
Of course, the author doesn't really engage with a class analysis. Not very dialectical on her part.
Individualistic struggle (and the politics of identity and individual perspective) vs. collective struggle (the idea that there can be any shared goal that can be strived for in common as groups of people). Should the left spend the rest of it's exitence in critique? or should it coallase around a set of principles and ideas that it can agree on, and fight for those principals? Has the critical lense brought us anything if in moments of possibility it can only demand more critique?
> These politicized forms of healing, justice, and transformation are unapologetically process-oriented, prefigurative, and de-accelerationist, uninterested in the erotic throb of “winning” that has undergirded mainstream millennial socialism
Well, there you go then. No point in organising to win, I guess it's not about winning anyway.
posted by durandal at 5:35 PM on August 31, 2020 [7 favorites]
I think it's pretty reasonable to suggest that white male leftists might do more winning if they stopped being such assholes about everything.
posted by medusa at 8:43 PM on August 31, 2020 [15 favorites]
posted by medusa at 8:43 PM on August 31, 2020 [15 favorites]
And thanks for this post, I loved the review and it's given me lots more to read.
posted by medusa at 8:44 PM on August 31, 2020
posted by medusa at 8:44 PM on August 31, 2020
As another leftist queer/PoC I find this ongoing left v.s. woke argumentation frustrating and bemusing. Most of the time I feel I can't be comfortable in either camp, like in a Venn diagram with barely a thin middle slice. It's been a process, and over time I've found important threads of thought, and I'll mentally include this piece as well, but nobody yet that has written a satisfactory account and analysis yet.
posted by polymodus at 9:37 PM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by polymodus at 9:37 PM on August 31, 2020 [5 favorites]
Mod note: One deleted. This isn't the thread for sarcastic one-liners.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:35 AM on September 1, 2020
posted by taz (staff) at 5:35 AM on September 1, 2020
I think it's pretty reasonable to suggest that white male leftists might do more winning if they stopped being such assholes about everything.
Is it? I don't think leftists of any color and gender are "losing" because their tone isn't meek and polite enough.
Instead, I assume the barrier to progress is instead due to the active and virulent resistance of capital, empire, and white supremacy.
posted by Ouverture at 6:39 AM on September 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
Is it? I don't think leftists of any color and gender are "losing" because their tone isn't meek and polite enough.
Instead, I assume the barrier to progress is instead due to the active and virulent resistance of capital, empire, and white supremacy.
posted by Ouverture at 6:39 AM on September 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
Hm, these interpretations of the article are not in line with my impression of the author's argument. I don't read her as suggesting that "it's not about winning," and certainly not that leftists aren't "meek and polite enough." She seems to me to be emphasizing the value of a relational politic that many leftists dismiss out of hand, while also acknowledging the limitations of antiracism as a self-improvement exercise. The article is long because it's taking care to present a nuanced reading of a complex subject, about which "multiple truths need to be articulated and held."
I also disagree that she's coming down on the side of individualist action. Rather it reads to me that she is supporting the individual work of white self-education, especially with regards to antiracism, as a first step to improve communication among groups working toward collective action.
Thanks for posting; I'm looking forward to diving into her many references.
posted by rabbitbookworm at 7:25 AM on September 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
I also disagree that she's coming down on the side of individualist action. Rather it reads to me that she is supporting the individual work of white self-education, especially with regards to antiracism, as a first step to improve communication among groups working toward collective action.
Thanks for posting; I'm looking forward to diving into her many references.
posted by rabbitbookworm at 7:25 AM on September 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
and certainly not that leftists aren't "meek and polite enough."
Apologies for the confusion; my response was to another commenter. I also thought the article captured a lot of important nuance in the last section, especially on the importance of relational politics in transforming how we think about justice and moving away from carceral systems.
A world with universal healthcare and housing *and* prisons is still a world with prisons.
But without changes in material conditions, the benefits of transformative justice and community accountability are significantly limited and tend to be disbursed to the people who already are relatively comfortable in their socioeconomic position.
posted by Ouverture at 7:51 AM on September 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
Apologies for the confusion; my response was to another commenter. I also thought the article captured a lot of important nuance in the last section, especially on the importance of relational politics in transforming how we think about justice and moving away from carceral systems.
A world with universal healthcare and housing *and* prisons is still a world with prisons.
But without changes in material conditions, the benefits of transformative justice and community accountability are significantly limited and tend to be disbursed to the people who already are relatively comfortable in their socioeconomic position.
posted by Ouverture at 7:51 AM on September 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
"Nihilistic Woke War" is the name of my new metal band.
Mostly this is a very good description of the literature that already exists and an exhortation to not throw the baby out with the bathwater in the search for more radical or structural solutions.
I think it's really interesting for the author to ask "where are the men?" and to point out that almost all of these self-improvement and biographical works, that attempt to raise empathy or consciousness or improve interpersonal relations so that other structural work can be done, are written by women with an audience of women in mind.
There's a quote from Angela Davis:
I think our notions of what counts as radical have changed over time. Self-care and healing and attention to the body and the spiritual dimension—all of this is now a part of radical social justice struggles. That wasn’t the case before. And I think that now we’re thinking deeply about the connection between interior life and what happens in the social world.
When I worked in a secondhand bookstore, I noticed a trend in the self-help books. Most of the self-help books directed towards men were about how to change the environment, and the reader's place within the environment. Most of the self-help books directed towards women were about how to affect change from within - in some cases, to learn to accept things that could not be changed.
(There are more antiracist K–12 educators than antiracist think tank economists, for example.)
I don't think any of these self-help or biographical or pedagogical books are about accepting things that can't be changed, at least. But I do think there's a tendency for works aimed at women to focus more on interiority and for works aimed at men to have a more external focus. And of course, education (which is what this is) is a project largely undertaken by women in our culture.
posted by subdee at 8:17 AM on September 1, 2020 [11 favorites]
Mostly this is a very good description of the literature that already exists and an exhortation to not throw the baby out with the bathwater in the search for more radical or structural solutions.
I think it's really interesting for the author to ask "where are the men?" and to point out that almost all of these self-improvement and biographical works, that attempt to raise empathy or consciousness or improve interpersonal relations so that other structural work can be done, are written by women with an audience of women in mind.
There's a quote from Angela Davis:
I think our notions of what counts as radical have changed over time. Self-care and healing and attention to the body and the spiritual dimension—all of this is now a part of radical social justice struggles. That wasn’t the case before. And I think that now we’re thinking deeply about the connection between interior life and what happens in the social world.
When I worked in a secondhand bookstore, I noticed a trend in the self-help books. Most of the self-help books directed towards men were about how to change the environment, and the reader's place within the environment. Most of the self-help books directed towards women were about how to affect change from within - in some cases, to learn to accept things that could not be changed.
(There are more antiracist K–12 educators than antiracist think tank economists, for example.)
I don't think any of these self-help or biographical or pedagogical books are about accepting things that can't be changed, at least. But I do think there's a tendency for works aimed at women to focus more on interiority and for works aimed at men to have a more external focus. And of course, education (which is what this is) is a project largely undertaken by women in our culture.
posted by subdee at 8:17 AM on September 1, 2020 [11 favorites]
Overall though this essay isn't an either-or, it describes how these books are necessary (but not sufficient).
The literature of white liberalism is obviously not a decolonial abolitionist literature. It succeeds by allowing the reading class to think about antiracism untethered from anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism... they mention, but don’t center, the powerful critiques of capitalism issued by Black and minoritized traditions...
Importing these books into college classrooms and HR retreats does little if the structure of the organization is not also called into question... Alternate spaces of affinity and trust that intentionally imagine outside of capitalism are necessary for radical antiracist work...
In the end, multiple truths need to be articulated and held: “white fragility” is a satisfying term for an actually existing phenomenon; liberal antiracisms have never been enough; Black intellectual publics contain a multitude of perspectives; and white-majority left movements need radical relationality, now more than ever.
Personally speaking, I work in a majority-minority public school where most of the admin and support staff are minority (teaching staff is mixed). The thing about "De-escalation skills, self-defense, community tribunals, accountability interventions, emergency response networks, and collective care" that the author talks about relying on outside of the capitalist institutions is that they actually work. They work to keep the students feeling cared for and to minimize or repair harmful interaction with staff, who might or might not have done all of this reading and might or might not be 'woke' or 'sensitive' to student needs... As an educator you can actually do harm by being too in your own head about this and lowering your expectations too much.
Anyway, thanks for sharing this article much food for though.
posted by subdee at 8:27 AM on September 1, 2020 [10 favorites]
The literature of white liberalism is obviously not a decolonial abolitionist literature. It succeeds by allowing the reading class to think about antiracism untethered from anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism... they mention, but don’t center, the powerful critiques of capitalism issued by Black and minoritized traditions...
Importing these books into college classrooms and HR retreats does little if the structure of the organization is not also called into question... Alternate spaces of affinity and trust that intentionally imagine outside of capitalism are necessary for radical antiracist work...
In the end, multiple truths need to be articulated and held: “white fragility” is a satisfying term for an actually existing phenomenon; liberal antiracisms have never been enough; Black intellectual publics contain a multitude of perspectives; and white-majority left movements need radical relationality, now more than ever.
Personally speaking, I work in a majority-minority public school where most of the admin and support staff are minority (teaching staff is mixed). The thing about "De-escalation skills, self-defense, community tribunals, accountability interventions, emergency response networks, and collective care" that the author talks about relying on outside of the capitalist institutions is that they actually work. They work to keep the students feeling cared for and to minimize or repair harmful interaction with staff, who might or might not have done all of this reading and might or might not be 'woke' or 'sensitive' to student needs... As an educator you can actually do harm by being too in your own head about this and lowering your expectations too much.
Anyway, thanks for sharing this article much food for though.
posted by subdee at 8:27 AM on September 1, 2020 [10 favorites]
Because Kendi opts instead for a strict racist/antiracist binary, his threshold for who is “racist” is fairly low: anyone not actively antiracist is racist.
I'm not really seeing a problem here. When oppression is the status quo there is no neutrality. We exist in a system of white supremacy, therefore if one is not actively opposing that system one is necessarily and unavoidably participating in it.
It's not possible for a person to just sit out the conflict between white supremacy and those who wish to end it. To sit it out is to side with white supremacy.
Any attempt at neutrality is simply soft support for white supremacy.
posted by sotonohito at 8:47 AM on September 1, 2020 [10 favorites]
I'm not really seeing a problem here. When oppression is the status quo there is no neutrality. We exist in a system of white supremacy, therefore if one is not actively opposing that system one is necessarily and unavoidably participating in it.
It's not possible for a person to just sit out the conflict between white supremacy and those who wish to end it. To sit it out is to side with white supremacy.
Any attempt at neutrality is simply soft support for white supremacy.
posted by sotonohito at 8:47 AM on September 1, 2020 [10 favorites]
This was a really complex read that made me re-examine some of my own thoughts and assumptions. Thanks for sharing it.
posted by mostly vowels at 5:20 PM on September 2, 2020
posted by mostly vowels at 5:20 PM on September 2, 2020
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posted by Panthalassa at 8:21 AM on August 31, 2020 [2 favorites]