That’s Why So Many White People Admire Your Writing
Whew! Is it April already?! I’ve been so caught up with new conversations recently that I only just realised I still hadn’t posted the follow up to this conversation from all the way back in January! My run-in with Mrs C generated a little controversy and a lot of great analysis, so let’s slather on some context.
In my article, The Racism Arms Race, I coined the term “mutually assured racism”, to describe the growing phenomenon of tit-for-tat racial violence and discrimination. I highlighted the fact that it won’t end well for anybody. Black or white.
Mrs C sees things a little differently.
Mrs C:
I’m not going to debate whether white people can experience racism (they can) or whether black people are capable of inflicting it (they are), because, in the end, it’s just a word game.
No. Black people cannot be racist, as they are not the ones who have the social license to affect other people's wellbeing. White people cannot be victims of racism unless they are killed or injured because they have been helping Black people, e.g., The Freedom Riders. There is no "Mutually Assured Racism," because only one group has the means to inflict it.
Steve QJ:
as they are not the ones who have the social license to affect other people's wellbeing
I swear, the fact that some black people buy into this black disempowerment narrative makes me so sad. Black people cannot affect other people's wellbeing? Do you hear yourself?
If you want to consider yourself inferior, there's sadly nothing I can do to help you. But leave other black people out of it. We are not as weak as you believe yourself to be. You're not that weak either of course. But you have to figure that out for yourself.
Mrs C:
What in the world makes you think I consider myself “inferior?” Based on the point of view of your writing, I believe you consider YOURSELF inferior. That’s why so many white people admire your writing. You’re making their argument for them. You fare as well as you can, hon. Shalom and Salaam.
“That’s why so many white people admire your writing.”
It’s tempting to describe comments like this as racist…I mean, they are racist, implying criticism of a white writer because black people follow their work wouldn’t pass the smell test.
But, as my earlier reply suggests, there’s also a deep sense of inferiority underlying these comments. Constantly defining oneself in opposition to another group is not a marker of healthy self-esteem. And while I might sound a little feisty above, it’s born purely out of my sadness and frustration at the climate, past and present, that makes her feelings a reality.
I’m constantly conscious when I speak with older black people, that the frames of reference that they built their more…extreme world-views around, make sense. And I’m extraordinarily grateful that because of the progress their generations made, they don’t make sense to me.
The very fact that Mrs C and I disagree so fundamentally is as clear a marker of progress as any I can think of.
Steve QJ:
That’s why so many white people admire your writing.
Ah, there it is. Of course, like everybody who makes this lazy, stupid "accusation", you ignore the black people who also follow my writing. You aren't pro-black, you're just pro-"black people who affirm your point of view."
That's easier to swallow from white racists, but from black people? It really sucks. And how the fact that white and black people appreciate my writing suggests that I consider myself inferior is a mystery I'll leave to you to try and justify.
But as for what makes me think you consider yourself inferior, one is the fact that you’re the same person who described the colour of our skin as "unfortunate" a few articles ago, and second, it’s the fact that here you claim that black people don't have the "social license" to affect the wellbeing of other (read: white) people.
If you don't see how this is a disempowerment narrative that you're telling yourself, I don't know what to tell you. But I'll say this; there is nothing that a white person has the power to do to me that I don't have the power to do right back. I don't exercise that power because I'm a decent human being. As are most people. But my kindness is not weakness.
Mrs C:
I bet you and John McWhorter are friends. If YOU don’t see the truth in what I’m saying, you don’t want to know, or you don’t want to acknowledge reality, that’s on you. I’m not a young’un. I’ve had more practice being a decent human being than you. Naivete is not MY weakness.
I get accused of all kinds of things in these conversations. Being a “wypipo ass-kisser,” a writer of “hate tracts”, even, believe it or not, a “naked drunken stumbler”! But I can usually comfort myself with the knowledge that these attempts at mind-reading are way off the mark.
So you can imagine how horrified I was to note that Mrs C. was right on the money; I bet John McWhorter and I would be friends.
Steve QJ:
I bet you and John McWhorter are friends
I've never met him. I'm betting you haven't either. But no, I don't see the truth in what you're saying. And from the bottom of my heart, if that's wrong, I don't want to be right. I don't want to believe that the colour of my skin is unfortunate. I don't want to believe that white people hold some magical power over me.
I also don't want to fight with you. I understand that you've been through things that I haven't. I understand that you've lived through levels of bigotry and racism that I, thanks to the struggle and sacrifice of your generation, haven't had to live through. But that's the point I'm really trying to make here. You guys did it. You won your battles. The world you grew up in isn't the world we live in today.
There's still work to be done. I'm the last person who would deny that. But it's different work. And some of the lenses you may have learned to look at the world through don't work as well today. Isn't the goal a world where no black person, ever again, even for one second, thinks of the colour of their skin as unfortunate??
Racism is a parasite. It burrows under people’s skin, lodges itself in their minds, and sadly, in some cases, it never leaves. The best we can hope for is that it isn’t passed on. So while what happened to previous generations isn’t right, and never will be, my focus is firmly on the future.
Just as the brave men and women of Mrs C’s generation made the path easier for me, I want to do what I can for the people of the next generation.
Because if our children and their children are still having conversations like this when they grow up, well…that would be truly unfortunate.
Steve, I see your perspective as more consistently focused on individual power and attitudes, for example as would strongly apply to an interaction between two people. Because of that consistency, it can be more logical - in assessing the individual ability to be racially discriminatory, it looks at individual power rather than shifting the focus to a different level.
Mrs C appears to me to confuse individual power with collective group power (ie: not logically consistent). If we posit that a majority population group usually has more collective power than a minority group in a society (especially in a democracy based on majority rule), does that mean that within an interaction between a member of the majority group and a member of the minority group, the former has more power? The concept she seems to believe is yes, because the overall society has their back, in turn because the majority group dominates the society.
Indeed, one can easily imagine that. Picture a white working class man in Georgia in 1947, and a black man of equal economic and class status. If they were to get into a fist fight, say, the white man might be more able to count on the authorities being substantially biased in his favor. Mrs C's experience (and/or the stories she heard when growing up which shaped her worldview) may may be conditioned on examples like that.
But in 2022, if two employees of different races were to get into a fracas, it's not clear that the company managers would be automatically biased towards the white employee (scenario 1); it could be relatively unbiased, judging based on the actual circumstances rather than assuming (scenario 2), or actually biased towards the non-white employee (scenario 3).
It's extremely hard to objectively know the statistical frequency of these three scenarios, so people mostly project whatever best reinforces their pre-existing world view, and dismiss the other scenarios as rare to non-existent. Certainly in general (with local exceptions), the white employee could not simply depend on expecting to receive unfair advantage today (which affects the power they have within the interaction - can't count on being covered so better not push things too much).
In other areas, the whole concept is very suspect. White voters comprise a numerical majority, so if the had a hive mind and voted as a block they would control all democratic political power. However, on political issues, white people are greatly divided and fragmented, such that any individual white person has no more voting power than an individual person of color.
However it's easy for the tribalized mind to (consciously or unconsciously) weave a narrative that white people DO control the democracy because they generally agree on what is in the self interest of white people and pass laws and policies to benefit them all as a group. To some degree this imagining comes from projecting their own individual and/or group identity, especially if their group is much closer to voting as a block based on their own perceived self interest, so it seems natural that other population groups are doing the same (this intuitive sense ignores the actual statistics). And to some degree this comes from the way their ideology encourages them to perceive and interpret the world, confusing individual actual power with group-level nominal collective power, as part of a narrative with which to "win" discussions and to seek power over others.
As you may notice, in this latter context, I find your approach more reasoned and generally more accurate. But I can understand the appeal and the payoffs of the hive-mind strategem.
There are aspect of understanding the real world where focusing on individuals has more intellectual traction, and there are aspects in which focusing on groups sheds more light. The trick is to really think about which is more salient for understanding (and potentially remedying) a given situation, rather than switching back and forth more as a argumentation ploy. I think neo-progressives are too often caught up in the latter, often quite unconsciously.
One of the reasons I read your work is your ability to look more clearly at such issues (in my opinion obviously).
I despair for Mrs C. People who suffered incredibly from the terrible stain that mars our shared history. People who view the legitimate progress made as some sort of vicious trick they must be on guard against, and treat the next generation of thinkers like you as hopelessly naive and some kind of sellout to the oppressor.
The wound may never heal. I think that has to be accepted as a cost to the way generations were treated. Yet where does that lead us? All too often to racialized battlefields where the sneers of hate are the only forms of currency.
I don’t want to live in a world that refuses to see the goodness in another heart because of the outside layer that wraps it.
Keep going Steve - people of good will believe in you and your message.