The Business Of Spreading Racism
I suspect current "progressive" thinking on racism and the white shaming and white self-loathing that comes out of it is doing more to set back racial harmony than neo-Nazis and the rest of the "white power" hate crew.
I'm not alone in thinking this.
Jonathan Chait writes at NYMag about Robin DiAngelo, whose book White Fragility recently topped the New York Times best-seller list:
Daniel Bergner has a long profile of DiAngelo and her fellow anti-racism trainers in the New York Times. The story is far more devastating than it might appear at a casual glance. It reveals a business model spreading kooky, harmful, and outright racist ideas.The anti-racism consulting industry does deserve both some sympathy and some credit. Its intention, to prod white Americans into more awareness of their own racism, is beneficent. And their premise that white people are often unaware of the degree to which racial privilege has enabled their success, which they can mistakenly attribute entirely to merit and effort, is correct. American society is shot through with multiple overlapping systems of racial bias -- from exposure to harmful pollution to biased policing to unequal access to education to employment discrimination -- that in combination sustain massive systemic inequality.
But the anti-racism trainers go beyond denying the myth of meritocracy to denying the role of individual merit altogether. Indeed, their teaching presents individuals as a racist myth. In their model, the individual is subsumed completely into racial identity.
One of DiAngelo's favorite examples is instructive. She uses the famous story of Jackie Robinson. Rather than say "he broke through the color line," she instructs people instead to describe him as "Jackie Robinson, the first Black man whites allowed to play major-league baseball."
It is true, of course, that Robinson was not the first Black man who was good enough at baseball to make a major-league roster. The Brooklyn Dodgers decided, out of a combination of idealism and self-interest, to violate the norm against signing Black players. And Robinson was chosen due to a combination of his skill and extraordinary personality that allowed him to withstand the backlash in store for the first Black major leaguer. It is not an accident that DiAngelo changes the story to eliminate Robinson's agency and obscure his heroic qualities. It's the point. Her program treats individual merit as a myth to be debunked. Even a figure as remarkable as Robinson is reduced to a mere pawn of systemic oppression.
An integral part of DiAngelo's shaming of white people (for her own status and profit) is the de-agency-ing of black people.
As Chait explains about DiAngelo and those in her "industry" (and it is an industry), "In some cases its ideas literally replicate anti-Black racism." He references a poster from the . The African-American History Museum that I posted here the other day, and describes some of its content:
White" values include things like "objective, rational thinking"; "cause and effect relationships"; "hard work is the key to success"; "plan for the future"; and "delayed gratification." The source for this chart is another, less-artistic chart written by Judith Katz in 1990. Katz has a doctorate in education and moved into the corporate consulting world in 1985, where, according to her résumé, she has "led many transformational change initiatives." It is not clear what in Katz's field of study allowed her to establish such sweeping conclusions about the innate culture of white people versus other groups.One way to think through these cultural generalizations is to measure them against its most prominent avatar for racial conflict, Donald Trump. How closely does he reflect so-called white values? The president hardly even pretends to believe that "hard work" is the key to success. The Trump version of his alleged success is that he's a genius who improvises his way to brilliant deals. The realistic version is that he's a lazy heir who inherited and cheated his way to riches, and spends most of his time watching television. Trump is likewise incapable of delayed gratification, planning for the future, and regards "objective rational thinking" with distrust. On the other hand, Barack Obama is deeply devoted to all those values.
And I think Chait is right:
It's easy enough to see why executives and school administrators look around at a country exploding in righteous indignation at racism, and see the class of consultants selling their program of mystical healing as something that looks vaguely like a solution. But one day DiAngelo's legions of customers will look back with embarrassment at the time when a moment of awakening to the depth of American racism drove them to embrace something very much like racism itself.
Oh Lord! Did Chait really need to go into gratuitous political gibberish? On the qualities mentioned there is little difference between Trump and Obama. Both are wealthy heirs. I would guess Trump has actually worked harder than Obama, but lets be honest as people who inherited great wealth I don't get the feeling either is a terribly hard worker. Delayed gratification? Mr I've got a pen and a phone wasn't a great example there.
The point he was trying to make is only damaged by inserting unrelated political tribal boilerplate. No wonder the final paragraph Amy quoted is such nonsense.
Ben at July 18, 2020 6:01 AM
Obama mouthed all sorts of platitudes about *hard work* which the press dutifully repeated for him.
I’ve yet to see any evidence of it, in Obama’s entire career.
That said, I don’t particularly care about a president’s work ethic. I care more about his policies, both economic, and constitutional.
I would also prefer one not in the pocket of the PRC.
Quick poll. How many gentle readers here are voting for Biden, because you think he is more industrious than Trump?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Isab at July 18, 2020 7:03 AM
Collectivism always subsumes the individual into a group identity. This is true whether that collectivism comes wearing the guise of fascism, communism, socialism, democratic socialism, national socialism, or a cult.
Um, how so? His extensive use of executive orders and administrative agencies to accomplish much of his agenda left it vulnerable to the whims of the next president with "a pen and a phone."
Obama watched as Congress rammed through Obamacare without a single Republican vote - thus ensuring that once the Republicans had the votes, the policy would be challenged.
Obama bought the Democratic Party con job - that they, and they alone, passed Social Security and the 1964 Civil Rights Bill; that they, and they alone, care about minorities, the elderly, the middle class, and the working class. If you study what actually happened, you find Republican fingerprints all over those aforementioned bills.
As president, Dwight Eisenhower wanted to rescind Social Security, but would have had to cross members of his own party, ones who had voted in favor of it, to do so. He didn't have the votes since FDR had wisely brought both parties in on creating it. So, he left it intact. That's how you ensure a bill will last a change in majority party, get a big percentage of the minority party to vote yea on your bill.
The 1964 Civil Rights Bill was dead in committee in the Senate - tied up there by a Mississippi Democrat using a procedural loophole. Everett Dirksen (R-IL) and Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) joined together and introduced a similar bill directly to the Senate floor. Dirksen wrangled the Republican votes and Humphrey the Democratic ones. The new bill passed the Senate with a bigger percentage of Republican votes than Democratic ones, was reconciled with the House bill, and signed by the president.
Obama, had he been the long-term thinker Chiat claims he was, would have understood the importance of getting both parties on board for a major bill. Obama, the partisan Democrat, did not.
Obama was many things Trump is not: a good husband, an involved father, a snappy dresser, a good orator, thin, etc. But neither is what the average denizen of the middle or working classes might call a "hard worker."
Neither Trump nor Obama have released college transcripts to show what hard workers they were in college. We only get stories of how nerdy Obama focused on academics, not actual transcripts. Trump tells us he's a genius, but offers no test scores, grades, or even a Mensa membership to prove it.
Obama chose jobs that did not require hard work - community organizer, college lecturer, Senator. As a college lecturer, Obama never tried for tenure, forgoing the work and activities that would have helped him get it. A biographer even noted that Michelle was fast becoming frustrated by her husband's lack of an anchored position, his drifting and lack of commitment to a career.
Trump inherited a family business with his name on it and prizes personal loyalty over business acumen in his immediate subordinates, a habit that is costing him today as his subordinates' ethical and performance lapses cannot withstand the scrutiny of a hostile press.
Obama relied on his charisma and Trump on his inherited wealth and manufactured reputation. Both were/are reliant on populism for political support. They're more alike than they or their supporters would care to admit.
Both men like their leisure time and prefer to leave the detail work to subordinates, calling themselves a "big picture guys." As president, neither worked the phones to shepherd a bill through Congress or to build alliances across party lines, the way GW Bush did. Neither buried himself in the minutiae of policy, as Bill Clinton was famous for doing.
Conan the Grammarian at July 18, 2020 7:43 AM
Robinson was not the first black man to play in the major leagues. 63 years before Robinson took the field, Moses Fleetwood Walker played one season for the Syracuse Stars. His brother also played in the majors.
Several black men played major league ball in the early days. White managers and players who objected to having black teammates managed to segregate baseball's major leagues and eventually, the minor ones, too.
Robinson was chosen because of his baseball skills, which were considerable, a fact that often gets lost in the story of him being the first black man to play in the then white-only leagues.
As for temperament, people mistakenly think he was non-confrontational. Robinson was court-martialed in the Army for refusing to move to the back of the bus while at Camp Hood in Texas.
His commanding officer, a white man, had originally refused to court martial him. So, Robinson was transferred to another unit whose commanding officer was willing to file charges. His original CO stayed behind to testify in Robinson's defense while the original unit deployed to Europe. Robinson, a lieutenant, was cleared of insubordination in refusing the orders of the bus drive, a sergeant.
Because of being transferred to another unit, Robinson missed his opportunity to join his original unit, the 761st Armored Battalion, in being the first African-American tank unit to fight in Europe in World War II - under George S. Patton.
He would later get another chance to make his mark on the civil rights movement.
Conan the Grammarian at July 18, 2020 8:47 AM
I call BS on this very premise. It is a vicious lie. Real non-racism consists ONLY in wanting society and all its institutions to be color-blind.
Today's intersectionality movement is the very definition of racism: the notion that merit comes from who your ancestors were, not what you do.
Worse still than racism is to disapprove of the values in this paragraph:
Oppose those things and you oppose everything that has made America better off than Africa. If you really feel that way, you should move there.
jdgalt at July 18, 2020 9:25 AM
Chait is very wrong about how deeply racist America is. It has never been less racist, at least until the recent riots. There have never been so many inter-racial marriages. It hardly even raises an eyebrow anymore. All sorts of immigrant minorities have a higher mean income than whites, even Nigerians. I have middle class black friends (who made more $ than me) who joke about the occasional bigot they run into. Not weeping.
The problems of the black inner city are
1) welfare which breaks up families
2) reluctance to move out of bad areas
3) gangs
4) no books in the home and no interest in reading to their kids
5) democrat-controlled crappy schools
6) the loss of industries (steel, auto) near the inner city where blacks used to work
Racism is not even on the list but it is the go-to answer to every problem from progs.
That it is a scam is indicated by the fact that a white person cannot prove he/she is not racist and no solution can be offered to the protesters that would satisfy them.
cc at July 18, 2020 1:03 PM
"to prod white Americans into more awareness of their own racism."
and that kind of statement is one of the reasons those who are "working" to end racism will always fail - you don't enlist help from people by insulting them.
Charles at July 18, 2020 4:34 PM
How are poor people supposed to move out of bad areas?! Good areas are expensive.
NicoleK at July 19, 2020 1:01 PM
How are poor people supposed to move out of bad areas?! Good areas are expensive.
NicoleK at July 19, 2020 1:01 PM
I think you are confusing cause and effect here Nikole.
However I live in a place where there really aren’t any bad areas, and nothing is terribly expensive. A rural area and knowing your neighbors, allows for that.
Isab at July 21, 2020 7:37 AM
Define 'good'. There are lots of perfectly safe areas people can live in that aren't expensive. There are also lots of poor people who live in very expensive areas. They just don't get much for what they spend.
Ben at July 21, 2020 12:55 PM
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