The Allure Of Victim Mentality
Shelby Steele has a piece in the WSJ on "the inauthenticity of Black Lives Matter," and how "insisting on the prevalence of 'systemic racism' is a way of defending a victim-focused racial identity."
Though there are what seem to be immediate benefits for both blacks and whites in that, it's ultimately pernicious for all of us -- and especially so for black people.
Steele opens his piece with an observation that black legislators who spoke at this year's Republican National Convention spoke as people, not as spokespeople for their "color."
He believes this is a reflection of a "new racial order" emerging. However, "to better see the new, it is necessary to know the old," he observes.
In the old order, both blacks and white "need blacks to be victims," Steele writes:
Whites need blacks they can save to prove their innocence of racism. Blacks must put themselves forward as victims the better to make their case for entitlements.This is a corruption because it makes black suffering into a moral power to be wielded, rather than a condition to be overcome. This is the power that blacks discovered in the '60s. It gained us a War on Poverty, affirmative action, school busing, public housing and so on. But it also seduced us into turning our identity into a virtual cult of victimization--as if our persecution was our eternal flame, the deepest truth of who we are, a tragic fate we trade on. After all, in an indifferent world, it may feel better to be the victim of a great historical injustice than a person left out of history when that injustice recedes.
Yet there is an elephant in the room. It is simply that we blacks aren't much victimized any more. Today we are free to build a life that won't be stunted by racial persecution. Today we are far more likely to encounter racial preferences than racial discrimination. Moreover, we live in a society that generally shows us goodwill--a society that has isolated racism as its most unforgivable sin.
This lack of victimization amounts to an "absence of malice" that profoundly threatens the victim-focused black identity. Who are we without the malice of racism? Can we be black without being victims? The great diminishment (not eradication) of racism since the '60s means that our victim-focused identity has become an anachronism. Well suited for the past, it strains for relevance in the present.
Thus, for many blacks today--especially the young--there is a feeling of inauthenticity, that one is only thinly black because one isn't racially persecuted. "Systemic racism" is a term that tries to recover authenticity for a less and less convincing black identity. This racism is really more compensatory than systemic. It was invented to make up for the increasing absence of the real thing.
...I doubt that any of the black speakers at the RNC would argue that racism has vanished from American life. What makes them harbingers of a new racial order is that they unpair victimization from identity. Victimization may be an experience we endure, but it should never be an identity that defines us. They all spoke as American citizens in a spirit of citizenship.
This is the great challenge that always awaits the oppressed after freedom is achieved. If only out of loyalty to our past (all this suffering has to mean something), we will feel compelled to make victimization the centerpiece of our identity today. This will seem the authentic and honorable thing to do. But it will only further invest us in precisely the fruitless tangle of identity and woundedness that mires us in the past. We should never deny the past, but it should only inform and inspire.
In the end, only one achievement will turn us from the old victim-focused racial order toward a new, nonracial order: the full and unqualified acceptance of our freedom. We don't have to fight for freedom so much any more. We have to do something more difficult--fully accept that we are free.
In his newest documentary, What Killed Michael Brown, Steele argues that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was for the benefit of white people, not black people. It allowed white people to acknowledge past racism and then put a Band-Aid on the wound with poverty relief programs and affirmative action; they got to keep their supposed moral superiority.
In the bargain, Steele argues, black people traded their autonomy and freedom for security. As the song goes, "every form of refuge has its price."
Now, to keep that security, sparse as it may be, black people must remain helpless victims.
Freedom, true freedom, means the freedom to fail; and the responsibility to bear that failure and to learn from it.
Conan the Grammarian at November 23, 2020 8:23 AM
Nothing serves to affirm Steele's point more than Binden's assertion that "You ain't black if you don't vote for me!"
If that isn't blatant racism, I don't know what is. Nor can it be characterized as "benevolent" in any sense. The Massa' done come to save the poor blacks -- so long as they stay on the Democrat plantation of submissive dependence.
Jay R at November 23, 2020 9:35 AM
Life is a struggle for absolutely everyone. Having "systemic racism" as a "reason" for your problems excuses you from overcoming. In college I had terrible study habits at first. Being white, I had no one to blame so I had to face this fact. No one was trying to flunk me, I was doing that all on my own.
Consider athletes: we envy them. Yet they suffer from injuries, pressure to perform, problems with their girlfriends, drug/alcohol temptation, and managers that steal from them. A very good-looking person may think that people only love her for her boobs (and she might be right). You do not get through life without difficulties but having an excuse is not helpful.
cc at November 23, 2020 1:09 PM
I think my favorite phrase to address this type of white moral superiority is “virtue signaling”. It’s been around a while
I think but only just heard it about six months ago. It’s hard to tell if they are sincere or it’s just all about them. I’m betting on the latter.
Feebie at November 23, 2020 2:47 PM
For people who think there's no (systemic) racism,
then if I had a magic wand, you wouldn't mind if
I wave it and instantly make you black? After
all, if there's no racism, then your skin color
would make no difference, so what would you care?
Get real. America is a deeply racist country.
So many of the comments on this blog are just
twisted mental contortions trying to deny that
reality. Now in the wake of the George Floyd
murder, the pendulum is swinging a tiny bit
the other way, and my, my -- just listen to
howls of outrage! If you were honest, you could
admit it's your fear of losing your white
privilege that you're complaining about, that
you might be somehow disadvantaged through no
fault of your own.
In other words, what people of color have to
deal with 24x7.
Get Real at November 23, 2020 11:42 PM
We have people in the US getting outed for pretending to be black. Not only not caring about being black they go well out of their way to try to become black. So wave your magic want Get Real. There are a lot of people who would thank you for using it.
Ben at November 24, 2020 7:52 AM
"In other words, what people of color have to
deal with 24x7."
I weep for President Obama, Denzel Washington, the millionaires of the NBA and NFL, the black doctors, black lawyers, black business owners, black musicians, black artists, black scholars, black teachers, black professors, black government employees, black military leaders, and all the other successful black people - many of whom have been lifted up by schools, programs, and organizations entirely dedicated to black - and only black - people's success.
You're surrounded by successful black people and you can't acknowledge their success. That's just dumb.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at November 24, 2020 10:38 AM
“For people who think there's no (systemic) racism,
then if I had a magic wand, you wouldn't mind if
I wave it and instantly make you black? After
all, if there's no racism, then your skin color
would make no difference, so what would you care?”
If your magic wand left me with black skin, and my LSAT scores, woohoo ...Ivy League, here I come.
But while you are at it, I really want to be 35 years younger.....
Isab at November 24, 2020 11:24 AM
Heh. "Get Real" says, "If you were honest."
Here's honesty for you: over 93% of blacks murdered were killed by other blacks. If I stay away from thugs, I get preferential treatment in EVERY industry.
And the kicker?
Every successful black person in this country ignored people like you and went after it.
They never needed your help. I bet that's maddening.
Radwaste at November 24, 2020 12:21 PM
Get real, Get Real.
As a group, American blacks would comprise the 18th wealthiest nation in the world. They live in a country which sacrificed hundreds of thousands of white lives to abolish slavery, and which has spent an amount approximately equal to the national debt fighting the "War on Poverty" mostly for the benefit of blacks. Our nation outlawed racial discrimination, even to the point of prohibiting "disparate impact" from otherwise neutral programs. We elected a black President -- twice. A black woman is about to become the Vice President.
Stop your racialist sniveling for a moment, and tell us what black-majority country in which American blacks would prefer to live. They are free to emigrate, if they wish.
If America is "systemically racist," then why is it that East Asians, South Asians, and black Nigerian immigrants have higher incomes than those of the average white American?
Sorry, but your pathetic attempt to generate "white guilt" from unsupported assertions of "white privilege" just doesn't work any more. Your defeatist attitude is, more than anything, the reason why some blacks give up before they even try. Is it your intent to increase "learned helplessness" in the black population? It certainly appears that way.
So, STFU. And I say that with all due affection ...
Jay R at November 24, 2020 3:19 PM
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