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| Tim LaHaye on humanism |
“You know, you and I probably disagree on just about everything when it comes to religion,” I said, “but I'm glad you're selling these books. I'm glad you live in a free country where you can do whatever the hell you want.” He laughed, warmed up, and genuinely thanked me. Like Jesus said*, “Don't beat ’em with brutality. Baffle ’em with beneficence!”
*I’m paraphrasing.
McGhee leads with the story of Hinton Rowan Helper, an antebellum Southerner who wrote about how the slave economy hurt the South rather than helping it. He pointed out, for example, that the North had many more schools than the South. In zero-sum thinking, the labor that white Southerners took from enslaved Africans should have made the South rich. For Helper, however, the statistics plainly showed that the North’s capitalist society was outpacing the South, with its medieval social structure and land-focused economy.
The plantation society of the South represented an intentional attempt by the elites to recapture the lost glory of the Middle Ages, especially as romanticized in Ivanhoe, by Walter Scott. The point of a plantation was not merely to make a profit off of stolen labor but also to establish the owners as lords, with the same power of life and death over their slaves as medieval lords had over their peasants. Rather than using their profits to invest in capital or education, southern “lords” expended their wealth on cotillions and gambling. In contrast to the feudal slavery of the southern states, capitalist slavery is perhaps best represented by Caribbean sugar plantations, whose owners were in London or Paris.
McGhee uses real-world, historical examples to show that racism hurts the whole society. McGhee’s iconic image representing the society-wide cost of racism is the filled-in public swimming pool. Municipal swimming pools were once a symbol of American civic pride. After the federal government ruled that even bigoted cities in the South have to provide equal access to African American swimmers, many of these cities filled their pools in rather than see whites and Blacks swimming together as equals. McGhee also offers the example of sub-prime loans. African Americans might have been disproportionately channeled to predatory loans, but all of America was hurt when the home loan industry collapsed.
It’s easy to think of other examples. Mass incarceration disproportionately affects African Americans, but it’s also a drain on the whole society. Poor schooling disproportionately affects African Americans, but society as a whole loses out if kids don’t reach their potential.
McGhee’s book offers a welcome perspective. It reminds me of Kendi when he points out policies that would be good for white Americans and even better for African Americans. Feminists have long said that ending the patriarchy would be good not just for women but also for men. Maybe now we’ll hear more people talking about how ending racism would be good for white people, too.
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| starting a fire is magical |
In the latest fire, we had a chair to burn. Chairs are always welcome, as the first big item I purged many years ago was a dilapidated chair. Of special note this time was an original portrait provided by an old friend of mine. It was a portrait of her ex-boyfriend, and he had given it to her as a gift after breaking her heart. Into the fire with it! I contributed a bird nest, a literal empty nest to mark this part of my life now that my daughter has bought a home in Pasadena. It was fun to point out to other at the party-goers what the baby birds had left in the empty nest: crap. What a metaphor. Other party goers, young and old, wrote notes on paper and consigned them to the fire. Usually these notes document the negative things that people want to purge or have purged. They can also be love notes to the universe or whatever you want. For one party years ago, the theme was beautifying the world by burning ugly things, and ugly things are always a good addition to the fire. One friend brings old checks to burn, although I don’t know if he still uses checks. A couple I know burned stacks of old documents related to an online controversy that they had been embroiled in. Sometimes what gets burned is something well-loved but worn out, something too beloved to throw into a landfill but no longer worth keeping.
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| big fires not allowed this year |
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| Rev William Barber II |
In sociology class, we were taught to call it “institutional racism”, but I no longer use that term. Alternatively, this sort of racism is sometimes described as systemic or structural, but I don’t use those terms either. Different people use these terms in different ways, so I never know what someone means when they use one of them. Sometimes they mean what I’m getting at here: racism that operates in the absence of bias. Sometimes they mean the opposite: racism that operates through bias that is systemic, structural, or institutional. The term “meritocratic racism” has some promise since it’s the meritocracy that primarily perpetuates inequality from one generation to the next, but its meaning isn’t obvious. I hope that the phrase “race-blind racism” is clear enough that people know what I mean.
Ibram Kendi gives an example of race-blind racism when he cites climate change as racist. Climate change is already hitting non-whites around the world harder than it hits whites, a sort of racism that rolls out without anyone directing it to roll out that way. Meanwhile, our carbon-fueled economy brings in profits to Texas oilmen, Norwegians, Dutch, Arabs, and Persians—all of whom are “white” under US law. Fighting climate change is anti-racist regardless of people’s feelings. (It’s no coincidence that I’m the co-chair of my church’s climate action team.)
Another example from Kendi is health insurance. Our current system is an example of race-blind racism. It disproportionately disadvantages African Americans even if you can’t find reference to race anywhere in the regulations or insurance policies. Expanding health coverage is effectively anti-racist, and I’m all for it. (Unitarian-Universalists recently passed a resolution in favor or universal healthcare coverage.)
Kendi echoes King in saying that antiracists should focus on changing policy over changing hearts. Policy, not feelings, is where race-blind racism operates. Let’s hope that Kendi’s many readers take him seriously.
A key driver of race-blind racism is the way that resources and advantages are largely heritable from one generation to the next. For both white and Black Americans, the primary factor that determines one’s socio-economic status is the SES into which one is born. As long as the previous generation of Americans had a racial divide in terms of resources, the next generation will perpetuate that divide. Here you can consider “resources” in the broadest terms, not just money but also education, neighborhood, family stability, personal security, etc. Progressive taxation of income is one way that the system pushes in the opposite direction, but it’s not much of a push. Tax wealth, I say, but that’s another post.
One place where educators are pushing back against race-blind racism is in the educational meritocracy. Educational resources are routinely restricted by “merit”, such as admission to universities being contingent on academic achievement. Since white and Asian kids tend to do better on academic achievement than African American kids, gatekeeping by achievement disproportionately hurts African Americans. Higher educational institutions respond by lowering standards for African American candidates and often by raising them for East Asians. This policy has some antiracist effect but doesn’t come close to generating equal outcomes. Some schools are questioning the very idea of meritocracy. Gifted programs disproportionately help white and Asian kids because those are the kids that more often qualify for them. Eliminating gifted programs works against race-blind racism by taking a benefit away from white and Asian kids. The NAACP’s Youth Council, for example, demands that Seattle schools dismantle their “Highly Capable Cohort” program, and the school board has recently started this process. Likewise, Lowell High School in San Francisco is switching from admission based on achievement to a lottery system. The student population has been 60% Asian and only 2% Black, and the lottery will change that. In general, any education program that benefits higher achieving students disproportionately disadvantages African American students. (Personally, I see value in education programs for highly capable students, but I’ve been wrong before.)
After Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr saw the civil rights movement succeed, he pivoted to fight poverty. Within six months, he was assassinated. King knew that freedom to compete doesn’t help much when the race-blind meritocracy benefits those who are born into privilege and leaves out those who are born into poverty. His plan was a massive program to redistribute wealth, including a guaranteed minimum income for people of any race. All anti-poverty and pro-safety-net policies are antiracist.
Personal bias certainly also plays a role in racial disparities, but it’s pretty common for people to overstate its role, as if race-blind racism isn’t a factor. Race-blind racism works by driving higher rates of dysfunction in poor communities and then letting the meritocracy play out. If poor kids show up to kindergarten already behind rich kids in reading and math, the meritocracy rewards the rich kids over the poor kids. Those poor kids, of course, are disproportionately African American. Structural issues that exacerbate racial disparities, such as higher levels of lead in inner city environments, are hard to get excited about. It’s easy to get excited about bias. When King switched from fighting racial discrimination to fighting poverty, he caught flak from his supporters, and no one picked up King’s campaign after he was murdered. Maybe only a leader of his stature had the potential to change the movement’s direction. Fifty years later, Rev William Barber II picked up the banner of the Poor People’s Campaign, and I’m hoping for the best.
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| Good times, 2015 |
The implicit message of the gay-marriage campaign was that our institutions are good, and that everyone should have the right to be part of them. Marriage is a good thing, they said. Most voters are married, and the gay-marriage campaign validated married life. It was a positive message about love and commitment. Who doesn’t like a rainbow?
If your political opponents are associated with happy things like rainbows and parades, you’ve lost. Opponents of gay marriage came across like haters, which is not only accurate but also politically convenient for liberals like me. I’m hoping that legalizing weed can be another feel-good campaign for liberals, and I think it’s about time, but that’s another story.
Meanwhile, the proponents of marriage equality did not ask heteroes to confess their hetero privilege. The leaders did not have their eyes on dismantling western civilization. Smashing hetero supremacy was not on the agenda.
In terms of human history, gay-marriage advocates accomplished something remarkable. In societies all across the globe, strict gender roles have been the norm. Gender-nonconforming people were generally expected to take on a different gender role rather than transgress the boundaries of the gender role that they were born into. Modern liberal society, in the other hand, is remarkable for how loose gender roles are, relative to the rest of history. Same-sex marriage seems fine to kids born into our society, but it was unthinkable for our ancestors except perhaps the last few. In terms of being something new under the sun, same-sex marriage really is.
Sixteen years is a short amount of time for such a momentous change. The gay-marriage campaign was a big success, and it was part of a successful movement across the globe. When it comes to social justice, I like approaches that work, and that’s why I’m a liberal. Maybe we can learn from what’s worked and do more of it.
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| apocalyptic science fiction for children, 1976 |
Anyway, that’s how it looked in the mid-70s when I was 11 years old. So today when people tell me much the same narrative, I can empathize.
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| a daring work |
For years it has puzzled me why so many social justice messages fail to include a call to action. The documentary 13th has no call to action. The book Caste is the same way. Signs at the MLK march tend to express feelings but not plans or next steps. Activists have told me that it would be “white privilege” if they made practical plans to fight racism. Thomas Sowell suggests that movement leaders focus on feelings rather than on plans because that’s the less risky approach. If you don’t attempt anything, you can’t fail.
A good deal of demonstrations seem meant to declare or promote general support for a movement. Some activists explicitly describe their job as building participation in “Movement” until the population reaches a tipping point. Sometimes this tipping point is pegged at 3.5%, a figure derived from a study that confirmed the value of mass movements of nonviolent protest. For these activists, there’s little point to pursuing electoral victories? Until the population reaches its tipping point (the story goes), electoral efforts are going to be ineffective, and after the tipping point they’ll be a breeze. In Kendi’s formulation, the people marching on MLK Day are merely demonstrating, not really protesting. Until they have changed policy, they don’t even deserve the term “activist”, at least not in Kendi’s perspective.
Some of the feelings-first rhetoric on the radical left appeals to the New Age imagination. We are enjoined to wake up, heed a new vision of humanity, embrace the spirit of abundance, dismantle civilization, and create a new society founded on equity. It’s sometimes called the Great Turning. Here the focus is on confession, repentance, and zeal rather than policy change. New-Age “visualization” makes an appearance here as “re-imagining” society.
Feelings-oriented antiracist rhetoric also appeals to some people because it tells them what they want to hear. The implicit message is, “Your personal feelings are super important.” Plenty of would-be activists respond warmly to the idea that the work they’re called to do amounts to reading, self-help, introspection, and being emotionally moved.
Kendi, however, calls all this feelings-oriented work into question. To back up his challenge, he cites Martin Luther King, Jr. Activists these days have a love-hate relationship with King. They love to quote him when he agrees with them, such as when he said that riots are the language of the unheard, but they hate it when he gets quoted against them, such as when he condemns riots as self-defeating. In Kendi’s case, he criticizes activists for failing to heed King’s message that it is wise to focus on changing policy rather than on changing hearts. Changes in heart, King said, will follow changes in policy. With 50 years of hindsight, Kendi backs up King’s claim with historical evidence. For example, the Supreme Court ruled that interracial marriages are legal in 1967, which was followed by a steady rise in support for such marriages. If King and Kendi both agree that policy change should come first, who will say otherwise?
If we accept Kendi’s message, what sort of policy change would be considered antiracist? Kendi defines antiracism as anything that improves racial equality, regardless of intent. In that view, any policy that helps Americans who are less well off is, by default, antiracist because it disproportionately helps African Americans. Fixing health insurance, Kendi says, would be antiracist. A do-nothing climate policy, on the other hand, is a racist climate policy. Kendi’s reference to policies that help the poor reminds me of King’s Poor People’s Campaign, now given new life by Rev William Barber II.
How much influence will Kendi’s dissenting take on activism have on social justice movements in the US? To date, I haven’t heard much discussion in social justice circles about Kendi’s challenge to feelings-first rhetoric, but maybe there’s dialog taking place behind the scenes. I’d love to see more focus on policy change because I agree with King and Kendi that it’s more effective. Is it wishful thinking to expect that Kendi’s book will really make a difference?
