Ibram Kendi is not Robin DiAngelo

 DiAngelo's Approach is Conservative

White people in America often confront racism in a conservative way by treating the confrontation as an occasion for personal growth rather than social conflict. One source of this attitude is Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility, which I have argued is a profoundly conservative book because it leads its readers to treat racism as a private sin rather than a social issue just as popular, Protestantism has frequently done. I said,

Protestant Christianity generally focuses on salvation from sin through faith in Jesus Christ, but what is sin?  We can divide sins into two categories. There are public sins like oppression of the poor or corruption in public business, and there are private sins like fornication, gambling or drinking. American Protestantism has recognized both, but popular Protestant religiosity has focused much more on private sin than on public sin. Those like the 19^th century abolitionists who have insisted on social justice have faced widespread opposition from religious groups. 

 

The focus on private sin encourages individuals to work for personal development, self-understanding, psychological growth and repentance rather than to engage in social action, and White Fragility fits neatly into this tradition.  Just as Protestantism insists that sin is the inescapable condition of mankind, so White Fragility insists that racism is the inescapable condition of our society. Just as Protestantism says that we should look into our hearts, find the sin there and turn away from it, so, White Fragility says that we should look into our hearts, find the racism there and turn away from it. In both cases, “salvation” comes from personal improvement, not from social action.

 

Kendi is Different

How to be an Antiracist by Ibram Kendi is quite different. Kendi insists that racism begins with racist policies that are adopted out of economic or political self-interest. Racist ideas and attitudes are developed and promulgated later to justify the policies. Moreover, Kendi says that changes in attitudes follow rather than precede changes in policies. Therefore, antiracists work directly to change policies. They do not worry much about what is in people’s hearts, because changes in beliefs and attitudes follow policy changes.

What is a “racist policy” in Kendi’s view? He says,

A racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. By policy, I mean written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations and guidelines that govern people.

Racist policies may exist at any level of society. For example, “redlining” was a racist policy that existed at a societal level and was supported by major political and economic institutions, but racist policies may also be local. For example, a private business in a particular community might recruit its managers from among members of the church to which the owner of the business belongs. Since churches in our society are highly segregated by race, the effect would be to exclude anyone who is not of the same race as the owner.

Then, there are subtle, cultural “policies” that can have the effect of making people from a different culture uncomfortable in a certain group.  For example, an organization’s members might talk to one another in the style of a certain social class, and that might make people of a different social class feel uncomfortable or unwelcome.

Kendi Demands Political Action

Such local practices might be characterized as racist policies, but they are not the focus of Kendi’s interest. Kendi is interested in the policies that create “racial inequity,” which he defines as follows,

Racial inequity is when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing. Here’s an example of racial inequity: 71 percent of white families lived in owner-occupied homes in 2014, compared to … 41 percent of black families.

We can see here that Kendi is interested mainly in policies like redlining that have the effect of creating substantial racial inequity. In his view, the job of antiracists is to work to eliminate that inequity. Thus, antiracism for Kendi is fundamentally political. It demands social struggle and political action. However, because of the breadth of Kendi’s definition of “policy,” it is possible for his readers to avoid political action and focus instead on changing their own, individual behavior and on changing the processes in the local organizations to which they belong. People taking this approach can work on “inclusion” rather than equity. This approach is convenient because it avoids social conflict, and in addition it fits well with the ideas advanced in White Fragility. Racism becomes again a private rather than a public sin, and in this reading the book demands not political struggle but personal growth.

I think, however, that this approach misreads Kendi’s intent. Ibram Kendi is not Robin DiAngelo, and How to be an Antiracist is not White Fragility. To be antiracists in Kendi’s sense, we must really support policies that reduce the gap that Kendi calls “racial inequity.” Being more “inclusive” is not enough.

Why is Watching Hallmark Movies Like Going to Church?

Going to Church

People who go to “church” regularly receive the satisfaction of having their identities as well as their moral and institutional commitments confirmed. I use the word “church” here as a shorthand for “religious services,” and what I have to say applies equally well to services in synagogues, mosques or temples. 

The confirmation that churchgoers receive comes both from the form of the service and from its content. A church service has a standard form, and those who attend regularly know it well. Typically, there is a ceremonial beginning, which may be an opening blessing. Then, there is a series of prayers that affirm the core beliefs and values of the church’s religious denomination. There is usually a reading from a religious text, and the reading is followed by a sermon that expounds on the meaning of the text. Finally, there is a closing blessing. At regular points during the service, there may be music. In some churches, the music consists of songs sung by the congregation, and it may also include instrumental accompaniment.

The familiar form of the service envelops the congregants. As they repeat familiar words and sing familiar songs, they feel at home among people like them in a place that is theirs. The unchanging form of the service gives them identity and belonging. In a changing and uncertain world, it gives them stability.

The content of the service supplements the form. The words affirm traditional beliefs and values, and in the context of the service, each congregant reaffirms his/her commitment to them. The congregant does this even though he/she may in fact have serious doubts about their validity. This is hypocritical if you like, but it is very human. It gives the congregants a sense of sharing a tradition with deep roots in the past. It tells them who they are.

A religious service also has a “happy ending.” Our religions tell us that the world is ultimately a just place ruled by a just God or perhaps by an impersonal karma. People will get what they deserve. The good will surely be rewarded, and the bad will be punished. The moral books will be balanced in an afterlife, in what Judaism calls “the world to come,” or in a subsequent life for those who believe in reincarnation. Of course, many churchgoers doubt the truth of such teachings, but they suspend their disbelief just as playgoers enter into the spirit of a play by suspending their disbelief in its reality.

Watching Hallmark

Watching a Hallmark movie is a similar kind of experience. The movie has a formulaic plot with standard characters. It takes place in a familiar setting. People who watch Hallmark movies regularly know exactly what to expect. Just as in a familiar religious service, they are enveloped in a familiar environment in which they can feel at home. They know that they are sharing the experience with many other people, and that gives them a sense of belonging and community.

Hallmark movies, like religious services, affirm traditional values: family, home, romantic love, rural living, second chances. During the movie, the viewer accepts those values even though he/she may not really believe in them. A person firmly committed to a busy career in a big city can, for a moment, believe that life in a small town in the Rocky Mountains is more authentic and more humane. A person going through his/her second divorce can for a moment believe that his/her true love is waiting somewhere. Finally, a Hallmark movie always has a happy ending. As the characters often say, “Things have a way of working themselves out.” The lovers find each other; the conflicts are resolved; true love wins out; and the audience turns off the TV feeling good about themselves and about the world.

A Fake Issue

A Fine Example of a Fake Issue 

The current uproar over the stopping of trading in the stock of the company Gamestop is a beautiful example of a fake issue in American politics. A fake issue is an issue that gives politicians an opportunity to express intense moral outrage without having to do anything to improve the lives of Americans. This is a good example of a fake issue. Speeches will be made; outrage is being expressed on Facebook; hearings will be held; maybe, a new regulation will be enacted; but the lives of most Americans will be unaffected, and the regulation, being badly thought out, will turn out to be a source of trouble.

Members of both parties are now bloviating that the stopping of trading the stock of Gamestop is yet another a case of the big guys on Wall Street stepping on the little guys. That much may well be true, but this relatively minor action is being compared to the decision in 2009 to rescue the big banks but not the homeowners who lost their homes. The day traders who conspired to drive up the price of Gamestop are said to have been motivated not merely by greed but by populist anger at a system that is rigged against them. Their anger at being denied a chance to make more money is now alleged to be like the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Members of both parties in Congress – including Ted Cruz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – have jumped on the issue and are calling for hearings. The attorney general of Texas is calling for an investigation into Robinhood, the on-line app that halted the trading.

Take a Deep Breath

Take a deep breath. There cannot have been more than a few hundred day-traders trying to buy shares of Gamestop when the trading was halted. This is not a mass movement. In any case, brokers frequently halt trading in a stock if it seems to be running away with the market. The issue will not affect most of us in any way.  Only 55% of Americans own any stocks, and among those who do, the majority own them in mutual funds in retirement accounts. Very few people are day-traders, and trading or investing in stocks is not an altruistic activity. This is a fake issue.

We have plenty of real issues to occupy our attention: national health care, free post-secondary education, affordable child care, global warming and of course, the pandemic. We could worry about saving Social Security or about fixing our immigration system. Most politicians try to avoid discussing these issues because they come with risks for political risks. Taking a position on any of these issues can end up committing a politician to action that alienates some voters.  Fake issues are much safer, and politicians love them.

So, enjoy the political spectacle, but don’t allow moral outrage to rob you of sleep.

A Farcical End to a Farcical Presidency

 A Farcical Presidency

Last week’s insurrection was a farce. It was a deadly farce but a farce nevertheless, and as such, it was a fitting end to a farcical presidency. Farce and fakery have been the hallmarks of this presidency. It has been entirely consumed by the president’s image.  His farce has served as a curtain behind which the Republican Party has carried on business as usual, which has included tax cuts for the very rich and elimination of environmental regulations.

When Mr. Trump was elected, he claimed to represent the voiceless “forgotten people” in our society. He claimed that he would return the people’s government to them, but he never pursued or even defined policies to benefit the “forgotten people.” The signature policy achievements of his administration have been passing a big tax cut for the very rich, building a small piece of a wall on the Mexican border and moving the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. None of these provide any benefit for our “forgotten people.” They serve only to bring votes and money to the Republican Party.

Trump’s Farcical Use of the Media

We can see Mr. Trump’s fakery and his successful use of farce in his treatment of the media. He repeatedly claimed that the mainstream media published only “fake news,” and he claimed that people who wanted to know the truth should listen to him.  His effort to discredit the media was quite successful, and millions of people believe what he says to this day.

He might have used the power that the success of his campaign to discredit the media gave him to shape public opinion on serious issues. If he had not been a complete fake, he would have used his power to propose a program of legislation to benefit the people who put their trust in him. In fact, he did no such thing. He never proposed anything to benefit the “forgotten people."

He used his enormous media presence only to flatter his ego and attack his enemies. His populism was entirely fake and he conducted a political farce to the applause of his supporters and of the mainstream media who found themselves utterly captivated by his performance. He acted like a small boy who makes a lot of noise not because he expects to achieve anything useful by it but only to get people to pay attention to him.

Discrediting the Election

During 2020, Mr. Trump continually and loudly worked to discredit the election. He claimed that it would be and was a fraud. He brought dozens of legal cases to overturn the results of the election, but he did so in a way that was almost guaranteed to fail because he had no evidence to present. He tried to pack the courts in the hope that they would support him, but he forgot that prominent, conservative judges often have a strong commitment to upholding the Constitution. Again, the whole thing was never really designed to succeed. It was Mr. Trump’s standard political farce, which kept the national attention focused on him.

Unfortunately, there were millions of people who took the farce seriously. They believed what he said, and as a result, they believe today that our next president was not legitimately elected. Thus, serious damage has been done to our democracy and to our country, and the Republican Party, which also treated Trump’s farce serious bears considerable responsibility for the damage that has been done.

A Fitting End

The events of January 6 were a fitting coda to Trump’s four-year farce. He gave a speech to stimulate an insurrection with the ostensible purpose of preventing the certification of the electoral results by Congress, but there was never any chance that the insurrection would succeed.  The military did not support it; representatives of our ruling class immediately distanced themselves from it; the judges who might have legitimized the insurrection had already shown that they were not inclined to do so. The poor saps who were the foot soldiers of the farcical insurrection are now being rounded up and arrested. They will end up paying the price for it, while Mr. Trump and his Republican enablers will go free.  The insurrection itself was a typical Trump event: it was noisy; it was dirty; it was crowded; thousands of people cheered wildly; but nothing of substance was achieved. The farcical presidency came to a farcical end.

Should We Expect More Terrorism from the Radical Right?

 The Terrorism of the Weak

The short answer is, “Yes, we should expect more terrorism.” Terrorism is a tool adopted by people who feel that they have no other way to be heard or acknowledged by the political system under which they live. Terrorist acts are committed by people who feel that they face a political system of overwhelming strength that refuses to accept the legitimacy of their cause. The radical right feels that way as we can see from the popularity of the myth that last November’s election was fraudulently stolen from Mr. Trump.

Terrorism may take various forms. One them is the assassination of political leaders.  The most famous political assassination in modern times is the surely the killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which touched off the First World War. A famous American example is the killing of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Terrorism may also include killing of journalists like the twelve who were killed at the office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris in 2015. Terrorism may also include the destruction of buildings or monuments or the killing of random people by bombings or shootings. The killing of more than 100 people at the Bataclan Theater in Paris in 2015 is a well-known example.

Elite Terrorism

An entirely different kind of terrorism may be used by members of an elite that is struggling to maintain its position. Such terrorism is different from the terrorism of the weak. Elite terrorism is better organized, more sustained and much more deadly. The terrorist campaign unleashed against black people in the South after the end of Reconstruction in 1877 is an example. The campaign went on for decades, and it included lynchings, burnings, rapes and whippings. It included actions by private individuals, by law enforcement agents and by mobs. It even involved the destruction of whole communities. Thousands of innocent black people were killed, and millions moved out of the South to northern cities.  I do not think that we will see this kind of terrorism in our country in the immediate future. Our elites are very secure. They will not feel the need to terrorize us.

The Terrorism of the Weak in America

The extreme right in America has frequently employed the terrorism of the weak in recent years. During the Civil Rights Movement, we had the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, and in 1995, we had  the Oklahoma City bombing. More recently, we saw the murder of children at a church in South Carolina,  the murder of Jews at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, and the murder of a black man in Kenosha only last year.

There Will be More Terrorism

Should we expect the use of this kind of terrorism to increase? I think that the answer is “Yes.” Today, the members of the radical right see themselves in a position of weakness in confrontation with a powerful system. The myth of the stolen election in 2020 tells them that our allegedly democratic elections are controlled by a shadowy elite, which is determined to use fraud to deny electoral victories to the political right.

Mass actions have also failed them. The recent invasion of the Capitol in Washington was dramatic but failed to produce any long-lasting result. The takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 1916 was similarly ineffective. From the radical right’s point of view, it may have no alternative but terrorism.

So, we should prepare ourselves for a difficult time. The radical right is very well armed, and its members are desperate. The internet facilitates the organization of desperate acts. Our law enforcement agencies must prepare themselves for repeated acts of terrorism by the radical right. The lack of preparedness that we saw recently at the Capitol must not be repeated.

The Creation of a Political Myth

 The “Stolen Election” is a Perfect Issue for Republicans

Ted Cruz and 10 other GOP senators join Hawley in attempt to throw out election results: CNN's Tapper - Raw Story - Celebrating 16 Years of Independent Journalism. This is a perfect issue for the contemporary Republican Party. It is perfect because the effort to throw out the electoral results will fail, and therefore, the issue of “stolen elections” will continue to motivate voters in the future.

The Fragile Republican Alliance Needs Issues that Don’t Go Away

Today’s Republican Party is a fragile and unstable alliance between Trump’s populist followers and the traditional, business Republicans. The populist wing is useful to the party because it brings in millions of votes, but the business Republicans never really want to enact populist policies. They want tax cuts and reduced regulation of business, but those are not issues that excite most people.

To appeal to ordinary voters, the Republicans use cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage, and the party supports coded race-baiting. For the Republican Party, the great thing about these issues is that they don’t go away. They never get resolved. So, they can be used over and over again to appeal to voters. They are permanent grievances that can bring people to the polls.

The issue of the “stolen election” is ideal in that way. Millions of people will never believe that the election was fairly won by Mr. Biden. Instead, they will continue to believe that a shadowy “elite” stole the election, and that grievance will bring votes to the Republicans for years to come. Thus, the “stolen election” myth will function as the “lost cause” myth functioned in Southern politics for decades and as the “stabbed in the back” myth functioned in German politics in the nineteen-twenties.  

They Are Creating a Myth

Ted Cruz and his colleagues know that the effort to throw out the election results will fail just as dozens of lawsuits have failed, but that failure is the point of the effort because failure will perpetuate a grievance that can be exploited in future elections. Cruz and his colleagues are not really attempting to upend the election; they are creating a political myth that may serve them well for many years.

Toward and More Just and Equitable Society: How to be an Ally in the Fight for Racial Equity

 The Two Tracks

There are two tracks that white people can follow to be allies in the fight for racial justice and equity in our society. On one track, we can support the efforts of people of color in the explicit fight for racial justice. On the other track, we can as white people work for a more just and equitable distribution of wealth and income in our society. On this track, we deal with issues that are not explicitly racial but that have racial implications.

Allies in the Explicit Fight for Racial Justice

Most writers on the subject of how we can work as allies agree that  white people should not attempt to lead the fight for racial justice but should support the efforts of people of color. As allies, we must first of all educate ourselves in the history and effects of racism in our country.  This is not simply a matter of learning facts but of changing deeply held opinions and attitudes. For many, the process of education is difficult and even painful, and it takes place over years.  As we learn, we can must share what we have learned with others.

We can in addition, offer forums in which people of color can express their concerns and their demands. We can contribute financially to the fight, and we can participate in marches and demonstrations to show our support. We can vote for political candidates of color and for those who support reforms. We can participate in multiracial groups that work to get local governments to appoint people of color to committees and commissions. We can also push the organizations to which we belong to look for ways to become more inclusive.

Working for a More Just Society

All of these things are useful, but they do not exhaust the possibilities.  We can also fight for a more just society in ways that are not explicitly antiracist but that have the effect of reducing the economic gap between white people and people of other races. People of color are much poorer on average than white people.  This relative poverty of people of color is not a matter only of people who are poor in the sense that they have very low incomes and almost no wealth. The relative poverty of people of color extends through almost all levels of our society. People of color with college degrees, professional qualifications and good jobs are paid less on average that white people with similar resumés; people of color carry heavier burdens of student debt than white people; and they have far less inherited wealth than white people. Consequently, their relative poverty reproduces itself in each generation across almost all levels of our society. The relative poverty of people of color is not itself racism, but it is an effect of racism.[i]

To mitigate this effect of racism, we need to think about ways of redistributing wealth and income in our country, and in doing so, it helps to remember that racial inequality is not the only kind of inequality that we have. We live in a society in which most of the wealth is held by a very small percentage of the people, and we can develop policies that increase the fairness of our society as a whole.

If we do that, we will also decrease the wealth gap between people of color and white people because people of color are overrepresented in the poorer levels of our society and therefore, they will benefit disproportionately from policies that redistribute wealth or income down. Thus, reducing the economic effects of racism is bound up with the task of making our society as a whole more equitable. If we do that, we will reduce the wealth gap between white people and others, and we will at the same time make most white people better off. Thus, the struggle for a just and equitable society is not exclusively a racial struggle. It is a struggle for all of us.

We Must Work on Both Tracks

As allies in the struggle against racism, we white people must work on these two parallel tracks. On one track, we support the political struggles of people of color. Such struggles might include the struggle for reparations, the struggle against police violence, the struggle for immigration reform and the struggle against environmental injustices. Elements of the struggle for prison reform also appear on this track. In those struggles, we follow the leadership of people of color.

On the second track, we struggle for a more just and equitable distribution of income and wealth in our society. Such struggles might include the struggle to raise the minimum wage, the struggle for affordable child care, the struggle for free post-secondary education, the struggle for affordable housing, and the struggle for a decent, national system of health care. Some elements of the struggle for prison reform may also appear on this track.  Here, we act independently for justice and equity for all people in our society.

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[i] William A. Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen, From Here to Equality, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2020