
Anti-Racist Arguments Are Tearing People Apart - hprotagonist
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/meta-arguments-about-anti-racism/615424/
======
hirundo
I had a girlfriend in high school that learned about feminism, and developed
an annoying habit of playing "gotcha" with anything that could be spun as
chauvinist. For instance anyone saying "C'mon you guys let's go eat" would get
a lecture about how using the word "guys" to a mixed sex group was being
oppressive. She didn't say "patriarchal" only because that word wasn't in
currency yet. Years later her gotcha shtick became her profession as a college
professor who taught it to a new generation, year after year.

I think the events at those meetings are more about the joy of the gotcha than
anti-racism versus non-racism. It just feels good to catch someone out, to be
the one who sees it first. Like most pleasures it has addictive power.

It wasn't because the anti-racists were actually racists that they were
triggered by a white man bouncing a black baby on his lap. It was because they
were scanning desperately for a gotcha to feed their habit. For a target that
you disagree with, a behavior has a much lower threshold to become a gotcha.
If it wasn't for the baby it could have been his supercilious smile or hair
style.

In modern anti-racism, not only does a gotcha not need to be justified with
argument, any criticism of the gotcha is another gotcha. What I have written
here is just more evidence of my own racism and sexism. They've got me.

~~~
bbatha
Criticizing "you guys" as a sexist term when describing a mixed gender group
is a) true because there are multiple genders in the group and b) not a
gotcha. She wasn't baiting you into saying sexist remarks to criticize you as
a chauvinist. Her over enthusiasm may have been annoying sure, but calling it
"gotcha" behavior is a way to casually dismiss anti-racists and anti-sexists
without actually in their engaging arguments or even the slightest bit of self
reflection.

> In modern anti-racism, not only does a gotcha not need to be justified with
> argument,

> would get a lecture about how using the word "guys" to a mixed sex group was
> being oppressive.

Sounds like you received a justified argument that you are choosing to ignore.

~~~
hirundo
I ignored the argument because I could not have reasonably engaged with it and
decided that I disagree?

~~~
harryh
Do you think if people consistently referred to a group of people that
included you as "hey girls" you would find it....a bit strange?

~~~
hirundo
I think policing wrongthink in everyday conversation is about as effective as
painting the correct reflection on a mirror. Real respect is earned.

~~~
harryh
So when you refer to a group of mix gendered people as "guys", it's an
indication that you don't respect the women in the group? They haven't earned
if from you yet?

~~~
hirundo
I think the reference is orthagonal to respect, making the correction merely
rude.

~~~
harryh
Well that brings me back to my original question (which you did not answer).

Do you think if people consistently referred to a group of people that
included you as "hey girls" you would find it....a bit strange?

~~~
hirundo
It's quite ordinary. Particularly in all male contexts where it isn't
ambiguous, like construction or sports. Also "ladies". Metonymy is weird like
that.

~~~
harryh
In contexts like construction or sports referring to an all male group as
"girls" or "ladies" is derisive or, at the very least, sarcastic. It's
interesting to consider the implications of that.

~~~
belorn
Have you noticed a strange pattern when people talk. When someone refer to
people they don't know they tend to default to their own gender, unless there
is a cultural clue, in which they then default to that clue.

I find it a interesting quirk of human behavior. It not very noticeable unless
you listen for it, but once you do, it is a very noticeable during a
conference with a high rate of speakers that do not share your own gender.

------
klmadfejno
I saw the Anti Racist author, Ibram Kendi, speak. Honestly I wasn't really
impressed with what he was saying. Yes, structural racism is a real problem.
But the concept of anti-racism just did not feel well defined and just begging
for semantic ambiguity that distracts from the point at hand, much like how
feminism suffered from allowing detractors to claim it was about females
asserting supremacy. Ideological terms move the conversation away from ideas
and towards meta-arguments around what the ideology is. I found this article
somewhat hard to follow but it's last paragraph seems to resonate with that.

What is anti-racism? Is it:

* taking proactive steps to combat racism rather than trying to avoid taking part in it?

* asserting more power to minority communities that have been harmed by structural racism?

* a means to justify breaking down dominantly white structures even if there's not obviously malicious racial actions at play?

Which of these are good? Which of these are obviously good without nuanced
discussion? If it's something like the third one, does it seem like a good
idea to call that model "anti-racist" in a way that clearly antagonizes the
other party merely for existing?

------
raziel2p
I was politically active on the left over 10 years ago and I still remember
how a loud minority seemed obsessed with factions and seeding discord. It was
a really effective tactic, made me wonder if it was active sabotage at times.
Not much has changed.

~~~
entropea
I'm still active on the left and very much into social & economic justice, but
I often notice how much division these anti-sexist and anti-racist tactics
create inside the left political spectrum. I don't think a lot of these
tactics are friendly, engaging, and a lot are destined to generate more
negative outcomes and thoughts about left policy, structural racism & sexism
in my opinion. As Fred Hampton once said, you don't fight fire with fire, you
fight fire with water.

I agree that it almost seems like active sabotage.

~~~
daveslash
I agree with you, and would like to add my thoughts. I realize that the people
on the left who engage in such toxic tactics are a minority, but I feel the
need to say something: Several people in my friends/family circle lean very
much to the right, and they don't seem to _really_ understand that the left-
extremists are the minority; and extremists on the right are clutching onto
these rare demonstrations and telling their conservative base that this is "
_all leftists_ ". I personally know several people who equate a vote for Biden
as a vote to bring _exactly_ this type of toxic behavior mainstream - they
have told me _exactly_ that. These sorts of extreme tactics on the left push
many right-leaning people into the far-right-extremes. There are a lot of
legitimate points on both sides of the aisle, and it's not my intent to
downplay either side here, but I do mean to say that these sorts of tactics
are more than mere self-sabotage by the people employing them -- they're
actively divisive.

~~~
rayiner
I followed the primaries closely, and based on the uniformly left political
positions folks were taking, it seemed to me at the time that the supposed
minority was very powerful. Consider the near-universal use of the term
“LatinX.” Apparently, 76% of Hispanic people have never even heard the term.
Out of those who have heard it, 2/3 object to it being used to describe
Hispanics. Only 3% use the term themselves.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-
in...](https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-
hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it/)

One under appreciated aspect of all this is that these folks, while a minority
overall, are highly overrepresented among people with power. Democrat voters
might not use “LatinX.” But the college-educated “wonks” who will actually be
turning the gears of the Biden administration may well do so.

~~~
tptacek
Note that the person who actually won the primaries, overwhelmingly, both does
not use the term "latinx" and did not support most of the "uniformly left
political positions folks were taking".

It's almost as if interesting but implausible left political positions are
attention-grabbing and commandeer the news cycle out of proportion to their
actual importance. Or that Twitter isn't real life.

~~~
rayiner
I agree. (I have to admit being a bit sheepish at being surprised how
conventional Biden's speech was.) I was referring to what it seemed like to me
at the time, based on what I was seeing on the news/on social media. My point
is that OP's "friends/family circle" don't necessarily have the information to
put what they see on TV or read on Twitter in context.

I do think that these folks may have more institutional pull than people
realize. People here in the D.C. halo are increasingly insulated from what the
folks they claim to be speaking for really want (or talk like or think like).

~~~
tptacek
The House majority, the margin of which Pelosi built out of ~30 suburban
districts, pulls strongly against that. I think what remains --- in
particular, the racial justice focus (less the fringe "defund the police"
stuff that Biden actively runs against) --- are genuine positions held by the
majority of the party.

------
everdrive
It’s interesting (and quite frustrating) — these are the social hysterias of
our time. Could you have successfully navigated the inquisition without lying
about what you believe? Obviously, no one is being tortured or killed like in
the inquisition, and I simply mean to compare the coerced religious zeal. No
one is ever pure enough.

I often think that this is simply a mixing of impulses. Everyone has an
impulse to socially judge; a tribal impulse. Most of us do not have so strong
an impulse, or otherwise can easily keep it at bay. But, what happens to that
tribal impulse when you think you’re fighting for good and evil? Is there
anything left to temper it? Should it even be tempered? And what happens when
all the fates align: and the tribal impulse, the self righteous impulse, and
the attraction to power all agree on the course of action. People must be
relieved from their positions of power. And you can conveniently lean on the
most righteous of your motivations, while also serving your basest
motivations.

------
nojokes
It looks to me that people have lost their minds - they have turned anti
racism into clear and pure racism.

This is also how we should call people like Robin Broshi - racist.

~~~
happytoexplain
Frankly I think neither "side" in most of these arguments is clearly and
consistently racist (though obviously racism is a huge problem in society
regardless of these arguments), and both "sides" tend to jump to accusations
of racism too quickly. I'm not putting forward a "both sides are just as bad"
argument - far from it - but I'm not making that distinction right now. What I
am saying is that, in cases where I _do_ see one or both sides of one of these
arguments behaving irrationally, it is almost always a too-quick jump to
accusations of racism, rather than the inverse problem: Actually being racist.
However, despite this being a "both sides" problem, what I think happens is
that when somebody on the "anti-racism side" (or "pro-diversity side" or
whatever) ends up doing something apparently racist (usually against whites),
it's much more dramatic because of the opportunity to point at hypocrisy, and
therefore "counts" more against them than if the other side of that argument
had committed some equivalent racism against a non-white.

~~~
nojokes
Robin Broshi is a special kind of racist. Perhaps even Racist with capital R.

When I see two people sitting, she sees two people of different skin color
sitting.

Then she creates some construction to justify her racism.

------
watertom
That article made my head hurt, then it made me a lot sad, then very angry.

I can't tell if these people have just lost their minds, or if they are
actually racists who are posing as anti-racists in order to undermine the
efforts.

~~~
raxxorrax
I had the theory that they were trolls. To my defense, at the time it got
popular in my country, there were a lot of comments under news articles
against Muslims and there was a general trend to put blame on them for every
ill of society. People trying to make them as a group responsible for
terrorism and demanded they need to distance themselves from these acts. Some
form of backward kin liability.

Then they blamed all men and white people. It would have been an awesome troll
to make people question their reasoning. Problem was that they weren't
trolling and pretty serious about it.

------
JackMorgan
It's interesting how much this looks more like religion than anything else.
Complex ideology, easily misinterpreted texts, and submission and conformity
over individual critical thinking.

------
acephal
Then you have the even worse trend of a certain kind of 'hip/urban' non-Black
belittling a conservative Black person or a Black person who doesn't represent
themself along the lines of what popular culture communicates is what counts
as valid Blackness , as if the 'hip' non-Black is _more_ locked in arms with
Black experience than the actual Black person they're belittling (I'm looking
at you Andrew Schulz!).

------
badcatosaurus
I found this article very interesting, and a bell went off when I was reading
the bit about the backgrounds of the board members. Ms. Tanikawa seemed to be
the most militant in her beliefs, but think her strong opposition to the
magnet-school system deserves a second look. While the US officially
classifies many different ethnicities as “Asian” that doesn’t really account
for the strained relationships and bigotry that exists between different
cultural and ethnic groups.Based on the location of the school district/board,
it’s pretty clear that the lower and middle class immigrant families that are
using the magnet school system as a means of upward mobility are mostly
Chinese and Korean. If we hold Ms. Tanikawa to the same level of scrutiny that
she subjected Mr. Maron to, it’s fair to say that her own biases could be
informing her own position as well. I have noticed that some of the most
vehement “Anti-racists” have employed this ideology to paradoxically advocate
for ideas and policies that are, in the most basic and obvious way, racist.

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slimed
That's the entire point. Divide and conquer.

