This piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates created quite a stir on Twitter yesterday. I didn’t get to read it until the end of the day, and being me I have a quibble or two, but those don’t really matter. The best parts of this ring quite loudly.
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” Trump bragged in January 2016. This statement should be met with only a modicum of skepticism. Trump has mocked the disabled, withstood multiple accusations of sexual violence (all of which he has denied), fired an FBI director, sent his minions to mislead the public about his motives, personally exposed those lies by boldly stating his aim to scuttle an investigation into his possible collusion with a foreign power, then bragged about that same obstruction to representatives of that same foreign power. It is utterly impossible to conjure a black facsimile of Donald Trump—to imagine Obama, say, implicating an opponent’s father in the assassination of an American president or comparing his physical endowment with that of another candidate and then successfully capturing the presidency. Trump, more than any other politician, understood the valence of the bloody heirloom and the great power in not being …
Wow. Truth.
Anybody who doesn’t read this has no claim to be able to debate the issue.
TNC bares his soul and spares no one his righteous gaze. Nobody comes out of this looking good, either of our primary candidates nor any of us here. I’m looking forward to sharing this with my students and seeing their responses.
Inadvertent downrate
FWIW, you can undo that downrate.
Just click the thumbs-up button, I think!
It works – cool hack S-Tom!
Works in reverse too!
😀
Some habits are hard to break, eh… 😉
Need read this article more closely over the weekend, but note that Josh Marshall has a lot to say about it.
That’s an odd response from Josh Marshall that arguably marginalizes what Coates is saying into a very stale debate largely among white liberals. Was this election a referendum on multicuturalism, populism, or both? I think Coates is able to neatly demonstrate how defending whiteness is the cardinal sin of American political life and one liberals as diverse as FDR, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and even Barack Obama were and are not immune from. Obama went out of his way to make post-racial class based arguments in both of his races, which is part of the reason why he won.
Hillary Clinton, by virtue of the racist legacies of some of her husbands own politics and policies and her own dog whistling in the 2008 campaign had to be far more forceful in denouncing white supremacy which ended up weakening her with the demographics she arguably needed to court. Bernies late arrival to BLM and racial justice issues is part of his own biases toward the white baseline we tend to think of when we talk about poverty and class in America.
Pointing how Trump won the white vote in every class and educational and even gender segmentation is Coates strongest critique that our focus on class, or education level, or gender is misguided if we divorce it from the discussion of race. This is where I actually find Tom and Petr’s arguments more compelling-we have inherited a racist culture and frankly class politics will not be successful if we don’t eliminate racism first. I share that framing.
Where I differ from them is that I don’t think Sanders exclusively benefited from racism or that a rejection of Clinton is necessarily an endorsement of racism. I have plenty of black friends who voted for Stein to protest the Clintons record on mass incarceration, plenty of black friends who voted for Bernie over Clinton because they felt he was better both on BLM and on the economic struggles of the inner city, and plenty of black friends who would share Coates view that both were flawed vessels alongside Obama’s post racial liberalism for what should be a more radical politics of black liberation. Something too uncomfortable to fit in with easier narratives that absolve whiteness from ‘stronger together’ to the ‘99% v 1%’. I think we hear a yearning for that in the Milwaukee precincts that stayed home.
I just don’t see Coates identifying with someone like Marshall, or Kos, or the Clinton campaigners focusing on the same racial data to wield as a cudgel against their populist adversaries on the left. He truly feels like an alien in his own country, despite his birthright citizenship, and makes an elegant plea that we can’t discuss identity politics without staring ourselves in the mirror at the original founding identity politics of this country as a republican preserve for the white gentry built off a white only meritocracy and fueled by a helot black and brown underclass. I came away sensing a profound disappointment in the entire spectrum of liberal political figures routinely failing to examine their own privilege or biases and failing to anticipate the long fight ahead of us.
Immigration reform focuses too much on the hard work immigrants do that ‘white people don’t want to do’ and not enough on why these are fellow human beings deserving of the full rights of citizenship and equality. Criminal justice reform focuses too much on economics, and not enough on the human rights abuses. And we only now see compassion towards addicts we didn’t see in the crack epidemic because the new wave of addicts are white.
I think this is a really hard conversation to have over a blog, and that’s part of the reason why I find it so frustrating to get my points across. But make no mistake-racism played the greatest role in Trumps elevation to the presidency. That someone as qualified as Obama could be viewed as a threat and someone as patently unfit for the presidency could be taken seriously as a candidate by so many for so long is the clearest proof of racist double standards you could find. Let alone, the reaction to Trumps litany of sex crimes versus the reaction to Bill Cosby’s. Only one had the book thrown at them and a career ruined, the other got to go to the White House. Had Obama married his first white girlfriend, let alone, whistled at a white woman while being President, he never would’ve made it past the first primary.
I think it is important to acknowledge this, while at the same time recognizing that both of our candidates were grossly inarticulate in dealing with racial issues. Perhaps someone like Kamala Harris can inspire the next generation of progressive minority leadership within our party. Perhaps it’s unfair that a party dependent on minority turnout and minority participation for it’s continued existence will continue to rely almost as exclusively on white males for leadership, policy positions, and campaign cash.
I don’t see anyone reading this essay and coming away thinking our party and white liberals in general are doing the best they can be doing in responding to this threat. I think it forces us to question our assumptions and challenge our conventional wisdom far more than the typical Vox piece attacking the class argument or the Edsall piece affirming it. This is a radically different kind of voice, one we on the left have marginalized and ignored at our peril, just as much as we have ignored anyone else.
Are you coming around? I’m glad to see you praising this piece because it makes the same argument some of us have been making all along that for far too many voters it really did come down to race rather than excusing it as economic populism which I feel you have tried too often.
I think we do a disservice to this piece if we frame it within the prism of the debate lingering over from the last primary. By TNC’s standards-both Democratic candidates fell woefully short of where we need to be. And the fact that someone as patently unqualified as Trump got elected is proof that racist and sexist double standards are definitely real and a major factor in how the media and electorate approached Trumps candidacy. Only after Charlottesville have they finally started calling him a racist. This is objectively true-not a partisan attack.
Do I still think we need to run on a populist message to win back some of the voters we lost? Absolutely. So do Chuck and Nancy and Tom Perez. So does Hillary Clinton who concedes that in her book. That doesn’t and never has excused the fact that Trump himself is a racist aligning himself with racists. I’ve never disputed that fact, nor do I dispute that the vast majority of his voters were motivated by cultural rather than economic fears.
It is the 10-15% of Democratic leaning independents who defected in five states that fit the culturally conservative/economically leftist bucket that I think we can make an economic appeal too-but let’s be real. We aren’t winning all of them back. Winning merely half of them back changes the presidency. But moderating on social issues isn’t the way to do it-going harder against Wall Street and for Main Street is.
There’s another elephant in this room.
Donald Trump is “The First White Male President”.
This is a powerful well-written piece. My point is that the same arguments being made in this piece regarding race ALSO apply regarding maleness. When Mr. Trump “withstood multiple accusations of sexual violence”, it was his maleness that too many Americans embraced (along with his whiteness).
In my view, racism and sexism are twin specters of the 2016 election. This piece does a marvelous job of spotlighting the first. The second remains in the shadows.
6 Sixes for that observation Tom.
The presentation of the harmfulness of our slavery past is cogent. However, I have some reservation of any expectations that government is the primary remedy. Laws can strike down voting obstruction, wrongful or unnecessary incarceration, or other institutional forms of discrimination or injustice. However it is the work of society to remove the discomforts and erroneous logic that pervades too many places in our country by assigning characteristics to a whole group instead of individual behavior.
I think the point is less a ‘presentation of the harmfulness of our slavery past’ and more the declarative statement that it’s not, in fact, past. It sounds like you think that our ship of state is essentially sound and sea-worthy, just with these extra barnicles and weeds attached from a prior trip. I think it’s deeper than that…. I think there might be rot down to the keel.
Government was the primary motivator and protector of slavery, when it was legal, and there where a whole host of laws, statutes and ancillary regulations, some of which are still woven through our civic life (including the Electoral College which initially magnified the power of the south via the 3/5 clause…. and possibly the second amendment, which some contend was important as protection for souther plantation owners against insurrection by a numerically larger population of slaves).
When it looked as though the government might make a change on slavery, southern states attempted to secede and went to war rather than submit to a government remedy. The lost the war and the slaves… but continued to resist: first by, successfully, fighting Reconstruction and then by implementing Jim Crow and resorting to terrorist tactics to keep the population of former slaves in oppression.. .
When some of these former slaves and descendants of slaves migrated north to escape Jim Crow they were met with such charming welcome gifts as redlining and other racist housing policies, anti-busing riots and de facto segregation. Right up to this very day where our quasi-militaristic police force, and their ancillary rambo-wannabes, have a clear history of killing black men.
Which do you think is worse, that George Zimmerman would auction the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin? Or that some anonymous buyer paid $250,000 for it? How is society supposed to remove the ‘discomforts and erroneous logic’ there, (which ‘logic’ pretty clearly indicates approval of the murder of Trayvon Martin,) if not by government remedy?
I don’t think any of what you think I think. You somehow skipped over laws to prohibit institutional racism. However the laws do not change racist thinking. This has to come from social interaction and movements.
As for your question seeking one choice or the other, we seem to have too many whose senses go awry in looking out at the world, and create dangerous errors. That is our problem. We are limited by how reliable our observations are, and who we do or do not hang out with.
It’s over 150 years since slavery ended, but old sentiments have been passed on. In the past the white population thought they were duly in charge, but now they fear loss of status and control from mistaken beliefs about their own species. I’m counting on next generations who are growing up in a more broadly accessed world, and willing to take on Coates’s challenge to break down psychic barriers.
In Malcom’s X’s autobiography, he tells of white, blond listener to his speech, come up to him afterwards with tears in her eyes, pleading, “What can I do?” He said, “Nothing.” He reflected later by regretting those words, losing a moment of mutual reconciliatory connection. I believe it is Coates’s theme, from listening to an interview, that we harbor unworthy biases no matter what race we are. To move on we have to recognize them. That is not a government function.
I don’t know what you think, I only tell you want it appears like to me.
You’ve mention ‘slavery’ is past several times now, and only cite ‘old sentiments’ as though it is something we should be over but isn’t and hint that it is our problem to be over it, rather than a problem of others not wanting it to have been past.
You’ve straightforwardly said “since slavery ended’ eliding the dynamics: it didn’t just ‘end’. It was ‘ended’ by a war and by use of emergency powers against people who did not want it to end; who successfully overcame our efforts at Reconstruction after the war; and who instituted Jim Crow laws that were an oppressive attempt at slavery in all but name.
Which is where we are today. The slaves were freed from bondage but they were not made wholly free. Nor are they, even unto this day, seen as equal. Slavery the sin begat Jim Crow the sin (which was protected by monuments and terrorism) which begat a whole host of further sins, like redlining and segregation, even unto this day where, perhaps the most individual and personal sin of all is for people to say ‘Well, I’m not racist. I don’t know any racists. Not my problem.”
I think Coates pretty clearly lays out why that excuse doesn’t work.
Donald, I think you draw a false distinction between government and society. Not only is government part of society, it is a direct and indirect influence. Government may not be a sufficient remedy, but it is completely necessary.
However government and society serve different functions. They do interact with each other, but society is the master of its fate as pointed out by Thomas Paine in Common Sense:
“SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.”
Government does not create a society, but curtails excesses that do not let relationships improve. It is as Paine says, a necessary evil. If we all stood in agreement and didn’t have tendencies to be destructive, it would not be needed. Only the most blatant “evils” are legislated against, the rest will take take civilian input and interaction.
Acceptance and better understanding of gayness is what gave gays the same rights as others, not the after the fact laws. Society decided it was the right thing to do, not the government.
Actually, it was politics and pushing government that gave gay people the same rights as others. Way back in the 1960s and 1970s, gay activists were pushing for planks in the Mass Dems platform. Their pushing in this political sphere and their protests of NYPD pushed government. Society is an abstraction so broad as to be meaningless in the context you describe. Politics can’t be separated from government which can’t be separated from society.
I am not separating them, but they do different things, just as your eyes are connected to your brain, but they have different functions. No rights were given, they already had them, except laws deeply flawed had taken them away. Social movement corrected the injustice by pushing government to remove what it had wrongly imposed. I’m afraid society is not an abstraction, and I have used Paine’s description that is very specific. I can see you don’t see it that way. We will have to agree to disagree.
Coates nails the misplaced pity party that many on our side have for the white working class.
Introspection and sympathy are part of our political DNA, and it hasn’t been hard for many of us to turn on the waterworks for the white working class. They deserve our sympathy as does everyone.
A lot of the white working class is racist. And that’s not okay. Nor should it be excused. They should be held as responsible for their thoughts as liberal elitists we criticize for neoliberalism.
As Coates points out, much of the white working class does not appreciate the role that whiteness plays in their own perceived self-sufficiency. And make no mistake about it, self-sufficiency is the foremost white working class value. They should understand the role whiteness plays in self-sufficiency, and we shouldn’t back down from making sure that they understand the fact.
When pundits fret about Democrats’ identity politics, they are talking about pulling punches when it comes to the truth and whiteness. And that’s bullshit. Everyone should held to the same standard when it comes to the truth.
My use above of the word misplacedisn’t quite right. Here’s what Coates says:
Money Quote: “defenses of the innate goodness of Trump voters and of the innate goodness of the white working class are in fact defenses of neither. On the contrary, the white working class functions rhetorically not as a real community of people so much as a tool to quiet the demands of those who want a more inclusive America.”
I agree that that’s a powerful line, but it’s also quibble-able. I can say, for example, that not all Trump voters are racist, and that doesn’t mean I’m talking about “innate goodness.” Sure some people do talk about innate goodness, but his argument requires a lot of strawmen (which I think was Josh Marshall’s point).
Also, we do need to talk about working class voters, whether they are our voters or Trump voters.
The “innate goodness” has to do with the implication that black people deserved their servitude while white working class (WWC) people didn’t deserve the same treatment. Coates quotes a bunch of people in history.
Coates isn’t making straw men. As we all do when we refer to the white working class, or Donald refers to society, he is speaking in abstractions. Abstractions are not individuals. They are generalizations that inherently shortchange individuality. Coates is saying the white working class is a rhetorical device, an ideological prop, that is focusing the attention of pundits away from economic victims of racism to economic woes of the people who have benefitted from that racism.
………….
If you spend any time with white working class people, you hear how they differentiate themselves from “those people,” the people of color who collect welfare, who don’t work, welfare queens, etc.
One recent example: I was talking to a constituent in my town who complained about taxes going up. She told me that there were old people who would have to go without food to pay their taxes. I brought up the food pantry as an option as well as the Council on Aging. She told me these old people weren’t like Puerto Ricans in Holyoke; they didn’t like to take handouts. This lines up with a local urban legend that there is a sign at the airport in Puerto Rico that says, “Come to Massachusetts! They have the best welfare.” These fictional Puerto Ricans, unlike the white working class, don’t want to be self-sufficient. It is this self-sufficiency that is the source of the “innate goodness” that Coates refers to.
Self-sufficiency is a white working class value, but white working class ideology casts people of color in a “color blind” paradox: if a poor black man claims his impoverished status is due to racism, he violate the ideal of self-sufficiency; if he denies the effect of racism, the white working class remains happily ignorant and continues to feel superior to the black man. The factor of race is also omitted from discussion, and the pernicious effects of racism are never truly addressed.
(I feel compelled to say I grew up in a working class town, had and have working class friends and family, and serve a working class town as a selectman. I say I feel compelled because I’m not sure my experience gives me more authority than anyone else. Coates obviously isn’t from the WWC, but I think he’s very much on target).
OK he’s not using strawmen. He’s making generalizations that shortchange individuality. Got it. 🙂
For what it’s worth I don’t think the casual racism you’re describing is limited to the working class.
He’s courageously and clearly naming things that need to be named.
These two things are not mutually exclusive.
Of course they aren’t.
That’s why when one source writes this:
it does not mean that “all Trump voters are racist” nor is it “making generalizations that shortchange individuality”.
When we are talking about the causal connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer or emphysema, we are not saying that every smoker will get lung cancer or emphysema.
We are still not able to prove that any specific case of lung cancer is caused by cigarette smoking, by smoking a specific brand, or identify the specific cigarettes that caused the cancer.
The tobacco companies have used this latter truth to great advantage in avoiding liability judgments.
The fact that we cannot do that does not mean that cigarettes do not cause lung cancer.
It also does not mean that “shortchange the individuality” of a given smoker or brand of cigarettes by talking about the causal connection between smoking and cancer.
America is racist and sexist. The 2016 election and its aftermath is a case study in each, and I suspect will be used in a great many of such case studies for generations to come.
I’m sorry, I’ve lost the point entirely. I liked the piece. I started the thread, remember?
Politics being politics, broad strokes can be quibbled with. I can see also why TNC took the approach he did.
Indeed, I liked the piece as well. And, as you say, broad strokes are almost always quibbled with.
It’s a great post and a great find, and I appreciate you posting it. One of the best things I’ve read about this since the election, in fact.
The professional class that controls the Democratic Party wants little or nothing to with the working class, the common folk, because to do so would mean to cut ties with their wealthy Wall Street Bankers (like they say, the money has to come from somewhere….) so they demonize the working class as the enemy, a horde of racists and misogynists that elected Trump…
I think it’s worth noting as TNC does that Trump won the majority of whites at all income levels and the majority of white women. So this isn’t just a class issue, these issues, as I have been repeatedly emphasizing since day one, are intricately linked.
Separating class and race to excuse the racism of working class whites is factually incorrect, morally repugnant, and political malpractice. Separating class from race to excuse the failure of neoliberal economics is factually incorrect, morally repugnant, and political malpractice.
I have consistently said we have to be a party that is more progressive on race and more progressive on economic populism. Anyone arguing it is a binary choice is deliberately trying to prevent either from occurring. Lamentably that includes a lot of people I respect on this blog.
I’ve read the piece several times now. I’m probably going to read it at least twice more. I suggest you re-read it because Coates spent a great deal of ink in the piece in question saying exactly and precisely what you just said, but better. He lays out the case that what we think of as ‘working class’ is a set of abstractions we use as a fig leaf and that the entire effort to put the blame for Trump on those abstractions is part of the problem.
This isn’t an opinion piece by Coates, this is a thoroughly researched, fully hashed out piece of true journalism by a man who, in my experience, is a very close reader and a real thinker.
Thanks for the self-righteous condescension. I see things much more clearly now.
We credit the Clintons for perpetuating the hatred of the people of color, can’t we?
And of course, there was Bill’s welfare reform to get even with “those people”.
But still, the professional class that runs the party still adored the Clintons……
Aside from Peter Daou, I don’t know anyone who adores Clinton. I don’t know any Democrats who thought Hillary was a great candidate, and I’m talking people in politics, not the rest of us. I supported her. Still prefer her to Bernie, of and for whom I have both reservations and respect.
There is a managerialism, however, that infects the Democrats that doesn’t really bother Republicans. Robbie Mook’s analytics were more important than people on the ground in Wisconsin and Michigan. Regular Democratic activists (I think repeating Paul Simmons here) are marginalized.
Another thing is, the Democratic Party is still organizationally strong; it exerts an influence that the the Republican Party organization no longer does. Fox News and the Kochs have more power over the GOP than party members themselves. In 2016, the party organization was rotten. DWS was the apotheosis of the Clinton way. She was, however, appointed by President Obama. She’s gone now. Clinton will be gone too. She’s got her book, and she’s got a right to it. It’s hard to see who follows her now.
Most of the professional class types adored them, especially if they are from Somerville.
But her vision of a professional class Democratic Party funded by Wall Street endures…
Keep digging. The hole you’re in keeps getting deeper and deeper.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Christopher and I adore Clinton and thought she was a great candidate. In my heart I was just as enthusiastic about her as all those Bernie supporters who packed his rallies. It’s just not in me to scream in her presence like teen girls at a Beatles concert.
Ta-Nehisi Coates (you know, the author of the piece) wrote pretty cogently “Not every Trump voter is a white supremacist. But every Trump voter felt it acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to one.” and, further, points out that, seven months into his presidency Trumps support has absolutely cratered with every single possible measurable demographic, except one.
What’s the difference if individuals aren’t particularly racist themselves, but nevertheless voted for a racist? And continue to support him?
In many ways that’s even worse: they must have a certain suspicion that somebody’s going to get hurt, but as long as that somebody isn’t them, and especially if they can get something for themselves out of it, so what?
I think Coates nailed it. Nobody want’s to think of themselves as racist but really don’t do all that much against the other racists and, in fact, all too casually accept the underlying framework of our society, which is built up on a clear racist foundation.
Let’s accept your premise for a moment.
OK then … what are you doing? What I’ve advocated is, let’s gain some seats and reduce GOP power. Focus more on economic justice. Advocate justice for all. I assume you agree with that, but you also want to wax righteously about it. What does that last piece accomplish? (That’s a rhetorical question, you don’t have to answer it.)
The working class has no color.
Of course not.
I daresay that those who, like you, demand that we ignore the white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, and the disgusting pandering to those white supremacists of Mr. Trump, DO have a predominant color.
There a huge groups of working class men and women for whom taking down statues of racist oppressors is very important. There are other working class men and women insisting that we ignore those calls.
The latter DO have a predominant color.
It is intellectually dishonest to dismiss the concerns of blacks, Hispanics, and women and then proclaim that “the working class has no color”.
Some of us are well aware of the diversity of the working class, and the importance of addressing the concerns of the ENTIRE working class. Some of us contemptuously dismiss everything except the concerns shared by white working class men in Franklin MA.
Yup, it never fails. You continue to attribute things to me that I have never said or supported. But hey, you hate the working class so take your anger out on me….I can take it.
Nah, of course you didn’t say it. All you did was write two or three diaries demanding it.
Nope.
It’s rather simple Tom from Somerville. You and yours want to defend your wages that are double that of working class citizens without a college degree so you denigrate many of them as racists and bigots and misogynists…in order to place blame on them, not the wealthy class that you depend on to elect your candidates..because as you said the money has to come from somewhere…
1. <a href="http://bluemassgroup.com/2017/08/its-texas-stupid-just-texas/"It's Texas, stupid, just Texas (emphasis mine):
2. Stop taking the bait…. (emphasis mine):
3. Time for Democrats to Play Offense (emphasis mine):
Your posts here show nothing but contempt for the concerns of black and Hispanic Americans.
In your phrase “ordinary working class American” in your first post, above, you use “ordinary” as a synonym for “white”. In the second post, you explicitly write that you’re talking about “talking about white working class voters”. The third comment exemplifies what I mean when I says that you “contemptuously dismiss” concerns of black Americans.
Your commentary here is, in fact, a fine example of exactly what Ta-Nehisi Coates is talking about, You might try reading the piece.
First link (editors: preview would be nice, since we can’t edit):
It’s Texas, stupid, just Texas
To be fair JTM said ignore the statues, not the haters. The statues have been there for decades and are for better or worse part of our history. The living, breathing, not carved out of stone people who showed up at UVA absolutely must be made to realize that their ideology is not welcome in mainstream 21st century American politics, or for that matter polite society.
I fear you miss the meaning.
His first diary says that “Ordinary working class people” don’t care about the statues.His second diary is more explicit &8212; ” white working class voters” don’t care about the statues.
In both cases, he is ignoring — and asking us to ignore — the millions of black, Hispanic, and white working class voters who DO care about the statues.
Whether statues carved out of stone or Nazis carrying torches and Swastikas, these are things that millions of black people care about. These diaries are telling us that those black people don’t count.
The third diary I cited calls out “Black Lives Matter” as a movement that doesn’t count.
JTM is instructing us to ignore black and Hispanic people who DO care about these things — because he and his white working class males do NOT care.
This exemplifies what the piece referenced by the thread-starter is talking about.
OK, but in your first comment on this subthread you refer to people “like you, demand that we ignore the white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, and the disgusting pandering to those white supremacists of Mr. Trump” and that’s the part he did not say.
@ the part he did not say: In my view, he implied it, strongly, in the two diaries I cited.
I am asking the professional class to STOP defining the working class into a fragmented array of opposing sides, blaming each other for their plight and instead, going after the wealthy class AND the arrogant professional class that sees fit to align itself with Wall Street because “the money has to come from somewhere”…
@ fragmented array: Nobody except you is fragmenting anything.
When Americans, including Democrats, demand that the statues be removed we UNITE with our black working class brothers and sisters. When you tell us to ignore them, YOU do the fragmenting.
This has nothing to do with “wall street” — you are a stuck needle on that canard.
Gee, I wish there were some kind of unifying organization for the fragmented working class so they could achieve some unity. Maybe we could call those organizations , , ,nah. Too adversarial. All that adversarial behavior would get in the way of the name calling and whining.
How is that ‘fair’? The two are inextricably bound: as in, the monuments were put there by the haters and the haters are empowered by the monuments. The monuments are, in fact, an expression of hate.
NO! I refuse to concede to the haters’ monopolizing the historical narrative. Just because they’ve decided in recent weeks to make those statues their rallying point doesn’t mean the rest of us have to agree with them. They have a historical value of their own that need not and should not be “inextricably bound” to an outdated ideology of their subjects, their erectors, or modern haters. Some of us can appreciate the difference.
@ Christopher: Well, you can deny whatever you wish.
The plain fact is that the rest of the world, most black Americans, and the Nazis and white supremacists who massed in Charlottesville see the inseparable link between these statues and black oppression.
The Nazis and white supremacists did not invade Charlottesville because “historical value” was being “destroyed”. A demand that we ignore the resistance to removing these statues is synonymous with a demand that we ignore the hate that erected them and ignore the hate that resists their removal.
I’m not denying it so much as declaring what IMO should be the case.
Your opinion is great, it’s also totally irrelevant. The fact is these were erected a generation after the war to codify Jim Crow. To codify the violent disenfranchisement of blacks and poor whites and the nullification of democracy in the South for 80 years.
They actually say in the statutes and decrees that these monuments were meant to glorify the white man and his noble fight to preserve an ancient order. The victors pleased Caesar but the vanquished pleased Cato. That line is on many of these monuments and is a bastatdization of Livy used to justify the defense of ‘Republican’ government form the ‘tyranny’ of Abraham Lincoln-our finest president.
So you and the Sons of the Confederacy can hold onto your bullshit heritage argument-I side with the Southern Poverty Law Center that only hate groups would want to wave this flag. We should do a much better job making it as culturally anathema a son flying a Swastika.
Great. Take them down and you take their Lost Cause narrative with it. Make your argument in front of my all black class in Roxbury and see how stupid you sound.
They went to EMK today and voted for Thaddeus Stephens radical reconstruction, which would’ve solved all of these problems. The loser would’ve had to reconcile with why they deserved to lose. Instead-they’ve had a century and a half of coddling by “moderate” Northerners like yourself who believe in a false coming together that whitewashed black suffering and codified white supremacy. No thanks.
Your insistence on preserving an outdated narrative is becoming problematic. You’d have been laughed out of my BU a seminar yesterday. What you can history isn’t history anymore. It’s this false freedom quest narrative that excludes the vast majority of Americans who didn’t benefit.
We should celebrate Nat Turner and John Brown and condemn Robert E Lee and Andrew Jackson. We can do this because our society is a direct repudiation of the kind of society they tried to defend and the kind of society Turner and Brown gave their lives to create.
We’re too far over for nesting to be clear, but if those above comments were for me you have never been so out of line! If I thought for one second the only thing the public displays of history were good for was assuaging the feelings of bigots I’d get out my rope and pull those statues down myself! I would have been a very Radical Republican back in the day and I have no patience for Lost Cause narratives. I think Reconstruction ended too soon and if I had any federal authority back in the 50s and 60s my active support for civil rights would have led me to make Reconstruction look like a day at the beach compared to what I would have shoved down the South’s collective throat. For better or worse they are part of our history, and I have to say I know African-Americans who are not as caught up in this as some here and surprisingly I’ve gotten a fairer hearing for my views at Daily Kos. So let the story be told, even if it discomforts us. Meanwhile, I’ll focus my attention on actual policy solutions to the ongoing racial disparities in this country. There IS a non-ideological value to history and even if you don’t agree with me I wish you would at least understand and accept that my arguments are genuine and that I’m not a closet racist. My conscience is absolutely clear on that point.
@ Christopher: I don’t hear jconway calling you a closet racist.
I fear that your own definition of racism — where you define it to require intent and actual race-based malice — makes it more difficult for you to acknowledge that ways that your resulting views are perceived as “racist”, even when you feel no malice.
A school or business that has no actual explicit racial criteria in recruiting or hiring, and that nevertheless is lily-white and turns away a constant stream of black candidates (each time with perfectly neutral and objective rational) is still perceived as racist. At least until recently, such practices would also be illegal.
I agree with you about the non-ideological value to history. In my view, it is completely consistent with that non-ideological value to remove these statues from their prominent pedestals and relocate them to museums where ALL of their history can be conveyed in a non-ideological way.
The reaction of black schoolchildren in Roxbury is important to acknowledge. The residents of Charlottesville VA made a conscious choice about a statue and park that they found offensive.
I understand that you have a clear conscience about this. The question remains how can you heal the pain when you can’t feel the pain? (emphasis mine):
Sorry, the close-bold tag must have been dropped. I meant the emphasis to be around these words:
“One glance at the title and I knew that this wouldn’t be for me—since I’m not a racist, since I see little if any racism around me, so why should I worry? “
This is what drives me nuts. No, jconway (nor you ST) called Christopher a closet racist. You both, however, implied that your understanding of racial issues is deeper and more sophisticated than his. It’s a kind of race purgatory.
I call BS.
My understanding of race is better than his. I teach at an all black school, I have black nieces and nephews who’ve been profiled and discriminated against in 2017, my wife isn’t white and she’s been subjected to discrimination and double standards that I’ve never had to endure.
I’d have made Christopher’s arguments ten years ago-I’ve become a lot more conscious about race and particularly how the real race problem in America is “whiteness” which is the social construct that needs to be destroyed.
I’ve never said Christopher is a racist. I find it perplexing he insists the lost cause narrative is unjust, radical reconstruction is correct, and then buys into this false neutrality that these statues don’t imply. They were erected to maintain American apartheid and racial injustice. Even Clarence Thomas understands this and has ruled correctly that this is not neutral speech when it’s on government property.
It’s ridiculous for a white person to insist everyone should be color blind and pretend that his whiteness means nothing in the racial caste system our race created and maintains to this day. It’s not nearly as severe as it was in slavery and Jim Crow times-but let she be honest.
Christopher and I had a massive leg up on our educational and career journey my students do not. They live in segregated housing, go to a largely self segregated school, and our zoning and property laws still enforce a de facto system of racial exclusion.
Like John Roberts, he pretends that the race neutral policies lacking in explicitly racist inputs aren’t racist even if the results of those policies produce implicitly racist outcomes.
Then when we imagery and monuments that are explicitly racist he still defends them as race neutral. Despite the fact that zero blacks feel this way about that subject, and the white designers who erected that monument were quite explicit in the racist intent that they had.
He’s ignored all evidence we’ve brought to the table and persists in flawed assumptions. I’ve never called him a racist, but he has no right to take umbrage at being called out for his outdated historiography and willful ignorance on this subject.
Your family is beside the point. Christopher’s persistence is beside the point. It;s the claim of special understanding I have trouble with. It’s a weak, ad hominen argument at best.
I understand the temptation to get personal, and I’ve been guilty of it too, but this is supposed to be a place for ideas.
Sorry, but that dog won’t hunt.
The comments from jconway are chock full of ideas and references, and he provides information about his family as context. There is nothing “weak” or “ad hominem” about his commentary — he is NOT saying that Christopher’s commentary is incorrect because it is from Christopher, he is clearly articulating specific IDEAS in that commentary that are, well, incorrect and outdated.
This IS a place for ideas, and this IS a place for discussion. Your attempt to criticize such discussion (the discussion itself, not the merits) is out of place.
I didn’t just imply that my understanding of racial issues is deeper than Christopher’s, I said it. I’ll say it again. Christopher, jconway, and I have been going back and forth on this for pretty much the entire history of BMG — it’s one of the first exchanges I remember having with each. We disagree. We have different perspectives. We try to do that courteously.
Yes, I think my understanding of racial issues is deeper than his. Yes, I think the same is true of jconway. Christopher disagrees, sometimes adamantly. That’s what discussion is about.
You can call anything you want. People DO have strengths and weaknesses. I don’t know shit about professional basketball. My understanding of opera is microscopically thin. I do know something about racial issues.
I’ll tell you what I’m calling BS about. I’m calling BS about making facile and false equivalences on every issue. We have participants who apparently object to attempts at being quantitatively rigorous about poverty.
For nearly all issues that do not involve simple opinion, there ARE objective and measurable standards of correctness. For each such issue, there ARE people with deeper understanding and people with shallower understanding. For each such issue and for each of us, there ARE people who have a deeper understanding than us, and people who have a shallower understanding than us.
I call bullshit at your claim that this is either not true or is somehow inappropriate to discuss.
Well there we are. I believe you that you believe you have a deeper understanding on race than others do. But I say that is impossible.
At the risk of piling on…
Ordinary=white.
To be clear, I don’t think JTM is either overtly or covertly racist, but this is a pernicious view that Coates is calling out. It’s also one I have fallen into as well.
Ordinary = ordinary. But of course, the wealthy professional class has to divide the working class into opposing factions…
Nope, that’s your strategy to divide the working class against itself, blaming itself and not the professional class that runs the DNC and the Wall Street 1%’ers that fund it because as you say, the money has to come from somewhere.
John, you’re spouting leftist dogma that Coates directly challenges. As Petr suggests, Coates’ essay bears reading and rereading
Name a pundit that has referred to the black working class as “ordinary.” Most pundits don’t even acknowledge there is a black working class. Neither does the white working class. Nor does the professional class. “Ordinary” is a dodge–a rhetorical move to find a colorless ground. It’s part of our white, working class inheritance.
As Coates points out,
Its not leftist dogma. You would hardly find anyone on the left who would argue that racism and white privilege aren’t real. The folks condemning identity politics are the same folks who feel the party has to move to the middle-rather than to the left.
Rhetorically I’ll concede we need to return to the language Barack Obama used in 2008 on race and immigration, at least in the short term. But from a policy standpoint we need to radically remake our country. This is what the voters want when they rejected both party establishments for outsiders. Now Trump is becoming Mr. Establishment and has a Goldman cabinet-we should attack that. He is also a fucking rapist and a racist. And we shouldn’t be shy of saying that either. He is also really fucking stupid and totally incompetent and compromised. And we shouldn’t be shy of saying that either.
I think the left is still navel gazing and we are fighting each other instead of the real enemy creating a corporatist state in a white nationalist facade.
I wasn’t clear. The “professional class” in the Democratic Party is leftist dogma. Not without some truth, but John is repeating dogma.
The whole whiteness issue has been around for a long time. When I was in grad school, I read Beverly Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?. I remember finally realizing that there wasn’t a neutral, normal, or ordinary position in society. I had always assumed that I was just normal, but it’s “whiteness” that makes me “normal.”
@ jconway “He is also a …”:
All true. The point remains that too many Americans still support him and still support elected GOP officials who enable him. Mr. Trump is in the Oval Office because he panders to the racism, xenophobia, sexism, and pure ignorance of too many Americans. We will never make any progress forward until we can say that without being attacked for being a “Wall Street tool” (or whatever).
We certainly ARE still fighting each other. I’m being called a sell-out, a member of an “arrogant professional class”, and so on because I refuse to ignore the concerns of blacks, minorities, women, and so on.
No, but we already probably have the bulk of the non-white working class in our corner.
Actually a lot of them stayed home last election. My entire argument is that we will win the votes of more minorities and more whites if we focus on a bolder platform that eliminates racial and income inequality. These two issues are linked, and we aren’t moving on one until we move on the other. They have to be defeated together. I entirely reject the argument that with our country at stake we need to stop advancing on either of these fronts.
This piece pretty conclusively shows that the main problem we are dealing with is that the white working class has lost it’s racial privileges over the black working class and is resenting the black working class rather than organizing with it to defeat the ownership class. This is basically American Politics 101.
TNC is entirely right that we treat poverty as a moral failure when the working poor are persons of color (or a woman) and treat it as a national failure when the working poor are white males. We ought to be treating ALL poverty and as a national failure and start recognizing that the crack epidemic, black welfare mothers, and high rates of teen pregnancy and family breakdown are symptoms of income inequality and not symptoms of the failure of minority morals. For far too long OUR OWN PARTY has indulged in that language, and it is time we repudiate it.
BINGO!
The ownership class is entwined with the professional class that currently controls the Democratic Party. They are even intermarried in many cases.
It is not in the self serving interests of the professional class who has accepted payment (bribe) of double the wages of the working class, to identify the ownership class as the cause behind the woes of the working class.
I agree with about half you say. 1) I agree there is a wedge between the white and black working classes, but I don’t think it was actively created by the professional classes.
2) I agree that what you call the professional class is in cahoots with the ownership class. This is apparent to me in the “education reform” movement, which is financed by billionaires and carried out by Ivy Leaguers who don’t want to get their hands dirty by working as teachers and administrators in public schools. Instead they run specious foundations and charter schools as CEOs. ButI don’t see an alternative to working with them or using their money.
3) I also care about the white working class. They are my people. I care about people of color too, but I live in a WWC community. I have WWC relatives. But I also think they need to be called on their bullshit when possible. Often it’s not possible without being rude, so I don’t.
One of my former select board colleagues disagreed with me about raising taxes for town trash pickup. I told him I wasn’t trying to change his mind, and he said “You can’t..” He wasn’t being close-minded. He listened to me, but he let me know where he stood. I think we owe our WWC neighbors and relatives the same candor.
Self-sufficiency is a working class value. Regardless of how it’s used politically, I don’t see a problem with it as a value. Another working class value is work. In my family, we are always proud when one of our kids gets a job and how well they do at it. I’m proud of my daughter who worked for 3 months without a day off. I’m proud of the fact that she thinks she’s poor when she doesn’t have $3000 in the bank.