I'm writing from the Baton Rouge airport on my way to my conference in Orlando. Originally, I was supposed to leave around 11, navigate a lightning-quick layover in Charlotte, and get to Orlando by 4:30ish.
This morning, as I'm finishing my packing, my phone dings. It's American. My flight out of Baton Rouge is delayed 30 minutes. I'm probably not going to make that lightning-quick change, I think. Another ding. Now it's delayed an hour. Bye-bye, 4:30 arrival in Orlando.
My partner, rousing from sleep, asks why it's delayed. No idea, I answer. Because if it's mechanical, he continues, they have to help you.
Do they? I ask myself doubtfully. Really, the airline can say whatever it likes about why the flight is delayed. Mechanics. Weather. Gremlins. Who am I to argue? I'm actually at their mercy.
I know others (my partner included) disagree. We're the customers. We pay (well, LSU pays) for their service. They must provide it.
I'm more like, They hurtle me through the air at Everest height at five hundred miles per hour in an 80-metric-ton miracle of engineering that would sound like Greek (or Hindu) mythology to anyone from most any other time. I put my trust entirely in their hands. I'm not in a good position to grouse about a couple of hours' delay.
That isn't, I recognize, the healthiest attitude to take toward airlines. But there we are.
Besides, previous experience led me to trust that the same algorithms that sent me a "your flight's delayed" text would also (1) notice that I was going to miss my connection, and (2) rebook me.
And so it happened. I'm now booked on a 4:30 flight from Charlotte to Orlando--without my having to call or bother or even ask anyone.
French philosopher Michel Foucault famously wrote about the panopticon, Jeremy Bentham's proposal for a more humane and efficient prison architecture. In the panopticon, prison cells were arranged in a circle around a central guard tower. The cells were transparent to the tower (and to each other); the guards in the tower were invisible to the prisoners. The efficiency lay in the fact that prisoners lived out their sentences knowing that at any moment the tower guards might be looking at them, even though they could never be sure if the guards were in fact doing so. For Foucault, the panoptic setup presaged a more modern, distributed, and invisible system of surveillance. We are all being watched; we are all watching ourselves.
In theory, a panopticon is a nightmare, literally the omnipresent Big Brother Is Watching You viewscreens from 1984. We are regularly reminded that, in fact, Big Brothers are watching us, though in practice the BBs are as likely to be corporations as governments. Ubiquitous cameras record our mundane movements all day long. Our phones and computers track us constantly in life and online. Our every transaction and communication is monitored, recorded, and bundled into big datasets to be parsed by machine learning programs. Privacy is in many ways a quaint idea.
And yet, in situations like mine today at the airport, that cocoon of watchfulness provides a sense of comfort. I'm kinda glad American Airline knows and anticipates my travel needs. I suppose that's part of the service I'm paying them for. (Of course, they're getting more out of the deal, refining their marketing and price points based on my behavior.)
My comfort, however, mixes with resignation. If American told me that, sorry, there's nothing we can do. You'll have to fly tomorrow. Well... Shrug emoji. I trust that, for the most part, in aggregate, it's in American Airlines' best interest to treat me well, to use their surveillance powers and artificial intelligence programs for my benefit. But I recognize and accept that, unless I have my own plane that I can fly--or unless I'm willing to travel some other way or just stay home--I don't really have any other choice but to trust airline good will.
There's a capriciousness to the capitalist panopticon, an always temporary truce: We'll exploit you only so far and no further. Maybe. In the meantime, enjoy your flight.
More tomorrow,
JF
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Monday, August 5, 2019
Motives, Reactions, and Distractions
I'm supposed to be writing a presentation for this Friday, but I keep getting derailed by news about the two shootings. Apologies. I'm just processing stuff online here.
The manifesto from the El Paso shooter seems to confirm initial reports: he was convinced of a hostile, replace-white-people invasion from Latin America and felt he had to do something about it. There's some abominable twisting going on in some right-wing sites, framing the manifesto as "leftist" or "antifa." ("Because Democrats were for segregation, you know!"--this is a pervasive defense point among some on the right, conveniently ignoring the sources of current segregationist policies.)
More encouragingly, some on the right are naming and reacting against "domestic terrorism" and "white supremacy" explicitly. I see such efforts running into a couple of different species of pushback. "There's almost no white supremacists, and they're not really conservatives" would be one. "Antifa is just as bad/worse" is the other. There's a surprising amount of certainty on the right that antifa--which is perceived as much more hierarchical, organized, and homogeneous than it actually is--murders people, that their violence is comparable to that of white supremacists. There's no evidence of a death by antifa in the twenty-first century (though there are instances of violence, even potentially lethal violence). White supremacist views, not antifa views, have been linked to more violence. There's a lot of resistance to recognizing this, though.
Few if any on the right connect the dots between the shooter's anti-immigrant rhetoric and Trump's own rhetoric (though the dots are there to be connected). The most public figures blaming Trump's rhetoric for stoking anti-immigrant fires--Beto O'Rourke, for instance--get framed (not without cause) as having an agenda for positioning themselves as anti-Trump. There's plenty of reason, in other words, for those interested in excusing Trumpism to excuse him.
Meanwhile, some rumors I'm seeing online (reddit, for example) are suggesting that the Dayton shooter had a history of left-leaning, antifacist social media posts. RedState in particular has seized on this as vindication of the both-sides-equally (but antifa mainly) suspicions. As I've written about before, I have a lot of feelings about the Batman-esque romance of violence that circulates in (some) antifa discourse. I don't see much evidence (yet) that such romance fueled this shooting.
Some leftists online are pushing back against the antifa-caused-this narrative online, even as they note the dangers there. In one Reddit thread (from ChapoTrapHouse, which has been accused in the past of a "brocialist" mentality), a Redditor admits:
Other sources suggest the Dayton shooter was a Satanist, that he was a bully, and that he fantasized about doing violence to women in particular. The Dayton Daily News, interviewing his former classmates, paints a picture of someone morbidly obsessed with death and killing. "I think of this less as a hate crime," said one, "and more of an 'I hate everybody' crime." His sister (and possibly her boyfriend?) were victims of his rampage. It's too early to assign or dismiss a specific political stance to his actions.
It's not too early, though, to note that most mass shootings relate to domestic violence and misogyny. Nor is it inappropriate to note that the preponderance of guns in the USA makes mass shootings possible.
More tomorrow,
JF
The manifesto from the El Paso shooter seems to confirm initial reports: he was convinced of a hostile, replace-white-people invasion from Latin America and felt he had to do something about it. There's some abominable twisting going on in some right-wing sites, framing the manifesto as "leftist" or "antifa." ("Because Democrats were for segregation, you know!"--this is a pervasive defense point among some on the right, conveniently ignoring the sources of current segregationist policies.)
More encouragingly, some on the right are naming and reacting against "domestic terrorism" and "white supremacy" explicitly. I see such efforts running into a couple of different species of pushback. "There's almost no white supremacists, and they're not really conservatives" would be one. "Antifa is just as bad/worse" is the other. There's a surprising amount of certainty on the right that antifa--which is perceived as much more hierarchical, organized, and homogeneous than it actually is--murders people, that their violence is comparable to that of white supremacists. There's no evidence of a death by antifa in the twenty-first century (though there are instances of violence, even potentially lethal violence). White supremacist views, not antifa views, have been linked to more violence. There's a lot of resistance to recognizing this, though.
Few if any on the right connect the dots between the shooter's anti-immigrant rhetoric and Trump's own rhetoric (though the dots are there to be connected). The most public figures blaming Trump's rhetoric for stoking anti-immigrant fires--Beto O'Rourke, for instance--get framed (not without cause) as having an agenda for positioning themselves as anti-Trump. There's plenty of reason, in other words, for those interested in excusing Trumpism to excuse him.
Meanwhile, some rumors I'm seeing online (reddit, for example) are suggesting that the Dayton shooter had a history of left-leaning, antifacist social media posts. RedState in particular has seized on this as vindication of the both-sides-equally (but antifa mainly) suspicions. As I've written about before, I have a lot of feelings about the Batman-esque romance of violence that circulates in (some) antifa discourse. I don't see much evidence (yet) that such romance fueled this shooting.
Some leftists online are pushing back against the antifa-caused-this narrative online, even as they note the dangers there. In one Reddit thread (from ChapoTrapHouse, which has been accused in the past of a "brocialist" mentality), a Redditor admits:
Our rhetoric can be really dystopian And while the support system in leftist communities can also be insanely strong (compared to most communities), if you miss that part of it then most leftist rhetoric can leave a bad taste in your mouth about society as a whole.Another Redditor concurs:
Again, I doubt that the shooter operated with anything like as clear an agenda as the El Paso shooter had. But I really appreciate that degree of self-awareness these posters display. (I also--for another time--want to reflect more on what happens when you take only the dystopian, black-pill aspects of leftist social change initiatives and leave out the hope.)Agree, a lot of leftism can be a "black pill" to some degree as the sheer injustice of the world is made clear, just as our inability to affect it is as well. At the same time big leftist communities can have feelings of superiority, glamorise violence (ironically), and generally have that edgy persona which is necessary for humour but can also have side effects.Lastly, probably worth remembering the demographics for the sub [ChapoTrapHouse] consistently come out in surveys to be similar to that shooter sweet spot. Leftism didn't incite the shooter, but he spent time in our communities (even if just online) and still did it - we should own that at least and remember it going forward.
Other sources suggest the Dayton shooter was a Satanist, that he was a bully, and that he fantasized about doing violence to women in particular. The Dayton Daily News, interviewing his former classmates, paints a picture of someone morbidly obsessed with death and killing. "I think of this less as a hate crime," said one, "and more of an 'I hate everybody' crime." His sister (and possibly her boyfriend?) were victims of his rampage. It's too early to assign or dismiss a specific political stance to his actions.
It's not too early, though, to note that most mass shootings relate to domestic violence and misogyny. Nor is it inappropriate to note that the preponderance of guns in the USA makes mass shootings possible.
More tomorrow,
JF
Sunday, August 4, 2019
Frigging Mass Shootings
Gah. Two mass shootings in the last 24 hours.
Aside from prayers and sympathy for those affected, I have only free-form thoughts.
Even commenters on the conservative sites I consult seem to be reeling. There's the occasional "this has to be antifa" or "there's a whiff of false flag to this," but these comments seem to be getting ignored or, better yet, shut down. There are even some gun control advocates voicing a few radical ideas (i.e., perhaps it's not a good idea for the average citizen to have access to mass-murder weapons like AR-15s). These, too, are getting shut down, but the fact that they appear at all means something.
With events this fresh, hot takes are inadvisable. A manifesto with anti-immigrant (posted, of course, on 8-chan) is rumored for the El Paso shooter, but so far nothing is known about the Dayton shooter beyond the fact that his younger sister was among his victims. The media, having learned that mass shooters are play into copycat motives,
The standard gun conversations are unfolding. Thus far, Republican reaction appears to be clustering around how bad those video games are (a long-debunked point). Of course, many of the preferred courses of action from Democrats (more restrictions, registration) have precious little evidence to back them up. The thing that seems most likely to work, judging at least from other countries, are outright bans. Get guns (most guns, at least) out of civilian hands.
I'm for removing guns from most of society. As one RedState comment noted, God didn't ordain the second amendment. Humans did. They can amend otherwise.
That's depressingly unlikely, though. Other commenters on that site have registered their own "from my cold, dead hands" sentiments. As in, "I will shoot anyone who comes at me trying to take my guns." Clearly there's more going on here than guns per se. Somehow (cough, cough, NRA, cough), gun ownership has gotten wrapped up in identity. Threaten guns, threaten identity.
If I'm right about that, the path to reducing gun ownership would necessitate something like a moral revolution, making gun ownership dishonorable, distasteful, barbaric. Imagine a world where learning someone owns a gun is like learning they have a room full of hand-drawn torture porn. He owns a gun? Like, a real, non-toy this-is-a-tool-for-killing-people gun? Ugh.
I don't think there is anything necessarily immoral about owning a gun. I can understand how people in certain parts of the country need guns for their livelihood (hunting, keeping predators away from farm animals, etc.). But I don't see much sense in anyone owning a rifle intended (or all-too-easily modified) to pump out dozens or hundreds of bullets in the space of under a minute. I can't see the founders having imagined such weapons, let alone intending to enshrine a right to owning them as somehow essential to American identity.
My father, interested in the culture of guns, bought a gun himself and took a conceal-carry course. I remember him reflecting that the predominant feeling in his classmates was fear, an emotion I tend to detect in a lot of right-wing discourse. I've toyed with the notion of doing the same and writing about it. But, given my occasional bouts of depression, having a gun in the house probably isn't a grand idea.
So I doubt the gun conversation will get anywhere--again.
I do hope, however, that the futility of the gun conversation doesn't eclipse attention to the El Paso shooter's anti-immigrant motive. If the manifesto rumors are correct, the shooter had bought completely into the "white genocide" narrative. That story (or mind virus) promulgates a conspiracy theory that brown people are pouring over the southern border to usurp white people's "rightful" place in the country. (Like white people usurped native people's place, I guess?) They will "replace" white people.
That's the kind of deeply dangerous zero-sum mentality I've written about before. It circumvents rationality to target reptile-brain cognitions of us/them conflict. It's also the kind of scaremongering that Trumpist nationalism too often feeds.
That narrative needs killing, and quickly. Better, it needs to be made repugnant, as reviled as urinating on potatoes in Wal-Mart. Really? You're spouting that zero-sum crap again? Gross.
More tomorrow,
JF
Aside from prayers and sympathy for those affected, I have only free-form thoughts.
Even commenters on the conservative sites I consult seem to be reeling. There's the occasional "this has to be antifa" or "there's a whiff of false flag to this," but these comments seem to be getting ignored or, better yet, shut down. There are even some gun control advocates voicing a few radical ideas (i.e., perhaps it's not a good idea for the average citizen to have access to mass-murder weapons like AR-15s). These, too, are getting shut down, but the fact that they appear at all means something.
With events this fresh, hot takes are inadvisable. A manifesto with anti-immigrant (posted, of course, on 8-chan) is rumored for the El Paso shooter, but so far nothing is known about the Dayton shooter beyond the fact that his younger sister was among his victims. The media, having learned that mass shooters are play into copycat motives,
The standard gun conversations are unfolding. Thus far, Republican reaction appears to be clustering around how bad those video games are (a long-debunked point). Of course, many of the preferred courses of action from Democrats (more restrictions, registration) have precious little evidence to back them up. The thing that seems most likely to work, judging at least from other countries, are outright bans. Get guns (most guns, at least) out of civilian hands.
I'm for removing guns from most of society. As one RedState comment noted, God didn't ordain the second amendment. Humans did. They can amend otherwise.
That's depressingly unlikely, though. Other commenters on that site have registered their own "from my cold, dead hands" sentiments. As in, "I will shoot anyone who comes at me trying to take my guns." Clearly there's more going on here than guns per se. Somehow (cough, cough, NRA, cough), gun ownership has gotten wrapped up in identity. Threaten guns, threaten identity.
If I'm right about that, the path to reducing gun ownership would necessitate something like a moral revolution, making gun ownership dishonorable, distasteful, barbaric. Imagine a world where learning someone owns a gun is like learning they have a room full of hand-drawn torture porn. He owns a gun? Like, a real, non-toy this-is-a-tool-for-killing-people gun? Ugh.
I don't think there is anything necessarily immoral about owning a gun. I can understand how people in certain parts of the country need guns for their livelihood (hunting, keeping predators away from farm animals, etc.). But I don't see much sense in anyone owning a rifle intended (or all-too-easily modified) to pump out dozens or hundreds of bullets in the space of under a minute. I can't see the founders having imagined such weapons, let alone intending to enshrine a right to owning them as somehow essential to American identity.
My father, interested in the culture of guns, bought a gun himself and took a conceal-carry course. I remember him reflecting that the predominant feeling in his classmates was fear, an emotion I tend to detect in a lot of right-wing discourse. I've toyed with the notion of doing the same and writing about it. But, given my occasional bouts of depression, having a gun in the house probably isn't a grand idea.
So I doubt the gun conversation will get anywhere--again.
I do hope, however, that the futility of the gun conversation doesn't eclipse attention to the El Paso shooter's anti-immigrant motive. If the manifesto rumors are correct, the shooter had bought completely into the "white genocide" narrative. That story (or mind virus) promulgates a conspiracy theory that brown people are pouring over the southern border to usurp white people's "rightful" place in the country. (Like white people usurped native people's place, I guess?) They will "replace" white people.
That's the kind of deeply dangerous zero-sum mentality I've written about before. It circumvents rationality to target reptile-brain cognitions of us/them conflict. It's also the kind of scaremongering that Trumpist nationalism too often feeds.
That narrative needs killing, and quickly. Better, it needs to be made repugnant, as reviled as urinating on potatoes in Wal-Mart. Really? You're spouting that zero-sum crap again? Gross.
More tomorrow,
JF
Saturday, August 3, 2019
Taste and See
And now for something completely different.
I'm in charge of the children's moment at my church tomorrow. As usual, all I know is the title of the sermon and the scripture being used. The scripture is Matthew 26: 26-30--
Title of the sermon: "Taste and See, The Lord is Good." Nothing obviously out of the ordinary here. It's the first Sunday of the month, so we have Communion. "Taste and see" is a common enough Communion message (there's even a hymn about it!).
Oddly enough, though, the title of the sermon--that standard Communion refrain--isn't in the scripture. It's not in the Gospels or the Christian Testament at all. It's from Psalm 34:8--
The Psalm is attributed to David, "when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away." (Or, as the Message puts it, "when he outwitted Abimelech and got away"). Things get complicated here. The book of 1 Samuel 21-22 describes a very different setup. There David is fleeing from Saul, and Ahimelech (note the spelling difference) gives him some food and shelter. David flees Ahimelech (after getting Goliath's old sword), is spotted by the king of Gath, and then feigns madness to get away from him. Saul hears about Ahimelech's assistance and orders the priest and his family slaughtered. Only one son of Ahimelech gets away.
That's...a lot of confusing back-story. There's not a lot of consensus that I could find about how to rectify this tension (maybe Abimelech is a generic name for Gath/Philistine kings?).
In any case, my pastor can parse that out in her sermon. For my purposes--two to four minutes with the young ones--I think I'll focus on something simpler.
What should the Lord taste like? For Methodists, we use some combo of grape juice and bread. Sometimes the juice is red, sometimes blue. (Methodists generally don't use wine.) Sometimes the bread is good, rich wheat bread. Sometimes Hawaiian bread. Sometimes sourdough. Sometimes gluten-free. Or it's a hard cracker, an unleavened crunch. We also occasionally use those tasteless wafers preferred in Catholic churches.
Perhaps I'll have a collection of different juices and breads for kids to see, smell, and sample.
The point, though, is in the rest of the Psalm, which is not (of course) about Christian communion but about how God provides refuge and safety. Consider Psalm 34: 17-19
So, what does the Lord taste like? What should our Communion taste like? What should our church taste like, feel like, sound like?
It should taste like "I love you." It should taste like "You're welcome here." It should taste like "I got you. You're safe."
Taste and see. The Lord is good.
Help us, God, to be as tasty as you are.
More tomorrow,
JF
I'm in charge of the children's moment at my church tomorrow. As usual, all I know is the title of the sermon and the scripture being used. The scripture is Matthew 26: 26-30--
26 While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
30 When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Title of the sermon: "Taste and See, The Lord is Good." Nothing obviously out of the ordinary here. It's the first Sunday of the month, so we have Communion. "Taste and see" is a common enough Communion message (there's even a hymn about it!).
Oddly enough, though, the title of the sermon--that standard Communion refrain--isn't in the scripture. It's not in the Gospels or the Christian Testament at all. It's from Psalm 34:8--
O taste and see that the Lord is good;
happy are those who take refuge in him.
The Psalm is attributed to David, "when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away." (Or, as the Message puts it, "when he outwitted Abimelech and got away"). Things get complicated here. The book of 1 Samuel 21-22 describes a very different setup. There David is fleeing from Saul, and Ahimelech (note the spelling difference) gives him some food and shelter. David flees Ahimelech (after getting Goliath's old sword), is spotted by the king of Gath, and then feigns madness to get away from him. Saul hears about Ahimelech's assistance and orders the priest and his family slaughtered. Only one son of Ahimelech gets away.
That's...a lot of confusing back-story. There's not a lot of consensus that I could find about how to rectify this tension (maybe Abimelech is a generic name for Gath/Philistine kings?).
In any case, my pastor can parse that out in her sermon. For my purposes--two to four minutes with the young ones--I think I'll focus on something simpler.
What should the Lord taste like? For Methodists, we use some combo of grape juice and bread. Sometimes the juice is red, sometimes blue. (Methodists generally don't use wine.) Sometimes the bread is good, rich wheat bread. Sometimes Hawaiian bread. Sometimes sourdough. Sometimes gluten-free. Or it's a hard cracker, an unleavened crunch. We also occasionally use those tasteless wafers preferred in Catholic churches.
Perhaps I'll have a collection of different juices and breads for kids to see, smell, and sample.
The point, though, is in the rest of the Psalm, which is not (of course) about Christian communion but about how God provides refuge and safety. Consider Psalm 34: 17-19
Is anyone crying for help? God is listening,
ready to rescue you.
If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there;
if you’re kicked in the gut, he’ll help you catch your breath.
Disciples so often get into trouble;
still, God is there every time.
So, what does the Lord taste like? What should our Communion taste like? What should our church taste like, feel like, sound like?
It should taste like "I love you." It should taste like "You're welcome here." It should taste like "I got you. You're safe."
Taste and see. The Lord is good.
Help us, God, to be as tasty as you are.
More tomorrow,
JF
Friday, August 2, 2019
Aggrieved Entitlement
Yesterday I wrote about the vision of social status as a zero-sum game that only some groups can win. This status-war mentality underlies much of what sociologist Michael Kimmel terms "aggrieved entitlement."
Consider how Trump supporters take offense at accusations that they are racist. From their perspective, they "don't see color" or "see all people equally." They may point to "actual racists"--hood-wearing, cross-burning klansmen--and wonder how anyone could possibly lump them together. Progressives crying "racism," from this perspective, is what creates a racially charged climate.
Progressives' responses to this line of argument, I wrote yesterday, tend to be some version or combination of "you're lying" (you really are racist), "you're implicitly biased" (you're a racist and don't realize it), or "your definition of racism is ludicrously narrow" (racism is systemic, institutional, historical, etc.). Any or all of these might be true. But none work especially well in an exchange (and for the sake of these posts I'm assuming a scenario in which both parties are able and willing to try at such an exchange).
Kimmel (paralleling research by Diana Mutz) suggests another narrative driving Trump voters' resentment: aggrieved entitlement. This group (Kimmel focuses mainly on straight white men) have been raised in a culture that sets them up to expect a certain level of status--access to power, ease of movement in society, prestige, representation, etc. As social, economic, and legal systems slowly (all too slowly, all too piecemeal) realign around changing demographics, white people (white males especially) experience a relative loss of historical privilege as things come back into balance. But balance can feel like catastrophe to those who've historically benefited from unbalance. It feels like being attacked. They are being denied what they're entitled to have.
Take Congress, for instance. Right now, Congress is 23.7% female. This is obviously discrepant; over half of US citizens are women. A properly representative elected body would match demography. To get from one-quarter to one-half women in Congress, though, a lot of Congressmen will need to not be elected--replaced, if you will. Now, I imagine that if you asked all the male Representatives and Senators currently in office whether they thought women can and should serve in Congress, they'd say yes. Ask them whether it'd be a good thing for there to be more women Congresspersons, almost all would say, "Yes, absolutely!" But follow that up with, "OK, are you willing to step aside to make room for a woman to replace you?" They're going to point to someone else--probably someone on the other side of the aisle--and say, "Him first."
Justice will feel like discrimination to some people. It’s a loss of (unbalanced, undue) status.
Consider how Trump supporters take offense at accusations that they are racist. From their perspective, they "don't see color" or "see all people equally." They may point to "actual racists"--hood-wearing, cross-burning klansmen--and wonder how anyone could possibly lump them together. Progressives crying "racism," from this perspective, is what creates a racially charged climate.
Progressives' responses to this line of argument, I wrote yesterday, tend to be some version or combination of "you're lying" (you really are racist), "you're implicitly biased" (you're a racist and don't realize it), or "your definition of racism is ludicrously narrow" (racism is systemic, institutional, historical, etc.). Any or all of these might be true. But none work especially well in an exchange (and for the sake of these posts I'm assuming a scenario in which both parties are able and willing to try at such an exchange).
Kimmel (paralleling research by Diana Mutz) suggests another narrative driving Trump voters' resentment: aggrieved entitlement. This group (Kimmel focuses mainly on straight white men) have been raised in a culture that sets them up to expect a certain level of status--access to power, ease of movement in society, prestige, representation, etc. As social, economic, and legal systems slowly (all too slowly, all too piecemeal) realign around changing demographics, white people (white males especially) experience a relative loss of historical privilege as things come back into balance. But balance can feel like catastrophe to those who've historically benefited from unbalance. It feels like being attacked. They are being denied what they're entitled to have.
Take Congress, for instance. Right now, Congress is 23.7% female. This is obviously discrepant; over half of US citizens are women. A properly representative elected body would match demography. To get from one-quarter to one-half women in Congress, though, a lot of Congressmen will need to not be elected--replaced, if you will. Now, I imagine that if you asked all the male Representatives and Senators currently in office whether they thought women can and should serve in Congress, they'd say yes. Ask them whether it'd be a good thing for there to be more women Congresspersons, almost all would say, "Yes, absolutely!" But follow that up with, "OK, are you willing to step aside to make room for a woman to replace you?" They're going to point to someone else--probably someone on the other side of the aisle--and say, "Him first."
Justice will feel like discrimination to some people. It’s a loss of (unbalanced, undue) status.
No wonder, then, that the story circulating on the right involves white people (and white males especially) suffering as much or even more discrimination
than people of color (or Muslims, or LGBTQ+ folk, etc.). That’s a devilishly effective story for white people. Criticisms that point out the evidentiary flaws in
that story reinforce the story for
white people. (See? Typical
discrimination. You say you’re concerned about white men and boom! Racist and
sexist.) That's a tough nut to crack.
Pernicious as it is, though, I think that aggrieved entitlement is ultimately more fragile a construct than white supremacy and racism. That is, I think we can get people to the point of recognizing the problems with the story they've been told about what they're entitled rather than getting them to see their racial status as problematic.
Kimmel, for instance, relates appearing on a panel of men about economic anxiety. On the panel were several working-class men who were un- or under-employed. One of them complained that he had been a finalist for a prestigious position at a company, but he'd lost his job due to their hiring a female candidate. Grumbles of sympathy and agreement from the audience. Aggrieved entitlement in the air. Kimmel responds with a simple question: "What made that your job?"
The correction Kimmel offers cannily sidesteps the I'm-not-racist/sexist/etc. defense. It doesn't suggest anything about the man's identity at all. It poses a question that invites the man to rethink the expectation he had going in, the story that he's been told that available positions should go to men, not women.
To be clear, I definitely think sexism and racism--all the isms--exist and have detrimental effects on society. These systems and attitudes--and they are of course subtler and more pervasive than TV-villain bigotry--need to be challenged. Hard lines should be drawn. But--in exchanges between people where there's some hope of meaningful connection--"you're racist" is a pretty formidable barrier.
"What makes that story you've been told accurate or fair" might have a bit more purchase.
More tomorrow,
JF
Thursday, August 1, 2019
The Zero-Sum Frame
This last week, Boston Review writer Ronald Aronson noted a fact simultaneously stunning and depressing: President Trump's approval ratings are, so far as we can tell, among the most stable of any recorded president's.
No matter what Trump does or fails to do, he remains within the relatively narrow 35-45% range of approval. Aronson quotes Jerry Falwell, Jr. "I can't imagine him doing anything that's not good for the country," says Falwell. "I know anything he does, it may not be ideologically ‘conservative,’ but it’s going to be what’s best for this country,”
Aronson seizes on this "anything he does" as the core of Trumpism, which Aronson links to white evangelicals, Trump's strongest demographic of support (80% in the last election). Wondering how this could be so, Aronson draws on sociological research to locate this "anything he does" support in a white fear of displacement.
Diana Mutz provides Aronson his main thesis in her 2018 postmortem of the 2016 election. It is not economic anxiety, Mutz argues, that motivated this core of white voters. It is status threat, the perception among whites that other racial minorities are taking over, usurping the position of cultural, economic, and political hegemony that white people have historically enjoyed in the US. Mutz explains, "It is not racism of the kind suggesting that whites view minorities as morally or intellectually inferior, but rather, one that regards minorities as sufficiently powerful to be a threat to the status quo.”
I think this is spot-on. When I hear white conservatives grousing about racism as an overused scare-word by progressives, I see them distinguishing their beliefs (everyone is equal) from those of "real" racists like the KKK. They don't see themselves as racists--they recoil at being called racist--because they don't hold what they consider to be racist beliefs. Cue progressive eye-rolls. I'm not sure I've seen much in the way of an effective progressive response to this. By effective here I don't mean accurate but "at least as intuitively appealing as whites' denial of racism is to them."
Confronted with the "I'm not racist" response from white people, progressives like me tend to react in one or more various ways:
But, if you're doing that lagniappe work, trying to move white people to some point where they can at least grok why they're being called out for racism, I wonder if Murtz's framing might have more potential.
Murtz's frame lets us affirm that, yes, you can personally believe that races are equal. But you can at the same time feel uncomfortable or threatened when you see a norm of representation and prestige changing in ways that make it seem like your group is losing. The problem isn't (or isn't only) a frame of "non-white people are inferior" but a frame of "social status is a zero-sum game that only one group can win." This frame can be identified. This frame can be challenged. It may be easier, at least initially, to challenge that frame than to guide/drag someone through an odyssey of self-criticism and systemic reflection.
Or it might not.
More tomorrow,
JF
No matter what Trump does or fails to do, he remains within the relatively narrow 35-45% range of approval. Aronson quotes Jerry Falwell, Jr. "I can't imagine him doing anything that's not good for the country," says Falwell. "I know anything he does, it may not be ideologically ‘conservative,’ but it’s going to be what’s best for this country,”
Aronson seizes on this "anything he does" as the core of Trumpism, which Aronson links to white evangelicals, Trump's strongest demographic of support (80% in the last election). Wondering how this could be so, Aronson draws on sociological research to locate this "anything he does" support in a white fear of displacement.
Diana Mutz provides Aronson his main thesis in her 2018 postmortem of the 2016 election. It is not economic anxiety, Mutz argues, that motivated this core of white voters. It is status threat, the perception among whites that other racial minorities are taking over, usurping the position of cultural, economic, and political hegemony that white people have historically enjoyed in the US. Mutz explains, "It is not racism of the kind suggesting that whites view minorities as morally or intellectually inferior, but rather, one that regards minorities as sufficiently powerful to be a threat to the status quo.”
I think this is spot-on. When I hear white conservatives grousing about racism as an overused scare-word by progressives, I see them distinguishing their beliefs (everyone is equal) from those of "real" racists like the KKK. They don't see themselves as racists--they recoil at being called racist--because they don't hold what they consider to be racist beliefs. Cue progressive eye-rolls. I'm not sure I've seen much in the way of an effective progressive response to this. By effective here I don't mean accurate but "at least as intuitively appealing as whites' denial of racism is to them."
Confronted with the "I'm not racist" response from white people, progressives like me tend to react in one or more various ways:
- You're lying to me: Sure, Jan. You really are racist--as in you believe black and brown people to be subhuman--but you know they can't just say that out loud (at least not when you think someone who'd object might hear). So you lie. Obviously, this is a strong claim. Obviously, there are some situations in which this is likely true. But, putting myself into a white conservative's shoes, I can see why this response wouldn't exactly elicit self-reflection and trust. It's a battle blow--you're a bad-faith actor--not a call to dialogue. (Sometimes a battle blow is what's called for, but I'm restricting myself to situations of dialogue and outreach.)
- You're lying to yourself (cognitive dissonance): That is, you really do harbor racist beliefs (e.g., distrust of people of color, belief that white people are smarter/better/more deserving than others, stereotypes about black and brown people). But your self-image is of someone who does not believe such things. So you lie to yourself, creating elaborate rationales for racist beliefs and feelings that somehow excuse you of racism (ex: I don't hate black people! I have black friends! I hate lazy people, and black people are more likely to be lazy. That's not racism; that's just facts...). Because the lying-to-yourself response is subtler than a charge of bad-faith mendacity, progressives like me often proffer it as a way of preserving some sense of good faith (or, at least, preserving the sense that we progressives operate in good faith). And, like the deception response, it may be true in some cases. But, again, in terms of how someone is likely to take it? Well, I wouldn't usually be open to someone telling me that I'm mistaken in or deluded about my account of my own thoughts and beliefs. I'm more likely to hear that message as an attack, which it kind of is.
- You're implicitly biased: This is a favorite of late, a version of the lying-to-self argument that has numbers-based research to quote backing it up. You can take an implicit bias test to see whether your unconscious reactions betray bias for your ethnic group and against others. The validity of these studies, as with so much else in psychological research, has been called into question. I'm less interested here in the truth or accuracy of implicit bias (it makes intuitive sense to me) than in how I'd respond as a white conservative to the charge of implicit bias. How would I respond if told, for instance, that I'm implicitly biased against people I think I'm not biased against? I'd probably be resentful, especially if I view that charge as coming from a hostile source likely to use my implicit bias against me. And that is a problem: insofar as implicit bias exists, it (1) likely exists to some extent for just about everyone; (2) gets framed as something you aren't or can't be responsible for. Of course, studies suggest one can mitigate implicit bias over time. But as a weapon in the you're-so-racist conversation, diagnosing someone with what sounds like a mental condition is of limited efficacy. (Much the same can be said, I think, about "white fragility." I think that model is accurate, but when has "well, you're just being fragile" worked to make me more open to changing my mind?)
- You're systemically racist: This response seeks to displace the idea of racism as an individual failing, replacing it with an understanding that the systems and institutions of society were build of, by, and for white privilege. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that participants in that system behave and react in ways that perpetuate that dominance, even though they may individually wish for racial equality rather than white supremacy. I'm a fan of this view. But it's tough to make it work in practice. The naive view of racism--open, explicit bigotry--is incredibly powerful (it doesn't help that open, explicit bigots are enjoying a level of publicity they haven't seen in years). Once you make racism mean "the overlapping effects of various social structures," critics ask, what do you call those racially prejudiced bigots? Moreover, these critics ask, doesn't a thoroughgoing definition of racism as systemic rather excuse people who hold racist views? Moral accountability (you should stop perpetuating racist systems) without moral agency (your racial privilege inheres in the system; you did nothing to gain it, nor can you simply wish it away) jars with white conservatives' common sense of right and wrong. (Of course, that's what makes systemic inequality so maddening for those on the losing end: they suffer the consequences without having done anything wrong except be born into a marginalized group.) It can work, but it takes a while to do. The systemic approach is so complicated that often progressives themselves avoid it. It's much more fun to label someone racist than to have a long conversation where we get on the same page about how institutional structures can perpetuate racially discrepant outcomes.
But, if you're doing that lagniappe work, trying to move white people to some point where they can at least grok why they're being called out for racism, I wonder if Murtz's framing might have more potential.
Murtz's frame lets us affirm that, yes, you can personally believe that races are equal. But you can at the same time feel uncomfortable or threatened when you see a norm of representation and prestige changing in ways that make it seem like your group is losing. The problem isn't (or isn't only) a frame of "non-white people are inferior" but a frame of "social status is a zero-sum game that only one group can win." This frame can be identified. This frame can be challenged. It may be easier, at least initially, to challenge that frame than to guide/drag someone through an odyssey of self-criticism and systemic reflection.
Or it might not.
More tomorrow,
JF
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