Jeff at Protein Wisdom writes:
Roy and many of his equally vulgar commenters believe that black racism against blacks is to be dealt with by blacks themselves…and that white folk, who clearly have no stake in the battle, need to mind their own business.
Speaking for myself, it’s mainly that I’d like to see white people – many of whom seem to have an infinite capacity for opposing racism if it’s a matter of whites not being allowed to say “nigger” without criticism, or of any incident in which a person of color could be says or does something that’s racially offensive – find better priorities. For instance, maybe they could worry about the enourmous racial inequalities in access to good voting equiptment, or in wealth, or in jobs. You know -things that actually make a difference.
In this country, the oppression of white people by insensitive people of color is simply not a pressing problem. The need for racial equality in saying the n-word is not a pressing problem, either. On the other hand, the real effects of racism – both historic and ongoing – against blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians (among others) – are serious and pressing problems. In this context – a context I, in my wacky left-wing dialect, label “reality” – I’m more worried about discrimination against non-whites by large social institutions and powerful elites. Does that mean I’m a racist who values white people less? Well, let me ask you: if a surgeon decides to deal with Judy’s collapsed lung before dealing with Bob’s scraped knee, does that mean she values Bob less as a human being? John at Balloon Juice, discussing identity politics, writes: Maybe this incident will help people (in particular my friends on the left, but not exclusively) recognize why this brand of politics will lead to nothing but rancor and should end now. Yes, because what good has identity politics done so far? I mean, aside from ending Jim Crow, bringing voting rights to minorities and to women, creating a nationwide network of rape crisis and battered women’s resources, removing laws against sodomy, vastly increasing Deaf rights, changing homosexuality from a sickness to an orientation, making much of society more accessible to the disabled, wage equality laws, giving married women the right to own property, and a thousand other changes that have helped the disabled, the non-white, the queer and the female, when has identity politics ever done anyone any good? John’s right – putting every social improvement this country has made in the last century aside, identity politics leads to nothing but rancor.
Don’t tell lies. You don’t even have one patio, let alone two.
Unless you moved.
Well, yes, I have moved. (Bought a house and everything.) But no, I don’t have two patios, although arguably I’ve got one.
Anyhow, typo corrected. :-)
And to seriously respond to your post: you ascribe many good things that have happened to blacks to the success of identity politics. But identity politics is a relatively new innovation on the political scene, and most of the things you list happened well in advance of it. In fact, if you plot a graph of “improvements in the quality of the lives of black people in America”, and mark the widespread adoption of identity politics as a vertical line on the graph, the slope of the rate of improvement changes drastically for the worse on the more recent side of the line. Black people are arguably in the same boat now as they were in 1970; there hasn’t been much progress. Compare that to the progress from 1865 to 1900, or from 1935 to 1970.
I suspect you’re using “identity politics” as a shorthand for “black political awareness and efforts at social improvement”. But that isn’t at all the sense in which Jeff is using it, or indeed, the sense in which most politically cognizant Americans would use it. Identity politics generally means putting the primary emphasis of one’s own identity in the group, and on setting that group’s well-being as the highest value in society. Both of those values, springing as they do from a thoroughly modern political sensibility, would be starkly alien to black reformers of previous eras.
Which isn’t to say I don’t appreciate a good Roman-Monty Python reference.
Sorry, I see that it was John, not Jeff, who referenced ID politics.
That’s not identity politics – that’s a right-wing caricature of identity politics. But in the real world, if you went up to (say) Jessie Jackson and asked him “what is the highest value in society?,” he won’t answer “black people’s well-being.” He’ll say something like “love” or “justice” or “equality” or “service to God.” Because very few real-life people think in the simplistic way you right-wingers imagine we lefties think.
Are there some extremists who practice “identity politics,” as you defined it? Maybe, but they don’t have much influence in the real world, so worrying about what they do seems pointless. In fact, arguably the peak of racial identity politics, according to your definition, was the era of Black Power and Malcolm X – exactly the era you claim Identity Politics didn’t exist in.
Right-wing caricatures aside, what does identity politics actually mean to those who practice it? Wikipedia has a reasonable definition:
I think Wikipedia’s definition reflects reality far better than yours does, Robert; and therefore, I stick by my argument.
What I can’t understand in the ” whites not being allowed to say “nigger” without criticism” argument is why white people (or anyone other than black people) would *want* to use the ‘n’ word.
I mean, what’s the motivation to use that word, and in what context would it be used?
Who are you going to trust, me, typing out of my ass, or the collective wisdom of thousands of Wikipedia contributors?
OK, so use that definition. But then, I doubt very much that’s what John Cole meant.
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This has nothing at all to do with anything I’ve written on identity politics.
I’ve written plenty on the subject — both from a poltitical and a philosophical standpoint (that latter of which I posit proceeds from a particular hermeneutic bent). You’re free to look around my site for those arguments and then react to them if it’s a debate over identity politics that you are after. But what you’ve written here doesn’t engage my arguments at all, really.
I agree with all of Ampersand’s comments.
And as someone who has been doing activist work forever, the other key words is _allies_.
Identity politics is crucial for building bases and doing social change work but it takes working with allies (groups with similar or related issues) to gain the leverage to be most effective. And these are times in which it’s hard to be effective
If that’s not what he meant, then it reduces his argument to “Because your incredibly useful tool (which has reduced the advantages of various groups I identify with vis a vis various groups you identify with) can also be identified with this incredibly reductive definition that I (or someone very like me, a member of some of those various groups I identify with that you don’t) pulled out of my ass, well, then, you ought to set aside your incredibly useful tool. Because that thing I defined offends all right-thinking people, or it ought to. There. Aren’t we all more comfortable now, on this level playing field?”
Or words to that effect.
Actually, Laurie, I would argue that its the success of previous alliance-building that currently cripples the left-liberal wing, rather than anything special about “the times”. You guys can’t get anything accomplished because you’ve successfully forged so many alliances between small, disparate groups, that it precludes any new action. (Cf. inner-city black parents who want school choice and the public school teacher’s unions who would rather die.)
That is the underlying weakness of coalition politics; beyond a certain size, the new relationships created by a new organizational recruit end up being a net negative.
Kip, looks like John has clarified exactly what he was saying in his trackback.
Josh,
I can think of instances where white folks do use the word nigger:
If they are quoting a conversation verbatim. (As in Terry Gross’ Fresh Air pieces.)
In literature, to create an effective character. Read James Ellroy. All the white cop characters lose credibility if they use negro when they mean nigger.
In this country, the oppression of white people by insensitive people of color is simply not a pressing problem.
The reason why it’s not a pressing problem is only because people of color don’t wield the same amount of power as the predominantly white social institutions and elites. So if we’re looking to treat the symptoms (which is appropriate at some times), we would primarily focus on the effects of white-on-nonwhite racism. But when we want to address the underlying cause, which is the spiritual issue of hatred, we need to recognize that racism in either direction is equally toxic.
OK, Jay, is anyone telling those people that they specificaly can’t do that? I read mystery noveld by Robert Parker. White people in the books use the ‘n’ word some times, but I’ve never read of anyone trying to tell Parker he should not write them like that.
This has nothing to do with the argument that Amp is talking about.
Josh,
I don’t know what people say about Robert Parker.
I do _know_ white people who claim James Ellroy is racist because his characters use the word nigger when they speak.
The fact that you didn’t use the word, but chose, instead, to use “the ‘n’ word,” fuels the arguments of the white people Amp describes.
“See,” they say. “We can’t even say it when someone else uses it.”
That Terri Gross stumbled over whether or not to say the word, suggests, to me anyway, the concern/issue runs deep among white people. And she stumbled over the word when she was interviewing Randall Kendall, author of “Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word.”
But, what the hell. I’m more than happy to concede that you know exactly the parameters of this argument.
And that I don’t.
There’s Huckleberry Finn, too, which has been challenged in various schools across the country for among other reasons, the use of this racial slur.
Yeah, James Ellroy probably went for realism when he wrote about the LAPD in the 1950s in “L. A. Confidential” though he’s also been criticized for his books. You can argue that his portrayal of African-American characters may be stereotypical because they reflect the reality at the time that the LAPD officers were quick to racially profile, arrest, frame, beat and kill Black men(still the reality of today’s LAPD, btw). But they are still stereotypical portrayals of criminals(if not mass murderers, they were rapists and drug addicts)in a genre filled with them.
That story is still portrayed through the eyes of three bigotted, corrupt(in different ways) White LAPD cops who are much more fleshed out(more so in the book than the film) than either the Black characters or the Latino characters(which consist of a female rape victim and two men arrested and later beaten by cops in the infamous and true “Bloody Christmas” rampage)
Back to usage of the slur….
Whites argue passionately about why the use of the word in this format is okay and not considered offensive, but when we look at the word, it’s just a word that as far as we’re concerned, and it has been beneficial for the advancement of our race along with violence, threats, thefts and other practices. We may not believe that to be true of ourselves or accept that, though many do without any problem unfortunately, but it is true. The demeaning and denigration of races other than White has been done to advance and promote White supremacism and this racial slur was another tool or weapon in the arsenal to do that. That word hasn’t gone away. I don’t spell it out, because I’ve learned that in its written or spoken form, it still has the capacity to cause pain, whatever its context.
Because of my work, I still run into the occasional “n—– lover” or “race traitor” but without the historical context of the word or being African-American, it isn’t the same thing. It’s not really an insult or slur directed mostly at me(somewhat, due to racist and sexist meaning), but those I associate with. I can be and am offended for others, but not for myself, because Whites as a race don’t have a history of being slurred with language against that race so there’s not much to draw on. Various ethnic(i.e. Italian, Jewish) and religious(Jewish, Muslim) groups do , from other ethnic groups and religious groups. If you are a woman, you can feel the pain and sting, and fear of gender slurs, which can cause similar feelings in some sense but different feelings in the other. Or if you are gay, then there’s homophobic slurs and if you are disabled, there’s slurs as well. All of the above have their own independent histories which may intercross with other histories, and all are done to promote the dominant paradym of White(as opposed to person of color), Male(as opposed to female) Straight(as oppose to Gay) and so forth….It’s not a coincendence that every marginalized groups have a laundry list of slurs associated with them, to accompany the roster of actions taken against them. Language can be a very powerful thing.
With regard to racial slurs, it’s not uncommon here to have them spraypainted or scrawled on schools, homes, businesses or yelled out at a group of people picketing against racial injustice on the street. When I hear people say they’ve never seen or heard it, I raise an eyebrow, but I suppose in many places, the reality is different.
For many African-Americans, especially of the older generations who grew up and lived through a time period when it was regularly used as a slur, and followed up with murders, bombings, lynchings and other acts of domestic terrorism, it has its meaning, but I think with younger generations, the connection to the past has often been lost. Maybe for some it’s there and, it’s a word they want to use on their own terms, not have used against them. I don’t think it’s a simplistic issue, but more complex and the people who are White who criticize its usage by Black individuals aren’t looking at it as anything more than a “well, they can say it…but we can’t….Waaaaa!”
Here, there is often tension when for example, Black teenagers especially young men use it with each other, and often people old enough to be(and may indeed be) the parents or grandparents don’t like that and it’s an issue.
As for the White pity party…
Whites don’t like being told they can’t say a word by a group that consciously or less so, they deem to be inferior to them. And with Whites, it’s all or nothing, either you have all the power, or you have none and you’re being oppressed by another group. So if Whites can’t use a racial slur in whatever context they want to under their privilage as a racial group, that’s called OPPRESSION.
“The fact that you didn’t use the word, but chose, instead, to use “the ‘n’ word,” fuels the arguments of the white people Amp describes.
“See,” they say. “We can’t even say it when someone else uses it.”
————————————————–
I use the abbreviated version by choice. Even its less inflammatory uses seem to cause pain in people who see or hear it, and I’ve seen and heard what that word does to people on the receiving end many times. Whether it’s someone who wakes up, leaves their home and it’s spraypainted on their walls, or their car, or yelled to them on the street, it causes tremendous fear and pain.
I do not feel oppressed by not using this one word out of hundreds of thousands in its full format. I do not feel disadvantaged. I do not feel that this is racism against White people.
This said, if White people want to go off and have a pity party about it, they should feel free to do so. ..and why they do so they should thank God or whomever that they aren’t on the receiving end of real racism. It’s a waste of time to go on crying about this, when there’s so many more constructive uses of their time and energy.
Can we avoid the n-word discussion/derailment? That was an aside, and far from the point, at least as I read the post.
Thenks.
Not meaning to be rude or step on anyone’s toes, nor meaning to blame anyone for starting or participating in such a discussion. Nor meaning to speak with any sort of authority. Agree and stop discussing it, or disagree and continue. In either case, no need to publicly recognize the existence of these two posts of mine that I can imagine.
Sorry to interupt.
Despite evidence to the contrary, I generally try not to deliberately antagonize people. I haven’t found any particular context to use the “n-word” (and in this context, I should state I’m so white I’m pink). There have been a couple of times when it might have been appropriate, when I’d be quoting someone, but it’s just too damn easy for the use of the word to completely distract from the point I’m trying to make to make it worth it.
I have two brothers. I have at times used what an uninformed onlooker would think were horrible insults towards them. They laugh it off and return it in kind. But God help someone who might direct such at any of us. This is kind of how I view the use of the word among blacks. I don’t feel particularly disenfranchised or discriminated against because I can’t join in.
I wonder if it’s a guy thing. I saw a comparison of male vs. female relationships that went something along the lines of, “If Jane, Linda, Mary and Joan get together, they call each other Jane, Linda, Mary and Joan. If Bill, Fred, Paul and John get together, they call each other Fathead, Dickless, Dufus, and Useless.” Obvious hyperbole, but quite a bit of truth. Where I have heard black-on-black use of the word in movies, music, TV, etc., it’s almost always male-to-male, sometimes female-to-male, and almost never female-to-female. But then I don’t see too many movies and TV or listen to music where the word is used, so you all may have a different observation.
Now on topic: I don’t think that whites are particularly victims of black racism as a group because blacks as a group have few opportunities to exercise any power over whites as a group. But this is not to say that anti-white racism on the part of blacks doesn’t exist, or that it isn’t wrong and can’t be dangerous when applied by individual blacks against individual whites.
Hmmm, I thought that the issue of the n-word was raised in the original post, along with other examples pertaining to Black racism against Whites, which is the right wing(and many of those left of that too) ‘s rather skewed and agenda-driven definition of identity politics. It is one of the things that they come out swinging in their belief that the real racism in society is against Whites, particularly but not exclusively(because this has come up in discussions involving feminists too)men.
This discussion is fresh for me, because my blog was recently, um visited by a horde of local police officers, and one of their criticisms with my blog is that it highlighted corruption and misconduct of mainly White officers. Well, this was b/c the force is over 75% White and most of the misconduct involves White officers. And in cases where it has involved Black officers, they are charged, fired and if there are White officers who are equal participants in the misconduct as the Black officers, the White officers are treated more leniently.
But then it was that Black officers who are 6% of the force oppress White officers and I was a very bad racist if I didn’t see it this way.
A sidetrack but a reminder of how things get twisted around, when White people are the majority or almost the absolute in any group in numbers and then their representation decreases and/or a teeny bit of their power base. Like if instead of getting 99% of all contracts from government, White men only get 95%, then the racism that exists is against them, even though they still hold the vast majority of the access to contracts. Or a law enforcement agency who promotes two highly qualified men of color over nine White male sergeants who are younger and less qualified(and were in fact trained by the men of color) all hell breaks loose.
Anyway….
But the pity party still fits on other more topical levels so I guess that part can stay in. There is no institutional racism against White people in this country, by Black people. Individual racism, it depends on the circumstances involved, but it’s still playing out on a backdrop of a society still run by and largely for, White people, so is it really racism? Is something really racist, or is it just a behavior that makes Whites uncomfortable from being pulled out of their racial privilage that they call it racist?
Given the gross inequalities that still exist in our society, “Black racism” and claims of such by Whites minimalizes racism and its impact in our society. But trying to have a discussion with many, but not all White conservatives and more than a few liberals, and by the third exchange, after a brief dramatic pause, they’ll say, “you’re a racist”. nod their heads to reassure themselves that all is well and move off.
Amp argues that identity politics has driven every progress movement. And I expect there is some truth to that. I expect it has also driven every regressive movement. I suspect it drove the Southern states to secede from the Union; it drove the Klan; it drove the end of Reconstruction; it drove every example of genocide, from the Nazis to the Rwandans; it drove all the fundamentalist movements around the globe, including the one in the US; it drove our current adventures in Iraq. Karl Rove is a master at identity politics.
Yup, identity politics is one powerful force. Much like nuclear weapons. I’d prefer a world without either. Short of that, maybe the best we can do keep up the arms race.
While I cannot deny the role of identity politics in human progress, I note other dynamics as well. Jesus spoke of comfort not just for Jews, but for all. King spoke of raising up not just the blacks, but raising everyone up. MacKinnon spoke not just of freeing women from social straightjackets, but of freeing men as well. I don’t doubt that many are drawn to these people out of a kind of kindred affiliation. But they articulated a world view that did not rely solely on kindred affiliation. Maybe the appeal of their world views are too weak to stand alone, apart from identity politics. But I like to think otherwise.
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radfem,
me culpa.
I think of the “White people are so oppressed ’cause the can’t say the n-word,” as being one of those really dumb things that white people complain about on the net, and that was getting tossed off as a mocking example, not a serious example. That cops defending themsleves from charges of racism would use that as their counter argument is… well, it boggles the mind.
And anyway, your two previous posts on it before I butted in kicked ass, so I don’t know why I was complaining anyway.
Sorry.
No, it means that *I personaly* am uncomfortable with using that word.
Have you got a problem with that?
There have been times–and there still are–when the feminist movement has not practiced identity politics, i.e., it has gone out of its way to seek the same justice for people of color, the poor, and the gay population. As far as I can tell, this did not produce a strengthening of feminism (I’m not saying it produced a weakening of it either).
I am not arguing in favor of rigid identity politics. I am just saying that even when an effort is made to be inclusive, it doesn’t seem to amount to much. Lessons are not learned. Remember Colin Powell, in speaking to keep gays out of the military, using exactly the same language that was used to keep blacks out?
I do agree, though, ideally, that until people see the oppression of one as the oppression of all, nothing will ever change. Therefore, I believe nothing will ever change.
Thanks, Charles and no worries. It was interesting how this topic came up at this time, considering some conversations of sorts I’ve had in the past month.
I think that feminism has made some efforts(but not nearly enough) to work for social justice for people of color, poor people and gays and lesbians. And it should continue to focus even more on these issues than it has. Why? Because within the gender of women, you have women of color, lesbians and poor or working class women. Women may belong to one or two or all three of these groups, as surely as they belong to their gender. To not focus on racism, classism and homophobia within the feminist platform, is to place the members of all these groups in a second-class position within women and within feminism. And often these women are forced to choose btwn gender and race, or gender and sexual orientation as to how to identify themselves, and to where their loyalties lie first. Too often, they are pushed to make that choice, which makes many of them want to not be associated with that brand of feminism. Or they are told that issues pertaining to race and racism, sexual orientation or heterosexism, are distracting attention away from “real” feminism.
But it seems that if for example, Black women and White women disagree on an issue, then the Black women are seen as siding with men, antifeminist and the White women’s view of an issue is seen as the Feminist view. The Central Park Rape case particularly the most recent revelations about it, is one example, but then I’ve even seen this come up where I never thought I would, with the lynching of Emmett Till.
Doing activisim in feminism against racism, classism and homophobia has not weakened feminism, but it has not strengthened feminism either, but it’s not the activism that is the problem, it’s the resistance by many White feminists, straight feminists or middle-class or more affluent feminist to treating this activism as a fundamental part of feminist activism. The activism is then placed in the position of paddling upstream through the rapids, as a consequence.
As far as efforts to be inclusive within feminism not amounting to much, we don’t know that because again, there’s pressure put on women within the movement to align themselves solely by gender, being concerned only about issues involving gender(the issues, often being identified and prioritized by White women, straight women, )
Feminism still struggles with this and has throughout its entire history, just when dealing with women’s issues and rights. You have to broaden the movement to make it more inclusive, and unless that’s seen as strenghtening it, rather than weakening it, then things never will change.