Thoughts on Austin Channing Brown and history

Austin Channing Brown, in her I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness (New York: Convergent, 2018), has a chapter on history (chapter 8: "The story we tell"). In that chapter, Brown points out that slavery and racism were conscious decisions [p. 113]:

Slavery was no accident.

We didn't trip and fall into black subjugation.

Racism wasn't a bad joke that just never went away.

It was all on purpose.

Every bit of it was on purpose.

Racial injustices, like slavery and our system of mass incarceration, were purposeful inventions, but instead of seeking to understand how we got here, the national narrative remains filled with comforting myths, patchwork time lines, and colonial ideals.... 

Brown goes on to discuss how we (the royal "we") have been complicit in racism and how our expressed memory of and the way we talk about race and racism obfuscate the systematic nature of oppression.

I have some disagreements with Brown's take on history. But first, I should point out that Brown's book is a memoir. Her goal is to discuss her personal encounters with racism and her experiences concerning how racism works and is perpetuated. My criticisms don't undermine the value of her book, which I think deserves a close read by anyone interested in the issue.

Professional history has long addressed the issue

I'll start with a pedantic quibble. Professionally trained historians have long documented exactly what Brown says is commonly denied. At least since the "new" histories of the 1960s and 1970s, professionally trained historians have investigated the many policies and decisions that have created and enabled racism. When they've disagreed, it's almost always been over issues like whether racism is sui generis (that is, it's own thing) or epiphenomenal (that is, ultimately caused by something else, like class oppression).

That's not to say all professionally trained historians are onboard. Some schools of professional history, like diplomatic history, are latecomers. And we might occasionally identify a small number of professionally trained historians who reject that racism is a thing or who do in fact claim that it's something that "just happened" without any decisions being made. Even more professionally trained historians are like me. We recognize the importance of race and racism in understanding U.S. history. We believe it needs to be studied. But we individually choose to study something else. For example, my dissertation focuses on a group of people who were almost all male and all white. Race sometimes explicitly entered the statements of theirs that have come to the public record and was implicit in many more ways. I, however, focused on different things, mostly on their relation to the state and certain policies. Even those features had some relation to race and racism, but I chose not to focus on them.

My criticism is a little unfair because Brown isn't talking about "professionally trained historians." She's talking about national and local narratives and about how we as a society treat the history of race and racism. She's also presumably talking about how history is taught in primary and secondary school, although I don't recall if she makes that explicit.

Choices are always constrained

My second criticism more directly challenges Brown's argument that "[e]very bit of [racism] was on purpose." I'd say it was and it wasn't. All of us play a role in crafting what our society is like, none of us crafts it completely. Some have a big say, and others have little or almost no say. Those who have the greatest say still must work with the world as they find it. They don't encounter it anew.

Positive choice

Brown's argument is strongest when it comes to positive choice. By "positive," I mean the decision to do something instead of the decision not to do something. When it comes to the positive decisions people have mad, it is clear that much of racism and the antecedents of racism (slavery and Jim Crow, for example) weren't accidents at all.

People chose to import slaves to the Americas. People chose to enact laws that made slavery heritable and that defined it closely with race. People chose to take positive measures to perpetuate slavery as it faced numerous challenges. People chose to join vigilante groups like the KKK and that people chose to enact Jim Crow legislation. ,People chose to protest and violently attack others who protested against racism. People chose to bomb black churches.

Negative choice

Most of the examples above were explicit choices to do certain things that didn't have to be done. But there's another type of choice. That is the decision not to do something.

We can say that few people chose to lodge a meaningful challenge to slavery throughout most of its existence in the U.S. and its predecessor colonies. "Meaningful" is a work of art, of course, and at an everyday level many, many people, perhaps a majority, challenged slavery. Sometimes, as with Thomas Jefferson, all they did was give lip service to the idea that slavery was wrong. Sometimes, as with most of the emancipation schemes in the north during and after the Revolutionary War, the decision to end slavery was so gradual that some people were legally enslaved as late as the 1830s or 1840s. Sometimes, as with the "good" slaveholders, a paternalistic attitude toward slaves was predicated on recognizing slaves' humanity in a way that undermined the justification for slavery even as it perpetuated the continuation of slavery. Sometimes, as with those who proposed gradual emancipation, the efforts were more substantive. And sometimes, as with the thousands of slaves who resisted fully buying into their masters' paternalistic pretensions, the challenge to slavery was greater.

But more often, we see accommodation to slavery. That accommodation ranged from reluctant to eager and was strongly linked to the constraints under which the accommodaters acted. A slaveholder might have had a hard time emancipating his slaves even if he wanted to. The southern economy was based on a credit system which involved a series of interlocking claims, obligations, and debts. Even if we disregard laws that forbade manumission, this credit system often meant a slaveholder couldn't simply free his slaves. A "lien" of sorts was on his property and simply freeing his property would have been very difficult. Add to that the reality that a person who lives in a slave society would be freeing his slaves into that society. The slaves would still have to find a way to survive, to work, and while there were free communities of color in the slave south, survival was precarious. Moving to the north or elsewhere was not always an option. Some states forbade freed slaves to enter, and even where such prohibitions did not apply, it's hard to move to a different area where one has few connections.

Slaves, too, chose often not to challenge slavery. In the short and medium term, it would have been hard for them to predict slavery's end, and so they had to manage within the system. As Eugene Genovese documents in Roll, Jordan, Roll, slaves asserted their everyday "rights" in a way that ultimately affirmed the hegemony of the planer class. One needn't sign on to Genovese's Marxist argument in its entirety, and in my opinion, Genovese suffers from the reductionism characteristic of most Marxist scholars. But the problem he is addressing is real. Slaves, like anyone, have had to work with what they got. Slaves had to survive somehow in a system which probably seemed more or less permanent, where revolt was never a plausible possibility, and where escape was difficult and involved tremendous risks.

I've emphasized slavery, but the same dynamic could be applied to the Jim Crow era and to today. While people chose to attack civil rights protestors, many, many others chose not to get involved. It wasn't only a question of apathy. It was also a fear of violence. For some business owners, challenging Jim Crow and treating customers equally might have led to prosecution for violating segregation statutes. (I realize it's possible to overemphasize that last point and claim that white business owners were "the real victims" of Jim Crow. It's also possible that the threat of prosecution for a white business owner violating segregation laws may have been more theoretical than actual (i.e., I'm not an expert in that area). But the fact remains that if such business owners wanted to be racially progressive, the laws were on the books and in theory could be used against them.)

The positive-negative spectrum

Of course, I've presented the issue too starkly. The distinction between "positive choice" and "negative choice" is not a bright line. It's a spectrum. Negative choice is still a choice. And as the song says, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Negative choice is almost always the safest and easiest thing to do, especially in the short term.

We should remember that "negative choice" often obfuscates the actual positive choices people make.A slaveholder on a large plantation may have inherited a set of property of which he couldn't easily divest himself and lived in a society that constrained his actions, but he could have written a letter to the legislature urging more liberal emancipation laws. Or if he wrote one, he could have written two. He could have shared some of his "profits," when he had profits, with his slaves. Or if he already did, he could have done it more often or less grudgingly. There are usually good choices that can be made along some margin. The frog may never actually get a chance to jump off the cliff, but it can get closer and closer.

Sometimes, however, the best we can do is to choose not to participate in evil, or as Dr. Rieux said in The Plague, do the least amount of evil possible.

Sendoff

I haven't really disproven Brown's claim, quoted above. I have qualified it, however. It's worth remembering that even when we discern others' actions to be evil and when we discern certain structures of society to be evil, it behooves us to remember that we all exist in a context and within constraints that channel the options available to us and sort them into what is relatively easy and what is relatively difficult. I do want to stress that my qualifications aside, I believe Brown's claim about choice is fundamentally correct, and it's worthwhile to learn and interrogate the choices historical actors have made, just like it's worthwhile to learn from and interrogate the choices each of us makes.

It's also worthwhile to read her book, and I recommend it.

The myth of the heroic journalist

I just saw the film "All the President's Men" (1976) for the first time. In case you don't know, it's a retelling of the first months of the investigation by the Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein into the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to President Nixon's resignation.

I didn't like it, but I'm not sure if it's the movie I didn't like or if I didn't like the story. If the movie is overall accurate in how it portrays what Woodward and Bernstein did and how they did it, it raises serious questions about what journalists do (or used to do). We see them using anonymous sources and doing what seems to amount to tricking some people into making statements they don't want to make. The reporters don't seem to care whose lives are ruined as long as they get there story.

The movie does acknowledges these difficulties. In one scene, the reporters talk to the wife of a potential informant and they say something like (I forget the exact wording), "we're just here to help you." The woman says, "no, you're not." Woodward admits it, saying, "no, we're." They seem to agree that the woman's husband is only a means to an end. The reporters are using him. The movie wants us to believe they're using him for a greater TRUTH what for to save the republic. Someone can be excused for thinking they're using him to advance their professional notoriety.

The movie also acknowledges problems with the type of anonymous sourcing Woodward and Bernstein engage in. Sometimes the reporters' questionable tactics backfire on them. At one point, the reporters' sources seem to troll them into prematurely making a claim about the involvement of H. R. Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff, in coordinating the break in.

Of course, the grizzled editor, played by Jason Robards, stands by the story anyway. Something something first amendment and democracy something. And what do you know, the reporters are eventually proven right.


But I left the film thinking the Watergate story might have been a Hail Mary touchdown pass. If a hundred reporting teams make up just any story once a week, no matter how wild, one or two of the stories are bound to be true eventually.

That's probably not the real tale of what Woodward and Bernstein accomplished. They probably were and are legitimate professionals who sincerely sought and seek the truth. But their tactics, at least as the movie portrayed them, seemed questionable.

In our current moment in 2019, we're supposed to admire "intrepid" (a word you see quite a lot) journalists. Look at "Spotlight," the 2015 film about the Boston Globe's expose of the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal, or "The Post," the 2017 movie about Mr. Trump's refusal to give the Washington Post the respect it deserves by denying its reporters access the controversy over the Pentagon Papers case. Both movies have their instances of introspection about their profession. In the first, we find that the Globe had access to the story much earlier but didn't pursue it. In the second, Meryl Streep's character recalls the cozy relationship she and her reporters had with the Kennedy's, the implication being that perhaps the closeness of that relationship ma have influenced the Post's editorial decisions.

But both films seem to settle on a nostalgia for "journalism as it used to be," where the pro's, like the reporters in "All the President's Men," know what they're doing and shouldn't let much get in the way of truth. Maybe we do in fact need more of that. Maybe the Beck-Hannity-Olberman-Maddow approach to "journalism" serves us poorly. Maybe FOX's "fair and balanced" approach gives a little too much legitimacy to certain viewpoints by assuming that every story has at least two sides that need equal air time.

Maybe. But the golden age of journalism wasn't so golden. No golden age was.

Remembeing the Yale graduate student strike of 1995

Corey Robin at Crooked Timber offers his memory of the Yale graduate student strike of 1995 and the role of historian David Brion Davis in opposing the strike. Other than suspecting that Davis wasn't quite the ogre he's portrayed as, I don't have any quarrel with Robin's account because I don't know the specifics.

I do, however, have a memory of the strike. I was an undergraduate student at a state university in Cibolia. It was a good university and I got a good education there, but it had many of the faults and challenges that most mid-tier research universities with more than 20,000 students have. I was privileged to be in college, but it was clear that a large number of schools were much better, at least in terms of their reputation and in terms of how affluent their student body was. The ivies, including Yale, were among them.

So, I heard about the Yale strike while walking in the history department. Some professor had placed a newspaper account of the strike on his or her office door. I forget what the account actually said, other than that the students were striking, but I remember thinking, "these people already have their BA's and are now getting a GRADUATE DEGREE in one of the most prestigious schools in the country.....and they have their tuition and fees paid for while I have to work to pay for my own tuition."

In other words, I was less than sympathetic. I still am, although I realize it might very well be a closer call than I had thought when I was an undergrad. Having been to grad school, I realize how grad students are sometimes either mistreated or not as well compensated for the value they bring to their department. Sometimes there is abuse, either egregious abuse (like sexual harassment or racial discrimination) or everyday abuse, like one of my professors who every semester seemed to cancel two to three weeks of lectures and expected their grad student TA's to fill in, which was outside their job duties. I also realize that tuition and fee waivers are not always exactly what they're cracked up to be. And even if we take abuses and misleading promises out of the equation and even if "fairness" doesn't enter into the picture, it's not presumptively wrong for people to seek a larger piece of the pie.

Even so, "sometimes" and "not always" and "exactly" and "presumptively" are key words in that preceding paragraph.. Graduate student employment is still usually in most ways a good deal. That's a problem for graduate student workers when they try to unionize. No matter how justified their cause or how careful they are to make their case to the public, people are going to react. And the unionizers need to realize that and accept that theirs is a hard sell and not all will be onboard.

Musings on "white fragility"

You may be aware of the notion of "white fragility." I believe it's a potentially valuable way of looking at white racism, especially if we look at how its original proponent defined it. But I also fear that people will use it in counterproductive ways.

White fragility defined

Sociologist Robin DiAngelo coined "white fragility." The term refers to "a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable [to white people], triggering a range of defensive moves." Those moves, she adds, "function to reinstate white racial equilibrium." According to DiAngelo, white fragility exists because

[w]hite people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress.

The behaviors that mark white fragility "function to reinstate white racial equilibrium." They close off necessary conversations about racist practices and attitudes and about structural racism. [All quotes in this paragraph come from DiAngelo 2011, p. 54.]

Before I go further, I'll note that DiAngelo has published a book recently (in 2018) where she expands on her ideas about "white fragility." I have not read that book, and this blog posts speaks only about her article.

What DiAngelo gets right

Essentially, DiAngelo gets it right. White people in North America are insulated from what she (and most anyone) can call "race-based stress." Or more precisely, as a group, white people in North America tend to be much more insulated than non-whites.

DiAngelo also is very careful in her language. She doesn't say that all "racial stress" is the same. In the article, she focuses specifically on instances where "merely talking about racism" causes the putative racial stress that evokes the white fragility. [DiAngelo 2011, p. 61, emphasis in original] DiAngelo is also careful to focus on function rather than intention. White fragility doesn't necessarily reflect an intent to maintain racial hierarchy. But it's function is to do so. DiAngelo also acknowledges that not all whites are equally fragile or equally insulated from "race-based stress." [See footnote 1 in DiAngelo 2011, p. 55]

Finally, while I'm going to be critical in much of the rest of this post, I acknowledge that "white fragility" describes something that is both real and hard to put into words. I may criticize others' terminology, but sometimes we need a new set of words to describe things that happen but are hard to isolate.

Limitations of DiAngelo's thesis

Solutions are elusive

DiAngelo's thesis identifies a problem but not a solution. That doesn't mean she's wrong. Just because a problem doesn't have an obvious solution doesn't mean it's not a problem. Even so, to note that white fragility exists doesn't tell us what to do about it. It's also not clear to me how white fragility functions to preserve racial hierarchies. DiAngelo seems to agree [DiAngelo 2011, p. 66]:

While anti-racist efforts ultimately seek to transform institutionalized racism, anti-racist education may be most effective by starting at the micro level. The goal is to generate the development of perspectives and skills that enable all people, regardless of racial location, to be active initiators of change.

Workplace seminars have limits

DiAngelo takes her examples of white fragility from workplace racial sensitivity seminars. She formerly, along with others, has had the mostly thankless and unenviable task of leading these seminars, often in environments where the participants are all or mostly white and not disposed to discuss racism.

In one seminar, she notes that

A white man is pounding his fist on the table. His face is red and he is furious. As he pounds he yells, "White people have been discriminated against for 25 years! A white person can't get a job anymore!" I [DiAngelo] look around the room and see 40 employed people, all white. There are no people of color in the workplace." [DiAngelo 2011, p. 54-5]

In a different seminar, DiAngelo recalls that a white participant exhibited symptoms of a heart attack after hearing "sensitive and diplomatic feedback on how some of her [the participant's] statements had impacted several persons of color in the room." This feedback led the white person to become so upset that she begins to exhibit symptoms of a heart attack. [DiAngelo 2011, p. 64-5]

What's insufficiently explored in both these examples is the compulsory context of such seminars. Most workplace seminars of that sort are required by management. The reasons for those seminars may be for the less than laudatory goals of staving off a lawsuit or buttressing the prerogatives of management without addressing concerns about low salaries or onerous supervisors.

Those seminars likely come off as preachy or scolding, no matter how necessary and well-managed they might be. It's not only a "haters are gonna hate" thing. It's also a "workers put in their time and go home" thing. Most of the workers obligated to attend will sit through the seminar and do the exercises. They'll see it as one more thing they have to do on the clock. Some will buy into it. Some won't.

And the two examples from DiAngelo's essay are not equivalent. Take the angry man who pounds the table and makes the ridiculous claim about white people not getting jobs anymore. That's an instance of someone refusing to take responsibility for handling his own feelings. (Even in that case, though, we need always remember that we don't know that man's story.)

In the second example, however, the person has much less choice. Even if she's not really having a heart attack and is having "only" a panic attack, she nevertheless appears to be suffering from real symptoms, such as hyperventilation or heart palpitations. Someone can choose to learn skills that help them remain calm in the face of benign and well-meaning criticism. But that kind of "choice" is a far cry from choosing panic attack symptoms.

Ruti Regan, who blogs about disability rights, brings up a comparable point. In a blog post addressed to people who lead what she calls "social justice workshops," she warns against ordering people to feel safe:

Feeling unsafe isn’t always privilege talking. It’s always a possibility, but it’s never the only possibility. Sometimes, presenters aren’t actually as knowledgable and perceptive as they think they are. Sometimes, presenters get things wrong in ways that make the space unsafe for the most marginalized participants in the room.

[snip]

We have power as teachers and presenters, and it is possible to abuse that power. Even when the people we’re teaching are more privileged than we are in every relevant way, it matters how we treat them. Being privileged in society is not the same thing as being safe in a classroom. We are all capable of making mistakes that hurt people, and when we make those mistakes, it matters.

(Regan might disagree with the overall point I'm making in this post and the uses to which I put her statements. I recommend anyone interested to read her post in full and other posts from her very thoughtful blog to understand where she's coming from.)

"[M]erely talking about racism" is an ideal type

As I note above, DiAngelo limits her discussions of race-based stress to those scenarios where we're "merely talking about racism. As she knows, however, we're very rarely, if ever, "merely" talking about racism. When it comes to racism, talking is never merely talking. As DiAngelo notes in her essay, whites often use racially coded language. They might speak of "good schools" or "good neighborhoods" when they mean "white schools" and "white neighborhoods." Or they might liken anti-racist activists to bullies or worse. They're not, I would say and she would say, "merely talking."

None of that invalidates what DiAngelo is saying. In fact, she would likely counter that whatever the whites in those examples are talking about, it's not "about" racism. Having to go to a seminar may not be "merely" talking. But the resultant racial stress is nothing compared to the types of racial stress people encounter in less controlled environments. Persons of color have to encounter racial stress every day and in modes less safe than a conversation about the nature of those very encounters. White people, too, encounter racial stress that's not merely "conversation" based, even though as a whole, they may encounter encounter it less often or may have more opportunities to limit their exposure.

Good conversations on race are very hard

White persons new to discussions on race may be confused. The format of those discussions may seem to encourage honest self-reflection and revelation. "Honest" reflections, though, may involve "honestly" repeating racial stereotypes, which in turn evokes criticism. Further, if they regret racism in the wrong way, they might be accused of "white tears." If they don't immediately dedicate themselves to fighting racism, they might be accused of denialism. If they do dedicate themselves to fighting racism, but do so in the wrong way or speak too earnestly, they might be accused of "white knighting" or trying to be a "white savior." If they ask for advice, they may be met with "I'm not here to educate you!."


While I believe that those behaviors arise from an understandable "confusion," I don't condemn the criticisms. Persons of color will understandably resent having to listen to white people repeat stereotypes and work out their personal demons. "White tears" and "white knighting," like "white fragility," describe real things. They are false pieties, easy to proclaim and even easier to cast aside once it's convenient to do so. And while I have little sympathy for the activist who assumes a "let me educate you" role and yet insists "I'm not here to educate you" (something which, to be honest, I don't think I've personally encountered), I have a lot of sympathy for non-activists who resent being drafted against their will into giving lessons on racial etiquette and speaking for all similarly situated persons.

Counterproductive uses of "white fragility"

I identify here two counterproductive uses of "white fragility." These are potential uses. I don't mean to say DiAngelo or anyone else necessarily endorses them.

#1: Ad hominem argument

One counterproductive use of "white fragility" is as an ad hominem argument. If a white person raises an objection to what an activist says, and if that activist responds by stating that that white person suffers from "white fragility" without otherwise addressing the objection, that activist is attacking the person, not addressing the objection.If the objection has no merit in the first place, it should be easily refuted. If it has some merit, maybe it is best to acknowledge what merit the objection has. But if the objection is not answered or addressed at all, the objector and everyone else will know it. Paradoxically, these ad hominems do what DiAngelo accuses "white fragility" of doing. They make the discussion about the white person and not about racism.

I do need to concede something. A person, in their frustration, may think to themselves or vent to their friends that another person is expressing "white fragility." While venting isn't always appropriate or useful, it sometimes is. Even when it isn't, it's often understandable. And it's probably exasperating to hear, for the umpteenth time, a white person react as if they're "hurt" by being exposed to the fact of white racism. Again, "white fragility" describes a real thing.

 #2: The might makes right reductio

Another potential counterproductive use--one I believe few if any anti-racists actually intend--is to feed  the notion that only the strong deserve respect.

Part of DiAngelo's argument is that persons of color have to experience a lot more racial stress than white people typically do. As a result, persons of color develop coping mechanisms and something like "emotional callouses" (I think this is my term, not DiAngelo's) that strengthen them for living in a society in which they're repeatedly reminded of where they fall on the racial hierarchy.

I offer no criticism of that as a descriptive argument. I accept that it holds true most of the time. But by implication a normative argument lurks beneath the surface. That normative argument suggests that white people should be criticized for being fragile--not for the choices they make in the face of their fragility, but for the fact of fragility itself. If we take that normative argument to its logical conclusion, it leads us to a point where we criticize others for being weak at all.That's not far from saying only the strong deserve respect.

I say this normative argument comes "by implication" because I don't think DiAngelo or most people who use "white fragility" really intend to endorse it. They would deny it and would do so sincerely. I am suggesting, though, that if they rely too much on the "white fragility" concept, or invoke it too often or in inappropriate circumstances, they risk validating the "might makes right" claims I see as implicit in the concept.

We are all fragile. Every person I have met and have gotten to know has proved in some way weak or vulnerable, has sometimes reacted too emotionally or defensively to thoughtful and apt criticisms, no matter how "diplomatic and sensitive." In that sense, "white fragility" is reminder of something we all have in common.

To say that is not to deny that other people are differently situated. It's not to insist that "therefore, racism affects us all equally." There is an important difference between someone using their fragility to silence others and the fact of fragility itself.

Parting thoughts

To anti-racist activists:

I'm in the cheap seats. I'm much more likely to be a target or passive observer of your activism than I am to take the lead myself. It's easy for me to criticize your tactics and your language for framing those tactics. Yours is a hard job.

I offer this blog post to remind you that your tactics, however necessary and however serviceable to a good cause, have their disadvantages. Those disadvantages don't mean you oughtn't use them. But if people react to those tactics, the reaction is not always, or not only, due to bad faith.

To my white friends:

If you've read this far, you know that I agree with the essentials of what DiAngelo and others are saying. I am convinced that race and racism have been central features of American history and that our society and polity work systematically to empower white persons over persons of color. Speaking for myself, I harbor and choose to indulge some racist attitudes, and I often make racist choices, even sometimes when it would be easy for me to choose otherwise.

You might not be on board. You might take other lessons from history. You might believe other concerns, like economic class, are more pressing. You also may be personally less racist than I am. If I took the time to listen to you, I might learn something or we might find we agree on more than we thought.

And I understand the discussions on race are hard. The people who initiate these discussions, either in formal settings like workplace seminars or in less formal settings, sometimes seem preachy or self-righteous. They often present their points of view in a contrived environment in which the "right" answers are more debatable than the (usually unspoken) rules of the discussion permit. It might feel as if some participants are waiting for you to make a mistake they can pounce on.


And frankly, sometimes the best approach is to grin and bear it, to go through the motions. Most people do that in other circumstances. When I worked customer service, I sometimes had to stand with a smile on my face while an angry customer yelled at me. In other jobs, I've had to sit and listen quietly and politely to supervisors speak in the mode of "we talk, you listen." I've had to stand silent and felt the need to laugh along when I'm around people who make fun of evangelical Christians even though I was raised (partly) in that tradition and find much of those jokes to be based on misinformed stereotypes. I believe it's not always wrong to act similarly in discussions on race, to withdraw politely to avoid saying something that will get you in trouble, make waves, or hurt others' feelings.

I do urge you--and I try to remind myself--to consider three points, though.

Point #1:

You and I are responsible for our actions, and our actions have consequences. If I pound the table and yell, I should expect people to feel defensive. If I "go through the motions" by staring stony faced at a speaker with my arms crossed, I should expect people to assume that I'm hostile and I just don't get it.

Point #2:

Remember that others go through the motions, too. In fact, they may be so good at it that you're misled each time. Every time something is said about "good neighborhoods" or "good schools" when what is (probably) meant is "white neighborhoods" or "white schools," someone may feel uncomfortable or may silently object. But that person may very well choose to go along to get along. Maybe their objection isn't that strong. Maybe they even see where the speaker is coming from. But maybe they just don't want to get into it or be "that guy" or "that gal."

In other words, what you're doing is what other people choose to do all the time. That's one of the reasons going through the motions isn't always wrong. But it's also one of the reasons that you and I aren't not particularly special. As the poet said, you also are laid aside.

Point #3:

These discussions on race might sting a little, but they rarely produce lasting harm. When someone points out ways in which what I do is hurtful to them, I'll feel a little defensive. But at the end of the day I'll survive the experience.

The people who initiate and lead these discussions and the persons of color who share their stories are almost always acting in good faith. Even when someone seems to be more on a power trip than anything else, that person is still usually raising concerns others sincerely have. These are real concerns, and they don't become fake just because someone else may be a jerk or because we see the situation differently.

Because you're human, you know what it's like to have something to say and no one listen to you. You know what it's like to feel something deeply and yet have only imperfect words to express that feeling. You're not the only one who has felt that way. If you choose to listen to others, you may find yourself becoming less resentful. You may eventually find others extending the same courtesy and listening to you. You may find it easier to interact with others. You may be happier.

I can't guarantee any of that will happen. Some of it probably won't. And again, I personally believe it's at least sometimes okay to withdraw from these discussions and grin and bear it. But few things come with guarantees and in the meantime it helps to consider taking risks for understanding.

Works consulted

DiAngelo, Robin. 2006. "My Class Didn't Trump My Race: Using Oppression to Face Privilege." Multicultural Perspectives, v. 8, n. 3: 51-56.

DiAngelo, Robin. 2011. "White Fragility." International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, v. 3, n. 3: 55-70

Tragedies of anti-Trumpism: Extra-clinical and public mental health diagnoses

Statement of the problem

I have been critical of others' decisions to issue extra-clinical and public diagnoses of Mr. Trump's mental health. (See asterisked* footnote below about my word choice here.) While it seems almost everyone (who opposes Trump) does it, I have reserved much of my criticism for mental health professionals who do so. (See, for example, this post, cross-posted with Hit Coffee. Be sure to read this comment on Hit Coffee from Dr. X, who disagrees with what was then my argument.)

I have since come around, albeit grudgingly, to admitting that mental health professionals are not violating professional ethics when they make well-considered statements about Mr. Trump's, or any other public figure's, mental health. I still believe that these professionals, even those for whom I have a lot of respect, too often fail to parse what they know from observing Mr. Trump and what they can't know without further knowledge to which they don't have access. They also seem to flounder when it comes to distinguishing between their views as citizens and their views as professionals. Or, if they believe the roles of "citizen" and "professional" are so entwined as to be inseparable, they tend not to acknowledge the problems inherent in mixing professional opinions and political opinions. Finally, I suspect the claims that mental health professionals "can't" offer such opinions to be greatly exaggerated.

With that out of the way, though, I'll stipulate for the sake of this blog post that such public discussion and diagnosis of Mr. Trump's mental health are necessary. I'll also stipulate that mental health professionals participate in these discussions as responsibly as we can expect in a free society when an important matter of public controversy is at hand.

Tragedies of extra-clinical and public diagnoses

With those stipulations, I find "tragedies" from the extra-clinical, public diagnoses:

Extra-clinical, public diagnoses stigmatize mental health problems

No matter how much mental health professionals say that identifying dangerous tendencies is not the same as saying all, or even most people with mental health problems, members of the public will likely infer that from those professionals' public pronouncements. That's on the members of the public for not heeding what is said. But it's a predictable result nonetheless.

Extra-clinical, public diagnoses creates a backlash

Trump supporters, or even people who purport to oppose Trump but who question the tenor of some of the opposition, will respond negatively to these diagnoses. These diagnoses will help solidify some persons' support or temper some persons' opposition.

Extra-clinical, public diagnoses create a dangerous precedent

There's always going to be some mental health professionals, or at least people with the appropriate credentials, who will offer an assessment of a politician's mental health. And there will always be at least superficial evidence to support that assessment. That doesn't mean every situation is equivalent. Sometimes people are peculiarly unfit for their position and that unfitness needs to be assessed and acted on. But offering public, extra-clinical diagnoses in the one instance makes it marginally easier for others to do so later.

Send off

I've said a lot about professionalism. As a layperson in this area, I realize I'm speaking out of turn. A professional, speaking as a professional, needs to conform to the rules of that profession or at least note when they depart from those rules. As someone trained in U.S. history, for example, I must state in good and honest conscience that the Civil War was primarily a war over slavery and that the South seceded from the North primarily to protect slavery, even though my saying so might anger a good number of people who in other circumstances and on other issues I might wish to count as friends. (Why I'd want to count them as friends is perhaps a different question. But just suffice it to say that we all have friends and family who we love but cannot agree with everything they believe in.) That's burden of professionalism, and I recognize that members of other professions share like burdens.

I also wish to remind readers that I'm speaking of what I think are almost inevitable outcomes, of outcomes that are part of the expected costs people pay for doing what they believe is the right thing. Those costs, or "tragedies," as I call them, are there whether or not it's necessary to incur them. I'm less convinced than some mental health professionals that declaiming against Mr. Trump's mental fitness is as necessary as they seem to believe. But even if it is necessary--and even though it's unfair to all those mental health professionals who make public, extra-clinical diagnoses out of a sense of duty and with the fullness of caution their ethics require--those costs will nonetheless be exacted.

See introduction and table of contents for this series

*Footnote about word choice

By "extra-clinical diagnoses," I mean diagnoses offered without the benefit of the typical face-to-face evaluations mental health professionals usually engage in before making diagnoses. I also mean diagnoses offered without the follow up information gathering that may lead a mental health professional to revise (or confirm) their diagnoses. Finally, I mean "diagnoses" that venture to state what can't be known. It's one thing, for example, to say that Mr. Trump "probably won't change" or will "find it very difficult to change" or even, "on the basis of everything I've seen so far, and acknowledging that there's a lot I can't know from my vantage point, Mr. Trump can't change." It's another thing to say simply that "he can't change." I'm just a layperson, but I find it hard to believe that responsible mental health professionals say a person "can't" change without ever having had a chance to evaluate and work with that person for a time. I might be overly exacting in my demands on others' word choices. But professionals who purport to speak as professionals should be exacting in their word choices.

By "public," I mean information and evaluations offered about the mental health, or personality constellation, of a person that a mental health professional would not be permitted to offer without that person's consent if that person were a client. I suppose there's a gray area here, where a mental health professional may sometimes be permitted or even required to alert the public about a client who, for example, may hurt themselves or others.

By "mental health," I mean not only the distinction between "healthy" and "unhealthy" mental states, such as is indicated by finding a given person suffers from OCD, bipolar disorder, or psychosis. I also mean comments about "personality constellation" or other attributes that don't fit as easily onto a spectrum of what is mental health and what is mental illness.

UPDATE 3/8/2019: I've fixed a few broken links.

Tragedies of anti-Trumpism: The Russian investigation

The investigation

Most are aware of the charges that Russia may have somehow tried to influence the 2016 presidential election and that Russian interests have a disproportionate influence in the operations of the Trump administration. One claim is that a Russian agency, the Internet Research Association, somehow manipulated social media to target certain groups of people in the United States to influence their vote with "fake news." Another claim is that high-level operatives, like former National Security Advisory Michael Flynn, was somehow in the pay of Russian operatives from other countries. A third claim is that Trump is deeper in cahoots with the Russians, receiving difficult to trace contributions from Russia in exchange for Trump advancing Russian interests. As I understand it, Russia isn't the only foreign power alleged to exert undue influence, but the news I've seen focuses on "Russia" and Putin.

In light of these charges, part of the investigation into Trump has to do with his, his administration's, and his campaign's dealings with Russian and other foreign operatives. The questions behind this investigation seems to be what did they know, when did they know it, and how might they be compromising national security because of it?

This investigation needs to be done, and if it uncovers illegal actions, those actions must be prosecuted. Even if what it uncovers is not illegal, it may uncover questionable dealings that should call into question the competence and good faith of the Trump administration.

Three tragic consequences

But however necessary the investigation is,  into Trump's dealings with Russia may do, I see three potentially unfortunate consequences. unfortunate, potential consequences. First, the investigation feeds into a narrative of knee-jerk anti-Russianism and hyper-American nationalism and all the unsavory historical associations that come with that narrative. Second, the investigation glamorizes Putin.

Un-reflective attacks on free speech

One concern the Russian investigation has brought out is that "fake news" bombards social media and manipulates people to vote a certain way or not to vote at all. One possible reaction to "fake news" is advocacy for more gate keeping in the distribution of information. I fear that gate keeping can be unduly strict and may limit what can be said.

It all depends on what kind of gate keeping we're talking about. The fewer and more centralized the gate keepers--and the more formal and rigid the gate keeping process--the more danger. The more diffuse the gate keepers and the more access we have to alternative, non-gate-kept information, the better. To be clear, I haven't yet seen any serious proposal that might raise concerns. The only proposal I've actually seen (and at secondhand, so I don't have a link) is combat trollery on social media so as to provide more transparency about who is providing what information and in whose interests that information is being provided.

Another red scare?

The investigation revives our periodic obsessions with Russia and with anyone who may plausibly be smeared as "pro-Russian." That isn't too different from our other periodic obsessions, such as the war on terror or the anti-Japanese sentiment in the 1980s. But I'd just like to point that we've seen this movie before. The sides seem to have changed a bit. Those who say "but there really is a danger" tend now to be more on the left. Those who say "this is hysteria" or "this is a nothingburger" are probably more on the right. (Here I'm using commonsense, and therefore overbroad and vague, definitions of "the left" and "the right.")

That the sides have switched doesn't mean there's no danger. I should be wary of reasoning by analogy or assuming that because two situations have one thing in common, they have other things in common. But the similarity to other campaigns about "foreign intervention" should give at least a moment's pause. Will the allegations of "pro-Russianism" go overboard and start to ruin lives? Will anyone who raises the possibility that Russia isn't as great of a danger eventually be branded as "traitors"?

Probably not. I said the similarity to concerns the US has seen about foreign intervention should give us "a moment's pause." But I wouldn't say it should give us two moments' pause.

The greater glory of Putin

The investigation serves Putin's interests. Or rather, Putin will find it easy to spin the investigation in a way that buffs up his domestic standing. Maybe Putin is a danger to the US and maybe what Trump and his friends have been doing really does compromise national security or at least signals corruption. But every revelation of how Russia engineered a "fake news" campaign or somehow influenced the 2016 election likely plays into Putin's hands. Maybe Russian experts can tell me where I'm wrong, but I strongly suspect Putin gets a lot of leverage, in the form of bragging rights, by portraying himself as the guy who messed with the American elections.

That perhaps is the most "inevitable" of the tragedies from the Russian investigation. It's obviously (to me) something that needs investigating and it's impossible to investigate in a way that won't redound to Putin's interests.

Conclusion

My warnings about the potential attack on free speech and the next "red scare" are slippery slope arguments. My warning about how Putin may shape the investigation to his own interests is, if not trivial, perhaps to be expected and not particularly in anyone's control. But I believe there's no harm in keeping these concerns in mind.

See introduction and table of contents for this series

Tragedies of anti-Trumpism: Introduction

I write this post to introduce a new series that I call "the tragedies of anti-Trumpism."By Trumpism, I mean the facile appeal to bigotry and to authoritarianism that Trump--but not only Trump--represents. By "anti-Trumpism," I mean opposition to Trumpism.

Yet any serious effort to combat Trump and Trumpism entails, almost necessarily, certain costs to anti-Trumpists' own integrity and to those in whose name they pursue their activism. These costs are "tragic," not because they are too high to justify opposing Trumpism, but because opposing Trumpism almost necessarily exacts these costs.

I mostly join those who say we must remove Trump from office by any legal means necessary and that we must combat Trumpism. I say I "mostly join" and not "completely join" because I'm not convinced that just because a means is legal it is therefore the right thing to do. But that's a conversation for another day. And I certainly am not endorsing illegal means.

I'm aware I'm doing what is sometimes called "anti-anti-Trumpism." That term refers to those who oppose (or at least don't support) Trump but who are bothered by the way others oppose him. I'm aware of the allegation that this "anti-anti-Trumpism" is a bad thing, akin to support for Trump and what he stands for by way of nitpicking and finding fault with any and all criticisms but not actually doing or saying anything meaningful to call Trump and Trumpism to account.

In light of that allegation, I must concede several points:

• My series of blog posts will be a species of anti-anti-Trumpism.
• On some level I am indeed offering something like support for Trumpism inasmuch as Trump's supporters take refuge in criticizing his opponents.
• Other than penning a few criticisms of Trump (an exercise that, like talk, is cheap) and other than voting for Hillary Clinton, I have done nothing substantive to oppose Trump.
• I have less to fear from Trumpism than others who are more marginalized than I am and therefore it's easy for me to criticize those who have more to fear and more to lose.
• I feel a certain amount of personal defensiveness when I hear people criticize Trump, Trumpism, or Trump supporters. That defensiveness has more to do with my own pride and perhaps baser inclinations.

At the same time, I find it inadvisable to remain silent. Whatever incidental support for Trump or Trumpism my series offers,* I believe that even anti-Trumpists can benefit from reflecting on the costs to themselves and to others that result from their activism. At the very least, I believe it's preferable for activists of any stripe to go into their activism with eyes wider open.

Table of contents for the series

• Link to series tag
• Introduction
• The Russian investigation  
• Extra-clinical and public diagnoses

*Let's face it, my blog doesn't exactly have a wide readership. I've thought of posting this series, or parts of it, over at Ordinary Times, but for now I am not doing so. In part that's because I'm not prepared to deal with the (in my opinion, mostly legitimate) pushback I'd receive.