But wait…ALL Lives matter, amirite??
December 19, 2015 in Racism | Tags: "colourblind", #Blacklivesmatter, Racism | by The Arbourist
Oooo…’nuff said.
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16 comments
December 19, 2015 at 6:18 am
carlalouise89
I literally wrote a blog on this today (I haven’t posted it yet, it’s meant to be tomorrow’s post!) Not this guy’s tweet, but the alllives vs blacklives twitter trend!
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December 19, 2015 at 6:44 am
john zande
I haven’t paid much attention to all this, but why the anger over “all lives matter”?
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December 19, 2015 at 7:30 am
tildeb
Jefferson’s ‘all men are created equal’ refers to and then criticizes British primogeniture laws. It has nothing to do with race and nothing to do with slavery. Primogeniture law was one of the main grievances raised in the Declaration to justify revolt and bring many disparate State populations under the same tent, so to speak, different people with the same grievances. Remember, there was no such ‘thing’ as an American identity or people at the time. The quote when made does not refer to today’s commonly held civil rights. Those who use it the way Brotha B does demonstrate a rather significant ignorance of American history and misunderstanding of the Enlightenment principles forwarded by the founding fathers.
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December 19, 2015 at 8:05 am
The Arbourist
@JZ
In the literal language sense there is not a thing wrong with the phrase ‘all lives matter’, they should and do. However, when applied to the construct that is American civil society, the idea that ‘all lives matter’ can become a matter of erasure and further marginalization of black people and their causes.
Simply, it is evident whose lives matter more in American society and saying that *all* lives matter is simply whitewashing the very real problem of racial inequality in society with the equality brush that presupposes that said society is currently in a equal and just state.
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December 19, 2015 at 8:10 am
The Arbourist
@carlalouise89
It is a hobbyhorse of an idea that unfortunately is all to familiar to women as they are often presented with the arguments when discussing domestic violence and rape: “but men get raped too…”, and “women also perpetrate DV…”. Cries that obfuscate the real issue, that of endemic, systemic male violence against women in society. Again playing with the tepid notion that a fair playing field exists and little things like patriarchy do not.
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December 19, 2015 at 8:36 am
The Arbourist
@Tildeb
Noted.
But given his audience, I’m not sure that historical veracity was at the top of Brother B’s priority list. It would seem that juxtapositioning the venerated Founding Fathers with their mythical ‘position’ on slavery is quite an effective method of exposing the hypocritical nature of the statements such as ‘all lives matter’ when it emanates from white politicians.
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December 19, 2015 at 8:58 am
robert browning
The Arbourist said it very well, twice. Tildeb tries to score academic points but she only blurs the issue that equality is preached but not practiced.
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December 19, 2015 at 9:36 am
tildeb
@Browning
No. I’m pointing out yet another example of historical revisionism used to advance an agenda. To suggest that ‘white’ politicians are hypocritical to support the principle that all lives matter is a racial slur based on group membership and the assignment to that group of characteristics that may or may not be demonstrated by the individuals who supposedly constitute the group. To then excuse and/or advance the racial slur against a group is itself a racist act.
If one wishes to advance equality as a principle to inform practice, then surely it begins with each of us to recognize when we are being racist. Championing group racial identity as the required membership card to do so is unprincipled even if seductive to those of us who wish to improve institutional and legal inequalities.
This is not an ‘academic point’ but a principled one and an important consideration that more of us should think about before going along with the herd and championing or vilifying the selected target based on group racial identity.
Look, rectifying power imbalances that privilege groups based on race can only start when we recognize how the imbalance is privileged by race; by elevating practice over principle and going along with this membership delusion as if meaningful, we fool ourselves into believing that erecting more imbalance in practice will then magically reduce it. Surprising only to the foolish, it won’t.
We are all in this together and it falls on all of us to put into practice the principle of equality in action. Racial make-up is moot. Our racial makeup to address this problem of institutional and legal privilege is not the determining factor here as Brotha B is telling us; it is our personal practice to act to reduce the power and privilege far too many grant to this discriminatory group identity.
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December 19, 2015 at 9:48 am
john zande
Understood. US police bullets do seem to favour black youth.
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December 19, 2015 at 10:32 am
The Arbourist
@Tildeb
Class analysis is a thing. Making light of how class differences are in effect in society is not racist, or were you arguing that black people have the institutional power to oppress white people?
This seems to be very much an academic point as its application and usefulness outside of argument, quickly approaches nil. Admonishing oppressed classes for naming their oppression and oppressors seems to be an exercise that is best left in the realm of academia.
The class of people on the top of the heap have no interest in moving toward equality. Suggesting that somehow principled individual action is an effective remedy to this problem smacks of libertarian rhetoric that is mostly designed to disempower minority voices and reinforce the status quo.
Individuals do not change society – large collectives of people who agitate for change and have the temerity to defy the norms of society – those are the ones that change society. Individual prescriptions are part of the solution, but by no means the solution.
The people who are campaigning for #blacklivesmatter would differ with your opinion here as their race is instrumental in how they are treated socially and legally in society.
And it also essentially meaningless outside the context of a movement organized around reducing said power and privilege. Naming the problem, organizing by class around the solution and forcing change within society is how the status-quo is challenged and changed.
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December 19, 2015 at 11:01 am
tildeb
Admonishing an oppressed class? Disempowering minority voices and reinforcing the status quo? This is what I’m doing, is it?
Really, Arb, your rhetoric is getting ahead of the truth.
Look at it this way: I would not disempower Trudeau because he’s white from directing his chosen Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, who is also white, to implement this government’s four year program. This – real politiks – is how lasting change comes about in practice and if we want equality in law and public institutions, then this is how past privileges are dismantled in the real world: by those in positions of authority.
If we followed Brotha B’s advice, we would automatically reject these two individuals based on their race as if, because of their group affiliation, they could not possibly do so. This is in effect what you’re advocating… but don’t see it for the group identity caricature you so fervently believe in and wish to change. This is a racial bias you empower – that race determines individual characteristics – by thinking yourself as fighting against it.
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December 19, 2015 at 12:12 pm
The Arbourist
@Tildeb
Is the thought that your ‘objective truth’ may not be all that useful or relevant that disquieting? Or is it a soft-spot for proto-libertarian argumentation that penchantly ignores salient features of our stratified, unjust and unequal society? Jousting aside, I’m curious if you really believe that oppressed classes just calmly advocating for themselves actually gets things changed in society. Because it seems like you’re saying that if we all really think hard and talk about racism that white people will see the error of their ways and the move toward the grand equal society can begin proper, because rationally justice will prevail.
This would seem to indicate a particular sort of idealism that has very little connection to how things work in the world. I’m guessing that I’m not seeing what you’re saying properly, because it is usually me who gets the idealist label thrown at them.
Is it? You expect that the Federal Government is going to change course after systematically ignoring and marginalizing the needs of our First Nations since, basically, forever? I’m glad someone has faith in the Canadian government.
The jury is out the question – but perhaps a metric to test the hypothesis, something basic, like say access to safe drinking water. I propose that little to no action will be taken to make this basic necessity of life available to the people on whom we discriminate as a society against. What do you think? I’ll call my cynicism unjustified if oh say, a quarter of the people who currently have no access to water have access to water in four years. I’m not happy making this call, but if past performance of Canadian governments is any indicator, then sadly, I shan’t be worrying about losing this particular wager.
Is it an indictment of actions taken on behalf of minorities, by those in power? I think it is, and most likely will be.
Ah, I see. Perhaps the core of the issue. This is the second time you’ve stated this theme. That ‘white politicians’ are individually as hypocritical as Brotha B says, or that JT and his minister, being white politicians thus belonging to the class of white politician must be inherently racist.
Let me put forward a test case just to see if we’re on the same level here.
Woman take precautions against being raped in society, the precautions they take are geared toward preventing a male from raping her. The generalization here is that men, as a class, rape women as class. And thus, since no one can tell exactly who a rapist is, women therefore take precautions with the idea that potentially any man they meet could, in fact, potentially be a rapist.
Your objection is well, #notallmen, are rapists and thus it is unfair and sexist to categorize men a such – maybe throw in some equality somewhere(?) for good measure too.
Here is the thing though, it is most definitely true that not all men are rapists. The idea here is that *enough* men are rapists to justify the actions taken by women to defend themselves.
So, if Brotha B sees enough discriminatory, racist, practices in action then he can generalize to the class of ‘white politician’. Is he saying that politician X is a racist and thus we should be accusing Brotha B of racism or not helping the grand drive toward equality? No, he isn’t saying that, what he is saying that enough of a critical mass exists that is discriminatory and is racist and thus meriting an accurate generalization as to his view of ‘white politicians’ as a class.
So no, we’re not talking of black and white prescriptions and automatically rejecting these individuals because of their race. That would be discriminatory.
The issue here is the structural features of racism and how deeply it is ingrained into every facet of society; and furthermore actions by individuals, principled or not, have very little effect on this societal zeitgeist.
Race determines how you will be treated in society, you can be be as individual as you would like, it is irrelevant to the treatment you receive in society proper. (See any number of examples from US society, incarceration rates, murder rates, media coverage of black/white protests etc.). Analysis on the individual level is wholly inadequate for dealing with problems classes of people face.
So, I’m not sure if we’re square-pegging/round holing here, but I suspect that we’re talking past each other on a couple of levels.
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December 19, 2015 at 2:19 pm
tildeb
@Arb
Analysis on the individual level is wholly inadequate for dealing with problems classes of people face.
Although we disagree, I think all we can control is ourselves and I can do my best to eliminate bias and discrimination I exercise. Sure, I can complain about these as being out there and commiserate about how awful and terrible they are and how I support the idea that they should just go away and hope that those other people in positions of authority would do the right thing and fix it all. That’s easy.
But I don;t think the problems are fixed until each of us does so on a practical level, challenge their expressions on a personal contact level, put into practice the principles of fairness and equality in our daily lives regardless of what ‘society’ may ‘say’ in the matter. And I am not convinced that supporting the establishment in law of identity politics is or even can be an improvement. I think such support leads us down and not up.
I think this because of my study of Jefferson – one of those big brained people who gives voice to the ideas I think. That’s why it’s of some interest to me that he struggled mightily with how to first breach and then sever the tentacles of class that he saw as toxic to the welfare of citizens. His solution was to establish through a Constitution shared rights and freedoms of all. In other words, through first establishing and then implementing Enlightenment principles of individual autonomy in law. I see group identities as a direct challenge to these fundamental principles and a throwback to an earlier an unenlightened time. Empowering group identities is a danger we should recognize… having been exposed to its totalitarian expression and its terrible consequences.
Put another way, if we can’t ‘fix’ racism while maintaining the highest regard for individual autonomy in law, then we’re doomed to repeat this totalitarian result… which is identity politics taken to its logical conclusion. I cannot in good conscience support that move in the name of empowering the disenfranchised. But I take hope from history that demonstrates that we can change the now well worn phrase ‘moral zeitgeist’ one bold legislated move at a time… each accomplished by a solitary person in a position of authority maintaining the primary principle of individual autonomy in law.
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December 19, 2015 at 5:06 pm
carlalouise89
Exactly!!! It takes away from the main issue. And the main issue IS important!
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December 20, 2015 at 8:38 am
The Arbourist
@Tildeb
I’m with you 100% there. What is problematic for me is that fairness and equality, although often couched in objective terms and notions, rarely is. Often what happens to be fair and equitable, remarkably lines up with what benefits and abets certain classes of society. And why wouldn’t the influential not craft society and thus everyone’s existence/experience in society to their benefit and call it ‘equitable’.
Much sociology has gone into mapping the inverse relationship between how well off one is versus how committed one is to egalitarian society.
Spot on again, but stratification is a necessary product of society in which limited resources exist. We grant equal rights to all, but the materialistic conditions negate (or seriously curtail) that liberty because usually the more wealthy one is, the more influence one has in society and thus class inevitably seeps back into any societal equation.
I’m not sure how identifying, organizing, and agitating to change regressive structures of society violates one’s individual autonomy, but there needs to be a cleavage between the identity politics your condemn and people working to change society for the better.
I am not in any way or shape in favour of identity politics. Not much good comes from that particular murky pit. But is realizing that there are dominant and subordinate classes in society ‘identity politics’? How can one effect change with out naming the problem and acting to fix it at the very roots?
This is some scary shit you advocate for. This brings to mind much of what Neitzsche’s Übermensch conception brought to the table and all the amazingly terrible baggage ‘great men’ theory carries with it. It is the ‘great principled men’ of our time that are going to move society forward etc etc.
Great principled men tend to advocate for what is good for great principled men, period.
I had to leave my reply overnight, breaking my train of thought quite completely, I apologize for the shift in tone. However, at first blush, it would seem the position you are advocating for also flirts with totalitarianism, as the waiting for the next ethical/moral strongman to move the world forward also seems fraught with peril.
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December 20, 2015 at 9:52 am
tildeb
@Arb
When law is ‘adjusted’ to grant some status to some group, that’s what I call empowering ‘identity politics’. Groups aren’t real things; they are artificial constructs created solely by certain selected characteristics. For example, race. When an individual’s legal rights are affected by ‘identity politics’ – in other words, whether or not an individual is granted some legal privilege or sanction because of his or her group affiliation (or lack of it) – then we have the institutionalization of racism regardless of how beneficial or regressive the privilege may be. This is what I’m against.
So when Brotha B suggests that there must be a racial test for addressing racial issues institutionalized in law and granting permission to do so only to those who belong to the selected racial group, then he is engaging in the promotion of racism – for reasons he thinks helps to rectify the problem of racism!
This is the kind of thinking we’re encountering more and more often: by doing more of the same but by a different ‘group’, we’ll get a different and corrective result. I think this approach always entrenches the primary problem.
Individuals in the highest positions of authority have the opportunity to make lasting and corrective social changes through law that continues to respect individual autonomy. (Few take up this task and for very practical reasons.) This is a vital recognition in that the legal authority of the State comes from the individuals who constitute it and not from groups that may or may not be privileged by practice within it. Jefferson and Madison intentionally built the legal foundation this way and for very principled reasons far too many today forget and/or ignore. That’s not to say they accomplished the elimination of group politics. But they set the stage for each of us. To forget this principle of individual autonomy as supreme while trying to bring about social change in law by group politics is, in effect, to empower sedition against every other citizen of that State including themselves by reducing the autonomy of the individual in law. This is contrary to everyone’s best interests in law.
Using this principled approach, Lincoln and later Johnson used it to bring about massive legal change regarding racial bias in law. (Lincoln spent decades wrestling with this very problem of race in law while trying to appeal to voters for political power.) The work is not yet done but these individuals were able to accomplish great strides in corrective law against very popular and widespread practices based on race. That’s how our laws are supposed to work: by principle and not convenience. These corrective laws are created by individuals that are then passed by legislatures filled with individuals and then tested by courts populated by individuals. Each of us – whether we are President and Prime Minister or people without any political interest – often must face a central challenge in our role as citizens to make a choice whether or not we will empower principle or practice. Empowering group politics is a capitulation of this principle and an abdication of responsibility we hold towards all citizens.
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