1
When Trayvon Martin was murdered in 2012, there was a lot of noise from the far right. Dismissiveness quickly became scorn; accusations of race-baiting became accusations of reverse racism; black anguish was drowned out by white peevishness. Any sort of reasonable “national discourse” abruptly ended when in a move that can only be described as utterly disgraceful, CNN aired photographs of Martin wearing dental grills and exhaling marijuana smoke. When Ferguson, Missouri erupted two years later, we saw our country begin to head down the same noxious path…—and then we saw Eric Garner die on camera. In the wake of a grand jury decision not to indict Garner’s killer, all but the basest voices on the far right have grown sheepishly quiet about race. This brief respite from a three-decade-long stream of neoconservative racial bile has provided us with a chance to slip out of our raincoats and to throw up what has been caught in our throats and stomachs. For once we feel that we are not so heavy and that we are able to speak clearly—that we might even be heard. For once we might—might be the ones who get to frame the national discourse on racial oppression.
Currently, we may be in possession of something that resembles political capital; what will we do with it? Perhaps we will be able to cash out on body cameras for police officers; perhaps we aren’t rich enough for that right now. Regardless of what policy changes catch on or don’t, I think that we would be wise to pay particular attention to form.
Form: the detail and context (in other words: the depth) with which we present instances of oppression
Most people who are close to the issue of institutional violence against black Americans understand that the deaths of Martin, Brown and Garner are merely some of the most visible symptoms of a racial prejudice that runs far deeper than what most left-leaning individuals—let alone powerful Democrats—are generally willing to admit. Perhaps the primary reason for what I view as our rather shallow understanding of oppression is that we have spent so long fighting shallow battles. We have groveled for low-hanging fruit while the conservative establishment simultaneously discredits us as extremists and vilifies us as domineering snobs. The left has been intensely reactive since the Reagan administration, and as a result, our identity and the values for which we fight have been framed to the American public not positively, but in contradistinction to ultraconservatism. (The terms ‘equality’, ‘justice’, and ‘freedom’, for instance, have been seriously abused by the Democratic Party.) Fighting shallow, uphill battles, has conditioned us both to be shallow and to fight uphill.
Form: the reasons that we choose to present as justifications for our views
I say that it is high time for us to strengthen ourselves, and to do so by acquiring depth. We should not be so eager to pocket extra signatures on our Change.org petitions that we reduce “justice” to a single indictment, “freedom” to not being killed arbitrarily by law enforcement, or “equality” to a paltry statement: that black lives… “matter?” Whatever strength we do have does not come from the number of people that will agree with our ideas when we ask them to. Our strength—also what allows us to be good allies—comes from our love for people and our love for truth. Unlike self-righteousness, rebelliousness, defiance, and elitism (characteristics that many of us, including myself, share and effectively utilize in our political activities), love is an attractive thing to be full with. I say let’s think of this respite as an opportunity and a reminder to strengthen and deepen ourselves—and not just ourselves. I say let’s cultivate that which makes us strong, that which is attractive, that which makes us good allies in daily life.
Form: the way that our desires connect to our actions
The words “ally” and “activist” mean the different things. Surely one can play one of these roles well without playing the other at all, but to do this would be to play in the nakedest sense. I would propose that ‘ally’ ought to be the anterior category—that every activist ought to be an ally first and foremost, and that there is one characteristic in particular that will make somebody good at being one. A good ally, I think, grounds her concern in her empathy. I say ‘concern’ as opposed to, for example, ‘altruism’ because ‘altruism’ is slippery, dangerous, and elusive (how can concern be disinterested or selfless?). Being altruistic very often involves disrespecting the agency of the individuals that one purportedly seeks to help. The idea of a ‘white savior complex’ is both self-explanatory and well known; I would posit that self-righteousness and political ideology are likewise treacherous grounds for altruism. Just as a white savior complex grounds actions taken to improve the plight of the oppressed in a self-satisfaction that is dependent upon faith in racial superiority, ‘selfless’ actions motivated by self-righteousness or political ideology are perverted by their dependence upon the actor’s faith in her moral or intellectual superiority respectively. In all three cases, the motive for being ‘altruistic’ is grounded in an unequal balance of power. People who are motivated primarily by a savior complex, self-righteousness, or political ideology have no incentive to aim to alleviate the power disparity between themselves and the oppressed, and probably do much to make oppressed individuals feel uncomfortable.
Form: the incorporation of honesty and self-reflection into the structure of our political lives
In addition to—and perhaps even beyond—empathy, a good ally must ground her activism in self-interest. A good ally ought to understand her stake in an issue, and limit her involvement in that issue accordingly. To abstract one’s empathy and stretch it beyond what one can feel is a dangerous thing. To stand beside an individual who stands up for herself is potentially helpful in some immediate sense, but also oppressive and degrading when one has no emotional stake in helping. To engage in political activities towards which one does not feel compelled is to assert one’s intellectual or moral superiority (at the very least, the superiority of one’s reasons for becoming involved). When one supports another’s ‘selfish’ activity with their own ‘selfless’ actions for the sake of being selfless…what does that say about how one views the moral status of those who one seeks to support—to say nothing of their competency?
While feigned solidarity is by no means necessarily ‘ineffective’ in any macro-political sense, it is certainly vile. I anticipate that this may not seem like a legitimate objection to some of you, to which I say this: perhaps those of us who are not policymakers ought to reduce our faith in consequentialist ethics and treat that which is contemptible with contempt. And if we are not willing to stop thinking about the moral-political world in the reductive binary framework of ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’; if we are unwilling to recognize the moral significance of words like justice, honor, shame, valor and loyalty—perhaps we should at least try to do a better job of understanding what these words might mean to those who lack status and privilege. At this point, I would like to share from my own experience with racial oppression, and to express how I feel that it has been severely misunderstood.
2
‘Racism’ is intensely unpopular. Owing to this unpopularity, the word “racist” has been all but reduced to an empty vehicle for ad hominem attacks in the public sphere. “Racism” is so abused and confused that most of the arguments in which it is deployed would gain clarity if every utterance of “racist” were replaced by an utterance of “bad”. In the painful and embarrassing public discourse on race in America, with Republicans, Democrats, and sociologists all speaking mangled gobbledygook over one another, there is at least one thing that seems to be common: Americans of all sorts talk about racism as if it is the type of thing that obtains primarily in acts (e.g. slurs, profiling, violence, discrimination). What a terrible misunderstanding! Racism isn’t so much an individual decision as it is a state of the world. Racism is (among other things) a historical phenomenon grounded in facts about geography and human psychology that permeates economic, sociological and political structures. How can people think that something like that might obtain in mere instances? Racism obtains in my existence. Racism is my shadow that grows and shrinks and changes in relationship to me throughout the day, but only disappears in very dark rooms and when I close my eyes.
That certain “liberals” insist on maintaining the devastating facade that racism is somehow grounded in infrequent acts committed by “bad people” irks me to no end. Few things anger me more quickly or wound me more critically than the “gotcha!” game in which people who quietly harbor deeply racist sentiments try to ‘out’ other people who obviously harbor deeply racist sentiments as…racists! The hyena-like eagerness with which our “centrists” pounce on any racist sentiment that is verbalized by a conservative indicates, ‘at best’, their daft insistence on playing Whack-a-Mole indefinitely; ‘at worst’, it indicates their willingness to exploit my existence for easy catharsis, and cheap social capital. Frankly, I find the MSNBC-esque ‘outrage’ over Donald Sterling’s comments, or Rick Santorum’s comments, or comments made by the Grand Wizard of the Klan, to be as hopelessly stupid as Tal Fortgang’s article about privilege. Worse: these fits are immeasurably more harmful. What have our “liberals” done here? other than to further verify that their own racism is acceptable? Such insipid treatment of racism from my friends exasperates me.
Some of the loneliest and most alienating experiences that I have consist in friends complaining to me about naked racism with the expectation that I might be appreciative and view them more positively. Can you see the misunderstanding, the irony? ‘Anti-racism’ as a deluded personal belief is common; anti-racism as a genuine personal maxim is uncommon; immunization from racism is make-believe. So when a friend tries to convince me that she is ‘not a racist’, I certainly don’t believe her, but this is no objection to our friendship. On the other hand, that she refuses to acknowledge (let alone confront!) her own racism just might be. Fortunately for my and all ego-centric illusions about friendships, there is a serious dearth of awareness about the lived experiences of black people. I can believe in good conscience that my friends are not deficient in love, but rather in understanding. Herein, ostensibly, lies an opportunity to affect change with information.
If I speak clearly and honestly will you lend an open ear? Allow me to impart one or two ugly truths. After all, they are my truths, and I am entitled to share them.
As much as “the black experience” is contorted and almost exclusively represented as either violence, servitude, or buffoonery, actually being black is perhaps best characterized by long, quiet, enigmatic pain. I’m not talking about pain that derives from crude and obvious affronts from somewhere outside—the kind of pain that people rightly complain and brag about. Being attacked is painful, yes, but it also presents one with the opportunity to love and defend oneself: to exert one’s force on another, to be defiant, to affirm one’s own existence. What’s more, one has the opportunity to defend oneself righteously! Against lies, against slander, against pettiness and maliciousness. Pain is not so bad when it comes with honor. The kind of pain that characterizes my experience as a black person is different from this. It comes from somewhere inside. It comes from all of the good and lovely things at home, in books and especially on screens, in my friends, in my family, and in myself that are, at bottom, rotten, cancerous, full with parasites and confused antibodies. There is no honor in this.
What I hate more than being followed around in a store or hearing car doors lock when I walk past them on the sidewalk (and especially more than being called a nigger) is this sort of long pain that I can best describe as a sense of shame. This shame comes from being taught nothing about the history of my ancestors in grade school apart from that they were enslaved and colonized; it comes from constantly having to prove that I am not dangerous; it comes from never knowing how to dress—because it’s just as bad to come off as an Uncle Tom as it is to come off as a nigger, and what else might I come off as, really? My shame comes from watching my sisters use appliances and products to try to make their hair look like the kind of hair that white people have. My shame comes from the fact that I live in the same deeply racist society that you do with the same news programs and movies and textbooks that are rooted in and continue to reinforce white supremacy. I am ashamed to have had at least as many—really, many more—nasty thoughts as you have about how black people aren’t as smart, aren’t as pretty, aren’t as emotionally complex, aren’t as moral, aren’t as human. When I walk into a nice store, I feel like a thief; when I walk behind a white woman up the stairs in my hall, I feel like a rapist.
I don’t pretend to speak for anyone other than myself; and surely, many black people would disagree with much of what I have just said—but this is no objection. In fact, it quite clearly demonstrates what I am trying to get across: namely, that racism obtains in individual lives, in unique and particular experiences. Black America is not an integrated whole; it is a socially constructed group, the membership conditions of which are both constantly changing and impossible to define at any given moment. The fundamental unit in this group of people, as in any group of people, is the individual. There is a serious asymmetry between the needs of individual black people and the way that many on the left go about attempting (ostensibly) to meet those needs. What does the individual need? If I were to reduce and generalize the proper answer of this question to a single word, that word would be “respect.” What is liberal “idealism” to the individual, other than condescension? What is a “universal human right” to the individual, other than an insult?
3
What I have said up to this point is a problem for activists. Large-scale political activity inevitably involves abstracting the experiences of individuals to that which is typical, which itself is further distilled into specific action-demands. This may go without saying, but it is politically—and perhaps even metaphysically—impossible to effectively advocate for group interests in a way that comprehensively incorporates the interests of each individual. Nevertheless, we might do a much better job of accurately representing the general interests of those who are oppressed (not to mention that we will be able to stand alongside them in good faith) if we find the motivation for our activism in the actual lived experiences of individuals—experiences that we can understand and with which we can empathize—than if we, from the outset, place our faith in clumsy, ultra-general moral-political frameworks that we do not really take the time to understand like “human rights,” or even—and here you will surely disagree with me—“equality.”
I would like now to offer a single, substantive example of how poor form and improper motivation for political activism have directly impacted me, to personalize what I said at the outset about the importance of form.
4
I have been charmed and encouraged by the solidarity expressed by my peers in response to recent police violence against black people. This is not to say that I feel gratitude—“appreciation” even is too strong of a word—but I am thankful in the sort of way that one is thankful when one contemplates the presence of a friend. Being at the Millions March on December 13th in New York City among a large and diverse crowd of people protesting racism gave me levity. I came to the protest as an advocate for—among others—myself, and there I found much love and hopefulness. It’s hard to see your own shadow in a crowd; it’s hard to feel lonely when you are among friends. Of course, neither one is impossible. I found many good things at the march, but I also found much confusion and misunderstanding; I found many clumsy phrases and many awkward, uncomfortable feelings.
I began to feel ill at ease early in the march walking alongside a dear friend who, with the best of intentions, began to chant, “black lives matter,” along with the crowd. I didn’t know what to do! A deeply loving person—she didn’t coin the phrase and probably never would have come up with it herself. I was, at the time, and still am, deeply dissatisfied with the slogan. “Matters” is a paltry word with no lower bound. From whence comes the conviction and resolve to declare that my life contains some minimal unit of value? Not, certainly, from a place of love; not from a place of empathy. What did Eric Garner say while he was in the process of dying: “I can’t breathe!” That his life mattered was understood. Who would ever shout, “my life matters!” with conviction, with gusto? Perhaps somebody who needs to convince herself? Otherwise, such a statement as “my life matters” could only conceivably be said involuntarily, out of utter desperation—a doomed argument, surfaced by immediate shock and horror. “My life matters” is the sort of thing one would expect to hear in a concentration camp. “Black lives matter” in 2014—in New York City—is an expression of severely misplaced self-righteousness. That we are using this as a rallying point!—this humble and diluted reiteration of the 200 year-old liberal thesis that has failed to keep with the times: ‘every human is a human’… How long have we fought uphill? How long have we been picking low-hanging fruit? And when did we start picking fruit up from the ground?
About halfway through the march I found a close friend who is also black and I stole away with him. My nonblack friends’ reaching down to me—well, in their minds, probably not to me—had become too uncomfortable for me to not seize the opportunity. He and I talked casually about that with which we were dissatisfied in the protest: namely, its form. The lack of intensity! That it was sanctioned by the police! Not least of all, the way that many of the protesters chose to express themselves. There were white fists in the air! There was an all white brass band playing some fucked-up rendition of “Follow The Drinking Gourd!” How inconsiderate! How tasteless. All too often, one ‘misses the forest for the trees’, but here was incredible foolishness: missing the forest for one tree, attempting to fell it with a kitchen knife, dancing around its trunk, and tossing about new seeds.
I remember in particular one portly white guy who was all worked up. Every time we passed an officer he took extra care to sneer at them. “How do you spell ‘racist’? NYPD!” ‘What a stupid man,’ I thought, ‘you don’t know what “racism” means, let alone how to spell it! How could you really have hate in your heart for the police? That you would sneer at them says something bad about your heart. Even as a frustrated and unforgiving black man I readily concede that I, at my most hateful, regard the police with ambivalence. They do so much for me, and especially for you.’ One ought to be grateful for what has been given to her. Saying ‘no’ to a gift out of concern for someone else warrants solemnity and a healthy dose of shame. It is in very bad taste to sneer at a gift. It is also very uncommon, which makes it very suspicious. Over-anger is often under-genuine.
As the march wore on, my feet grew colder and the strength of my feeling faded to the point that I didn’t participate in taking the Brooklyn Bridge (incidentally, what I approved most of about the march). Instead, I went to a Christmas party in Brooklyn. After some food and beer, my feeling returned and I reflected on the march with my friends. We honored the good and happy day we had spent together and we talked about what could have been done better. I shared with them how I felt about the slogans that had been used. I told them that it hurt my dignity to hear my friends argue for my status as a human being, that it was embarrassing; that by arguing against the extreme and silly belief that black people are subhuman, they had somehow dignified that very belief and weakened what it means to be a friend and ally, leaving all sorts of room for paternalism and white supremacy in our camp and even guaranteeing a dignified future for those sentiments. My friends understood me, and they became sad and regretful. How easy it would have been to stick to “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” and “No Justice, No Peace”, how easy it would have been to have remained silent; how much harm could have been avoided. If racism is a forest, it is a very dense forest under which the roots of each tree are inextricably tangled among other roots. How foolhardy it is to toss seeds in and around a forest like that.
Time will tell how this protest and ones like it will impact the future for black people. I enjoyed the time spent with my friends at Millions March and afterwards, and I ended the day feeling more loved by my country than when I began. Of course, I think that we can all recognize that institutional violence against black Americans isn’t going to end any time soon, but hopefully through and despite my winding and turning you have gained some sense of how racism feels and a better appreciation for the important element of activism that is form.
5
At this point and in closing, I would like to turn your attention to a photograph. If you visit the Princeton For Ferguson Facebook page, you will see a picture of the December 4th on-campus walk-out and protest that has made me feel particularly hugged and loved. The image captures a still mass of people facing in a single direction, opposite the camera. It was taken from about two-thirds of the way towards the back of the crowd—a vantage point from which the crowd appears to be both very large and very dense. Something else, though, is also achieved. From two-thirds of the way towards the back, one gets a pretty clear glimpse of whoever else happens to be standing two-thirds of the way towards the back. If you were at the December 4th protest, you know that the people standing on the front steps of the campus center facing the crowd were disproportionately black (and, not incidentally, disproportionately female). This ought to make sense to us. It is a particular type of person who makes their way to the front of a protest. It takes a bold person, but it also takes—and it ought to take—a person who feels not merely that they belong at the protest, but that the protest is for them; they have the right to lead the protest—a right to be indignant, passionate, defiant—because precisely what they protest is their own oppression. From two-thirds of the way towards the back, one ought to expect a different group of people and a different atmosphere. That is just what we see in this photograph: the people whose features are discernable from the aforementioned vantage point are disproportionately white and disproportionately male. The image betrays no facial expressions, but the protestors’ body language speaks volumes. They are looking straight ahead, paying serious heed to what is being said. Their hands are in their pockets; they are alone in the crowd; they are mildly uncomfortable and feel that they have come as close to the front as they ought to. There is no hint of self-righteousness, no stink of political ideology or moral superiority. They are there because they were compelled to be there—because they couldn’t not go. They knew that something atrocious had happened and so they came: to learn, to love, and to support.
