unlike racialism, ethical religion has within it an element of utopianism, of striving for improvement. The same can be said of political religions, such as Marxism. The ultimate aim of these movements is to expand the circle of dignity outward, to encompass the whole of humanity. Failure is inevitable, and sometimes the consequences are horrific, but the egalitarian impulse also has salubrious consequences. . .
Racial and ethnic identity do not hold the possibility for such capaciousness of spirit. Taken to its logical conclusion this style of thinking leans upon biology, and therefore takes us down the path of eliminationism.
Religions allow you to convert. Nations allow you to join. But you cannot change your race or–surgery notwithstanding–your gender. The Nazis would not allow a Jew to declare a different religion. When you face existential prejudice, based totally on the condition of your birth and not on anything you can choose to do, this is particularly inhumane.
I would describe Khan’s essay as difficult to excerpt. That description might describe all of Quillette, in which it appears. Quillette is the best magazine you can find anywhere today.
Khan’s essay does a great job of showing why racial identity politics is the most pernicious kind of identity politics. He is right about that.
And the recent election has done a great job of revealing just how much the right has exaggerated, for its own purposes, the popularity of racal identity politics within the Democratic Party. Proposition 16 went down to a crushing defeat in the most overwhelmingly Democratic state in the country. A few decades ago affirmative action was much more popular within the Democratic Party. Now more blacks and hispanics are voting for Republicans much more than before. It is white identity politics that is the racial politics that is growing in influence. The craziness on college campuses is a real and important problem but it does not reflect the actual racial voting trend in the Democratic Party. AOC and the “squad” have built the influence they do have largely on the unearned publicity they get from right wing media seeking boogeymen to use to define their opposition. This mirrors the rise of Trump through the principle that all publicity is good publicity and his capture of attention and airtime in mainstream media.
Biden won the primaries and the general election because of his popularity with black Democrats who clearly preferred him to more radical candidates of all colors. The Bernie inspired socialist wing of the party never came close to getting the level of support from black voters that it got from white voters. The craziness in Portland is happening in the whitest big city in America and is driven mostly by white radicals who have as much contempt for mainstream Democrats as they do for Republicans.
Colin Kaepernick did not support any Democrat. He urged his followers not to vote – just the result Trump was hoping for. When it comes to actual voters, it is white identity politics where we see the real growth in racial identity politics.
Right, right and this person is actually an actress in a video produced by Trump supporters.
I too welcome the result in California as a sign that the insanity may have crested and begun to recede, but to argue that it never existed or had any power or influence (except in right-wing fever dreams) is simply absurd.
Slocum,
That was a great video. I agree with every bit of it. Nothing in it contradicts anything in my comment which you clearly misread.
You might be right if this were limited to college campuses, but obviously isn’t. Those same campus progressives graduate and go work for Facebook, Google, Twitter, NY Times, the Washington Post, etc where we’ve seen exactly the same kinds of things happening.
James Bennet is forced out at the NY Times, James Damore at Google, and on and on. Hell, Glen Greenwald just had to resign from lefty publication he co-founded. These institutions have been terrified of defying their woke 20-something junior employees. That all of this is less popular with rank-and-file Democratic voters doesn’t seem to have mattered too much until, maybe, just now — where, despite Biden, the Democrats lost seats in the house, lost state legislatures, and — most terrifyingly to them — started to see their support from Black and Hispanic voters start to erode.
When it comes to actual voters, it is white identity politics where we see the real growth in racial identity politics.
I really don’t see that. In this past election, Trump gained support in every demographic except white men (where he lost enough to lose the election). And my sense is that most Trump supporters really love it when minorities join their populist ‘unite against the elites’ movement.
“Proposition 16 went down to a crushing defeat in the most overwhelmingly Democratic state in the country.”
It’s a good sing.
But I have to ask, will it matter.
Affirmative action was already illegal in California. And it is, IMO obviously, illegal under the constitution. Yet, we have it. Everywhere. In increasing amounts. And in places where it wasn’t before.
The San Fransisco Medical School (I might be getting the name wrong) just cut its Asian enrollment but 2/3rds. That is illegal under Prop 209 and remains so after Prop 16s failure. Does anyone expect the school to lose a lawsuit? To change its behavior?
Looking at a map of CA, Prop 16 still passed in SF, LA, and their surrounding suburbs. It was held back by really strong ‘No’ vote in the rural areas. If you want to get a job or go to school where the jobs and schools are (the cities), you are going to be dealing with institutions and political districts that support this policy.
It’s very heartening that Trump won over minorities, but he’s still sub 50% but a fair margin. Hard to win that up on volume. I also wonder to what extent some of Trumps characteristics…like his political incorrectness, machismo, and entertainer skill, are necessary to win over minority voters. Can a Romney type really win them over? The track record is quite poor.
It was the California Democratic Party that was pushing Prop. 16. It only lost because of the ordinary people, not because it wasn’t popular within the Party.
Yes, racial/ tribal identity politics are the worst.
But Greg, as usual with the flabbiness of so many “intellectual” arguments, you give no good examples:
It is white identity politics that is the racial politics that is growing in influence.
Where? What are you talking about?
Trump has explicitly rejected white supremacists and neo-nazis, so if you mean Trump you need to say what policy he’s proposing that you consider identity politics.
Obama, on the other hand, often fanned racial resentments, as with Trayvon Martin’s attack and tragic death while Zimmerman was defending himself (example!) and his complaint of the police officer asking the Black Harvard Professor about his breaking into his own house, and the Professor abusing the police office (example!)
As other comments below show, there are many examples of people being fired from their jobs because of identity politics interpreting their free speech as so wrong that it justifies firing them. All the actual examples are people fired by Democrats/ Trump-haters.
American whites, in overwhelming numbers, feel guilty about past slavery and about past Dem. Party KKK Jim Crow laws, and want a color-blind society. But it is radical Dems, as well as (fake?) moderate Dems who want to track everything done by race, and claim racism as the reason for various different outcomes.
It’s Democrats pushing racism and supporting race hatred that is increasing racial tensions. And it’s very dangerous, but virtually no public Dems are denouncing the Dems who make false racist claims.
I’m not sure how you reached that conclusion. First of all Trump lost, and by a greater margin than in 2016, and he especially lost ground among *white*voters, while gaining ground among minorities; inasmuch as he outperformed your expectations, it wasn’t because of an increase in white identity politics.
Second, Biden has not rejected identity politics. He certainly soft-peddles compared to many of his co-partisans, but he explicitly picked his running mate because of her race and gender. We all know that kind of calculus goes on behind closed doors, but he’s the first nominee to do so explicitly and unabashedly. If you compared Obama’s rhetoric to Biden’s, my guess is you’d find more ‘identity politics’ in the latter than the former. Finally, primary voters aren’t entirely devoid of strategy. If I were a thorough-going ‘SJW,’ who would I vote for in the primaries? Biden, obviously, because nominating my favorite candidate means a Trump win. Many of the same people who voted for Trump (or Carson) in the 2016 primary voted for Romney 2012, and McCain in 2008. I doubt their views changed much. As you yourself have been saying over and over again, they came to see picking a moderate ‘electable’ candidate as a dead end when they kept losing.
“Proposition 16 went down to a crushing defeat in the most overwhelmingly Democratic state in the country.”
For what it’s worth, gay marriage was also defeated in California in 2008, albeit not quite by the same margins. The real question is the trend.
“And the recent election has done a great job of revealing just how much the right has exaggerated, for its own purposes, the popularity of racal identity politics within the Democratic Party.”
I genuinely hope that you and the Democrats believe this. Let’s blame the right for exaggerating the massive embrace of wokeness and socialism on the left. I may have asked you this previously, but did we watch the same Democratic primaries? That is where we can truly understand the heart and soul of the base. And, it was all woke, green new deal, Medicare for all, banning AR-15s and starting the discussion on reparations.
As another example, it wasn’t the Republicans that put forth Prop 16 in California. It was the woke left and it was fully embraced by all of the Democrat politicians, the media organizations and had a ton of money behind it.
>—“I may have asked you this previously, but did we watch the same Democratic primaries? That is where we can truly understand the heart and soul of the base. And, it was all woke, green new deal, Medicare for all, banning AR-15s and starting the discussion on reparations.”
You did ask previously, and I did answer previously, but I’m happy to keep repeating the answer until you are able to remember. Those were issues fought over in the Democratic primaries and they were rejected in the actual primary vote. The most moderate candidate on the menu won very decisively. Almost anyone can run for President and there were many more radical candidates, all of whom were decisively rejected by the primary voters in favor of Biden. And the segment of the Democratic Party that most favored Biden (and rejected radical alternatives) was the black vote. So much for the electoral growth of black identity politics.
>—“As another example, it wasn’t the Republicans that put forth Prop 16 in California. It was the woke left and it was fully embraced by all of the Democrat politicians, the media organizations and had a ton of money behind it.”
Yes it was indeed that wing of the party that “put worth” this proposal with a lot of media support and money behind it. And despite all that the idea went down to a crushing defeat in the most Democratic state in the nation. So the fear that it will sweep the nation should be relieved for anyone paying attention to actual real world events.
Those were issues fought over in the Democratic primaries and they were rejected in the actual primary vote.
But somehow they ended up in Biden’s platform anyway (they’re calling the black community the ‘African Diaspora’ now? How did I miss that one?)
That platform was an obvious sop to Bernie and his supporters in exchange for their support. When is the last time any politician felt bound by the party platform?
Platforms mean so little now that the Republicans didn’t even bother to write one beyond saying it would be whatever Trump decided.
Whether or not it means anything has to do with the Dems losing seats in the house and the outcome of the Georgia runoff election. I’d be surprised if Democrats actually gain a Senate majority that they don’t try to jam through at least *some* of that stuff.
I’m reminded of the Amway salesman that shows up at our door from time to time selling “mild” and “gentle” laundry detergent. But, when I check out the active ingredients on the back of the carton, I’m not seeing anything remotely mild or gentle.
The salesman can of course accuse me of over exaggerating or misreading the ingredients. But at that point, he’s got a clear marketing problem and blaming me for that marketing problem is probably not going to get him anywhere.
So, thanks for your comments, but I’m sticking with Tide for the time being.
Those were issues fought over in the Democratic primaries and they were rejected in the actual primary vote. The most moderate candidate on the menu won very decisively.
That is simply not true. The less moderate candidate often won. AOC had a moderate challenger in NY. Closer to me, Representative Ayanna Pressley had a moderate challenger and won easily. (Both, of course, also won in the general election.) Senator Ed Markey had a primary challenge from Representative Joe Kennedy III in a state where no Kennedy had ever lost. Markey responded by wholly embracing all the major left Democratic ideas and banging away at how he was better placed to actually put them into effect. He then became the first Massachusetts politician to ever beat a Kennedy.
Roger,
I thought it was clear that I was referring to the Presidential primaries and what they say about the overall voter population. Congressional races are different because many districts are so highly gerrymandered and/or urban or rural that it is an advantage to be more extreme.
Sorry, I didn’t get that. There were a number of Democratic presidential primaries where the more moderate candidate didn’t win, let alone “win decisively”. Before South Carolina, the conventional wisdom was that Biden was a goner.
Massachusetts is, of course, an entire state but it is hardly representative of the country. Here, it may well pay to be the most extreme in the Democratic primary. (We are pretty much a one party state and all the action is in the primaries. For the primary, we got plenty of mailers and there were a fair number of tv ads. Much, much less for the general.) On the other hand, Representative Stephen Lynch, in the district right next to Presley’s, defeated a more left challenger in his primary.
A Pict Song
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
(‘The Winged Hats’ —Puck of Pook’s Hill)
Rome never looks where she treads.
Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on—that is all,
And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
With only our tongues for our swords.
We are the Little Folk—we!
Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you’ll see
How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
We are the thorn in the foot!
Mistletoe killing an oak—
Rats gnawing cables in two—
Moths making holes in a cloak—
How they must love what they do!
Yes—and we Little Folk too,
We are busy as they—
Working our works out of view—
Watch, and you’ll see it some day!
No indeed! We are not strong,
But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we’ll guide them along
To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you—you will die of the shame,
And then we shall dance on your graves!
We are the Little Folk, we, etc.
Religions allow you to convert. Nations allow you to join.
To an extent. You can’t really convert to Hinduism, because a convert wouldn’t have a jati. And getting into America is notoriously difficult. Some groups are more exclusive (less inclusive) than others.
That’s wrong. Ghar Wapsi (home coming) is something that does happen. But yes, it is true that which jati will accept you is an open question. Lack of institutional structures that can assure such re-converted folks (mostly we’re talking of Indians whose ancestors converted) is a problem.
Doesn’t America have the largest foreign born population of any country in the world? With a higher population of immigrants than any individual state?
>—“You might be right if this were limited to college campuses, but obviously isn’t.”
I didn’t say it was limited to college campuses. You are having a hard time taking yes for an answer. I do think it is a much bigger problem on college campuses than anywhere else.
To the extent that illiberal leftism is a problem in the corporate world I think corporations are much more worried about offending their customers than their most junior level employees. Maybe we disagree about that. The original post that I was commenting on was on the dangers of racial identity politics and my original comment was pointing out that the recent election has shown that to be much less powerful as a motivator of Democratic votes (and especially black Democratic votes) than many people had thought on both sides of the issue.
>—“I really don’t see that. In this past election, Trump gained support in every demographic except white men (where he lost enough to lose the election).
Good point. Maybe we have seen the political high water mark for white identity politics. Let’s hope so.
>—” And my sense is that most Trump supporters really love it when minorities join their populist ‘unite against the elites’ movement.”
And my sense is that every political group really loves it when former opponents decide to ally with them.
To the extent that illiberal leftism is a problem in the corporate world I think corporations are much more worried about offending their customers than their most junior level employees.
You may well be right about that. In this world, lefties are much more likely to feel offended by the politics of corporations and much more likely to threaten to take their business elsewhere. So for example, when the head of Goya said nice things about Trump, there were immediate, well-publicized calls to “boycott Goya”. People on the right, being generally less political, are less likely to even know what the politics of a corporation are. (I seem to recall Nassim Nicholas Taleb having an essay about this but I can’t locate it.)
Also, to the extent that corporations have those leftie “junior level employees”, they will probably overestimate how many potential customers will be offended by not taking the right left line–and underestimate how many potential customers will be lost by appearing to be good and woke. The major sports leagues may be an example of the latter–those their substantially lower tv ratings may mostly reflect the crazy season caused by COVID. The ratings of the National Football League seem to be holding up pretty well, though they have also cut back on the “look how much we care about social justice.”
The NFL seems to go against Greg’s contention, and I think other companies do, too. It seemed obvious to me that the NFL’s customer base was more on the right than on the left, but they were more worried about being woke than pleasing their customers. Am I wrong about that? I don’t see progressives as big football fans.
And regarding Greg’s hope that we have seen the high-water mark for white-identity politics, I think that occurred several decades ago.
>—“The NFL seems to go against Greg’s contention…”
This is true, but it is true because the NFL is very far from a typical business. In the professional football business, your success depends on a small number of star athletes who you can’t afford to alienate. Athletes taking political stands offends some customers no doubt. Losing games is even worse for business.
The trade offs are different in the football business. Even so, you had better be a star if you are going to be out front in alienating part of the fan base. Colin Kaepernick would have been able to keep a job in the NFL if he had either been a better player or not been out front in leading the protests that alienated some fans.
The thing is, this seems similar to companies caving in to their woke employees. I think you’re right that star football players should have a lot more clout than a typical company employee. You would think it would be easy for the NYT, for example, to brush off its complaining employees because it surely would be easy to get replacements. Why don’t they do that? The answer might be that they are really pandering to their customers and not their employees, but it doesn’t seem like that.
Nations allow you to join.
I don’t think so.
Not Slovakia. Been here near 30 years, but will NEVER be a “Slovak”. Yes, I could become a citizen of Slovakia. As are many Roma, and many Slovak Hungarians. (Hungarian Slovaks?). The Roma speak Roma at home, and learn, often poorly, Slovak in schools. There is no standardized Roma language.
The Hungarians speak Hungarian at home and in school, and learn Slovak as a second language.
And these tribal problems between ethnic groups are often exaggerated by politicians so as to increase their own political tribal support.
.
Glad that Khan mentions Rwanda, where I worked for 4 months some years ago. The Hutu genocide of the more successful Tutsi minority remains a scar. Not racism, tribalism.
Most important, Khan mentions balance:
all civilized traditions over the past several thousand years have converged upon a common set of ideas and impulses which balance local particularism with human universalism.
This is similar to the need for individualist Libbers to balance with empathy their social relations, society.
His screed is both anti-racist AND a warning about and against the current anti-racism, tho not naming BLM.
“Much of the antiracist discourse in the West today seeks to make race more salient, more explicit, as an organizing principle of society. To remove racism one must acknowledge that one is racist. For white people to repair their injuries to the world, they must acknowledge their own racial identity.
The road to hell was paved with good intentions, and no one can deny that the intentions here are good. “
I deny it.
Most of those who focus on racism in order to “remove racism” do not want to remove racism, they want to use racism in some calculation that justifies taking more from whites and giving more to Blacks. This equal result is their redefinition of justice, and it is designed far more to hurt successful Whites and Asians.
As compared to programs that would hire more Blacks or in some other way try to give advantages to Blacks, without taking more directly from Whites. Even then, some of whatever “extra” is given is also indirectly taken, but the good idea of a hiring program would be to help Blacks better help themselves.
The “universalism” above, along with both Liberal and Socialist “universalisms” are well argued against by the late, great Roger Scruton. Also relevant to Brooks and Fukuyama, with respect to concrete justice which is NOT universal:
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2020/10/conservative-oppose-socialism-liberalism-timeless-sir-roger-scruton.html
In response to liberalism, it is necessary to work for the restoration of the concrete circumstances of justice. But the concrete law that I have been advocating is very unlike anything that either a socialist or a liberal would approve. It preserves inequalities, it confers privileges, it justifies power. That, however, is also its strength.
For me, justice is a process. A just process, the means, does justify the ends — including inequality. There is no just way for a short but talented basketball player to be equal in value for winning with a similarly talented but taller player.
[A fair election is part of this. Our democracy is much weaker with our recent, unfair election.]
“In the Malthusian world, where there is a loser and a winner in every game, you will always eventually lose at some point.”
By definition, every single person has ancestors that won the Malthusian game up till this point. In fact all of our abilities, physical, mental, etc all owe a debt to that Malthusian game. Malthus created us.
There is no particular reason to believe that extending universal human value to all the earth will bring good outcomes. Nor is there any reason to be particularly hard to on people who value their own race above others. That’s clearly what most East Asians do, and I haven’t seen people talk as if they are barbaric or backwards. I suspect that the main problem is that we are reaching the point of diminishing returns. Extending equal rights to Jews gave us most of our Nobel prize winners. Declaring open border for all of Africa…probably not great ROI.
Steve Sailer use to say that you should extend less and less value to people the further you get away from them. In all terms. Biological, national, religious, geographical, class, etc. Not necessarily to assign zero value outside your Dunbar number, but less the less as you go outwards. Perhaps as little as “I won’t kill you unless it’s the only way I can survive.”
You’re vacillating between ‘people think this way because there are selective advantages to thinking that way’ and ‘people *should* think this way.’ But those aren’t the same. Obviously for an individual, sociopathy is the optimal strategy. For humanity as a whole, clan or nation-centric thinking is probably a local optimum rather than a global one, basically it’s defecting in the prisoner’s dilemma. In any case ‘biology wants you to behave this way’ isn’t a convincing normative argument.
Yes, Arnold, Khan’s essay is difficult to excerpt. Only his final paragraph is quite clear:
“The revival of racial identity to tackle social injustice reawakens an ancient beast. One may think that one can ride the beast to victory, but more likely the beast breaks free, and unleashes the rages of the ancient world upon the modern.”
I don’t know Khan’s research work but I was surprised to learn that he is a geneticist and director of science. I was surprised because his implicit concept of identity is relevant to political strategies, not to science.
All political factions (or parties) have to develop a strategy to find and maintain an “optimal” scale to seek the state’s legitimate monopoly of coercion. The old ideas of distinguishing between “us” and “them” and defining how “us” deal with “them” are essential to such development. If you go back to your Three Languages of Politics, each one makes clear the distinction between “us” and “them”. Identity politics is a variant of your progressive language based on some ID dimensions rather than on traditional but obsolete dimensions. Khan suggests that the oppressed people defined by the lack of an ID dimension (the “us”) can regard the oppressors defined as those having the relevant ID dimension (the “them”) either as their enemies to be eliminated (the case of fixed identities, in particular, racial identity) or as their fellows by conversion. Since Khan seeks social justice, he is very much concerned that reliance on elimination “unleashes the rages of the ancient world upon the modern” (he writes about his concern in the last 4 paragraphs of his essay). He supports, however, identity politics by conversion because it has “an element of utopianism, of striving for improvement” that he relates to the idea that “ the egalitarian impulse … has salubrious consequences” (his argument is presented in just one brief paragraph).
Khan’s essay proves that the discussion of social justice continues to rely on emotions (yes, Khan’s issue is not racial identity but social justice as the end that justifies some type of identity politics, other than racial identity politics). I know nothing about the science of emotions, but I doubt Khan has relied on it to write the essay. I know a little about politics and history, but I do not doubt that Khan is wrong about the politics of conversion.
Razib is very familiar with HBD and gets why its so hard to form a multi-cultural society. He isn’t particularly interested in social justice. He’s just a smart minority from a third world country living in a foreign culture wishing this would all go away so he could go on being a successful professional in a classically liberal first world country. He doesn’t need affirmative action or social justice to make a life for himself, it’s all very counter productive to him.
His basic point is that if your whole philosophy is that whites are evil to the core then there is little reason for them not to practice identity politics themselves.
Arnold, to understand what is happening today in your country, take into account the following. Around 1990, the D-Party’s Old Guard changed their political strategy to grab and abuse power. The change amounted to apply their old racial identity politics to gender and new racial identities because they believed that they had succeeded in converting enough whites to protect and support blacks, a success that was rewarded by strong loyalty in elections (remember the need of finding an optimal scale). The extension to other identities was based on the idea that the conversion of whites to protect and support a new identity X will be rewarded by loyal X voters. While the old racial identity politics emerged in the process of capturing the segregated neighborhoods of large cities with the complicity of local leaders (most co-opted on to the Party at a low price), to implement the change, the Party has relied heavily on high schools, colleges, and universities as the organizations to indoctrinate young people and educate the new leaders. Today’s large armies of useful and useless idiots to the D-Party’s Old Guard spent a long time there.
One grotesque line in Khan’s essay is his recognition that converting fellows may fail because “failure is inevitable, and sometimes the consequences are horrific”. Yes, the D-Party’s Old Guard’s conversion strategy can be compared to Mao’s cultural revolution. In the USA, parents voluntarily financed their children in schools, colleges, and universities —so the Party didn’t have to rely on Mao’s extreme forms of coercion— but these public and private organizations destroyed the lives of those children. Today they are the idiots serving their masters with the excuse of seeking Social Justice.
https://twitter.com/a_centrism/status/1325259152072077312
BREAKING Biden will immediately revoke Trump’s executive order banning critical race theory-based training in the executive government upon assuming the presidency.
You shouldn’t be surprised. Biden has always been a puppet (you should remember how Ted Kennedy used him for cleaning the tables in the Judiciary Committee). The relevant question is who his masters are. Kamala may be the messenger between the masters and the puppet but that’s all. I assume that Obama is one of the three masters (the other two, one for the radical leftists and the other for the financiers).
I suggest reading this
https://www.nysun.com/editorials/trying-give-the-bums-rush-to-trump-is-bidens/91330/
to start understanding the masters’ malice, mendacity, and hypocrisy.
Ok, now I’m confused. Greg G had me convinced yesterday that fears like this from the right were nothing more than gross exaggerations done for political purposes. Biden had the woke stuff under control since it was so unpopular.
“The woke stuff” which is indeed still so out of control on campus, and is represented there by Critical Theory and its proponents, does not nearly mean the same thing to the average Democratic voter as we have recently seen by the decisive rejection of affirmative action in the most heavily Democratic state in the country. That proposal did not get nearly the support from Democratic voters that its supporters expected.
Most Democrats couldn’t begin to tell you what Critical Theory even is. For the overwhelming majority of them, “anti-racism” simply means being opposed to racism, not that all white people are racist. For most of them “Black lives matter” simply means that George Floyd was treated as though his life didn’t matter and that was wrong.
Yes, there still is a segment of the party that supports Critical Theory but it has been revealed to be much, much weaker than both its supporters and opponents had thought. And that’s a good thing. That’s something opponents of Critical Theory should want to highlight and celebrate, not deny.
I do celebrate it. And I don’t want any government money going to teach Critical Theory. CT is hate speech.
“That proposal did not get nearly the support from Democratic voters that its supporters expected.”
It lost 44-56. I’m guessing Republican opposition was nearly 100%, so Democrats probably supported it in the majority. In Los Angelos County and all of the counties surrounding San Fran Prop 16 got a majority. Inland white deplorables saved liberals from themselves. California also benefits from having very few blacks.
If CRT is weak, why would Biden re-instate it. He doesn’t even have to deal with the headlines from getting rid of it. He just has to do nothing. But you know he was asked directly about CRT in the debate and he defended it. And his VP tweets CRT theory. Isn’t the simplest explanation here that they support CRT and are going to pursue it regardless of how weak you think it is.
I’m not denying that the turnout for Trump or the reaction of Prop 16 aren’t good. I feel good about them. But affirmative action was already illegal in CA, and we still have lots of affirmative action there. CRT is pretty unpopular at the national level, but it’s never been more popular in all of the important institutions.
>—” Isn’t the simplest explanation here that they support CRT and are going to pursue it regardless of how weak you think it is?”
I think the simplest explanation is that very few people outside of college campuses actually even know what Critical Race Theory is. They hear it’s “anti-racist” and they think it’s something they would agree with because they are against racism. If they knew what the actual content was most would not support it.
I think the College Campus thing is out of date. This thing is in most institutional employers, public and private. It’s in K-12. It’s a campus thing is out of date.
I agree many people would be turned off by it if they knew what it was, but I’m not convinced such people matter to how this thing rolls out. Their kids will grow up believing it.
“It’s a campus thing is out of date.”
Here is one anecdote to support this:
Wife, who works for big pharma, has had 10+ zoom calls on DE&I in the past few months. These calls are comprised of three things:
1) black folks lecturing about “systemic racism”
2) white folks professing their guilt over their “white privilege”
3) a large, but non-vocal group that looks extremely awkward and uncomfortable
Robin DiAngelo is scheduled to make a company paid appearance in December.
So, it has clearly spread outside of the college campus. And, you don’t need an in-depth understanding of CRT to get there.
I think the simplest explanation is that very few people outside of college campuses actually even know what Critical Race Theory is. They hear it’s “anti-racist” and they think it’s something they would agree with because they are against racism. If they knew what the actual content was most would not support it.
Then you’ve got a conundrum. “I think I’m against racism but I disagree with this guy. Am I wrong or is he? Well, my employer is making me attend this workshop and paying him …”
I think one reason some people liked Trump was that they heard his message as, “That guy is full of sh*t” whereas they think Biden’s message will be, “Well, he makes some good points. Systemic racism is a big problem”, leaving the impression that he thinks, “Well, that guy is kind of extreme but he’s basically right.”
Most of the people in California may not believe in CRC, but most of the people who matter apparently do, the major employers, the universities, the bureaucrats. If I want any hope of an academic job in California (where most of the best jobs in my field are) I’d have to waste loads of my time for years engaging in racial activism so I can show on my CV that I’m the right kind of ideologue (despite my field being about as far away from social science as possible). Most of the most important battles aren’t fought in referendums. Hence why there’s a long list of views held by the majority of Americans that nonetheless disqualify one for many government jobs. Most ‘woke’ achievements can be won without a referendum (e.g., public school curricula can be rewritten without ever having to go through the voters).
That most voters are sufficiently oblivious or indifferent to such things to let them slide unless they come in a big referendum with ‘legalize racial discrimination’ in its title is not incredibly reassuring.