…which is nothing but you dismissing their concerns! So I’ll phrase my point a little more bluntly: By what lights can you claim to be identifying what “our big policy problems” are? In other words, if people of color disagree with you, why is the operating assumption that you’re right and they’re wrong?
If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were coming at this from a position of unspoken privilege.
Aside from your wholly unjustified characterization of IP adherents as “single-issue voters” (I’m talking about IP moderates, not the so-called identitarianists),once again you consider it a given that they’re “focused on the wrong things.”
Um, because of my observations, education, experience, and analysis - the same answer they’d give you if you asked them why I’m wrong?
I don’t understand the purpose of your question.
I think I get it - you’re saying I’m not qualified to challenge what they think because I don’t share their identity. If that is what you’re getting at, you’ve demonstrated the flaw of IP I keep pointing out - it attempts to shut down rational argument and fair criticism by exclaiming an identity’s perspective, even if logically flawed, is essentially untouchable by someone of a different identity.
Given what I do with my spare time, volunteering in places that lily-white gentry liberals wouldn’t be caught dead near, with kids from marginal families (and their families) who neither share my ethnicity nor background, to try and do my small part to give them a chance at a better life than fortune has afforded them, and as an (obvious) result, spend a great deal of time and effort intentionally engaging and trying to learn about people quite different from me…
…there’s a chance I might not take kindly to your insinuation.
No, you actually have it backwards. I’m saying your cultural blinders prevent you from seeing that people of color–those whose community are struggling with multigenerational poverty, limited (or virtually nonexistent) educational opportunities, police harassment, etc–might have a perfectly legitimate opinion concerning what our ‘big policy problems’ are that differs radically from your own. You seem to be as dead-set and uncritical regarding your “observations, education, experience, and analysis” as the identitarianists you criticize are regarding theirs.
In short, I’m not saying you’re unqualified to challenge what they think; I’m saying, respectfully, that you seem to have difficulty critically examining what you yourself think.
What I was insinuating is what I’ve stated baldly above: Your good works aside, it’s clear you haven’t given due consideration to the perspective of PoC regarding what are the major public-policy problems of our time. ‘I’m right, they’re wrong, and that’s all there is to it’ is how you’re coming across.
On what basis? Because I disagree them on the merits of an argument? Is there a scenario in which a person can 1) see, appreciate, and respect a person’s point of view and 2) simply disagree with them on the merits of what they view?
When did I say their views weren’t legitimate? Sure, they’re legitimate.
I never said they were bad people with illegitimate concerns - I just said I think they’re wrong as to cause and effect on politics, and that we should prioritize differently than they think.
You seem uncomfortable with disagreement on the merits of ideas, and always default to a presumption that disagreement flows from a lack of respect for the person you disagree with or insufficient understanding of their position. It’s just not so.
Sure. No, I don’t. I just happen to reach a different conclusion than the people you support. That isn’t a function of failing to “critically examine” myself - it’s a function of disagreement on the merits of an argument.
Appreciating and mutually respecting and understanding someone else’s viewpoint does not automatically require agreeing with the viewpoint.
Heh. I wrote early on I believed that, for example, that IP - flawed as I think it is - emanates from very important and good and legitimate ideas regarding the need to end racial discrimination…but I haven’t given due consideration to the perspective of PoC???
This is a dodge. And respectfully, but candidly, this is the precise rhetorical dodge critics of IP say hamstrings the dialogue about race and larger issue about public policy - if you disagree with the IP point of view, the IP adherents run away from the merits (who’s right? who’s wrong? what do they data say? what’s the best policy in light of trade-off?) and immediately begin attacking the credibility of the person who disagrees ("well, it’s clear you haven’t taken the time to truly consider them, otherwise you’d agree with them).
Sorry, that’s not how it works.
And in any event, it’s not true. How you can know if I’ve spent adequate time understanding the perspective of PoC after working with them weekly is a mystery, but such a claim is simply inaccurate. As I’ve discussed in various forms above, you seem to labor under a fiction that understanding someone’s viewpoint means to simultaneously agree with it. That, friend, is a mistaken view of the world.
That doesn’t sound to me like ‘disagreeing on the merits’; rather, it sounds like ‘their complaints are trivial, and frankly ridiculous in the grand scope of things.’
You are rebutting accusations that were not made.
And again. I have not suggested you disrespect PoC (other than mocking them indirectly via your ‘microagressions’ comment).
All I can go on is what you choose to write on the thread. And ‘working with PoC weekly’ neither implies nor requires that you spend time contemplating their views concerning public policy. Nevertheless, if you want to assert that, prior to your statements on the subject upthread, you contemplated the POV of PoC vis a vis what constitute the major public-policy issues of our time, and after careful consideration, decided their concerns were on balance ill-considered, I’m certainly not going to accuse you of lying. But that’s not the impression I took while the convo was developing.
Far from it, the point is these things that are impacting PoC are significant and worthy of national attention, but they aren’t being driven by racism - because these things are impacting white middle and working class people as well. Meaning, more deeply, there is a bigger, broader problem worth addressing, and that should be the focus.
The problem, again, is often prioritization. It doesn’t mean a person is wrong to point out a real problem - it’s just that some problems are bigger and affect more people.
Didn’t you claim I believed their claims to be illegitimate?
That wasn’t mockery - it was literally to point out very large macro problems are not the result of purported microaggressions.
So, the worthiness of a problem is measured with respect to its breadth, as opposed to its depth? I’m not sure I agree.
Further, telling an enormous swath of people that the very real, deep and longstanding problems plaguing their community just don’t ‘make the cut’ vis a vis policy issues is not going to be well-received by the affected community. If I were a member of such a community, my first question for you would be ‘Well then, when will our problems be worthy of consideration?’ How would you respond to this question?
I don’t recall using that word. But this convo has been going on a while, so…
The mockery resides in is the underlying assumption that ‘microagressions’ and the like are the chief concern of people who find value in identity-related politics.
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t - it depends on the issue.
By telling them the most elementary aspects of modern democratic politics - that politics is constrained by limited bandwidth and resources, and that every single policy is subject to trade-offs that must be reconciled. And that in order to pass laws, you have to build enough consensus among a large group of people, many of whom have competing interests.
And I’d clarify your misstatement that just because we can’t solve all the problems right now doesn’t mean your concerns aren’t being considered.
I don’t know if it is a chief concern, but it’s a big one. Acknowledging that fact isn’t mockery of a position.
Of course, if the Democratic party is to have any viability, an indispensable part of their voting bloc comprises PoC, so their (PoC’s) interests better be part-and-parcel of the process of ‘building consensus.’ Dismissing them as too “personal” is done at the peril of the party.
And I’ll clarify your misstatement that I was suggesting that all problems had to be solved right now.
Did you really just say that microagressions are a ‘big concern’ of AAs? With all the issues plaguing their community, you think that is what they’re worried about?
Reminds me a lot of one of the back-and-forth debates TB and Push used to have. In many ways, these debates help me in defining just where I stand, simply because I’m not such a great debater.
If I start a thread (like this one) and end it with "What say 'ye?..my hope is to learn something along the way.
