I don’t believe what you believe, and I don’t have to. I defend your right to hold, express and live by your own belief system, but you have no right to impose any of it on me.
This statement is the essence of secularism and it is absolutely central to liberal democracy. In a secular, liberal democracy, we mandate tolerance of a plurality of worldviews and we encourage a positive attitude to diversity of thought as productive of greater understanding and broader knowledge. Restrictions on what others may believe, say and do are reserved for behaviours that directly harm other people or prevent them from believing, saying and doing what they believe to be right. But what happens when an ideology that holds that beliefs other than its own are directly harmful to or oppressive of others and society fails to recognize that ideology as a belief system in itself, to which the statement cited above should apply? Then we get what we are seeing right now.
What Is the Problem?
Since the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the knee of Derek Chauvin, a white police officer with a record of using excessive force, and the subsequent protests, many businesses have put out statements on social media in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and assured us all that their companies will vigorously defend the values of that movement. For those of us who have been addressing concerns about the dogmatic and authoritarian nature of much of Critical Social Justice scholarship and activism, this has resulted in an enormous number of emails from anxious employees. Here are some abbreviated examples with some key details changed:
I work for a tech company. My boss just announced that he is white, male & privileged and that we all need to do more to show we are addressing this kind of privilege. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do, but I really want to keep my job.
I am a university librarian and I have been required to take part in a seminar about white supremacy and decolonising the library. I’ve been asked to talk about how I have experienced racism as a woman of color, but I don’t think I have experienced any.
I am being expected to teach middle schoolers about white privilege and I want to do this in an evidence-based and non-ideological way, but I don’t know if I’ll still have a job if I try.
I am a marketing executive & we have all been required to join a Slack channel to talk about racism and any white person not contributing to say they are racist and trying to do better is called out for their white silence.
My partner’s engineering firm is requiring everyone to read White Fragility. He plans to take early retirement so he can speak freely about this. Isn’t it a problem that the only people who can [do this] are the independently wealthy?
As you will notice, not one of these people express any doubt that black lives do, indeed, matter. In fact, most of these emails begin by assuring me that the writer abhors racism and is committed to treating everyone as an individual, regardless of his or her identity. But the people contacting me, and many others in this space, are all worried about being expected to affirm a very specific conception of anti-racism, which includes a specific conception of the world and specific methods for diagnosing and addressing racism. This conception of anti-racism is known as Critical Race Theory and it is part of the larger phenomenon of Critical Social Justice scholarship and activism. My correspondents fear that they will be compelled to take this approach and that not doing this or not doing it correctly or enthusiastically enough could result in the loss of their jobs.
It is at this point that a Critical Social Justice activist is likely to respond with “Why is that a bad thing? What’s so awful about being asked to learn about systemic racism and white privilege and how to accept your implicit bias and help dismantle the oppressive system of whiteness? Black people have to live with these oppressive systems that impact every part of their lives and you’re complaining about having to learn about it? Aren’t you just being fragile?” This may seem like a good point. There are plenty of studies that show that there are serious earning gaps between white people and black people. Isn’t this clear evidence of racism occuring in the realm of employment? If so, wouldn’t employment be precisely the place where this should be addressed? Yes and no.
Firstly, it is not entirely clear what explains racial disparities in the workplace, but it doesn’t seem to be tied straightforwardly to white privilege. Evidence that recent African immigrants to the US, as well as other previously oppressed and marginalised groups, including Jews and East Asians, are doing particularly well suggests that the picture is more complicated than that. Nevertheless, upward mobility is generally hard and African Americans were prevented from even trying to become more prosperous until a couple of generations ago, so the impact of that will still be felt. Also, racism continues to exist and anyone who claims that it does not or that it will have zero effect on black people’s access to profitable and rewarding opportunities is living in a post-racial utopia of their own creation.
Second, while there is an overwhelming consensus that racism is bad and that racists should be prevented from harming or disadvantaging others with their racism, there is no consensus on the ethical framework behind this. People can oppose racism from within a number of ethical, political and religious frameworks, including Critical Social Justice beliefs about invisible systems of whiteness; universal liberal and libertarian beliefs, in which all people should be treated as individuals regardless of their identities; Marxist beliefs, in which the meaningful divides between people are ones of class; and conservative religious beliefs in which all humans are children of God. Therefore any codes of conduct or training around racism need to accommodate a wide range of ethical, religious, political and philosophical beliefs, which people must be permitted to hold under laws and social expectations of freedom of belief.
Ideological Conformity
It is perfectly reasonable for employers to require employees to commit to not discriminating against anybody on the basis of race, and to not expressing racist beliefs. Because this is an important issue and employers will want to be very clear about it, a talk or meeting could be necessary and employees might be required to confirm that they understand and commit to following the rules. However, it is also important that the focus is on expected attitudes and behaviours at work and does not require anyone to affirm their commitment to any particular belief system that they may not believe in and should not be coerced into.
The ethical problem with requiring ideological conformity is often understood better by people on the political left when it comes to a belief system like Christianity, which is a majority view and often combined with conservative politics. It is usually clear to leftists that, unless the role is a specifically religious one, an employer should not require their atheist, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or even Christian employees to affirm the Christian faith. It is less clear to a certain subset of them that they should not be required to affirm a belief in concepts of invisible systems of power and privilege such as whiteness. This is because Social Justice beliefs are not currently recognised as ones to which the concept of secularism should be applied. They should be.
If employers are holding meetings to go over the rules of non-discrimination and the expectation of non-racist attitudes at work and requiring employees to commit to this, they really need to make these requirements inclusive of diverse viewpoints. Employers must be able to demand certain behaviours from employees, but not specific beliefs. Of course, it is likely that many of them do still operate this way. The people who are not being compelled to affirm Critical Social Justice beliefs at work will not be writing to us to tell us so and ask us what they can do about it. However, the sheer volume of these emails is reason to think that there has been a sudden surge in Critical Social Justice anti-racist training since the death of Mr Floyd. That Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility has sold out in that same period and become the bestseller in the US again suggests that the Critical Social Justice approach to anti-racism, focusing on whiteness as a pervasive but largely invisible system, has seen a rapid surge in popularity. The fact that the unlawful and brutal killing of a black man by a white police officer in the US has led to white computer technicians in Australia being asked to confront their complicity in whiteness and brown librarians in England being expected to testify to very theoretically specific experiences of racism makes it very clear that we are looking at a particular conception of systemic racism.
The Truth According to Critical Social Justice
When we hear people speak of systemic racism, we might associate this with institutional racism in a literal sense: an institution has been found to be discriminating against non-white people and this can be measured and, in principle, remedied. However, this is not really how systemic racism is understood in the work of theorists like DiAngelo. Instead, this systemic racism refers to everything said and done in a society by white people. DiAngelo writes:
The system of racism begins with ideology, which refers to the big ideas that are reinforced throughout society. From birth, we are conditioned into accepting and not questioning these ideas. Ideology is reinforced across society, for example, in schools and textbooks, political speeches, movies, advertising, holiday celebrations, and words and phrases. These ideas are also reinforced through social penalties when someone questions an ideology and through the limited availability of alternative ideas. Ideologies are the frameworks through which we are taught to represent, interpret, understand and make sense of social existence. Because these ideas are constantly reinforced, they are very hard to avoid believing and internalizing.
This is known as discourse theory and it owes a great deal to the thought of the French postmodernist, Michel Foucault. Foucault understood knowledge as a construct of power, which is perpetuated by common ways of speaking about things. That is, certain ways of speaking about things get legitimised as true by powerful forces in society and are then repeated as true by people on all levels of society, which works to maintain oppressive power imbalances. In this case, racism is maintained by the way white people speak about things, but white people usually don’t even realise this and they need people like DiAngelo to help them see it. The word woke makes much more sense when this conception of society is understood. Consequently, racism is defined not as prejudice on the grounds of race, which can consistently be recognised as wrong but as a power system that only works one way. DiAngelo says,
Racism is a society-wide dynamic that occurs at the group level. When I say that only whites can be racist, I mean that in the United States, only whites have the collective social and institutional power and privilege over people of color. People of color do not have this power and privilege over white people.
So, this is systemic racism in the Critical Social Justice sense and that system of big ideas and discourses that are largely invisible to the non-woke is known as whiteness and it really does apply to everything. According to DiAngelo,
We might think of whiteness as all the aspects of being white—aspects that go beyond mere physical differences and are related to the meaning and resultant material advantage of being defined as white in society: what is granted and how it is granted based on that meaning.
Whiteness is structural:
To say that whiteness is a location of structural advantage is to recognize that to be white is to be in a privileged position within society and its institutions—to be seen as an insider and to be granted the benefits of belonging. This position automatically bestows unearned advantages.
Whiteness is a particularly privileged perspective:
To say that whiteness is a standpoint is to say that a significant aspect of white identity is to see oneself as an individual, outside or innocent of race—“just human.” This standpoint views white people and their interests as central to, and representative of, humanity. Whites also produce and reinforce the dominant narratives of society—such as individualism and meritocracy—and use these narratives to explain the positions of other racial groups.
Whiteness is culture:
To say that whiteness includes a set of cultural practices that are not recognized by white people is to understand racism as a network of norms and actions that consistently create advantage for whites and disadvantage for people of color. These norms and actions include basic rights and benefits of the doubt, purportedly granted to all but which are actually only consistently afforded to white people.
So whiteness is to be understood as this all-pervasive but invisible system of racism that white people perpetuate without even knowing they are doing it. This is a radically different understanding of racism from the commonly accepted one, which holds that racism is prejudice on the grounds of race, usually accompanied by an acknowledgment that, in modern western history, it has overwhelmingly been perpetrated by white people against non-white people. Nevertheless, in the common understanding of racism, white individuals can choose whether to uphold or reject racist ideas, and moral progress, particularly over the last sixty years, has resulted in a consensus that it is morally wrong to hold racist ideas and morally good to reject them. This is a very positive development, which DiAngelo herself acknowledges when she says:
The final challenge we need to address is our definition of “racist.” In the post-civil rights era, we have been taught that racists are mean people who intentionally dislike others because of their race; racists are immoral. Therefore, if I am saying that my readers are racist or, even worse, that all white people are racist, I am saying something deeply offensive; I am questioning my readers’ very moral character.
She goes on to argue for the Critical Social Justice concept of racism as a power system that results in white privilege, which she defines as “a sociological concept referring to advantages that are taken for granted by whites and that cannot be similarly enjoyed by people of color in the same context,” but she is never very clear about what these advantages are. In particular, very little attention is paid to class or individual advantages and disadvantages.
Unsurprisingly, many white people are not delighted to be told that they are inherently racist and maintaining a racist system simply by existing and interacting with others. They may not respond well to the mind-reading approach taken by DiAngelo and her ilk, which insists that the whiteness scholars know the white mind better than the individual owners of those minds. Those who have been through particular hardship might become quite annoyed to be told that they are more privileged than someone who has never been through any such hardship, but has darker skin, and to be also told that they are actively oppressing that person. This leads many white people to disagree with or refuse to engage with DiAngelo. This led her to produce her theory of white fragility which explains away all the people who disagree with her:
Socialized into a deeply internalized sense of superiority that we either are unaware of or can never admit to ourselves, [white people] become highly fragile in conversations about race. We consider a challenge to our racial worldviews as a challenge to our very identities as good, moral people. Thus, we perceive any attempt to connect us to the system of racism as an unsettling and unfair moral offense. The smallest amount of racial stress is intolerable—the mere suggestion that being white has meaning often triggers a range of defensive responses. These include emotions such as anger, fear and guilt and behaviors such as argumentation, silence and withdrawal from the stress-inducing situation. These responses work to reinstate white equilibrium as they repel the challenge, return our racial comfort, and maintain our dominance within the racial hierarchy. I conceptualize this process as white fragility.
So, the belief system around these concepts of whiteness, privilege and fragility includes the truth claims that:
- An invisible power system exists that perpetuates racism throughout every aspect of society.
- Racist systems require power, therefore only white people can be racist and all white people are racist. This invisible racist power system is called whiteness.
- Whiteness pervades everything and so is always present whenever white people do or say anything. It is impossible for white people not to behave in racist ways.
- White people are generally unable to see the invisible force of whiteness and need theorists like DiAngelo to explain it to them.
- Whiteness results in white people being privileged and it is always essential to focus on this privilege to the exclusion of all other factors that could help or hinder a person.
- White people cannot bear to be confronted by DiAngelo’s beliefs in their racism. This is because they are psychologically fragile and not because they know their own minds.
- Any attempt to disagree with this definition of racism, whiteness or privilege is simply a manifestation of this fragility. Being quiet or going away is also a sign of it.
- White people therefore have two choices: they can be racist and admit it or racist and deny it. Both are bad, but the latter is willfully ignorant and therefore really bad.
Critical Social Justice theories of whiteness represent a complex and internally consistent belief system, which is the result of at least fifty years of discourse theory. The similarities between this belief system and belief systems more instantly recognisable as religious, which also believe in original sin, powerful but insidious forces of evil, a priesthood, epiphany and atonement, are clear.
The Need for Secularism
It is important to note that a comparison of Critical Social Justice with religious belief systems for the purpose of applying rules of secularism to them is not the same thing as a claim that the scholars and activists (or the religious believers) are wrong. They could be 100% right and the same rules would still apply. A secular society does not deny belief systems power over others because they are factually wrong. It denies them power over others because it protects the individual’s right to her own private conscience, whether she is right or not. This is a remarkable and counterintuitive thing to humans, but it has served us well.
The principles of secularism hold that, no matter how strongly you believe your belief system to be true or how essential you think it is that all of society holds it to be true and lives according to its moral dictates, you do not have the right to impose it on anyone else. We currently live in societies that do a pretty good job of applying this rule to religion, but which have not yet recognised Critical Social Justice as the same kind of thing. Instead, Critical Social Justice is largely misunderstood as a continuation of the liberal civil rights movements, which worked to reform laws and to open up all opportunities to everyone, regardless of their identities, and whose principles can still, quite reasonably, be expected to be upheld by employers. This is a misunderstanding of Critical Social Justice. As shown above, Critical Social Justice is a very specific belief system, which revolves around several core truth claims, which have not been shown to be true. It requires an admission of inherent racism and regards all disagreement as evidence of the problem.
It is essential that employers recognise that the concepts of Social Justice, whiteness, white privilege and white fragility all depend upon a very specific belief system that they do not have the moral right to demand any of their employees believe. It seems very likely that many employers organising this kind of training do not recognise this and simply regard the phenomenon epitomised by the work of Robin DiAngelo as the latest and most reputable development in the field of anti-racism and feel that they should support it in this current climate. Therefore, it needs to be made clear to them what the truth claims of this theory actually are, how they work and what they require people to pretend to believe about themselves, the nature of racism and the structure and culture of the society in which they live. Employers must defend their employees’ freedom of belief and make their policies against racism accommodating of the full range of ideological and philosophical worldviews from which one can oppose racism. They must protect the right to say:
I don’t believe what you believe, and I don’t have to. I defend your right to hold, express and live by your own belief system, but you have no right to impose any of it on me.
This article was originally published at Areo Magazine.
67 comments
A black scholar whose name escapes me wrote :
”DiAngelo’s white fragility and her celebrity from that work, fit into what i have called the paradox of centering whiteness to de-centre whiteness. DiAngelo represents centering whiteness, acknowledging racism and black suffering only in proximity to whiteness, and black voices given space because of white approval. The all work against anti-racism and are in fact racist. Simultaneously, and paradoxically, DiAngelo represents the importance of and the power in white-to-white confronting of and naming racism as well as white denial and fragility ”
So apparently DiAngelo is just another common or garden racist who is exploiting her whiteness to capitalise on black suffering same as always. In other parts of the piece the commentator remarked on how DiAngelo only appropriated the views from black voices.
Helen Pluckrose has done everyone justice – all people – by pointing out rather shrewdly that DiAngelo is organising what constitute tenets of a religion. ”White Fragilty Exists” – ”All Whits are Racists”, the author of the article bullet pointed them rather well. One has to be curious how yet again, the archetypal fingerprint everyone has begun to know well, that of cultural marxism decoupling of binaries, just happens to be the tooling that enables the witchcraft. In the UK we had (until recently) something called the fraudulent mediums act 1951. This had repealed the which craft act of 1735. The 1951 was itself repealed by an EU directive in 2008, now assigning to a consumer protection from unfair trading regulation. In this respect whilst it would be uncouth to name DiAngelo a witch and a fraud there are strong parallels.
The most astonishing thing about mediums who ‘read messages’ claiming this to be the evidence of survival of loved ones – is not more astonishing that the self delusion DiAngelo implements. And lets face it DiAngelo is BIG on accusing her white fragiles of being powerless to negative voices in the mind – using what ? – the voices in DiAngelo’s mind since there is no evidence unless metaphysical beliefs count, thus white fragility is alleged to be DiAngelo’s belief. Yes alleged – DiAngelo can only claim she believes all whites are racist, because she has built a probability-less metaphysical framework of psychic dogma.
Lets say if DiAngelo issues rebuttal insisting she does believe herself. Then by far the closest proximity in any phenomenology of DiAngelo probability is that she made a fraudulent style psychic reading . From there one can only marvel at the delusion of grandeur, and the hubris in expecting to get away with this over a long term. Psychics and mediums get up to all kinds of mischief. Young children having sleep issues given shadow people. Dogs bark or look intently due to spirits. Ghost hunting culture, even though they are clear in their philosophy that ghosts are photographic artifacts drifting through time space ( like detectable?). Most of them believed that the Mayans had given information that earth was to be openly visited by aliens in 2012, and many dropped everything they usually do until the aliens didn’t arrive. Nobody could force DiAngelo to be recognised as weak minded in one of these ways. Yet at the same time the sociologist smacks BIG of psychic kook just as the mentalist predicting earthquakes does.
Going from the bottom up DiAngelo is definitely a legitimate suspect in a psychic wrong doing. She has gone on to demonstrate she is quite happy to be the leader of a movement. Helen P elucidated the boundary conditions that define the difference between healthy debate and religion indoctrination. Reasonably speaking DiAngelo seems to be aware of the kind of water tight, ”whitey has no escape” attitude, as if Butlers ”Performativity” is also at work. What is DiAngelo after all a performer ? a sociologist ? a Psychic ?. However these things are by no means for certain since levels of self deception can compound. A person can run a manifold double life state from one tiny delusional visualisation. Thus it is not beyond the realms of possibility that DiAngelo is no longer aware of the original liberty she took with herself.
To accuse the entire white race of racism is intrinsically a sociopathic tendency it is quite reasonable to remark. Although as many know the lines concerning sociopathy cum anti social behaviour disorder, narcissism and psychopathy has blurred of late. Far more productive might be a common denominator or psychological driver of woke ‘consciousness’ insomuch as wok doesn’t deem possible unless the peddles the witchcraft of implicit bias. All wokes believe they can batter a fry that fish within a nonchalant few crass sentences. With the coast clear (in their minds) – off they go to spout off about whiteness.
DiAngelo is aware that it has been pointed out that racism in a conscious decision. DiAngelo (et al) are not happy with that for several obvious reasons. Firstly as a conscious package it conflicts with her religion of fragility insomuch as her trade in race relations is deliberately founded on a sense of the place that is senseless due to its implicitness. DiAngelo is a kook that avoids all explanation & shouts out psychic misconceptions and demands that racism is implicit so that it priced as explicit in order for debate avoidance. For it is were to be there could then be a rational debate obviously & DiAngelo merely forces her views as we know. In many ways DiAngelo is already Ai Law enforcement enabled – but that another issue. The useful piece of observation is the – general – standard – global- all pervading state of decoupling concerning the way cultural marxism teaches is apologists to use sorcery with respect to he way implicit emotions work.
The meddling by DiAngelo is an exact match for all cultural marxist social engineering that is clear., Thus one has to wonder is it all her, none of her, or a bit of their misanthropy with a bit of hers. DiAngelo and any other proponent of implicit bias is claiming that only white people have hate switch within the implicit mind. This is the same as saying that black people have a different type implicit neurology to white people. As such it could be claimed that neuronal groups are different, that neurotransmission is different if it is to be insisted that matters are implicit, thus beyond the explicit knowledge of the central personality.
Surely we can reasonably assume that since black people are being considered as persons who are not racist = Neurotypical. Then all white people are dogged by an atypical brain disorder of some kind. Important – DiAngelo has dismissed the Personality by insisting the matter is implicit. Therefore this tricky old sociologist can only be talking in the extreme = a significant neurological difference with respect to the way the white brain processes it attitude toward other human beings. A kook like DiAngelo is unlikely to recognise the sheer size of this no contest battle with nature vs her feeble childishness. DiAngelo also has much borrowed time bought for her by dark hidden forces just as others have. Black people represent the universal constant who it comes to Love – whites don’t, DiAngelo takes a dump on many more things that a race argument, including Anthropology. According to DiAngelo its an implicit matter, thus one has to take it she means raicim is not nurtured. Hence her opinion is that all white babies are preloaded racists.
By what cosmological order might that be is what DiAngelo should answer. But she is a kook therefore will not debate it.
1 – A God
2 – Natural Selection
3 – Nothing
4 – Your Schizophrenia
5 – Your Religious Cult.
The reliable cognitive neuroscientific evidence suggest biases are processed explicitly in the conscious mind. The implicit mind is incapable of taking part conscious awareness. Instead the implicit/unconscious performs a wide range of sampling processes as aback up to the conscious mind. Long term memory retrieval/storage, Whilst it can be argued ( and should ) that the implicit mind samples feeling & emotions, this will not alter the way the deeper mind serves the conscious mind.
Racism is a Conscious Discision or not. All people including black pople are presented with that conscious dilemma. There are black people calling YOU out as a racist MS DiAngelo.
Personally i feel that you are one of two things = stupid or stupid.
“…whilst it would be uncouth to name DiAngelo a witch and a fraud there are strong parallels.”
Marshall McLuhan letter to Eric Voegelin 1953 (excerpt):
“That [gnostic speculation] should flourish side by side with diabolism, the secret sectarian organization of intellectual life, and the falsification of the entire linguistic currency — that is the deplorable thing. Secrecy and power seem to be intertwined. [T]he very conditions of gnosis postulate secrecy, an Elite, and a vulgar (mass) who are to be swamped with lies. That the cynical contempt for the bulk of mankind should co-exist and even be expressed by fanatical assertions of universal benevolence, does not appear to them as disturbing.”
https://voegelinview.com/mcluhans-secret-societies-problem/
Excellent thank you for that JS as i must confess i had not considered a gnostic based cult / think tank/drain of public wealth/misanthropic institution accusing the plane of the earth & its inhabitants of being in the lower world. On the contrary in her seminars she tells the delegation a typical hard luck story. Brought up in poverty, humiliated, its described almost as a trailer trash setting. Only to be so strong she goes to college aged 30 & triumphs against adversity & becoming a professor. I think it is more likely she’s been at it virtually 0-30 under circumstances that makes a normal loving mother weep – but here i’d think the matriarch was more than delighted. In their system children belong to the state.
There is a lot i could remark concerning those correspondences. I feel that without regard for any persons conscience, be they persuaded by a god or not, anyone not existing in their metaphysical realm is deemed a denizen of the lower kingdom.
That never ends well.
Thank you for the excellent write-up. It’s very useful to have a clear and concise explanation of these CRT ideas and agreeable reasons to oppose them (or simply stating that we still have the right to oppose them) without excessive vitriol or labeling of “their side” vs “our side.” Your even-handed approach makes it far easier to spread these ideas compared to more aggressive approaches with the same goal.
But their in fact is a “their side” and an “our side”. Ideas in diametric opposition cannot both be true. Pure logic (Aristotle style) demands that ideas be discussed and vigorously debated on their merits. Do the worldviews being put forward lead to greater flourishing and human freedom or don’t they?
The more I read about the subject the more it appears to be a revolt against the values of Western Civilization. The infinite value of the individual who has the right to pursue happiness, and who holds guaranteed rights to be protected by the political architecture; the right to write, speak and show up. Apparently those who hate this kind of political, cultural, philosophical disposition should quit writing, speaking or showing up, because they desire to create a society that that forbids it. Their privilege to write, speak, and promote their particular pap is protected by the very things they despise.
I’ve often wondered why DiAngelo even felt the need to write a book on “white fragility.” Most of the items in her list fall under what I would call “treating people decently.” Thus, I see a form of gaslighting even in the writing of this book. She makes people’s expectation of being treated with fairness into a racist pathology. She makes critical thinking into a racist pathology! The only excusable motive I can see for this book is empathy building. Since white people have often not treated racial minorities with basic human decency, even calling normal desires for freedom a mental illness (drapetomania), DiAngelo may be thinking that she can help white people experience what it’s like not to be stereotyped and judged unfairly.
Sorry, I tried to separate out each section in my prior comment. For some reason, my paragraph spaces didn’t take.
I don’t know if this will help, but I’ll say this:
If I were forced into one of these training against my will – and I would definitely not go voluntarily, only by misunderstanding, if it were not mandatory – I would try to talk to my supervisor first and warn him or her that anti-racism promotes anti-white racism and bigotry against Conservatives. I would also let him / her know that I am a white Conservative and would not feel comfortable in such a “training”.
If the training were mandatory for my job or I would be let go, I would go, but tell them openly – in front of everyone – that their ideology promotes anti-white racism and viewpoint discrimination. I would show them from their own teaching how their ideology uses ad-hominem attacks to inflict negative judgments of my morality, character and / or mental health because I am white and happen to disagree with them. I would provide them with examples from their teaching to show how their ideology uses this tactic to shut down legitimate discussion on issues of race relations. Well, unless it devolved into a shouting match. If it got to that point, then I’d walk out and file an EEOC complaint for anti-white racial discrimination. If I had the time and money, I’d sue for anti-white racial discrimination, viewpoint discrimination and – if possible – emotional distress, for requiring that session of me. If they decide to terminate me, then that would be wrongful termination, too.
I would seek to avoid further discussion on the matter, mostly to protect myself…. and I’d go from there.
I realize that would likely mean that I’d have no recommendations for a new job. But you know what? You can always meet new people and get in to a different career path over time, if you can just be a bit patient. I think that that’s often the best course, even though it can be hard.
Your situations might be very different than my own. Ultimately, you must think about what you need most. As for me, I tend to have a low tolerance for junk like this.
Now, I will say, too: if you are a Bible-believing, non-Leftist Christian, you can tell your employer that anti-racism conflicts with your religious beliefs. The reason for this is that anti-racism promotes the anti-racist identity, which is an identity of redemption that is based on the ongoing actions of the anti-racist and is judged subjectively by imperfect people. This concept flies in the face of Christianity, which teaches that a person is redeemed through Christ’s atonement of their sins at the cross, which is judged by a perfect God. It is an identity of forgiveness and rest in Christ, not one of a secular, work-based identity.
Christians are also prohibited from showing favoritism, so Christians are not supposed to be racist or anti-racist. This favoritism addresses not only issues of race, sex and the like, but also whether or not someone is a racist. What I mean is this: anti-racists tend to end up disliking or mistreating those they perceive to be racists. Meanwhile, Christians are to show kindness and respect to everyone.
I don’t know what would happen in your case, but I’d like to hope that pushing back against the training might be okay.
TLH: I understand. The problem with “white fragility” and CRT trash like it, is that the stuff collectively is racist, socio-psychological abuse of white people, and perhaps white Conservatives most of all.
OK this is really super rude on my part, but when I look at a photo of DiAngelo, with that expression of utter condescension on her face – I kinda just want to slap her.
Yeah, I know that’s totally uncivilized and all that, and it’s not cool to do things like that, but her expression is one of “I know better than you, you just need to STFU and listen to me, everything about you is wrong from your head down to your shoes, and I’m not going to take no for an answer. So take your medicine like a good girl/boy.”
UGH I’d HATE to be one of her KIDS!!!
OK I just had to get that off my chest, totally.
Well, as I said, political ideologies can have some superficial resemblence to religion. And while I agree that CRT is more fanatical than ordinary political discourse, just as Nazism, Stalinism, and Maoism were, it is not a religion any more than they were. Arguably, it is the decline of real religion that renders people susceptible to fanatical political ideologies in the first place.
I think one of the reasons why there is a push to define it in religious terms is because CRT’s most active theorists (particularly in academia) are pretty staunchly anti-religious or at least consciously non-religious. Someone who has thoughtfully concluded religion is not for them, or has become disenfranchised from religion, or has always been a fierce critic of it, has likely wrestled with many of these principles that fuel the SJ fires. Drawing connections between CSJ and general religion serves to highlight these principles and expose them within the CSJ they are peddling.
This also applies to the younger generation which, seem less inclined to follow the religious traditions of their parents than ever before, but are eating up CSJ/CRT/etc.
For instance, I have a friend (age 30ish) who “out-grew” religion on the basis of “there is no proof of God, I am a man of science, I believe in what can be proven.” I personally disagree but that’s fine and his choice, but he also totally bought in with CSJ. But what if he realized the same “lived experience principle” he rejected out-right in religion, is a key foundation of CSJ?
I’m not implying this comparison is good/bad/valid/in-valid, just pointing out to what purpose it may serve when confronting this tide of CRT.
That makes some sense, but when people on the IDW compare wokeness to religion on the basis of both being intrinsically irrational, not only is that not true, it is deeply offensive to rational religious people. You wouldn’t attack wokeness by calling wokesters niggers. What some people on the IDW are doing vis a vis rekigion is really that offensive. And it is needlessly alienating a potential ally in the struggle against woke ideology.
It is definitely a double-edged sword and everyone should be conscientious of that.
For what it’s worth, I think a critical difference, which is usually highlighted in articles published here, is that religion (for our purposes, assume Christian) is a building force, always offering a path for redemption; whereas, the ideology of Wokeness only offers condemnation.
I think you’re missing the fact that all three of the political doctrines you mentioned were also specifically trying to replace normal religious belief with their own versions of the same. All three also attempted to suppress religion as they slid their own version in front of the people. And all three came to power in societies that were not secular in a widespread sense.
So “Secularism” is not a belief system? I submit not only that it is, but that it is a self-undermining one. You say I have no right to impose my “belief system” on you, but what if my belief system requires me to do so? By your own standard, you have no right to impose your “Secularism” on me. The only way out of that conundrum is special pleading. In any case, “wokeness” is not a religion. It is a political ideology. Like other political ideologies, including “Secularism,” it can superficially share some features of religion, and it serves some of the same purposes for some people, but it is not the same thing. To attack it as though it were a religion is a mistake. And I might add that religious believers, certainly Christians, are as opposed to woke ideology as any of you are. If anything, it threatens us more than it does you secularists since our tendency to social conservatism is more anathema to them than your tendency to social libertarianism.
I think you’re mistaken here. The CRT crowd is busy creating their own pantheon of martyrs and saints, and their approach to anything is much more frenzied than traditional political discourse. I’d suggest that if they resemble anything it’s the NSDAP with its fixation on race (self-defined, of course), creation of a similar pantheon (starting with Horst Wessel), mythical system of outside oppression, and fevered dreams for a new world remade in their own image. They even share the same amorphous idea of an enemy…just change out “Jewish-Bolshevik” with “white male oppressor-racist” and the similarities become even more obvious. It’s also interesting that many of the most ardent CRT supporters are not “of” the group they claim to represent. The Nazis had a similar problem…
I’m having trouble understanding your objection. Could you explain what you mean when you say that secularism is a belief system? Perhaps in the broadest sense I could agree, but there are some critical distinctions.
I think the issue is that CRT and CSJ present themselves as secular, but they aren’t. This is the source of this line of criticism – you can’t present a subjective ideology as objective truth, and then demand others bend the knee to it.
As for Christians being opposed to Woke ideology, churches of various denominations around the U.S. are repeating much of the same Woke dogma criticized on these pages.
“White people therefore have two choices: they can be racist and admit it or racist and deny it. Both are bad, but the latter is willfully ignorant and therefore really bad.” This sounds weighty and high-theory and all, yet at its core it is nothing more than the commonplace Kafkatrap wherein admitting guilt means you’re guilty, but failing to admit guilt means you’re even more guilty.
Similarly, any disagreement with critical race theory is presumed is not to be taken at face value, for it can only be an expression of psychological pathology. Thus, it follows that any and all criticism is illegitimate.
It is hard for me to understand why anyone would take any of this seriously, for how can one take any theory seriously when its authors’ defense comes down to assertions that all disagreement are( by definition) illegitimate, and can only be taken as evidence a mental pathology?
When its going to typify the ontology in use within Ai based law enforcement systems.
Here’s something fun: I “learned” yesterday that hypertension, covid, and beautiful teeth are all racist. Yes, on white people have nice teeth. Ummm…I think some British folks may disagree. How does one explain the fact that Africans/black Americans have more enamel and therefore whiter teeth?
The CRT bilge knows no end.
First things first, I want to thanks Helen, James, and Peter for the immensely brave and valuable work they are doing. Read, annotate, and share their wonderful articles as often as you can.
Now, if your company wants you to submit to the Equity gods, you simply do a couple things:
a.) Tell them you are not obligated to subscribe to an ideology, and then assure them it *is* an ideology because they are explaining a complex social disparity with a univariate explanation: white racism. (God, even typing that reminds me just how unutterably inane their reductive worldview is.) If you work in academia, this should, in theory, resonate with them even more. Implore them to be intellectually thorough and honest, and if they address culture and IQ in their struggle sessions, then you’ll consider attending. Even Lefty Ezra Klein pushed Ibram Kendi on the cultural values question, and Kendi dodged it.
b.) In the words of Michael Levin (NOT the Fox guy), the question is not why there are differences in outcomes between the various groups, especially blacks and whites. Instead, ask in good faith what makes them think they will ever be equal. In other words, when someone implies that black performance would equal that of whites or Asians if only society were free of bias and white supremacy, all you need to say is: “Yeah? What makes you think so?”
The burden of proof rests squarely on them.
I still like the fake it ’til you make it approach”/playing dumb tactic to coping with D&I (Diversity and Inclusion) “education”. Note: many HR directors and people in upper levels of mgmt tend to have higher levels of narcissism v. employees with less power. However, data from a variety of disciplines supports that notion. So, narcissists don’t like to be confronted-it’s threatening to them. You’re better off avoiding that.
For what its worth, here’s a short article from Ladders, not research, people might find helpful: https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/how-to-deal-with-a-narcissist-5-secrets-backed-by-research
Never forget, it’s always possible to change your own reaction to a situation. Conversely, it’s a fool’s errand to believe one will change another’s beliefs/thoughts. We really only have the power to control our own thoughts, feelings, and actions. This is probably not what people want to hear.
Off topic, do some of the comments here seem to be placed/appear in an odd order?
I like this approach as well, and since every situation is different, it’s best to have different tools available. Understanding your point about narcissists acutely, the difficult reality is that CSJ training is racist and therefore abusive. The point is not to try to win an argument (highly unlikely, no matter how well executed), but to put a stop to the abusive behavior.
At some point, the ability to leave for greener pastures is no longer an option, as is continuing to function in a racially hostile environment.
Though it’s possible to change our reactions to a situation, some situations are completely unacceptable in the workplace. We wouldn’t tell a woman to change her reaction to sexual harassment any more than we should suggest it to an employee being racially browbeaten in the workplace. This isn’t about changing someone’s belief or disabusing them of their newfound racism, but getting them to stop their abuse.
And this is definitely abuse.
(And yes, the comments are posting out of the threads they should appear in.)
I agree that the wrongful termination angle is more likely, but having another legal angle to attack this from increases employers’ legal exposure. No business wants that.
As I pointed out to another commenter, if society has reached the point you mention – that they won’t do business with a non-“woke” company, or that a company values the business of only the “woke” – then this discussion is academic.
However, if there is a reasonable course of legal action in play here, I‘m not convinced that most companies would shrug it off. If we have reached that point, we’ve got bigger problems. Perhaps larger companies might be prone to absorbing costs, but they’re also exposed to much larger legal penalties. Legal departments tend to take a flamethrower to anything which prompts lawsuits. That’s half the reason HR exists to begin with.
Small and medium-sized businesses though? There’s no way they’re prepared to eat lawsuits.
We do have bigger problems. Extremism is on the rise on both the Left and Right. It’s already turning to violence.
Just playing devil’s advocate here. Remember those people who pursue litigation will probably be terminated. Most states in American are “at will” employment states. This means someone can be terminated anytime, any moment. A person would probably have better chances letting that happen and then pursue wrongful termination litigation as cause for action.
Also, don’t forget, the corporation has to calculate which is the greater threat to their corporate integrity. You or a society (source of revenue stream) that increasingly believes white people are bad and need struggle sessions . I suspect a single or even class action against an employer would be regarding as more of a nuisance.
By the way, don’t forget that next year, American will have a new president who will likely endorse diversity education.
Comments anyone?
I think once we start to recognise the true prevalence of IQ privilege then we can make sure that critical theory academics are paid the same as their janitors.
But somehow I get the feeling that particular revolutionary end point won’t ever happen, not if the academics have anything to do with it.
There are certain in-born characteristics that are very good indicators of how successful an individual will be, namely; ability to focus, dedication, willingness to delay reward, risk tolerance, etc. All of these are the marks of privilege and should be vigorously defeated right? 😉
Good looks also help. If you’re ugly that also negatively impacts your chances of success, especially if you’re female. It’s almost always unconsciously assumed that good looks mean ability. When you change the photo on the same resume’, that has a dramatic effect on the number of interviews and job offers.
If an author has a best selling book printed by a capitalist business is she supporting capitalism without realising it ? Does she intend to overthrow Penguin Books and turn them into a workers co-op ?
Dear Reasonable: did you know that Robin DiAngelo makes 70% more as a keynote speaker than does a black female keynote? That woman is SUCH a raging hypocrite.
Which black female keynotes? I am positive Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey get lots more money for speeches than Ms. DiAngelo ever will. You’re the “raging hypocrite”. I doubt you would ever complain that they should get less money. The truth of the matter is that payment for speakers depends on how famous you are.
So all books by anyone “woke” should maybe be self published? Almost all book stores are capitalist businesses, too, so where could you possibly sell books and stay morally pure? Online sales also require paying a website hosting business. Maybe everyone should just forsake all money and live in caves to truly reject capitalism. Considering the minimalist movement, that may just be the next “woke” crusade. Many literally already promote eliminating furniture and sleeping on your apartment floor to avoid unnecessary possessions, so you never know.
The authors should fork over every cent made to randomly chosen black people currently living in the “projects” and or are in the “system”. The amount should be large enough that they could live comfortably while pursuing a hobby and enough that they are not required to work for money (they’d only work if they chose to)….
“Aren’t you just being fragile?”
My standard Response-
“No, I am not being “fragile”; it is just that being a High-Functioning Sociopath largely Excuses me from such Concerns”
And how the heck do THEY respond to THAT? 😉
To imply that one must ‘check their privilege’ or is blood guilty of racism is slander, and IMO a bazillion lawsuits should be charged against any and all of these a**holes who sling these charges around like mud. Hit them in the pocketbook, tie them up in court, that’ll keep them out of everybody’s hair.”
Honestly, this is probably the best remedy of all.
It should be relatively easy for a plaintiff to prove emotional trauma, as well as material harm caused by these accusations. Better than tying them up in court, it will shut them up. A few successful lawsuits against some employers promoting this racist bilge should be enough to kill this destructive fad.
The problem with legal action is it requires the plaintiff to explicitly and openly oppose this stuff in a public forum, knowing that they themselves will be labeled racist, white supremacist, etc. during the trial. If the case randomly happens to get significant media coverage in which the plaintiff is named, these labels may be attached to their name online in perpetuity, dramatically reducing future employment and social opportunities, and possibly wrecking existing personal and professional relationships as well. Few will want to take that risk.
I think this is a valid concern, however, I’m not convinced the charge of ‘racist’ would stick. If the charge sticks in a court of law or of public opinion merely because it was asserted, then we’ve moved beyond a point where discussing epistemology on a website has a point.
I’m also not sure that getting the accusation leveled in public is a difficult task. Asking questions such as “So you’re calling me a racist?” in a meeting, group training session, or seminar should elicit the response.
I’d like to see some more legal opin
ions on this, since we’ve reached this point. If you’re a lawyer, please go into more detail. If not, no worry, I wouldn’t want to be one either.
The problem is that we really have moved beyond that point. We are at a place where yes, the mere accusation can ruin your career and life.
If we want to speak of systemic power, Wokeness has pretty much all of it. Trump was starting to fight back against this, but he was stymied by many anti-Woke people who refused to acknowledge the good he was doing and insisted upon supporting Harris and Biden, who promise to have the Wokest regime in history.
Such accusations can also endanger your life. Just recently someone tried to cut in front of me in line, and when I objected, she started screaming that I was a “racist” although she actually looked “white”. She took out her smart phone and started filming me and threatened me with retribution. Yet, I was the one thrown out of the store and threatened in the parking lot, too. Someone drove up in a car and screamed at me that I deserved to burn in hell. He came that close to running me over.
I know there are always a few psychos around, but all the employees in the store ganged up on me, and I strongly suspect that the man in the parking lot was also an employee. I have a mobility problem and needed an electric cart, so I suppose that made me a convenient, helpless target to get their frustrations out on in their minds.
FREE the Boy Scout in Kenosha who helped injured Black people/protesters and shot White attackers. in compliance with his Boy Scout Oath.
First off, George Floyd was not killed by Derek Chauvin, he was killed by the massive overdose of drugs he ingested prior to being accosted for trying to pass a bad Jackson. The autopsy showed no evidence of trauma to the trachea or any other part of the neck which would have been visible had his breathing been significantly restricted by the knee on the neck (he was complaining about not breathing before he was restrained, a result of the drugs he had taken). Ms. Pluckrose should not be promulgating this falsehood.
Robin DiAngelo is white (she is also a complete fraud, but then all of the leading wokesters are). Her book and her words should be challenged on that basis. If she denies her own innate privilege and worthiness to lecture to others, especially to the ‘benefit’ of another ‘race’, it is an ipso facto demonstration of her own white fragility and racism.
To imply that one must ‘check their privilege’ or is blood guilty of racism is slander, and IMO a bazillion lawsuits should be charged against any and all of these a**holes who sling these charges around like mud. Hit them in the pocketbook, tie them up in court, that’ll keep them out of everybody’s hair.
Why don’t you try having someone hold you down and choke you with their knee on your neck and see what happens? Try it and see how easy it is to breathe that way.
I listened to a medical doc on this who has frequently written up “cause of death” on legal documents, often with multiple overlapping causes, but usually a primary cause.
Like heart failure DUE TO COVID or stroke DUE TO COVID.
Doc watched the video and was able to predict when Floyd went unconscious and when the areas of the brain that control breathing and heartbeat probably blinked out.
His death probably was not due to “choking” since his throat wasn’t impacted at all, but while a hold that pressed on both carotid arteries for 20 seconds is enough to put a person into completely unconscious, I imagine that restricting one carotid could accomplish similar problems as CO2 levels rose and Ox levels shrank inside the brain.
If the reports I heard about are accurate, and Floyd’s lungs did weigh 3lbs and that is much more than normal, then that would have been a contributing factor, but whereas a 2 minute neck-carotid compression could be useful and necessary to restrain an unruly prisoner, an 8.75 minute neck-carotid compression, even partial, and long after Floyd stopped responding, heck the random people on the street grasped that better than Chauvin seemed to, if he cared at all about Floyd’s life or even the possibility of being charged with murder.
(Could Chauvin have been completely unaware how the live video would appear to the public and to his bosses and to the entire criminal-justice system, after previous political events? Chauvin is being likened to that awkward teenager who shot the Archduke and sparked World War 1.)
I think this piece is spot on. It reminded me of John Rawls’s concept of “overlapping consensus.” –i.e. how supporters of different “comprehensive doctrines” (religion, political ideology, etc.) that hold apparently inconsistent conceptions of justice can nonetheless agree on particular principles of justice. Your belief that murder is wrong might come from Exodus 20:13. I may believe murder is wrong because it violates the Kantian notion of human dignity and persons as ends in themselves. You’ll probably never convert me to Judaism or Christianity, nor I you to a purely secular Kantian ethics, but we don’t have to in order to agree that murder is wrong and punishable. But if one of us insists the other adopt the other’s worldview as well, we’ll end up fighting over that rather than cooperating on what we do agree on.
Same applies here. I’m not woke and don’t need to be to recognize that personal and structural racism is real and wrong. But the insistence on ideological conformity that Ms. Pluckrose describes is more likely to provoke resistance to the pressure rather than cooperation on reducing racism. There’s nothing particularly “white” about such resistance. It’s a universal human response to coercion. If the goal really is to improve the lives of BIPOCs, LGBTs, etc, and not just to browbeat white people, etc., then it’s on the CSJ purveyor to find the points of overlap and build consensus and cooperation from there.
You can also turn their language against them by finding the assertions by the boss “activating” and bringing you back to past trauma. Asserting your own lived experience with trauma (poor childhood, bullying, anything) pushes them back on the defensive. I’ve had some success with this in my own workplace. Not an especially nuanced defense, of course, but it gets the job done. One may also argue that by using the tools of oppression they are no better than past oppressors. May not get you as far, but it could be entertaining.
I was once jumped by 12 Black boys after school that I think belonged to the group that was tagging BK – Black Killers – on nearby buildings.
Does that count as trauma?
TBH, my nerdy White ass was also rescued by Black students and a Black cop, so that really did NOT generate racist attitudes in me, but I remembered that when hitting some of those forbidden “far right” channels that emphasize (some) Black people REALLY DON’T LIKE US at all.
I see that too, like today in pile-on in Facebook where people *assumed* a situation caught on camera was fraught with racism when the longer video showed that this was not the case, but it seemed like only a handful of respondents objected to that view or had been aware of the rest of the story.
“The safe tactic is to turn the issue back to them. It has to be nuanced, but it can be achieved. Bringing it to a personal, affective level will work. Play dumb-effective! Use phrases like, “I’m having trouble understanding how (fill in the blank)” or “Wow!, How do you feel about that? What if your (mom, dad, partner,etc…) had that happen to them?””
This strikes me as another potentially effective way to address this. It’s positively Socratic, and boy do I love using the Socratic method (it doesn’t seem to be truly understood by most who claim to use it). Getting a CRT ideologue to talk themselves into a hole this way is incredibly easy, but it’s unlikely to accomplish much with a determined employer. The goal there is not to win points, but to get them to stop. That requires them understanding that there are negative consequences associated with their actions. Making them feel uncomfortable in their own knowledge is a wonderful way to begin.
From the first e-mail scenario in the essay:
Boss: “I am a privileged white male and we ALL need to do more to show we are addressing this kind of privilege.”
Me: “How are you privileged?”
Boss: “Because I’m white?”
Me: “But how does being white make you privileged?”
Boss: Repeats some stuff he saw from a slide about systemic oppression and power structures.
Me: “You’re obviously in a position of power, but how do you know it’s because you’re white?”
Boss: Offers some vague notions about invisible, unquantifiable, and intangible concepts.
Me: “Ok, I’m not nearly as powerful and privileged as you, so how could you apply that about me?” [This is where the boss will start to struggle.]
Boss: Makes the bold assertion that the same race-based thing applies, just not as much.
Me: “So if we can’t see it and can’t measure it, why is there such an obvious gap between the two of us?”
Boss: …
Me: “Since you are clearly far more privileged than I am, and this is obviously a bad thing and you hold a position of power over me, what are you personally doing to remedy this problem?”
Of course this conversation could go any direction, including sideways, but I think your Socratic approach has great potential. Your much more emotional approach is probably even better, since mine still has the hallmarks of a Socratic approach in the Western tradition.
bump, like
Another excellent theoretical outline, but the spirit of the article seems to be a prescription for people under assault from this in the workplace. In that regard, it comes up short.
The key points that need more treatment are 1) that CSJ explicitly asserts harm caused, and 2) why is [anti-racism] a bad thing?
Employers and HR directors are not inclined to read an article even of this length, so non-believers need to be armed with more effective means of dealing with this. The two points I mentioned are the hardest to confront. CSJ is currently using a non-existent crisis (the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of law enforcement) as their emotional cover. Emotional appeal is a much more powerful means of engagement than trying to engage in a lengthy epistemological discourse.
So when your employer has bought the line that whites – by the mere accident of birth – are causing harm to minorities, how do you confront that effectively? Companies aren’t comfortable with spending a bunch of money on training seminars and programs to have employees say “No thanks.” Companies are much more prone to do whatever they can to minimize workplace liability; so if the choice is between increased chances for lawsuits, or letting a recalcitrant employee go, the math is easy.
While “I don’t believe what you believe…” is true in a secular society, and should be sufficient in a sane society, it’s bumping into some rather grim realities today.
When an employer asks you why all of this new training is a “bad thing”, you’re going to have to tiptoe across the racism minefield. CRT has poured so much poison in the well that the number of caveats you have to offer before every point raises suspicions and reduces attention spans, before you can really get to any substance.
So, other than retaining a lawyer, employees need much more concise and effective methods on how to deal with this. I’m inclined towards making emotional appeals and personal narrative stories that stand in direct opposition to the propositions of “Woke” ideologues, but I’m open to more.
This isn’t to say that the “theoretical” underpinnings shouldn’t continue to be exposed like this. This work is vital. But this infectious ideology is out in the general population now and it needs comprehensive treatment.
An interesting comment. I’m wondering if you could give some examples of your inclination to “making emotional appeals and personal narrative stories that stand in direct opposition to the propositions of ‘Woke’ ideologues…” I found the essay illuminating and it not only clearly formulated questions that have been bouncing about in a disorganized fashion in my head for some time, but it also answered them. Granted, a HR department head may not have interest in bucking the current cultural trends, but having an understanding of the conceptual basis for the “Woke” perspectives they have adopted, or their supervisors have told them to adopt… even if just for the purpose of hiring a trainer and checking off that box,…is important for employees that will be told to attend the training and participate in it. Perhaps the author could summarize important points, as in a brief Cliff Notes essay, that would be very helpful to many people. That brings us back to my request of what would you do and say, as I requested above. My request is not meant as a challenge (I have to say that because the words might imply that to you. If you could see my face and body language, you would know that I am asking out of a sincere interest to know. ) I may be in need of some suggestions soon. : )
Elizabeth,
Your request came across as you intended and not as a challenge, but feel free to challenge anything that escapes my keyboard!
I’m still working out a solid, general structure in how to effectively engage these particular ideologues, so you’ll have to forgive any lack of clarity or punch. There are others who are far more effective at it than I am, but it’s largely an individual effort some have developed (likely intuitively), rather than a result of a carefully developed method.
First, in short, CRT/CSJ explicitly rejects traditional Western discourse, so adhering to those values won’t yield anything productive. CRT/CSJ relies upon emotional manipulation and narrative as a vector for their ideology – a powerful and effective tactic. So the trick is to figure out how to use it to your advantage. This is not easy in general, and even harder in the workplace.
Such an exchange might look like this, using the first example in the essay. I will substitute my own personal narrative, just as an example:
Boss: “I am a privileged white male, and everyone needs to do more to show how they’re addressing their own privilege.”
Me: “I don’t feel safe by your declaration of privilege and power. I came from a poor, broken home and struggled in school with grades and bullies, so I’ve had to overcome a lot of obstacles to get here today. Why are you demanding I minimize my own personal struggles?”
A little emotion in the delivery wouldn’t hurt.
The first line in the response contains the emotional appeal. It expresses fear in the language used by CRT, while immediately refocusing the conversation back to to speaker and forcing them on the defensive. The second line is personal narrative that uses a lot of the buzzwords and language of CRT as well, while telling personal narrative – a much more difficult thing for CRT ideologues to deal with since it adopts their own rhetorical framework. The last line challenges the speaker directly, again using CRT language and language which again forces him on the defensive in having to justify his attack (because I reframed it as an attack).
The deeper issue at play here is psychological, in my estimation, and as such can run into unintended reactions. As commenter Cal points out elsewhere on this site, there are a lot of parallels with narcissism here, and you have to be careful in dealing with narcissism. His comment below is also very thought provoking in offering an alternative to what I present here.
Again, this is a work in progress.
Good points gmmayo70. One suggestion pops into my mind immediately: Never ask “why”. Using that word puts people on the defensive! You want to lull them into a sense of security.
My solution would be to say, “help me understand the reason you…”
I think many of us have already used CRT/CT vocabulary . It works. That’s a technique right out of counseling. Use the same words. It helps people to feel understood.
Appreciate the feedback. I’ll have to think on the use of “why”.
I understand your point, but I’m not convinced that inducing defensiveness in what is essentially abusive behavior – licensed by ideology – isn’t warranted or desirable. You also have limited time to get this accomplished in the workplace, so “why” in the place of the your more circuitous recommendation seems more effective. I’m also not sure I want them feeling secure using their position of power to effectively bully me. But I’m nothing if persuadable on this.
Maybe I am not as skilled in my responses to these attacks (which is what they really are) as you, but my first reactions would have been a little different. My first instinct would have been to try questions regarding exactly who has “white” privilege if silence is not permitted.
For example, if you are Jewish but have pale skin, then you are considered to have “white” privilege? How can you be privileged if your whole family except your grandparents were murdered by the Nazis? What if you are Jewish but are from Africa or China? What if you look white but have a black slaves as ancestors? Do you deserve reparations for slavery then? What if you look black, but one of your ancestors was a slave owner like Thomas Jefferson? What if you are “white” but homeless, do you still have “white” privilege then? Are you more privileged than an African American with an estate of several million?
I would have overwhelmed the presenter with reasonable questions for which his/her biases probably would not have prepared him/her to think about. Hopefully, making him/her think would have derailed the presentation without my being victimized?
What do you think of this alternate approach?
I have been studying this and I was thinking I might say that I don’t believe in pre-Millenial dispensation view of Christianity, I don’t believe in Hasidic Judaism, I don’t believe in Salafist Islam, and I also don’t believe in systemic racism by invisible systems of Whiteness that pervade all aspects of being.
Yours might be better though, more emotional than intellectual. On the other hand, “white person struggles” are usually contemptuously dismissed. Like, “don’t give money to a homeless white man because if he was born into privilege and screwed that up, he doesn’t deserve help.”
As for “my own racism” when it comes to relating to situations and people like murdered rapper FBG Duck, and his one-time rival murdered rapper King Von, and still living rapper Chief Keef and more of that drill/trap scene, I doubt I would be comfortable or able to relate easily in these scenarios, so I would be prejudiced and part of that would be a feeling of being UNWELCOMED by others, but I would expect that most of my colleagues of color would not be comfortable in those scenes either.
On the other hand, a company picnic with Black colleagues would be plenty comfortable for me and everyone, unlike say Robin DiAngelo with her secret internal racism.
I find the whole idea of white fragility equally as counterproductive as black lives matter. Both ideals in there present state are constructed to divide people. One of two things is true. We are different and need to live apart or we are different and able to coexist. Every person on this earth comes from a different upbringing and way of life. Each person has different needs emotional physical and spiritual. Everybody has been challenged in some way shape or form to get where they are. Any person who thinks one mans life is easier than theirs or more privileged than theirs needs to walk a mile in the others shoes. A poor person may long to be rich and envy the rich man and his lifestyle and wonder why he wasn’t given the opportunities to obtain the status of rich until he realizes he does have the opportunities but is unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary. Riches, status, and privilege are a state of mind and are a product of your emotional, physical and spiritual beliefs not something that can be taken away or given to you by another person.
Agreed. Needed is a short guide on how to safely get out of being “trained” at work.
I’ll second that!
MY favorite response_ “I am not “Fragile”; the truth is, you’re Boring Me.”
‘Needed is a short guide on how to safely get out of being “trained” at work.’
‘I self-identify as XXX marginalized racial/ethnic/gender group, and you are oppressing me with your white-invented (Marx, Engels, Foucault, Gramsci, Derrida, DiAngelo, the entire Frankfurt school, just to name a few of the responsible honkies (I consider Mao white-adjacent)) method of enforcing ideological conformity, and I will sue the living s**t out of you if you try.
I agree with you. There was something missing or unsatisfying in the essay.
It seems you must have noticed that many HR personnel are frequently eager to try some new, sparkly idea (just like educators-see invented spelling) . Unfortunately, CRT pulls emotions into the equation. So, the question becomes how to address emotions. By the way, here’s a short article explaining: how HR is not there to protect you, the worker,. https://www.marketplace.org/2017/10/30/human-resources-protect-employee-employer/
Employers, as you wrote, are most interested in complying with state/federal regs and avoiding litigation. I think we also need to mention corporations exist to provide a good/service and generate revenue. So, they will cultivate it. Importantly, many of them, just like politicians and academics, are really out of touch with regular (my term) people.
For evidence of that, look at some of the recent ad promotions for various products. People should have noticed a sudden appearance of significantly more black actors, trans actors, gay actors. I have no issue with that; however, it is painfully obvious why it’s being done. It’s out of portion to their actual number in the American population. For example, per US Census stats, blacks represent about 13% of the entire 330,000,000 population!
Direct confrontation of the CRT narrative is sure to kill anybody’s career. The safe tactic is to turn the issue back to them. It has to be nuanced, but it can be achieved. Bringing it to a personal, affective level will work. Play dumb-effective! Use phrases like, “I’m having trouble understanding how (fill in the blank)” or “Wow!, How do you feel about that? What if your (mom, dad, partner,etc…) had that happen to them?”
The “fake it ’til you make it” philosophy can be useful. Of course, that doesn’t root out the rot of CRT.
Sorry, for some reason my responses keep getting kicked to their own threads.
Bump, since I can’t Like
Thank you for this comment! You’ve articulated a constructive criticism of New Discourses that I’ve been struggling with for some time. The articles here are tremendously insightful, but folks who are under siege need a quiver full of more lightweight weapons with which to defend themselves.
We need someone as knowledgeable as James and Helen to devise a simple form of CRT Kryptonite. I’m inclined to agree that this might entail fighting fire with fire— i.e., CRT is utterly impervious to rational argument, so perhaps it’s necessary to use its own petards against it and “go emotional”. Which does not come naturally to most mature, professional people in a business setting, so this is not easy.
This is the truly wicked, heinous thing about CRT: It deliberately uses non-believers’ forbearance, good will, and spirit of cooperation against them. It also drapes itself in the morally unassailable cloak of “justice”, thereby duping naive, unsuspecting employers into opening the henhouse gate for the fox. Only, this is no fox; that analogy falls far short in trying to convey the true horror of CRT. The only thing I can think of that’s remotely equivalent to its poison is the Ebola virus.
Tragically, CRT is gaining enormous traction now precisely because of the instability of the COVID pandemic. People are more terrified of losing their jobs because prospects of finding a new one are so poor. So they are far more willing to suffer the abuses of CRT “training” than they might otherwise be.
Personally… I’m terrified.
It occurs to me to suggest that radical subjectivism of post-modernism would mean that none of my work output can be judged objectively or empirically, and I would be entitled to express “MY TRUTH” with regards to my work-career. I don’t think that’s helpful.
On top of that, Critical Social Justice Theory is built to problematize — find problems with — every aspect of social & work interaction, words, deeds, different outcomes. Yet most employers prefer employees researching solutions that work rather than complaining about subjective problems and casting blame. Is our new directive to be about emphasizing grievances over and above productivity and cooperation?
Something like that maybe.