As a white person in America, it’s difficult to discuss race without being labeled racist
Since moving to China three years ago, I have been thinking more and more about what I call the weaponization of “racist” as a means of winning an argument, or in many cases, shutting it down altogether. As a white person in America you fear being labeled racist. It’s a label which can cost you your job, your reputation, and your livelihood, as the case of Amy Cooper has shown us. As I write this, there are people scouring social media for anyone who has publicly uttered an ethnic slur and demanding their dismissal from their school or job.
I don’t point this out in defense of Amy Cooper or in defense of using the n-word. Rather, I point this out because the bar for being labeled “racist” is getting lower while the consequences are getting higher. The danger stems from the internet mob acting as judge, jury, and executioner, as they have in the case of UCLA Professor Gordon Klein. Among my friends, even the most vocal supporters of BLM are appalled at his suspension, which swiftly followed a baseless accusation of racism from one of his students. If you’ve read to this point and have already come to the conclusion that I am a racist or defending racism or a fascist apologist, you are the person I most want to engage with. I am not suggesting being called “RACIST!” is equivalent to enduring the higher rates of police violence or the institutionalized discrimination that black Americans do. Nor am I trying to distract from solving this problem.
Part of the reason I’ve been thinking about this issue recently is that China‘s foreign policy machine is extremely fond of accusing countries like the US, Australia, and the UK of being racist or xenophobic any time one of these countries adopts a policy which is unfavorable to China. Chinese policymakers understand that their American, Australian, and British counterparts are afraid of these labels. They also understand that “the Left” in these societies are easily manipulated along this axis, to the extent that an influential researcher at Fudan University in Shanghai recently published an article entitled “To Improve our Relationship with America, we Must Win Over the Left.” My engagement with China has made me more attuned to the use of “racist” as a tool to end arguments at home in America, too.
In 2017 I went to Mexico with several friends for New Year’s Eve. We drove down from Los Angeles to Valle de Guadalupe in Baja California. Along the way, we drove by several abandoned construction projects on the beach. I had made this same trip a year earlier and noticed that the unfinished buildings were in the exact same state as they were a year prior. I speak Spanish and have worked extensively in Mexico. My brother has lived in Mexico City for 10 years and I visit him often. My friends and colleagues there complain of the endemic corruption and shifting fault lines of gang violence which often lead to half-baked or outright abandoned construction projects. With this in mind, I didn’t think the question I was about to ask my friends in the car would be controversial. Nonetheless, knowing that my companions were LA liberals, I phrased it carefully: “I don’t mean to ask this in a racist way, but what do you guys think it is about Mexico that leads to so many abandoned construction projects?” I had my own viewpoints about Mexico based on my experiences there and I was curious to know what they thought.
The answer, from the most left-leaning person in the group: “I think anyone who uses the term ‘I don’t mean to be racist’ is basically a racist.” End of conversation. No possible presumption that I was asking the question to have a discussion in good faith.
It seems that to avoid being accused of racism by the staunchest members of the white American left, you can only say positive things about another country or culture. I had assumed my question would prompt a conversation about problems like corruption, which the people of Mexico are woefully aware of. The person calling me racist may have understood my question to suggest problems with corruption or may have instead assumed I was backhandedly accusing Mexicans of something akin to laziness. Either way, the experience taught me not to ask questions like that again. This is self-censorship in action.
Several months later, one of my friends who’d been in the car during that conversation said he thought the girl who called me racist was being over-the-top. He didn’t want to call her out because he figured that would make him next on her shit list. Although this is an example of one person, in a broader sense I believe moderate white liberals are afraid to call out “performative wokeness” among their more liberal friends — for fear of being labeled racist. For the same fear, they are even more reluctant to question ideas put forth by people of color. This, too, is self-censorship in action. It also explains how people continue supporting something that they themselves are no longer comfortable with, for example protests which have devolved into violence.
Before the protests over George Floyd’s death broke out, this desire for political correctness above all else manifested itself in the discussions about Covid-19, which was discovered in Wuhan in December 2019. I have been in China since the virus broke out. Until mid-February when the WHO gave it an official name, most Chinese people called it “Wuhan Pneumonia” (武汉肺炎). Even after it was given the official name Covid-19 (新冠肺炎), many people still referred to it by its informal moniker. In late February and early March, Chinese diplomats began not only denying that the virus originated in Wuhan, they began saying that it most likely came from America. Nonetheless, left-leaning media and politicians insisted that anyone who used the term Wuhan while describing the virus was being racist, perhaps best embodied by MSNBC pundit Chris Hayes.
While a foreign government was spreading a false narrative around the globe that the virus originated in America, many on the American left were reluctant to say that the virus came from China. To do so would have been racist, as House Democrat Judy Chu suggestednearly two weeksafter China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs began promoting conspiracy theories which were openly hostile to the American interest. I find it entirely reasonable to fight back against propaganda put forth by Chinese diplomats. By obfuscating any discussion of the virus’ origins, Western liberals are actively erasing important historical facts. This is not at all without consequence: this is far from the first novel virus to emerge from the wildernesses of China, and work must be done to prevent future outbreaks from beginning here.
Today, while there are both peaceful and violent protests occurring across America, strong condemnation of the violent elements seems to be occurring along partisan lines, with conservatives condemning the violence and liberals being more reluctant to do so. The most impassioned plea I have seen from the left came not from an elected official but an activist from Atlanta. To an extent, I believe this is because predominantly white elected officials are afraid to say anything which might be perceived as unsupportive of the current movement. If you’re white and you don’t support the protests, violence and all, you may be judged as racist. Even publicly condemning looting is enough to earn the racist label — as if the word looting automatically refers to non-white people.
In today’s climate, as a white person, discussing race with any semblance of nuance is difficult. Either you adopt the most extreme viewpoint put forth by the loudest voices on the left — no questions asked, no discussion — or you’re a racist.
Not falling in line to say #BlackLivesMatter is racist. Not falling in line to say #DefundThePolice may be racist. Saying the premise #ACAB (all cops are bastards) is ridiculous — also potentially racist. I am appalled by what happened to George Floyd. But that does not mean I support everything that happens under the flag of Black Lives Matter, such as violence carried out at otherwise peaceful protests. To me it is fairly clear that when a crowd saying “all cops are bastards” is also calling for defunding the police, they don’t mean a thoughtful reallocation of funding to improve overall policing quality — they mean defunding and disbanding the police. Although the top voices within the Democratic party reject this proposal, there is no indication that the masses are following suit.
I’ve debated this essay with several friends prior to publishing. In response to the criticism I present above, the most common reply is a form of apologism for these radical voices: “Well, I don’t think people really mean we should completely defund the police. They just want to see reasonable reforms.” As if to prove my point, the NYT Opinion Page just published an article whose title speaks for itself: Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police.
I have two former police officers in my family. They both know stories of officers who have lost their lives during the most routine aspects of the job — traffic stops and domestic violence calls. There’s always a chance that the person they’ve just pulled over for speeding has a warrant out for their arrest in a more serious crime and has no intention of being brought in. Sometimes the drunk husband who answers the door when officers respond to a domestic violence call is holding a gun. In a country where everyone has the right to own a weapon, there is always a simmering fear that this may be my last domestic violence call or my last traffic stop. “Some cops are assholes but generally they are well-intentioned people who sometimes behave unethically because there is not enough oversight in policing” is not as catchy as “All Cops are Bastards.” But we must discuss the implications of the former premise and reject the latter one.
In the long term, I am more afraid of the far left than I am of the far right. Yes, in part this is because I am a white male and therefore less likely to be a target of far right violence. I am also more afraid because the viewpoints of the far left have taken hold with mainstream liberals much more than the views of the far right have taken hold with mainstream conservatives. Charismatic politicians like AOC have a much louder public voice than far right politicians like Steve King — the former has only been in office for a year and a half but has 60 times the Twitter followers of the latter.
Additionally, mob mentality of the right and left differs importantly in scope and extent. I have not forgotten about Charlottesville and Heather Heyer. However, the “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017, despite actively promoting the event and tapping into some 20 white supremacist groups, only rallied around 100 people to their cause. Their ideas are garbage and mainstream conservatives reject them as such. CHAZ, on the other hand, despite making no push to raise awareness prior to its establishment, seems to have ten times more people in attendance than the rally in Charlottesville.
An acquaintance in Seattle, a successful lawyer of more than 30 years, defends CHAZ by saying “at least it’s better now than it was when police were firing tear gas into the area.” Fair point, but why not admit that it’s just not sustainable and a far cry from pre-protest downtown Seattle? I would contend that there’s an element of fear in outright rejecting something tangentially affiliated with Black Lives Matter.
Statues of confederate generals have been toppled in recent days. I harbor no good feelings for these statues, which glorify men who committed treason against their country to fight a war in defense of slavery. However, I respect the laws which say you cannot destroy property. If someone is caught destroying property, rule of law means that the person needs to be brought to justice. You can’t simultaneously uphold the rule of law while enforcing the law selectively simply because it seems like there are enough people who want the statue to come down. City Councils exist for this reason.
During the lockdown protests in May, I was creeped out and unnerved by the masked men holding assault rifles in front of various city halls. But they did not smash windows, they did not burn buildings. Nobody died. On the contrary, 19 people lost their lives in the first two weeks of the Floyd protests. The majority of these deaths seem to be attributable to criminals taking advantage of the chaos to inflict violence; some have been killed by police in shootouts; others have been killed by cars while protesting. There are many videos online showing police behaving in indefensibly violent ways. I accept the premise that this type of police misconduct increases the likelihood that protesters will act violently. However, no amount of police misconduct excuses the murder of people like David Dorn.
Countless stores, both chains and small businesses, have been destroyed or looted (by both white and non-white criminals). Destroying the small business in to which a person has poured their life savings can be a devastating setback. On Twitter I frequently see people who take a stance against looting get shouted down: “YOU CARE MORE ABOUT STUFF THAN YOU DO ABOUT BLACK LIVES!!” Vice wrote an article about how to deal with a relative “who cares more about looting than about black lives.” The article essentially suggests using the aforementioned type of shout-down. A small business is a means to a livelihood. It’s more than just stuff. I also see people shout down those who denounce destruction of chain stores by saying “IT’S ALL COVERED BY INSURANCE ANYWAYS!!” Destroying a Target or AutoZone or Wendy’s, which may not be rebuilt for six months, will leave its workers jobless until the store reopens.
Online, lives can be ruined too. A professor who refused to give his students a “no-harm” final due to George Floyd’s death has been publicly shamed. Students are demanding the professor be fired: “We ask for your support in having Professor Klein’s professorship terminated for his extremely insensitive, dismissive, and woefully racist response to his students’ request for empathy and compassion during a time of civil unrest.” I am not sure if the students are rebelling against his refusal to give a no-harm final or against the admittedly snarky tone of his email. Regardless, in the real world, you don’t get to change the rules of an institution because of an injustice carried out against someone who you have no relation to. Nor should you be able to relabel anything that offends you as racist. Nonetheless, UCLA has suspended Professor Klein and reassigned his classes to other faculty.
This is not about black lives. This is about a burgeoning movement testing the limits of what its bullying can accomplish. Part of the irony is that the students see themselves as the victims while they’re systematically dismantling their professor’s livelihood. To some of my Chinese-speaking friends, both in China and the US, it’s vaguely reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, a dark era in Chinese history in which, among other things, academics were publicly shamed, forced from their posts, and sent to labor camps to atone for their cognitive sins. There are more differences than parallels but it should still alarm you that people like Klein can be suspended for enforcing UCLA’s policy on final exams or that a UC Berkeley professor feels unsafe discussing the issues they see with #BLM.
In another example, a girl who used the n-word in a social media post several years ago was doxxed. Recently, someone found that post and demanded that Yale expel her. In middle school, Mexican kids sometimes called me whitey and black kids sometimes called me cracker. Kids say dumb stuff. I don’t want to condone this kind of language. But I also don’t want to see a person’s life ruined for something they said when they were 15. The punishment exceeds the crime.
My purpose for writing this is not to ask for your empathy nor is it to illuminate the hidden difficulties of being white. Rather, I want to make a small contribution towards getting to a place of more productive dialogue.
For our democracy to succeed, the changes required to our system need to occur legally, as is happening in New York right now, where 10 police reform bills have been passed by the state legislature in 3 days. To an extent, I would hope that this swift action reveals to protestors where their attention will be most effectively directed. I also hope this illustrates that we don’t need to be mad at each other across party lines. I get the feeling from many liberals that they think their conservative compatriots are the reason that systemic racism still exists in America. But the New York State Senate has 40 Democrats and 22 Republicans. With this kind of majority, these reforms could have been passed any time. They finally acted now because of the pressure brought by the protests. This should make you angry if, when you voted Democrat, you thought you were electing people who would actively fight racism. Amy Cooper is reported to have voted for Obama and Hillary Clinton.
If you’re talking with someone who is politically to your right, they will probably say something which you perceive to be an infraction of political correctness or a deviation from your line of beliefs on the protests, on BlackLivesMatter, on the violence that’s flared up, and so on. But this does not mean they disagree with you on the core problem that inequality of opportunity based on skin color still exists in America.
Try to suppress your first instinct to get mad, to make an accusation of racism, to demonstrate that you’re morally better than they are.
If this is how you respond, you will turn every potential ally into an enemy. This will only slow down progress on resolving the issues we all care about.
Distance yourself from the more radical tenets of this movement.
Make it clear that you don’t want to abolish the police. Make it clear that white people who aren’t interested in apologizing for the color of their skin can still be allies in the movement.
Define what it means to be an ally in clear terms.
I have been told several times that being non-racist is insufficient, I need to be actively anti-racist. Yet there is no consistent definition of what this means. It sounds good. But if being anti-racist means that I need to get on board with firing people like Professor Gordon Klein, I cannot be an anti-racist.
There is no goal more noble than equality of opportunity for people of color in America. However, the loudest supporters of today’s movement end up pushing people like me away.
Additional references / listening:
Getting On The Same Page About Racism (Trumpcast)
The Still-Vital Case for Liberalism in a Radical Age (Intelligencer)
Joe Rogan Interview with Bret Weinstein (Joe Rogan Experience)