This is a provocative piece from the head of the Portland chapter of the NAACP. He makes a point that I had tried to make back in early June about the ability of white people to co-opt the BLM movement. While I disagree with his criticism of the "Wall of Moms", I do agree that for many of the protesters in Portland who have been targeting various building for vandalism are probably not doing so out of a profound respect for the sanctity of black lives. They are doing it because they want to overthrow the government...in some way.
A few hundred cosplay anarchists in Portland kept some of the protest energy alive, but ultimately the protests became the end unto themselves. Plutocracy, capitalism, Trump, Covid, liberal democracy, police brutality...it was all roughly the same to a certain cadre of protesters.
This gibes neatly with the piece by John McWhorter excoriating the White Fragility phenomenon. I have to confess that while I have heard DiAngelo speak, I have not read her book. It's unfair to base my criticism on the depiction of her work by others. However, she certainly does seem to be offering a sort of "Calvinism without the Grace of God." We are all irredeemable sinners...and that's it. That's the tweet. There's not even the hand of an angry God. Salvation from the sin of racism is effectively closed to you if you're white.
The performative self-flagellation of DiAngelo and the white anarchists creating spectacle without a program are not centering the needs of the Black Lives Matter movement. The burbling subcutaneous rage of the Trump years and the continuing unrest from the 2008 economic collapse have combined with the catastrophic response to Covid-19 to create anger that is basically co-opting George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmad Arbery's deaths to channel their own sense of anger and outrage.
The George Floyd Moment has created some real - of largely symbolic - change. Mississippi changed its flag; military bases look like they will be re-named, the Confederacy is, at long last, finally being defeated. Last night the entire rosters of the Nationals and Yankees took a knee during the national anthem.
We haven't addressed the substantive concerns of BLM though. Police reform, criminal justice reform, the debate over reparation...these aren't going anywhere with Trump as President and McConnell as Majority Leader. States and cities are making some progress, but police unions are working to subvert them as we speak.
The explosion of rage in late May and early June has wrought some real changes, but the work now is the unpleasant, painstaking and largely unsatisfying work of legislating, compromising and seeing well-intentioned reforms falter.
How will Naked Athena help there?
No comments:
Post a Comment