How not to be anti-racist

[Theodarzna]

Nothing demonstrates the speed at which right-on political mores change these days than debates around “cultural appropriation”. Barely a few years ago, at least before high street accessories stores began selling then, if you saw a white teenager or twenty-something with a Yasser Arafat-style keffiyeh you could make a pretty good guess of his or her opinions on race relations, climate change and Israel. Nowadays, of course, that person would be guilty of cultural appropriation, and so the sartorial fashions have changed along with the political fashions.

There is indeed a fine line between support for a cause or respect for a particular culture on the one hand, and fetishisation of a disadvantaged group on the other. And you don’t need to dress up or put on make-up to be guilty of the latter, although the just re-elected Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has certainly taken it to a new level.

Reflecting on the recent “blackfacing” controversy, the Arab-Canadian academic Moustafa Bayoumi speculated that “Trudeau seems to want to play out some deep-level desire to leave his whiteness behind” but nonetheless doubted that “Trudeau wants to be an Arab man or a black man or an Indian man, though he has dressed up as all three”.

Unlike Bayoumi, I’m not so sure. I suspect that a part of Trudeau would like to be a member of another ethnic group, and he certainly believes that certain groups — such as people of colour, women, and LGBT people — are especially and inherently “cool” and worthy of praise; he would dearly like to be one of them, or at least to have some of their cache rub off on him. Hence he has, in the words of one Asian Canadian, so much fun “playing dress-up”.

Trudeau has never missed the opportunity to be photographed at gurdwara in a turban, or eating iftar in shalwar kameez. This is despite the criticism it has drawn from the communities he was supposedly paying tribute to; on a visit to India, he wore “traditional” dress while many of the Indians he met wore suits, prompting a wave of eyerolls on Indian social media. When it comes to gender politics, he famously hectored a woman about feminism, correcting her for using the word “mankind” instead of “humankind”.

While there is nothing wrong with paying tribute to peoples and cultures one admires and respects, still less helping to combat discrimination and prejudice, this can easily fall into essentialising, stereotyping and fetishising people. Alongside this “neo-Orientalism”, many on the Left exhibit an element of self-loathing, believing that white men — or, to give them their full title, middle-class, cis-gender, straight white men — are inherently morally compromised.

This tendency is at its most offensive and absurd in the cases of Rachel Dolezal and Anthony Lennon, who despite their white parents both claim to be black, due to their politics and their love of and respect for black people and culture. Yet you do not have to go to the extreme lengths of Dolezal; for plenty of white leftists, constantly criticising your own demographic group and actively seeking to distance yourself from it is a way of escaping the prison of whiteness, almost itself a form of blackfacing.

In a recent episode of the hit Netflix television programme Queer Eye, one of the stars, Antoni Porowski, responded to being told by a Mexican-American abuela that her secret chilli recipe was “not for white people” by protesting that this shouldn’t apply to him, as he was “Polish-Canadian”.

This was more than a throwaway joke: Porowski and Trudeau do not literally think they are not white, but they think that they are politically not white: their cultural values and political views preclude them from whiteness. For them, whiteness is inextricably bound up with reactionary values, and even Left-wing whites are still compromised. Hence the claim by journalist Laurie Penny following Trump’s election that she was “truly horrified and ashamed to be white”, or the actress Rosanna Arquette tweeting her “disgust” at the fact she was “born white”.

This performative wokeness is not merely ridiculous — it does precisely nothing to help victims of systemic and every-day racism. And this behaviour is not restricted to ethnicity: there is a growing trend on the Left that sees structural disadvantage and discrimination — due to, say, ethnicity, class, or gender-identity – as almost a desirable status to be envied.

Laurie Penny has also boasted that she is “about as close as you can get to the trans rights movement without being trans yourself. I’ve been associated with trans activism for years, and while I don’t know what it’s like to be harassed, threatened or abandoned for being transsexual, most of my close friends do”. Substitute “black” or “working-class” for “trans”, and that sentence becomes even more toe-curling and absurd; it indicates less of a concern for ally-ship and solidarity than a desire to emulate and associate oneself with a disadvantaged-but-fashionable group.

Nor is this trend confined to white people. The journalist Afua Hirsch is of mixed Jewish-Ghanaian heritage, and grew up in a pleasant middle-class neighbourhood in Wimbledon. Her husband’s parents, in contrast, were both Ghanaian, and lived on a rough estate in Tottenham. A theme of her book is how while “he thinks in terms of generating wealth and opportunity, I think in terms of identity and belonging”.

Hirsch’s response to the material deprivation her husband experienced growing up was one of envy: “when it comes to identity, I tell him, he was born with the equivalent of a silver spoon”. Her parents “often joked that I would rather have grown up on a council estate, and this contained a grain of truth”.

Reni Eddo-Lodge, in her best-selling book Why I’m no Longer Talking to White People about Race, explicitly criticises this “wallowing in guilt”. For Eddo-Lodge, support for disadvantaged groups,

Looks like financial or administrative assistance to the groups doing vital work. Or intervening when you are needed in bystander situations… Don’t be anti-racist for the sake of an audience. Being white and anti-racist in your private or professional life, where there’s very little praise to be found, is much more difficult.

This is advice Justin Trudeau, Laurie Penny and others should take on board: try to help, not appropriate.

(source)

This is by David Swift, author of A Left for Itself: Left-wing Hobbyists and Performative Radicalism which is published by Zero Books. The short gist of the article is Swift uses the example of Trudeau and Laurie Penny to argue that to an extent of a lot of activism today is Performative Radicalism and Hobbyist in nature, much of it being more about the person doing the performance. In a way, it is a better look at the internal aspect of the idea of "Virtue Signaling", and he uses this to argue that in true less of this is actual political causes and more about identification and looking for belonging. In a sense he alludes to a kind of Neo-Liberal psychological change in which individualism and brand identification has colonized Left wing spaces, and that in truth it has become its own brand, like wearing a hoodie with "Supreme" written on it.

He questions, essentially, can one trust the sincerity of performative Anti-Racism? For a true activist would do practical deeds outside of any desire for praise. Is the culture of clap backs, Hannah Gadsby monologues and Guardian articles and Twitter posts really activism or is it Hobby's and branding?

[pionock]

Interesting piece there. It sounds like you're saying that these people aren't that truly butthurt over what are seemingly normal occurrences, but acting as such gets them internet backpats.

And if we've learned anything from Trudeau, it's that it's now completely acceptable to put on blackface and Indian headdresses. If someone can still be PM after doing what is apparently one of the worst things to do, it's probably not that big of a deal.

[Phon]

People who identify as anti-racist are some of the most racist people you'll ever find.

[pionock]

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Did we get to the part where your a racist yet cunt?

Is that you grathlape, or thorlap, or thrapabrap?

[Theodarzna]

Is that you grathlape, or thorlap, or thrapabrap?

Is this someone of significance? I'm confused by their responses. As if they didn't read a word of it.

[pionock]

Is this someone of significance? I'm confused by their responses. As if they didn't read a word of it.

It's obviously a burner, but normally that tone reminds me of someone who uses burners that always have a 'th' in their name and all of them talk with the same venom.

[Cockus Maximus]

Perspectives on race can either be divisive or unifying. Everything else is justification for your primary concern: dividing or unifying the races of humanity. Listen between the lines on issues like these. Drown out their justification and pay attention to the message: is it one of unity or division?

Personally, as a stereotypical white male, I don't see anything wrong with cultural appropriation as long as it's done respectfully. If we don't judge non-whites for wearing business suits, why should we judge whites for appropriating the attire of another race?

I have no opinion on Trudeau. I don't know enough about him to have an opinion on him. But I do know that I'd prefer wearing Saudi Arabian royal or business attire to the tight and uncomfortable suits we're accustomed to if I wouldn't appear so out of place in it.

[Teleros]

The short gist of the article is Swift uses the example of Trudeau and Laurie Penny to argue that to an extent of a lot of activism today is Performative Radicalism and Hobbyist in nature, much of it being more about the person doing the performance.

It's just a long-winded way of saying these nutters are engaging in virtue signalling. It's all about the fee-fees rather than actually doing good or making serious changes.

[Cthulhu 2020]

As per projectionism as identified by Freud himself, those who cry about other people "virtue signaling" are the ones who perpetuate virtue signaling more than any other. For as much as the right wing screams about the left perpetuating virtue signaling, they themselves have a plethora of dog whistles for virtue signaling. Yeah, some people on the left are anti-racist for the purpose of belonging, but I find far more often people just shit on racists for being scumbags and leave it that. They don't go hunt down racists on the internet to berate them.

Virtue signaling is itself a universal practice by everyone who wants to belong to some sort of group. People hate being alone, we are social creatures. All of the cries for racial purity, screaming "YOU JUST WANT OPEN BORDERS" at the left, wealth worship, anti-abortionism, and every other "value" you'll find on the right is itself just another form of virtue signaling, especially with how many of them shout it from the rooftops.

The people who hunt down racist shitbags just to dog them for being racist are virtue signaling, sure, but the majority of the left just identifies racists for being the scum that they are, and moves on. It's not some ever eternal struggle to demonstrate how moral or virtuous they are. It's like when you see some guy kicking a puppy and you say "Wow, you're a piece of shit" and leave it at that.

And of course, the OP's ever eternal crusade against the left, posting time and again how evil, morally compromised, or hypocritical the left is in and of itself, very obvious virtue signaling.

[shimerra]

As per projectionism as identified by Freud himself, those who cry about other people "virtue signaling" are the ones who perpetuate virtue signaling more than any other. For as much as the right wing screams about the left perpetuating virtue signaling, they themselves have a plethora of dog whistles for virtue signaling. Yeah, some people on the left are anti-racist for the purpose of belonging, but I find far more often people just shit on racists for being scumbags and leave it that. They don't go hunt down racists on the internet to berate them.

Virtue signaling is itself a universal practice by everyone who wants to belong to some sort of group. People hate being alone, we are social creatures. All of the cries for racial purity, screaming "YOU JUST WANT OPEN BORDERS" at the left, wealth worship, anti-abortionism, and every other "value" you'll find on the right is itself just another form of virtue signaling, especially with how many of them shout it from the rooftops.

The people who hunt down racist shitbags just to dog them for being racist are virtue signaling, sure, but the majority of the left just identifies racists for being the scum that they are, and moves on. It's not some ever eternal struggle to demonstrate how moral or virtuous they are. It's like when you see some guy kicking a puppy and you say "Wow, you're a piece of shit" and leave it at that.

And of course, the OP's ever eternal crusade against the left, posting time and again how evil, morally compromised, or hypocritical the left is in and of itself, very obvious virtue signaling.

These people never realize that they are ironically being the exact thing they claim to despite. I imagine if the OP had male genitals it would require them to be restrained against their will to stop them from masturbating in into their own face with smug self satisfaction off the highest of horses.

[Noxx79]

It's just a long-winded way of saying these nutters are engaging in virtue signalling. It's all about the fee-fees rather than actually doing good or making serious changes.

So stop virtue signaling. By calling out virtue signaling, you are in fact virtue signaling.

- - - Updated - - -

These people never realize that they are ironically being the exact thing they claim to despite. I imagine if the OP had male genitals it would require them to be restrained against their will to stop them from masturbating in into their own face with smug self satisfaction off the highest of horses.

Hey now.....
Women can masturbate, and some have special talents.

[downnola]

This was more than a throwaway joke: Porowski and Trudeau do not literally think they are not white, but they think that they are politically not white: their cultural values and political views preclude them from whiteness. For them, whiteness is inextricably bound up with reactionary values, and even Left-wing whites are still compromised. Hence the claim by journalist Laurie Penny following Trump’s election that she was “truly horrified and ashamed to be white”, or the actress Rosanna Arquette tweeting her “disgust” at the fact she was “born white”.

I've come to understand "whiteness" to describe people who self-identify as "white" as if it's an actual race of people. It's an ideology, not a meaningful description of culture or genetics. Whiteness is reactionary, sure, but there's more to it then that. It's a complete misunderstanding of the human genome and ultimately what race is. If that's true, then claiming "disgust" that one was "born white" is absurd whiteness by definition. That person is stuck using language and a way of thinking that hasn't advanced in the last 100 years and they're not "woke" at all.

Anyways, I'm not really into using the term "anti-racism" as a pejorative because anti-racism is a good thing. I know it's being used to describe hyper race-conscious scolds, but there has to be a better term out there to describe insincere "white saviors" that browbeat everyone around them to elevate their "woke" status.

[shimerra]

So stop virtue signaling. By calling out virtue signaling, you are in fact virtue signaling.

- - - Updated - - -



Hey now.....
Women can masturbate, and some have special talents.

That's the funny thing people like the OP don't get. This is one massive right wing virtue signalling with a side of I'm totally not racist, but..... with a extra mix of racism is totally all better now and people only act like they hate it to be cool! It's almost as good as the whole identity politics which the right is also rife with. Although to be fair most politics are identity based in some way.

And I didn't say she didn't still try to find a work around. Just that if things were different we'd have a problem on our hands if we tried to stop her.

[Jester Joe]

This is very clearly a thread that's just going to keep going into the topic of race repeatedly, which is a no-go for these forums.

Closing this here