“In Defense of the Ferguson Riots”
“Smith identifies what so many self-styled anti-racists and leftists fail to understand — that racism is not an issue of moral character. He recognizes that the broader economic order facilitates and benefits from racial subjugation, and so he’s looking for ways to intervene and disrupt that process. Not only is this a more substantive analysis than what is often offered on the Left, but acting on this analysis is the only way to eradicate entrenched racial hierarchy…Malcolm X reminds us that media is a key instrument of subjugation because it determines which acts are respectable and which are extreme and thus illegitimate. Instead of following that familiar script, let’s push back against narratives about rioters being devoid of politics. Let’s find ways to honestly observe and discuss their political needs, rather than simply criticizing the nature of their response to social violence.”
I was talking to someone about the current political gridlock, and how we need a fundamental shift in how we as individual Americans relate to people with different political views, and the person I was talking to gave me an uncomfortable look and said “I am always wary of fundamental shifts — they could lead to anarchy”.
This perspectives bothers me so much, for two reasons: (1) what??? Why would someone hear change (especially in the mild context I was describing) and imediately think that there is a possibility that social structure would disappear? How can anything ever happen when people are so, so risk averse?; and (2) it reveals a privilege he carries, that he had never had that feeling of anarchy in the current system, that he’s never experienced something negative and thought “there is no one in power who will protect me from this, no one who will even recognize it as a harm”.
I bring this up because this article makes me think about all the fundamental shifts we have had because we have needed them (like, you know, the revolutionary war) and how they must have seemed at the time, how not even the people involved in the shift probably experienced them with the confidence we ascribe to them today because there was uncertainty. But there was also the untenability of the existing system. And if someone at the time hadn’t experienced that untenability, the shift must have seemed unnecessary and negative.
Also though, why should I be caring about the people who aren’t trying to care about things outside of themselves?
Related: “White people rioting over stupid shit”
