Things That Are Important Versus Things That Are Not Important
Here are some things that are important:
- Remedying the many structural inequities that disadvantage blacks — economically, politically, and socially
- Forcing police departments nationwide to reform their practices such that black Americans who’ve done nothing wrong are not unduly harassed by officious and often downright nasty cops
- Emphasizing the previous point by insisting that “body cameras” are not enough, there must be deep structural change — it’s not a matter of picking out a few “bad apples,” it’s about getting rid of the entire rotten criminal justice system
- Throwing out of office elected prosecutors who prey on vulnerable populations, namely blacks, to burnish their political reputations — this has been successfully accomplished in Brooklyn, Cleveland, Chicago and elsewhere
- Ending drug prohibition completely, in part because it disproportionately punishes blacks — legalizing marijuana is not enough. No one should be subject to arrest for possessing any substance
- Eroding the American carceral state as much as humanly possible — it is an international disgrace
- Rebuilding the Flint water system and ensuring that no community anywhere in the United States, especially including predominantly black communities, are afflicted with such an incredible and revolting injustice ever again — water systems everywhere should be regularly monitored for lead, and if necessary replaced, notwithstanding the heavy cost. Taxpayers should pick up this cost
- Funding and encouraging support for initiatives such as Cure Violence which work to reduce violence in inner-cities
- Combating bogus right-wing memes about “black on black crime” which are condescending and often racist
- Adequately funding school districts that are predominantly black
- Adequately funding other initiatives that are targeted specifically at bolstering black populations, because of the imbalance of wealth that has accumulated over decades and centuries as a result of systematic and racist subjugation
Those are some important things, just off the top of my head. I could go on. Here are some unimportant things:
- Monitoring Twitter to ensure that people use the correct lingo
- Furiously denouncing people who use the incorrect lingo
- Thinking that because your extremely rarefied in-group has deemed certain lingo correct and certain lingo incorrect, that you are unassailably and eternally right, and that you cannot be challenged on these conclusions, even by good faith interlocutors
- Arbitrarily capitalizing certain words on Twitter, and taking this to be indicative of genuine political commitments
- Thinking that because your in-group plays an outsized role in setting the terms of Twitter-based discourse, you are somehow persuading people outside your in-group to support your preferred policy positions. You are not
- Staying cocooned in your esoteric, jargon-laden in-group, and assuming that doing this can meaningfully effect political change. It cannot
I think you get the picture. This post stems from a tweet yesterday that provoked an unanticipated and virulent backlash:
The “Woke Twitter” crowd (which, by the way, consists of not just blacks, but plenty of whites who think they are excellent allies… “woke whites” tend to be the most vicious) found this tweet extraordinarily outrageous. Some objected to the idea that I should be speaking to black voters at all. The implication was that I should bar myself from attempting to engage with black Americans, report on my interactions, and analyze their political preferences. How completely absurd.
If you want to object to the product of my reporting or analysis, fine. But to denounce me on principle for even doing it at all: that’s insanity. I’m going to keep doing it, notwithstanding the choir of naysayers on Woke Twitter who are ensconced in their self-congratulatory in-group, and marshal its power against anyone they perceive to have used an incorrect word in a single tweet. I’d invite anyone to go read my past reporting on black politics, and compare it with any of the preeners outraged that I’d attempt to “speak for” black Americans. I’m not trying to “speak for” anyone, I’m trying to accurately gauge the mood of the electorate, and then convey my conclusions to the wider public. That’s called journalism. You may not like it, but too bad.
I enjoy conversing with ordinary black Americans because I enjoy conversing with all ordinary Americans, regardless of their racial, religious, gender, or geographic status. I’ve reported on the Amish, Franco-Canadians, Orthodox Jews, poor Appalachian whites, urban blacks, Southern rural blacks — the list goes on. (I unfortunately haven’t gotten to report much on Hispanics in part because I don’t speak Spanish, but am trying to learn it.)
When I say “ordinary,” I’m not being derisive, despite the cynical interpretations by arrogant Twitter personalities. By “ordinary” I mean “of median socioeconomic status and of a disposition/temperament that roughly aligns with the median of their cohort, as best I can tell.” If you wildly extrapolate from the word “ordinary” that I’m intending to “dog-whistle” my secret contempt for blacks, you’re a disgusting person and should be ashamed. For one thing, I’m not a politician and therefore have no need to “dog-whistle,” I can simply state my actual views in plain English.
Yesterday, after endless Twitter hectoring, I went to the Seventh Ward of New Orleans and spoke to the first black folks I came across. I realize that “the first black folks I came across” can never be fully representative of the black population writ large. That’s impossible. That’s an inherent limitation of first-hand reporting. But first-hand reporting is still essential, because as the election should have taught us, simply sitting on a computer and staring at “the data” all day is an insufficient means of assessing the nature of our polity.
So there you go. This woman is “extraordinary” in that she underwent especially traumatic experiences in the past, but her attitude is nevertheless “ordinary” in that it’s reflective of the attitude that I have encountered among dozens of black citizens across Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana over the course of three weeks of travel. That’s what I was attempting to convey with the “ordinary” tweet. If you want to take that to mean something dark and nefarious, go right ahead. I wish the best to your in-group.
