I Watched a Chat Between Two Ex- Black Lives Matter Fans
Here’s what I learned… but I’ll need your help to process this
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I often focus my human justice critiques on gender—since I have struggled in that area myself. I wrote Intersectional Feminism Rocks, BUT Here are 8 Points it Often Leaves Out: The secret essay this trans girl wrote when she felt suffociated by social justice.
Race is harder. Since I’m white and have silently benefited from it, how can I tell if my thoughts on race are rational?
Fragility and guilt could bias me to downplay how bad racism is. To not talk about it as often. Yet, I could also be biased to overplay racial issues, in order to prove I’m not heartless or uncaring.
I’m guessing you know the feeling—either about race, or about a different topic where you’re the privileged one?
That’s where I could use your help. Whatever your politics, I’m curious to hear your kind, reasoned responses to what Brittany King and Coleman Hughes had to say about race and identity on a recent podcast. Both are black U.S. Americans, who at some point lost their agreement with the general Black Lives Matter point of view.
Brittany King stepped up by founding a Black Lives Matter chapter in Indiana
Brittany Talissa King was previously reported about on Medium by Jendayi Omowale. In 2016, Brittany was motivated to start Black Lives Matter of Columbus (BLMC). It was just after the murders of Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile had shaken her to the core.
BLMC protested at City Hall. Even in their heavy Trump-supporting Columbus, Indiana, the meetings and events were a success, invigorating other local black empowerment orgs. It wasn’t all smooth sailing though. The leader of a white supremacist group made a violent illustration of the BLMC founder, posted with terrible words on Facebook.
But Brittany found strength in the many black advocates who inspired her. She kept leading, and she gave a deep meaning to her passion which she wanted to pursue: journalism.
“Slaves would be killed if they were reading, writing, teaching each other how to write, touching a book, looking at a book, looking at script,” she said. “I find that me, reading and writing and doing journalism, against the very thing that took my ancestors is the most defiant thing I can do. My pen is my weapon now against white supremacy.”
Eventually, she left Columbus, IN for her masters at New York University. She studied journalism under Ta-Nehisi Coates. And, wait a minute… I just realized Brittany Talissa King herself is on Medium. Eep, now I can’t wait to read her articles!
How did Brittany’s views on race and identity evolve?
Here’s my summary of what I gained watching Brittany speak with Coleman Hughes on his podcast episode.
Brittany’s BLM skepticism began near the end of her leadership in Columbus. Was something a bit off? Narratives around white guilt and fragility were giving her confusion. She noticed a contradiction: White people were told not to be silent about racism on social media (“silence is violence”). Yet during discussion meetings, it was the opposite and it was perceived as violent if white folks did say too much.
Don’t center yourself; don’t cry; don’t show any emotions; don’t exhaust the black people in the room; don’t overstep; don’t overtalk…
Brittany later felt these rules were stifling discussion. She didn’t enforce them in her chapter, but says she participated in the narrative online.
[Author’s inner monologue: Hmm, I get how such rules could get overbearing. I would think that while black people are the rightful center of BLM meetups (followed by others of color), it benefits us all if whites too can safely process their honest experiences around race? If folks can be real + respectful together, that sounds most productive. I don’t know the right balance of how cautious or welcome I “should” feel as a white person to share about race.]
Anyway, on to the next doubt Brittany was having.
Once when she was writing a speech, Brittany lamented the constant deaths of unarmed black Americans. When she went to look up the FBI data, she expected a large number. Instead, it was only in the double digits each year. This got her thinking how the murders of blacks by police are so widely seen on social media compared to the same happening to other races, as well as other types of tragedies. The major visibility magnifies the trauma.
She likened this to how white “slave owners” in America used to assault a black person in front of others, to make them all afraid. Were today’s viral videos causing black Americans to fear for their lives more than they needed to?
Other than to her mother, she never said this aloud at the time. She didn’t want to invalidate the movement she had long spoken on behalf of.
Who is Coleman Cruz Hughes and how did he become one of BLM’s biggest critics?
I blogged about Coleman Hughes before in 4 Black or Brown Philosophers Who Opened My White Mind About Racial Healing. When I didn’t know what to believe about race, his ideas were among several that inspired me.
So after Brittany introduced herself on the Conversations with Coleman podcast, Coleman started sharing his journey as well. Trayvon Martin, murdered by police in 2012, was the same age as him. This event led Coleman to no longer think of racism as an occasional nuisance, and to realize it could affect one’s ability to stay alive still in 2012.
He was sympathetic to anti-racism until 2014, after Michael Brown’s death. Hearing other people talk about the event, he eventually realized you can be skeptical of whether a murder was racially motivated or not, without being racist. He wanted to do research. He didn’t want to just take the policeman’s culpability for granted, as one of his professors seemed to be doing.
He stayed up all night studying the testimony. In the end, he was totally undecided. Cops lie routinely, and friends also lie (or misremember) to protect each other’s reputations. Given the statements, either side could be right. He doubted anyone had enough evidence to know.
Coleman agreed with a point Brittany made earlier. Some trainings for new police have had videos of cops being killed. Excessive use of this could make a cop paranoid. Has the same happened on the civilian side? He suggested that the selective reporting of specifically black murders by police has led to paranoia and been damaging to race relations.
As a philosophy student at Columbia University, Coleman started writing on race online. Now he is on the Forbes 30-Under-30 for 2021. Dang… makes me slightly regret I didn’t know what I was doing when I was at ASU, and still don’t, ha.
The two writers met because of a big debate on slavery reparations
In 2019, there was a big debate. Should the U.S. give reparations to African Americans for the slavery in its past? Coleman Hughes was against reparations. Ta-Nehisi Coates (Brittany’s teacher) was in favor.
As Brittany herself would later report in The Black Descendants: The Case for Our Freedom of Thought, “This debate garnered the attention of millions and could be considered the figurative second-coming of W.E.B DuBois vs. Booker T. Washington.”
Watching the conversation on her NYU campus, Brittany was dismissive of Coleman. But later, she had a change of heart.
I [hurled] racial epithets at Hughes, calling him a “coon” based upon his position as I applauded Coates’ pro-argument. I don’t regret cheering for my former professor, but I do regret opposing Hughes without considering his POV. And after re-watching the debate, about twenty times, I still see Coates as eloquently accurate, but also view Hughes as controversially truthful. Even more importantly, I realized that if I disagreed with either, my analysis should critique their argument, not their black identity.
In reality, he wasn’t saying black Americans didn’t deserve redress for slavery. He was saying he didn’t believe the measure would help and that it would be offensive to a minority of black Americans who didn’t want it.
Continuing to question things, Brittany read the works of black intellectuals she thought she’d never listen to—like Thomas Sowell, John McWhorter, and Shelby Steele. She didn’t fully agree with the texts, but opening her mind to these other thinkers on race cleared up the doubts she’d had before as a BLM organizer.
We are unique, yet feel forced to conform to common group missions
The overarching message I took away is: Black people are not a monolith. Let’s celebrate diverse black thought, and diversity of thought in general. As the saying goes, “There are as many ways to be black as there are black people.” Yet, people also want blackness to mean something. They want to be able to talk about a shared experience or siblinghood.
Coleman argued that in the past, it made sense to conform to the group and punish traitors. In Shelby Steele’s childhood under segregation, you’d drive into a new town and have to ask a fellow black person which hotels and restuarants were safe. Today it still feels as if a black person who has a different opinion does not want to be black and is “excommunicating” themself from the race—according to Brittany.
What a mesmerizing paradox. It might be particularly true of black Americans, but other minority groups face something similar. We’re unique individuals, but we feel like we have to control the narrative. We have to police who is black enough or transgender enough or _____ enough, in order to achieve the best outcomes for our people.
Conclusion: What do I make of all this? What am I supposed to believe?
Brittany introduced me to the term heterodox thinker. What if we study each issue with a compassion heart for all, yet a detached mind that cares less about conformity?
Here’s how I feel now (and I could be wrong): There are BLM and anti-racism points I agree and disagree with. I love awareness of privilege. It is good to be proactive about diversity and to center black joy, indigenous joy, et cetera, without it being too much and feeling tokenizing to POC. I do worry the degree to which black Americans are uniquely targeted by police is exaggerated in ways that stir up fear or division in some. But that doesn’t discount the bias that really exists. It doesn’t discount the ways racial unfairness blights black lives, which we will keep addressing until fixed. I’m joyful to see policing and prison go under scrutiny; I have thought this will lead to really good change. As far as effectiveness, I am concerned BLM protests direct our energy on a small amount of suffering. We can reduce more pain by, say, directly tackling the worst poverty and diseases, rather than getting the number of fatal police errors down to 0. Not that ALL of our attention should go to solving the biggest and most tractable sufferings, BUT… in liberal circles there is a pressure to prioritize BLM and agree 100%, due to the fear of otherwise being thought of as a racist.
Okay, taking a breath now.
Since I have been following and enjoying Coleman Hughes for a while, I would love to read rebuttals of his views to consider other sides. Ideally, I just need to find ones that are calm, free from personal attacks. I may go watch the debate with him and Ta-Nehisi Coates soon. What do you think? What perspectives do you prefer?
I’ll continue to share my learning notes on race and other justice topics. But a greater challenge, for me, would be if I study gender issues in the same depth Brittany King and Coleman have weighed in on controversies of race. I told you I write more about transgender stuff because I feel “qualified” as an insider; nevertheless, the subject is also more personal. It’s prevented me from deeply researching the trickiest questions. So when I do do my next transgender issues deep dive and report back to you with my thoughts, it shall be a next-level exercise in critical thinking, detachment, and of course, being willing to share.
Here’s to an Earth where people of every hue and history live in health, harmony, and benevolence. We won’t always agree on how we’re getting there, but I value your contribution. I look forward to hearing anything you have to say. And thank you so much to Brittany and Coleman for the great conversation you recorded!
