Enough with Coerced Deference. Let Everyone of Good Will Speak.

This is part two of my response to objections to “Why Deracializing People Is Essential To Combating Racism.” Part one is Deracializing People Doesn’t Erase Black American Culture. It Honors It.

For a full treatment of this topic, get my free e-book How To Be An Anti-race Antiracist.

5. Calling someone “Black” or “white” doesn’t racially essentialize them

KJH writes:

Amiel, you also write: “When you call someone “black” or “white,” you’re not just talking about their skin color or hair. You’re invoking assumptions about their character, personality, and intelligence — even their genetic makeup.”

I disagree with this. While I think this is true of people with genuine racial prejudice and bigotry, for the rest of us I think we are invoking general patterns of socialization, cultural backgrounds, and common biases. If I say “look, that police officer just stopped that Black person, let’s go stand by”. I’m not making a statement about that person’s personality or character or intelligence. I’m invoking the knowledge that people racialized as Black are 3x more likely to be violently harmed by police…Maybe my own assumptions are showing up here.

You say that your own assumptions are showing up. I would say it differently: your own maturity is showing up. What you do after hearing the word “black” — all the subtle interpretations and inner disclaimers — isn’t what 98% of the population does.

I myself frequently racialize people. It’s habitual, socialized, and entrenched. I do my best to make it an object of awareness, something I can see so that it doesn’t own my thoughts, feelings, and actions. Perhaps you do something similar?

6. Antiracist thinkers like Ibram X. Kendi don’t support racial essentialism

More from KMH:

From what I have observed, antiracists do not treat the construct of biologically-distinct races as real, nor do they make it central to their cause. I have read and listened to dozens and dozens of prominent writers and activists that fit the description of antiracist, and they all seem to point out the absurdity of race as a biological reality. [KMH then provides quotes from Kendi, Coates, and others.]

Let me clarify what I mean by “Antiracists treat it as real…” In 99% of the paragraphs that Kendi and DiAngelo have published, they use the words “black,” “white” and “race” without qualifiers. No acknowledgement that biological race is false. No mention of how this falsehood has contributed to centuries of brutality toward black-identifed Americans. No discussion of how today it feeds what Albert Murray called the “fakelore of black pathology” and obscures Black American contributes to American history and culture. So, yes, these antiracists may recognize this falsehood, but they write and act as though it’s not something worth objecting to. Like many postmodern progressives, they are willing to deconstruct everything under the sun except for biological race.

Furthermore, in the rare instances where Kendi and DiAngelo explicitly name this falsehood, they immediately do an about-face. Both authors, in their bestselling books, acknowledge that race is socially constructed and then say: but we need to act as though it’s real. DiAngelo’s explanation for this is shallow. Kendi’s explanation is slightly deeper yet, in my assessment, unconvincing. I don’t think Kendi sees a distinction between Race as Classification (racial essentialism) and Race as Topic (the willingness to discuss how social problems affect some racialized identity groups more than others). “Race” is all one thing to him. He believes that if you refute racial essentialism then this means you are ignoring race (as topic). The parentheses are not his, but mine, which is why he make a logical leap that I view as unnecessary.

It’s worth repeating: we can and should “talk about race” (though I’d prefer a different term here than “race”) while simultaneously giving biological race the boot.

We can treat racial essentialism as the fallacy that it is yet regularly speak about how Covid deaths, police brutality, incarcerations, and wealth differ vastly between different groups of people. What makes this possible is the new language I learned from Greg Thomas and Carlos Hoyt, Jr. Instead of labeling groups “Black” and “white,” we can call them “black-identified” people and “white-identified” people. By doing this, we can share all the same data and make all the same points with all the same conviction yet use terms that are more factually correct and free of racial essentialism.

The U.S. Census Bureau would make this a lot easier for us if it stopped asking people for their “race.” Instead, as Hoyt creatively suggests, it could ask us: “Whether or not you identify as a member of a racial or ethnic group, how do most others identify you in terms of race and ethnicity?”

7. “Follow the lead of Black anti-race activists.”

A reader writes:

Anti-racists have long been arguing that white supremacists invented it — i.e., race is a social construct and not a biological reality. Kendi would prefer “political construct” over “social construct”. Let’s follow the lead of Black anti-racist activists how to deconstruct the harm of this racial category white supremacists forced them to have to live with.

Sounds like we are mostly in agreement about how we got here historically. As for “following the lead,” that in large part is what I am doing. As I write in the full-ebook from which this is excerpted, when it comes to the notion of deracializing, I’m indebted to the work of Carlos Hoyt, Jr., Sheena Mason (Theory of Racelessness), Greg Thomas (“Culture vs Race: A Polemical Take”), and others. Unlike Kendi and most other high profile antiracists, these writers regularly advocate in public for a world free of racial essentialism. For them, ridding ourselves of biological race is a way to combat racism and bring more humanity to everyone.

Just to be clear, when you say “follow the lead,” are you suggesting that because I’m identified as white, I shouldn’t share my perspective — that I should defer to Kendi because he is “Black?” Or do you mean something else?

Also, what if several different “Black” anti-racist thinkers see an issue very differently? Whose lead do I follow? Do I go with the antiracist who is most well known? Flip a coin? Or is this is a situation where I’m permitted to drawn upon my own thinking?

The same reader responds:

I was objecting to the characterization of “antiracists” (which antiracists?) agreeing with white supremacists on treating race as a biological reality. In the previous paragraph you mention Kendi and Robin DiAngelo as “leading antiracist thinkers”, seeming to imply that this is a view they hold. And that “leading anti-racist thinkers’” moral vision isn’t wide enough? That definitely rubbed me the wrong way. Non-Black people (unfortunately) still have disproportionate power to choose which Black voices to amplify, and which to suppress. We should of course read as wide a range of Black perspectives as we can, and form our own informed opinions. But it’s really not our place to publicly call out Black anti-racist activists whose views on racism we are less partial to.

Thanks for clarifying your objection. I think you and I share a commitment to combating racism and increasing justice. We have somewhat different perspectives of how to bring about these outcomes.

You make a great point about being clear which particular anti-racist thinkers I’m critiquing and which ones I’m drawing on. These references are in the ebook. (Three advocates for deracialization I draw upon are Carlos Hoyt, Jr, Sheena Mason, and Greg Thomas). Without realizing it, I left them out when condensing that ebook into this short article.

So, to be clear, I’m referring in this article specifically to Kendi and DiAngelo. Having said that, nearly every prominent antiracist thinker uses the words “white,” “black,” and “race” as Kendi and DiAngelo do — in a way that IMHO reinforces racial essentialism. To repeat what I have written elsewhere, these two thinkers know that biological race is a falsehood but they speak and write as though it were real and justify this move in a way I find unconvincing.

Kendi, who is otherwise attentive to language (heck, he’s gone so far as to redefine the meaning of racism), doesn’t use language that accurate reflects the falsehood of biological race. Why is this? My hunch is that the thought of doing so has never occurred to him. Kendi, of course, is far from alone in this regard. Thirty years ago, I learned about the falsehood of biological race. Yet it was only in 2018 — a quarter of a century later — that I discovered a way to embody this understanding in how I speak, listen, and make sense of experience. Take it from every antiracist thinker who’s ever lived: words make a difference!

Now, on to where you and I see things most differently. You write that “It’s not our place to publicly call out Black anti-racist activists whose views on racism we are less partial to.” There are millions of other Americans who share this view with you. It contains a moral logic I partially agree with. When a group has been silenced for so long, it’s important to give them space to speak, honor their voices, and not interrupt them. I’m with you on this.

However, what you’ve written goes beyond this into what we might call “coerced deference.” You’re asking me to not only respect Kendi’s voice but to keep my perspective to myself. In essence: if I see things differently from him, to shut up.

I understand your noble intentions (again, I identify with part of the moral logic here), but there is a difference between intentions and impact. Have you considered the impact of this suggestion?

Right now in the U.S., there are millions of Americans who are committed to combating racism yet not taking action. One main reason: they don’t feel free to speak their voices. They feel silenced, shut out. Why? Because they’ve been coerced to defer to Kendi and other black-identified antiracist thinkers. This coercion has come in the form of a one-two punch: the moral logic conveyed by what you’ve written here coupled with Kendo’s straightjacket maxim that any idea/person that isn’t antiracist (by his definition) is racist. (Kendi redefines the word “racist” from a moral term to a description of impact, but most people still hear it as a moral condemnation, the worst thing you could be called).

For millions of Americans, following your suggestion would be a denial of their own voices and at some point becomes masochistic. Is it any wonder why millions of Americans who want to speak out have become silent?

In short, the noble intention to provide more space for important voices, when twisted into an act of silencing, has the unintended consequences of turning potential allies into opponents, skeptics, or people simply resigned that nothing new is possible in this climate. You don’t really want this, do you?

Finally, when it comes to Kendi himself, he has a hundred times more institutional and reputational power than me. My critique has less impact on him that a flea on the sole of his shoe.

8. Nothing new here

BMD writes:

This is terrible. Terribly unoriginal.

I’d say “Ouch!” but you hit the nail on the head. Everything in this article builds on the work of brilliant scholars, writers, and researchers — from Ashley Montague through Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray and up to Nell Irvin Painter, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Dorothy Roberts, and Isabel Wilkerson today. None of it is original.

The one question I explore in moderately original ways is this: How do we enact these ideas? In How To Be An Anti-race Antiracist, I offer a series of conversation microhabits that provide a starting point. From the tone of your comment, I don’t expect you to read it. But for others here, it offers practical ideas you can try out.

Weary of the pointless prickly polarization? Ready for more fiercely nuanced stands? I can help.

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