What Is the Fight Really About?

I had never heard Randall Kennedy speak until last week when he appeared on Fareed Zakaria’s Global Public Square. I was impressed. Until then, I had only a vague notion of who he was - a prominent African-American public intellectual. I now understand that he is a law professor at Harvard University and the author of a number of books, including, memorably, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002).

 

Like any white person with at least a minimal sense of decency, I feel a certain measure of discomfort writing that title, given the prominence of the racial slur that is its subject. But I decided to write it out despite my discomfort. And I think I’m going to have to read the book in its entirety, given my interest in sociolinguistics and racial relations.

 

The n-word (by which I will identify it from now on) is peculiarly harsh in its impact. No other racial or ethnic slur carries the nasty punch that the n-word does. I’ve long believed its uniquely nasty quality reflects the viciousness of racial oppression itself. The reason for this, as far as I can tell, is that when used by a white person, it automatically calls up the cruelty and injustice of racial oppression and does so approvingly. To use that slur is to say through subtext, “You, black person, are stuck in a lowly category that allows me to look down on you every time I glance your way, and you have to accept it because that’s just the way things are. So, screw you.”

 

The word, in other words, is not simply an insult in the way that words like scumbag, dipshit, and asshole are. It’s an ethnic slur that echoes the dark spirit of an entire social order, a grossly unjust and cruel social order. This order is the source of the word’s poison. Those who use it are, consciously or not, strutting and preening themselves while trampling on the injured limbs and pummeled bodies of the system’s victims.

 

I have noticed in my lifetime that the n-word has replaced the f-word as the most unacceptable item in polite conversation. This is a good thing, and it reflects some of the positive changes that Professor Kennedy noted in his GPS remarks. Kennedy also noted that many of the phrases we use today have been weaponized and so have lost their usefulness in our current efforts to push social improvements further along. According to him these no longer useful terms include racism, structural racism, and, of course, critical race theory.

 

I agree.

 

It seems to me that the biggest issue facing us since the upheaval of the Trump years is best framed not as black vs. white, but as fair play and decency vs. malpractice. The key issue is the survival of the democratic institutions that we rely on to promote justice. The central political question should be, “Is your party for democracy and fair play or against them?”

 

If I were advising Democratic party leaders on future elections, I would recommend putting more emphasis on America’s longstanding promise of democracy and justice for everyone, and less emphasis on fighting racism per se. The Republican party is trying to cast Democrats as anti-white by coughing up the idea of critical race theory and claiming it lies at the heart of the Democratic party. For Republican propagandists the hope is that they can make white Americans feel inherently criticized by the Democrats. Their scheme is aimed at driving moderate whites away from the Democrats and into the GOP.

Let’s not take the bait. The real issues are not race, nor criticism about race relations, but justice and democracy. The Republicans have aligned themselves against both of these with their slew of new restrictive voting laws. Let’s fight them with all we have, not across the black-white seam, but on the front where we are sure to win, the fair play and decency divide. The Republicans have rejected these American values and that’s where we should be hitting them hardest. I can’t speak for Professor Kennedy, of course, but my sense is that he would agree with this approach.

 

                 Professor Randall Kennedy

 

 

 

Clash of Civilizations

On his show last night, Bill Maher had a mini-debate with Fareed Zakaria about the China-US rivalry. Both agreed, as I do, that this relationship is the most important one of the mid-twenty-first-century. Beyond that, Maher claimed that he expected China would out-compete the US because of its impressive record in constructing such things as high-speed rail systems. Zakaria argued that the US has some important advantages, including an open society with lots of talented incoming immigrants and a strong network of international relationships. China’s population, on the other hand, is set to decrease, and its only international treaty is with North Korea. I’m inclined to agree with Zakaria in this debate.

 

At one point Maher suggested that the US could be like Britain, a country that accepted second place after the US overtook it in political and economic influence. Well, sure, why not. Except that I see the China-US rivalry not as country vs. country but as ideology vs. ideology. The real contest is between authoritarianism and democracy. I’m hoping for a victory by democracy in this clash, and I wouldn’t mind if China were to become democratic and then suddenly outpace the US on every front. Unfortunately, current indications are that democracy is not in the cards for China.

 

President Xi Jinping is pushing hard to tighten authoritarian controls and in doing this is reversing that China’s recent liberalizing trends. Furthermore, his aggressive stance abroad has pissed off (Zakaria’s words) Japan, India, Vietnam, and other Asian neighbors with its new concept of itself as a “Wolf Warrior.” China’s Wolf Warrior ideal, widespread today in films and popular culture, is like a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude that you’d expect from an adolescent with wounded pride, not from a great nation. It’s kind of like Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo series with its ethos of hurt feelings. Of course, American militarism is a problem of its own, but one I won’t deal with here beyond acknowledging its existence.

 

The emergence of China’s Wolf Warrior spirit is not too surprising given that the Communist government has long promoted a national myth-history that focuses on China’s wounded pride from “a century of humiliation” at the hands of the western powers and the Japanese. The past bullying by westerners and the Japanese is real, but the promotion of a sense of hurt feelings over this past is kind of pathetic. It’s obviously part of the Communist authority’s effort to control the thinking of its citizens. By making people feel victimized about past bullying and at the same time promoting the idea that the Chinese Communist Party represents the essence China, the leaders are able to twist criticism of its policies into criticism of China itself. In this way they tap into the wounded pride ethos and stir up popular resentment against criticism of the party. 

 

The Chinese Communist Party has been stoking resentment over China’s past for 70 years now and through this resentment has cultivated an attitude of nationalistic belligerence. It’s a belligerence that the government sometimes finds hard to control and could eventually push Chinese leaders into confrontations that are dangerously provocative to the US or to its Asian neighbors. China’s insistence on absorbing Taiwan into its authoritarian orbit - by violent force if they deem it necessary - is one area in particular where danger lies.

 

China would be so much better off if it were to reject the Leninist idea of party thought-control and reach instead into its own deep roots for a sense of identity. According to a longstanding Confucian ideal, good rulers strive to gain followers and influence through wisdom and benevolence. Grabbing territory by military conquest was regarded as immoral. Following a Confucian path, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) could, without military threat, draw Taiwan so powerfully into its orbit that the issue of violent reunification would seem pointless, even downright idiotic. It wouldn’t be hard, if the PRC were only willing to open its society to a free press, guaranteed freedom of expression generally, and transparency in governance. Such a transformation would enable the government to act with confidence and benevolence on the world stage.The people of Taiwan already enjoy democratic freedoms, why does Beijing pretend that the Chinese people can’t be allowed the same?

 

Xi Jinping is no fan of an open or transparent society. One indication of Mainland China’s stifling restrictions is the recent disappearance of tennis star Peng Shuai. About three weeks ago, Ms. Peng posted on social media an accusation of sexual harassment by a government official. Her post was quickly taken down. Following this came further notices claiming to be hers which denied the original accusation and insisted that she was doing fine. I don’t believe she is, and neither does the world of women’s tennis. One short, simple gesture indicating that it respects its own deeply rooted Confucian morality would be for the Chinese government to allow Ms. Peng to travel internationally and be interviewed by those who are concerned about her fate. The fact that this is not happening is a measure of the Chinese government’s lack of self-confidence. The world would be a much better place if the U.S. were to restrain its global militarism and China were to open its society to free expression and thereby assume an honored place in the international community of like-minded nations.

 

                                  Peng Shuai

      

(By the way, here’s a plug for Fareed, who is presenting a special on CNN Sunday evening: China's Iron Fist: Xi Jinping and the Stakes for America.)

Education vs. Catastrophe

On Bill Maher’s show last week, Columbia professor John McWhorter made a crack about the huge chunk of time students waste in college. He described them as spending four years pretending to like Shakespeare. McWhorter is a smart guy and a professor of linguistics, so I’m not sure why he would disparage the value of a liberal arts education. But there it is.

His comment was part of a conversation joined in by Maher, the gist of which was that post-secondary education, when it is not preparing students for a specific job, is a pointless exercise.

 

This is not a new idea. Back in 1966, when I had just finished my freshman year, two of my parents’ friends asked me what I was majoring in. When I told them political science*, one of them smiled sarcastically at other and said, “What does a political scientist do besides teach other political scientists?”

 

My somewhat feeble answer was, “They teach other people too.” But if he had asked me that same question today, I would have had more to say. I might have started by pointing out that the more political science classes students take, the less likely they will be to storm the Capitol in an effort to destroy American democracy.

 

The truth is that education at the college level is supposed to teach people a number of things that are not job-related, one of them being how to support and protect democracy.

 

The mission statement of the liberal arts college where I taught for some 30 years starts like this: “Rollins College educates students for global citizenship and responsible leadership, empowering graduates to pursue meaningful lives and productive careers.”

 

Yeah. There it is:

 

Global citizenship

Responsible leadership

Meaningful lives

 

I think that last reference to “productive careers” is a relatively new addition, aimed at encouraging parents to understand that their kids will get a job after they graduate. And they do.

 

Two Rollins graduates of my acquaintance from the class of 2010 majored in Classics and English. They are now happily and productively employed as, respectively, a nurse and a children’s librarian. They are not only verifiably good at their jobs, they are also appreciative of the level of understanding about the world that their educations gave them. Their lives are rich and meaningful, and neither one of them participated in the violent assault on the Capitol last January.

 

One of the most dramatic social transitions of the last decade has been a shift of educated Americans toward the Democratic party and of the less well-educated toward the cult-like Trumpian GOP. It’s very clear that the better educated a person is, the less likely they will be to accept the wacky, self-serving ideas that Trump and his servile followers in Congress are dishing out. Education is a good thing, even (or especially) when it is not merely job-oriented. It’s weird that intelligent adults like Maher and McWhorter would sneer at it.  

 

So let me end with a tidbit I gleaned from my education, a remark by H. G. Wells: “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”

 

Last January 6 should remind us that education is not necessarily winning this race.

 

                    H. G. Wells - 1866-1946

 

 

*This was before I discovered the glories of anthropology in my junior year.