This is the fourth of a nine-part series exploring conversations I’ve had with my cousin about racism. Ben and I are both white; I’m progressive and he’s conservative. We’re trying to listen to each other with respect, even as we try to change each other’s minds.
A Primer On Deep Listening
In this post, I’ll attempt to do justice to Ben’s view that racism is not an urgent, pervasive American problem.
I think Ben is wrong about this. Even so, I’ll try to make it harder for my fellow antiracists to dismiss his views.
Why would I want to do this? If Ben’s perspective is doing harm to the country and people of color, shouldn’t it be stamped out, not shored up?
Ultimately, I hope Ben will change his mind—but I believe respectful dialogues like ours will play a key role in that process. The paradox with dialogue is that in order to build trust, we must listen deeply and fully understand what others believe, going beyond the caricatures we often paint of them in our minds. We tend to “understand” that they’re simply less educated or less compassionate than us. That’s not much of an understanding at all.
To really build trust with Ben, I need to be able to articulate his views in a way he would agree with. I must find the kernels of truth in what he thinks, even if I disagree with much of what he’s saying. Hence the paradox: in the process of trying to persuade him to my views, I must allow myself to be partly persuaded by him.
When I showed Ben a draft of this post, he pointed me to a wonderful video by a pastor named Blake Anthony Ross. Ross talks about “straw-manning,” the debate technique of describing the most extreme version of the other side’s view, then tearing it down. Because it’s extreme, it appears weak. It collapses easily, like a straw man in the wind.
Ross says instead of straw-manning, we should try “steel-manning:” building the strongest possible argument for the other side’s view. If we can still tear it down after doing that, then we’ve got a truly strong argument ourselves.
That’s what this post is for. I want readers who consider themselves antiracist to press “pause” and practice deep listening, letting go of responses and just allowing, for the time being, that Ben might be right about some of what’s written below. Look for kernels of truth in what he thinks. Learn to build a “steel man”—a version of his view that can’t be easily torn down. Responses can come later, and I’ll respond in future posts.
I welcome those who think like Ben to “listen in” here too, even though this post is aimed at white antiracists. Skeptics who share Ben’s views will enjoy hearing me explain what he thinks in a respectful way. I also hope they’ll read the subsequent posts.
Here are Ben’s beliefs, as best I can capture them, and with many thanks to him for his input on this post.
1. He believes racism is bad.
It might seem absurd to write this one out, but it’s actually a crucial point. A common impression among progressives and antiracists is that all Republicans, or all Trump voters, are not only racist but are indifferent to racism. This indifference may or may not be true of a given person, but Ben and other conservatives I’ve talked to are offended at implications that they might be racist.
It turns out no one likes being called racist. It’s a non-starter and shuts down conversation. That’s why antiracism expert David Campt avoids the term “racist” in dialogue and substitutes “racism skeptic,” a less-loaded term.
So here’s some common ground: the vast majority of us believe racism is bad. That’s a good starting point!
2. We have different definitions of the word “racism.”
When I first mentioned “Trump’s racism” on Facebook, and mentioned the “racism” of the Republican Party, Ben and other Republican relatives urged me to look up the definition of the word. What I found helped me understand why they were offended at my use of it.
From Merriam-Webster:
1: a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
When I read this definition, I saw that my relatives thought I was accusing them of consciously believing the white race is superior. Here’s what one uncle wrote about this:
When it comes to racism, of any sort, I don’t see it around me. I live in Houston, Texas with large populations of Hispanic, Chinese, Muslim as well as who knows how many more groups here. It is a very diverse place… My friends include not only people with white skin, but Latinos, Blacks, Africans, Indians and Chinese. We get along great and have no problems with each other having different skin colors. Now I must admit these are fellow Christians with whom I serve and worship with at Church. That is the sort of folk I love to be with and serve with in our community.
Reading all of this, at first I was vexed at my uncle’s assumption that a white person can tell whether racism exists. We’re often oblivious to it, since it doesn’t negatively affect us. But rereading what he’d written, I could also see the love he felt for his friends of different races. That cooled me down.
I decided we were partly talking past each other. I wasn’t accusing anyone of overt, conscious racism; we were using different definitions of the word. I explained that I was referring to the prejudice, discrimination, and systemic racism that largely stem from unconscious bias.
I gently pointed out that prejudice, too, is part of the definition of racism. Further down in the same Merriam-Webster entry, another definition reads, “racial prejudice or discrimination.” I suggested we use the word “prejudice” instead of “racism” to avoid confusion.
Even though prejudice is a form of racism, I didn’t mind ceding this point. If we got stuck on semantics, the whole conversation could be derailed.
As I was writing this post, Merriam-Webster announced changes to their definition of “racism” to clear up this precise kind of confusion. The update includes systemic racism:
2 a: the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another.
A 2019 Atlantic article by linguist John McWhorter describes the way this word’s meaning has been changing, and the frustrating ways both conservatives and liberals have used it problematically in recent years. Conservatives, being conservative and traditional, too often cling to only its narrowest, oldest definition. But we liberals, being liberal and innovative, have broadened the definition to the point where at times it becomes almost meaningless, with the recipient’s feelings portrayed as more important than the initiator’s intent, beliefs, or actions.
3. Ben cares about people of color.
In that same Atlantic piece by McWhorter, he points out that it’s easy to complain that “Republicans are more offended at being called racist than at being racist.” But he also says that’s an oversimplification, and I agree. At the very least, I don’t believe this is true of Ben—he isn’t indifferent to the wellbeing of Black people.
Ben is angered by racist acts he sees on the news, at least the ones he perceives as being clearly racist. He abhors the neo-Nazis that affiliate themselves with President Trump. He has Black friends and feels offended on their behalf. And he’s inspired by MLK, sometimes watching Dr. King’s speeches online. When I asked him if he’d read King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” he said he’d read it twice.
He also understands that Black Americans face challenging odds, with worse graduation rates and incarceration rates and health care outcomes, etc. He wants to see this change and believes change is urgent. He doesn’t believe the country has better things to do than help improve the lives of people of color; he thinks uplifting people of color is one of the most important things we should do.
Where he and I differ is on the causes of these problems and, as a result, what should be done about them. I’ll get to that soon. But my point here is that, to a certain extent, Ben and I are arguing not about values but about strategy.
4. He thinks racism is mostly gone.
Here is Ben’s and my first major point of disagreement.
Ben doesn’t believe racism is completely gone. There’s the odd racist incident here and there, like the neo-Nazi rallies and possibly even George Floyd’s death. But by and large, he believes MLK’s dream has largely been achieved in this country.
Here’s what Ben sees when he looks around him: Racial discrimination has been expressly outlawed. Black people now vote nationwide and can even be president, and many hold public offices. They can eat at any lunch counter and go to any school in the country. They are doctors and lawyers. Bi-racial friendships and relationships are much more common than in the past, and bi-racial marriages have dramatically increased since 1967, from 3% to 17%.
The vast majority of Americans despise racism, and in Ben’s view, the vestiges of racism that still remain are insignificant compared to the days of Jim Crow, and of course compared to slavery. Looking around at today’s America compared with generations ago, Ben wonders why we aren’t celebrating more. Yes, racism still exists. But it’s far from the most important problem in people’s lives, he thinks—even including Black people’s lives.
Although I disagree with Ben about the prevalence of racism, I can see the logic behind his view. And what’s most meaningful to me is the realization that it doesn’t necessarily come from a place of hate or indifference. To a large extent, Ben wants to celebrate what he sees as the demise of racism because he cares about people of color. He wants to applaud the gains they’ve made.
5. He thinks liberal programs often harm people of color.
Here’s what Ben believes is hurting Black Americans. Rather than systemic racism, he thinks the problem is the legacy of anti-poverty programs created in the 1960s and some of those programs’ manifestations today.
He thinks too many government handouts, without enough incentives, have created a culture of dependency that has wreaked havoc on Black Americans’ social fabric. This has led to higher crime rates, the breakdown of families, and a culture that emphasizes victimhood instead of personal responsibility. A better emphasis on personal responsibility would be far more empowering, he thinks—people need to realize their own potential and strength in order to lift themselves up.
Ben’s belief about the history of welfare is shared by various intellectuals. Most people who hold these views lean conservative—but not all. John McWhorter, the same linguist who wrote about the word “racism” above, and who is also a self-described “cranky liberal Democrat,” a professor at Columbia University, and a Black man, has written multiple books critiquing 1960s welfare programs.
In a 2011 New Republic piece lambasting two of the programs’ advocates, McWhorter writes:
For three decades, welfare was an open-ended program, unconcerned with whether people got jobs or whether children’s fathers were present or able to work. …[B]lack neighborhoods started falling to pieces. The near-fatherless tracts now thought of as normal would have sounded like science fiction in even the poorest black districts before the ’70s. Rarely in American history have people with such a destructive agenda had such power over the lives of the innocent. I wish [welfare advocates] Piven and Cloward had stayed obscure teachers instead of helping to ruin the lives of, for example, some of my relatives.
McWhorter knows his views are controversial among his fellow liberals, who seem to have “an eternal misimpression that I am a right-wing Republican because I disagree sustainedly with many of the tenets of the Civil Rights orthodoxy.” And I’m not saying I agree with his views. To be honest, I don’t feel educated enough on this subject to weigh in.
But what I am saying is that, although there are excellent arguments in favor of welfare and some programs are undoubtedly better than others, Ben shares his negative impression with some pretty smart people.
Ben understands that welfare programs are well-intentioned, but well-intentioned doesn’t mean effective—after all, a smothering parent can harm a child. Just as it’s best to let kids fall down sometimes even though it hurts them in the short run, he thinks the government should take a “tough love,” laissez-faire approach to poverty in general, including poverty in Black communities.
He’s frustrated with progressives for implying that people of color need extra help, which he sees as disempowering. He writes:
A culture which victimizes minorities actually poisons the well of their gumption, abilities, hopes and passions, telling them they cannot be successful. The system is rigged; and therefore, the very mechanism they need to live and thrive—their will—is stymied, tethered to a hospital bed of perceived ailments. If this is an effective approach to civil rights, why didn’t Booker T. Washington and all the other great 19th century civil rights activists use it?
Instead of what he sees as victimhood, Ben wants equality of opportunity, with opportunity being the key word. You give people the opportunity to be successful, but then you back off. This forces them to do the hard work of lifting themselves up instead of expecting the government to help them. In the long run, leaving them alone will help them more than “helping” them will.
He uses the phrase equality of opportunity specifically to contrast with equality of outcome. Ben is wary of too much focus on outcomes, because looking at outcomes might open a pandora’s box of additional harmful government programs. If we focus too much on the current numbers of Black people (or women, or gay people, etc.) in positions of power, or who own property, or who are in prison, we’ll start fretting over every little inequality. Then we’ll just create more programs, which will backfire and perpetuate the poverty we’re trying to reduce.
What we ought to focus on is making sure people have the opportunity to succeed, then leave them alone. Over time, they’ll develop the responsibility needed to lift themselves up and the habits to keep themselves out of poverty.
This is a key point I’ll respond to in upcoming posts where I’ll share my own views. For now, I’ll just say that I do understand the reasoning behind Ben’s thinking. Although I think it’s got some holes, I see that he makes some good points. Welfare has not been universally beneficial, personal responsibility is necessary for anyone’s success, and we have indeed come a long way since the 1960s in terms of racism.
6. Even when help is needed, he still doesn’t trust the government to provide it.
Ben does think there’s a place for helping others—he understands that sometimes, bad luck happens and people need assistance. But rather than government programs, he thinks such assistance should come from charity.
Ben is concerned that a faceless government program sending people checks won’t accomplish the very thing it intends: to lift people out of poverty. He believes individuals, churches, NGOs, and non-profits are far better equipped than the government to do this, especially when charity is done at the local level. If done locally, there will be better discernment on which help is most fitting for each person, and a more human bond will be formed between giver and recipient.
“There’s a face, a hand, pain, need, help, and relationship,” Ben writes. He feels that when a person knows help is coming not from a faceless program but from caring people who live nearby, the person is more likely to feel humanized and to use the assistance responsibly. “If you found a hundred-dollar bill on the ground, would you spend it as thoughtfully as if your grandma had given it to you?”
Also, the more that donors can see the impacts of the help they’ve given, the more charitable they’ll be in the future. Taxes, meanwhile, leave the taxed with no sense of where their money is going. “The more the government taxes its people to redistribute wealth and act charitably to the impoverished, ironically, the less charitable a people we’ll become.”
7. He thinks race is being used as a political wedge…by liberals.
This final point took me by surprise when I heard it. More than that—it left me flabbergasted. I saw the way President Trump wielded race as a wedge issue, and it had never occurred to me that anyone might accuse us of the same thing.
Recall that Ben believes racism is not a significant cause of harm to people of color—that it still exists, but it’s not the main reason for ongoing racial inequities. So he thinks the media and liberal activists are exaggerating racial disparities, creating outcries over only brutality towards Black Americans while ignoring other incidents that don’t fit that narrative.
He believes there’s an insidious reason racism keeps getting so much media attention: activists and the liberal media want us to believe we’re a racist nation because as long as there is racial unrest, the Democratic Party keeps most of the Black voters.
This is my side’s impression turned on its head. We liberals think Trump stoked racial fears to recruit racist white voters, who then voted (we think) against their own economic interests. Ben dislikes the media’s focus on police violence against Black people for the same reason. He thinks this narrative divides us needlessly along racial lines, recruiting Black voters to vote for a party whose welfare programs actually hurt their own interests.
This line of thought explains memes like this:
“What is she talking about?” my husband asked me when he saw that meme. Because of my conversations with Ben, I understood what she meant.
Understanding Creates Better Dialogue
If you share my views, you might have started off like I did, with the impression that people who deny the reality of racism must be thoughtless, callous, and uninterested in the wellbeing of people of color. Exploring Ben’s thinking has helped me see that it’s not so simple.
In his view, racism isn’t nearly as prevalent as we think and is being used to divide us, distracting us from more important issues that harm Black communities. Regardless of whether he’s correct, I can see that in his case at least, this view comes not from callousness but from compassion for people of color and concern for their wellbeing.
While his compassion isn’t shared by all “racism skeptics,” I do think it’s shared by some, even many. Understanding this helps me feel less anger when I talk to Ben—which makes our conversations much more fruitful.
Those who share my views are probably also itching to respond to some of Ben’s points. I’ll begin sharing my own responses in the next post in this series.
