"Stop marketing race-blind policies as racial equity initiatives"

By artappraiser on Tue, 03/09/2021 - 1:50pm |

In Slow Boring, @MarcNovicoff assembled a good deal of polling data which suggests that framing mixed race/class topics in a way that frontloads the racial aspect makes them less popular. https://t.co/z47DA2bvOH
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 9, 2021

URL:

https://www.slowboring.com/p/race-blind-policies-racial-equity

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beginning excerpt:

In a recent New York Times op-ed, Heather McGhee lamented that not only have conservatives used the concept of zero-sum racial conflict to undermine political support for public goods and a robust welfare state, but that “those seeking to repair America’s social divides can invoke this sort of zero-sum framing as well.”

“Progressives,” she wrote, “often end up talking about race relations through a prism of competition — every advantage for whites, mirrored by a disadvantage for people of color.”

If anything, she doesn't go far enough. The rise of this sort of progressive zero-sum racial rhetoric has accompanied the electoral backlash Democrats once hoped was limited to non-college whites but instead became a broad pro-Trump swing in all kinds of socioeconomically downscale communities during the 2020 election (Hispanics, immigrants of all stripes, maybe even Black people as well, while white voters swung towards Democrats).

There’s a growing trend both in media and among elected politicians of deliberately highlighting racial equity as a key argument in favor of left-of-center economic policies [....]

by artappraiser on Tue, 03/09/2021 - 1:52pm

related Yglesias tweets on same thread:

I sometimes feel like anti-racists should take racism more seriously as a force in American life — does emphasizing the idea that a GI Bill for Essential Workers will benefit nonwhite households make its adoption more likely or less likely?https://t.co/1AqtAXBpji pic.twitter.com/BqrX782IYH
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 9, 2021

If you look at the official advice of @IanHaneyLopez's race/class narrative concept, it urges progressives to emphasize the UNIFYING power of redistribution — frontloading racial division is supposed to be what the right does to block redistribution.https://t.co/eYoeTK585d pic.twitter.com/JVAYk220kf
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 9, 2021

I think this is status competition among a relatively elite group of educated progressives.

You get your topic on the agenda by arguing that it's the idea with the most antiracist punch.

But it's a very counterproductive brand of politics, for well-known antiracist reasons.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 9, 2021

You want to fight AGAINST right-wing "drain the swimming" pool politics, not *encourage* people to think of public services and economic redistribution as zero-sum racial politics. https://t.co/SL1UsYiOxb
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 9, 2021

by artappraiser on Tue, 03/09/2021 - 2:01pm

What does America look like in 20 years if we don't thaw the cultural cold war?

Do we solve climate change?

Do we stabilize the debt?

Do we reform immigration?

Or does our cold civil war simply start to heat up?

What is the end game if you don't believe in depolarization?
— John Wood, Jr. (@JohnRWoodJr) March 9, 2021

Violence and institutional collapse is always an option.

My concern is that people are choosing this path without realizing it is what they are choosing.
— John Wood, Jr. (@JohnRWoodJr) March 9, 2021

Mine too.

It's why we need to #undivide, promote #graceculture, remain #curious, and always be #starmanning.

Right, @moniguzman?
— Angel Eduardo (@StrangelEdweird) March 9, 2021

by artappraiser on Tue, 03/09/2021 - 2:23pm

"Stop marketing race-blind policies as racial equity initiatives"

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