Mistake:
"We don't need any more brown faces that don't want to be a brown voice. We don’t need black faces that don't want to be a black voice."
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, at Netroots Convention
Ayanna Pressley's purpose, I think, was to urge people to act with courage, to speak up, to represent their own interests and perspective. But that isn't what she said, and it may well not be all she meant.
Her full quote was:
"I don't want to bring a chair to an old table. This is the time to shake the table. This is the time to redefine that table. Because if you're going to come to this table, all of you who have aspirations of running for office. If you’re not prepared to come to that table and represent that voice, don’t come, because we don't need any more brown faces that don't want to be a brown voice. We don’t need black faces that don't want to be a black voice. We don't need Muslims that don’t want to be a Muslim voice. We don’t need queers that don't want to be a queer voice. If you’re worried about being marginalized and stereotyped, please don't even show up because we need you to represent that voice."
There are three problems with this.
The first is that she gave detractors a club to pound her with. Trump jumped on her comment and condemned it as being a classic case of overt racism, which he says he condemns because he says he is not a racist, not like her. She is saying that race matters and that people should act their race. Of course, this is exactly what Trump said Judge Gonzolo Curiel would do, which is why Trump said he was unfit to rule on issues involving Trump or Trump University. That comment was identified and condemned at the time as "classic racism" by Paul Ryan, among many others. The Trump strategy when attacked is to accuse his accuser of the same thing, only worse. Pressley gave Trump his evidence.
The Democrats are so racist! They are the racists! Look at them!
The second is that it further imbeds the visible spokesmen of the left in identity centric politics. It de-legitimizes and divides, rather than unifies. If people have identity-based voices, then only women can truly speak for women, and only blacks can truly speak for blacks, Mexicans for Mexicans, Cubans for Cubans, Muslims for Muslims, and so on then can be no unifying voice. It makes frauds of everyone hoping to create a Democratic consensus with a male being presumptuous in trying to speak for reproductive rights, with a white person presumptuous and appropriating an identity to speak about issues relating to blacks or Latinos, any woman attempting to represent white working people. Every voice becomes illegitimate as one includes broader constituencies.
Voters hear exclusion. Identity politics pushes away more people than it draws in. We watched this happen in 2016. White people generally, and white males in particular, felt excluded. They voted for Trump.
The third is is that Pressley's thought presumes to tell people who they are and how they are supposed to be. It reduces individual choice. There are many ways to be black in America: Martin Luther King's way, Malcolm X's way, Cory Booker's, Barrack Obama's, Eddie Murphy's, Dr. Dre's. The notion that a person is supposed to "be black," with some underlying idea of how to be black, and not "acting white," is a kind of social tyranny, a requirement to conform or be thought disloyal to the group.
People can be themselves, on their own terms.
Pete Buttigieg came under criticism from an article in The New Republic--an article since deleted--because it accused him of not being sufficiently gay, to be homosexual without having actually participated in "gay culture." Buttigieg came out in his early 30's, and settled down and got married. The lived experience for Buttigieg didn't fit a stereotype and was therefore called illegitimate. He wasn't a "queer voice;" he is his voice.
Democrats risk trading places as the moral scolds in the culture war. For decades that role had been played by the self righteous political Christian right, the Moral Majority. Those disapproving moral prudes still exist, but they have made peace with Donald Trump, strong evidence that they can avert their eyes, live and let live.
Now it is the Democrats's turn to do the same. Let people be themselves, speak their own voices.
10 comments:
Ayanna Pressley is a racist, pure and simple. If black people don't think and speak exactly like her, then they are racists. Pressley thinks that she gets to dictate how black folks think and speak. It's unfortunate that Peter Sage minimizes her racism. He wouldn't if she were a republican. Then, Sage would attack her.
Everything that the democrats see is through racist glasses. They are the party of identity politics, where you are judged by your ethnicity or color. Republicans don't do that. Only democrats do. They are obsessed with race, and sexual identity.
Ayanna Pressley won't even be in congress in another year and a half. She'll be yesterday's news.
It's not one sided.
Rep. Pressley, and others, many many others, are reacting to the institutional racism being promoted by the current administration. ("Good people on both sides", etc.) When faced with escalating discrimination and hostility groups solidify for protection. This is not new. The agitation for equal rights is over 100 years old.
"Identity Politics" is a Regressive trope with the purpose of further stigmatizing oppressed minorities by castigating them for defending themselves. It's ludicrous on the face of it, but it gives confused moderates something to cling to when rationalizing their own prejudices. Progressive values are by definition inclusive while recognizing individual cultural differences, or more succinctly:
E Pluribus Unum
Don't forget for a moment that the election of the "squad", and other Progressives in 2018 scares the bejeezus out of Regressives.
It's only the beginning.
Thank you Peter for being such a rational and articulate voice. I enjoy reading your posts. Even though sometimes I don't agree with you.
Rick, sorry, but identity politics is NOT Regressive trope. You display your bias with the capital R.
Peter is more correct, and many in the silent majority likely agree.
In case you forgot, the term "silent majority" was coined by the ancient Greeks that meant the DEAD. Spiro Agnew used it to refer to Republicans. That's about right.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_majority
Anonymous 1. That you speak in absolutes: "Democrats think xxx," "Pressley thinks so and so", to me at least, suggests that maybe you are a bigot, but not a racist, with your sweeping projections. To be fair, I truly think we all have some racist instincts at our core, regardless of party affiliation or race. But for me, what matters is how we deal with it. Trump seems to have weaponized it and knowingly uses it to roust his base. So yeah, both Trump and Pressley are racists to some extent. But Pressley aint the leader of the free world. She's a freshman senator and perhaps should be better at politics. Trump on the other hand....
Read Pressley's comments. They were racist. If Trump had said them, then you'd be wetting your pants.
As for democrats, they embrace identity politics. That's not an absolute statement that fits 100% of every democrat, but it fits the majority of democrats. Democrats are already on record as saying that they want to nominate a presidential candidate "of color", and a female. Color or gender is the last thing I look at.
I don't expect all Caucasians to think alike. Some are liberal, and some are conservative, and some are in-between. Pressley expects all blacks to fall in-line, and think alike, and if they don't, then they're not really black in her book. I've seen other blacks say the same thing. It's called group-think, whereby nobody is allowed individuality. It's also racist to expect someone to think a particular way because of the pigment in their skin.
Sorry, but you sound really bigoted here. Group think? Come on. If she (Pressley, a rep, not even a senator) is a jerk, so be it. But these broad generalizations of yours say nothing of individuals, whom, like yourself presumably, think for themselves. Republicans don't have a corner on " individual thought process" (see mindless chanting Republicans at rally). That's absurd. Broad generalizations suck and don't help. That said, the president should try to make the United States more united with brilliant provocations, not idiotic sound bites to get votes from cornflakes.
(I'm a snowflake, you're a cornflakes, get it? Sorry, humor helps in these trying times.)
I agreed with most of Peter's post up until representation of women. I don't feel properly represented by men because they don't understand my circumstances. Not only do they not understand (although some of my favorites try), I don't believe it's possible for them to understand.
How do you explain the experience of getting your first period, or what cramps feel like, or having to change your preferred menstrual product between classes in high school? Or when you realize (with acceptance & dread) that this will now be your life for the next 40 years? What about how you felt the time you broke up with a boy who then proceeded to call you a slut? Then telling your roommate you are upset over what happened, she asks if you did something to deserve it.
Pregnancy and the public judgement over your coffee habits, finding out you make less than the men in the IT department, and many other experiences that are unique to women.
I don't think those experiences can transfer over to men, so I am glad more women are running for office because I feel like they represent me better than men do.
So in that respect, I agree with Pressley's comments. I don't think a caucasian person can properly represent a person of color because although they might say they don't see color (or whatever they have to tell themselves to absolve themselves of guilt over their unrecognized biases), they truly don't understand the experience of POC in the U.S.
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