I’m not big on prayer. I’ve been an atheist since about age 15. That’s more than 20 years ago, so it’s something that probably won’t change. But here’s one situation that comes close to driving me to prayer. It pops up from time to time from social justice activists who take perspectives like this one from DiDi Delgado writing in Medium.
Let’s take a look at what’s wrong with this perspective.
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A Hot Mess
So, the article I linked above is a hot mess. But not uniquely so. It represents a way of thinking among some social activists that has grown all too common.
To be clear, much of Delgado’s critique of SURJ is on point. She’s right that groups like this have their problems. Like Delgado, I don’t see much getting done when a room full of whites talk in circles about whiteness.
But when you pull out to take a broader look, you see a masochistic vision at best and a nihilistic one at worst. Delgado appears to call on guilty white liberals to engage in endless self-flagellation, with no real goal in mind other than petty comeuppance. And so, the article moves from insightful critique to directionless, dilettantish politics.
That’s no way to build a movement.
The Opposite of Solidarity
There’s a quote in the article that represents the core of its politics:
An ally should be personally gaining NOTHING through their activism. In fact, if you are an ally, you should be losing things through your activism; space, voice, recognition, validation, identity and ego.
Indeed, that quote gets at the heart of the particular brand of social justice activism that I’m drawing attention to here. Quotes like this are recipes for failure – every time – if the goal is to build a functional movement that gets things done. Perhaps it’s a cathartic quote. Perhaps it helps establish a sense of control (for better or for worse).
But, politically, it’s a big, big loser. No one except a few liberal-minded, highly-educated and/or wealthy people ever join movements explicitly aimed against their own interests. And even they don’t care that much for self-flagellation. They just don’t do it. The world dooms these movements to fail, if racial justice was even the goal in the first place.
But we can make a further point here. No one – white or black – benefits from a world where nearly everyone – white and black – is dragged down, kept in low wage work, forced into endless self-doubt, and browbeaten into Maoist-style self-flagellation. I haven’t met a single person who finds those things genuinely inspiring or worth fighting for. The people into it try to spread their own misery to others or take advantage of those struggling with issues of self-doubt.
On the contrary, good racial justice activism involves people of color and whites working together to build collective power and popular organizations. You don’t get there by manipulating and browbeating your colleagues.
