long time guy wrote:
Coates was correct when he referenced safe spaces during racial discussions involving Trump. For instance it is much easier/safer to think of his victory as more of an Anti Hillary vote as opposed to a Pro Trump vote. It is easier to think of the birther movement as something promoted by Hillary Clinton and not him also. The vote for Trump had more to do with working class angst as opposed to racial backlash. This narrative has been consistently pushed even though post election polling showed that Hillary actually received a greater share of the vote from those making less than $50,000.
I'll grant right off the bat that the media's focus on the white working class has sucked for a plethora of reasons, including but not limited to the ones you cite. And it's more comforting for a general view of the US citizenry to continue to believe racism is something confined only to the periphery. That said, I'd suggest for much of Coates' largely white liberal centrist readership in
The Atlantic and the press pundits who give him glowing reviews, it is in fact much easier to dismiss Trump voters as racists who could never have any hope of redemption.
Coates certainly understands racism as systematic, but essays like this just reinforce the current Democratic and liberal focus on racism as being a strictly individualist phenomenon and as something so ontologically primitive that it is impossible to confront at all through the dull work of coalition building and persuasion. It likewise reinforces the notion of politics consisting of good and bad people and makes the whole project of discussion disposable, with combative call-outs being a more cathartic replacement. It fits in nicely with the horrid demographic arguments so many Democratic strategists constantly trumpet, as if we just have to wait for the racist poors to die out and everything will then be hunky dory. Never mind the fact that people switched from Obama to Trump and never mind the fact that on many issues Trump is not negating but actually reinforcing Obama's legacy (which consists of the good
and bad things he did in office) and never mind the fact that the main reason Hillary lost was because so many people in the Obama coalition stayed home altogether. It's instead far more comforting to believe the people failed the Democratic party and by extension the nation and that they can never be moved at all, rather than the Democratic party failing the people.
I'd suggest even Coates' work which most stridently portrays racism as systematic like the reparations essay still allows liberals this comfort because the proposal is so vague and unspecified that the main response to that essay isn't to actually advocate for reparation but instead sigh and reflect about the tragic failures of America without any change to the status quo whatsoever, most especially and importantly capitalism and the myth of meritocracy.
This is why I found the Haider essay I linked to on the first page as well as
R.L. Stephens' criticism more compelling as they're about actual political action rather than the paralysis or mere reflection that so many middle and upper middle class liberals take away from his essays. Coates of course is free to write about whatever he wants and doesn't need to present a step-by-step plan for change in anything that he writes, but I worry the effect of them is that readers merely have their consciousness raised without changing any aspect of their lives at all.
I actually believe that Coates was on to something. The Republican Party has played identity politics more than anyone. When you look at the past 50 years it is they that have chosen to shun groups which help comprise "the others". They have absolutely no use for the black vote. Black politicians must take the oath of token in order to gain any traction. Immigrants are targeted lest they agree to wash dishes and cut grass first. Policies which seek to benefit minority groups are often targeted for extinction. Hate groups are often allowed to park somewhere on the fringes of the party without ever being rebuked. Their slogans often harken back to an era where lynching, racism, bigotry, and corrupted legal systems were the rule.
Republicans have rightly learned how to play the divisive game. They in essence throw rocks and hide their hands. Democrats indulge them but not enough in my book. Obama tip toed around it for 8 years and still was considered divisive by some on the right. Hillary didn't make the sale on it either. Democrats are fearful of ticking off the white working class by indulging in too much "race talk". Dates back to FDR which Coates correctly noted.
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