Thanks to everyone for their contributions to this thread. I am especially happy to hear from some new voices contributing such thoughtful comments to our community. I also appreciate the frame that has been created on this topic line,
which is that of folks have been sharing their thoughts from their perspective. Although I think debate and disagreement have their place, when dealing with issues such as these that are emotionally charged and fraught with personal and politically complexity,
I think the most productive way generally is for us to share our views, and try to position ourselves to empathize and learn from them others’ narratives. Since that is what I have grown from, I will take this opportunity to share my narrative.
As was mentioned the primary prompt for this thread was that I was going with Steve Q to the North American Sartre Conference where George Yancy was the keynote speaker. Of course, he was the author of the
I Am Sexist piece that started this discussion. That piece was a connected to an earlier piece on racism that he did, which was his
Dear White America Letter. That letter includes the notion that he is a sexist and then implores White America (in a “loving way”) to realize and embrace the idea that we are
racist. This was the focus of his keynote address, which was titled No Exit and the End of White Innocence. No Exit is a famous Sartean play (which actually we saw in Fredericksburg the night before) where people are in hell and cannot escape. Yancy’s
thesis was that all of White America is condemned to be racist. It is baked in to our society. His talk came at this thesis from a number of angles. Some of the more powerful and rawest elements were reading through a multitude of racist comments, letters,
and threats he received in the wake of his Dear White America letter. Over and over again, he was called a “n#$er” and told that his “black ass” would be beaten to a pulp or worse. He had voice mail threats and required a police escort for some time. It was
brutal to hear.
During the talk, I opened my heart to his story and sat with his pain. It is, of course, a tragedy that our country was built on the backs of black slaves and the horrible scar of racism remains with us to this day. And I told him, both
in a comment and when I looked him in the eye as I shook his hand, that I deeply appreciated his courage. The things the racists said to him were horrible. There can be no doubt that our country was born racist and that structural and institutional elements
of racism permeate through our republic to this day. And there can be no doubt, as evidenced so clearly in the hate mail he received, that many individuals still harbor primitive racist ideas.
But although I opened my heart to him, I did not simply submit to his argument. Everyone who knows me knows that my valuing of intellectual integrity means that I will always look to identify the social and psychological motives and forces
that are moving me toward or away from an idea, and use that insight to bracket the frame and then sort out the logic and evidence of the argument.
Dr. Yancy’s fundamental thesis was that there simply is “no exit” from my being a racist, as a white person in America. Much as the three main characters in Sartre’s play who are condemned to hell, I am already condemned. Not only that,
but for Yancy, I am already condemned completely. In the question and answer period, I asked him… “Are there some people who are closer to the exit than others?” He immediately saw what I was getting at. “I love the spatial metaphor,” he said. And, then he
struggled with it. He then did not like it. He waffled and wondered maybe and but to my read, he ultimately answered that no, there is no one who is closer.
In other words, the frame of his argument was that all whites are the same to him. And that is when I smiled to myself. I was fairly certain I had diagnosed his error and his reply confirmed it. White America is an abstraction that resides
at the level of the aggregate. Yancy has fused the individual with the aggregate. (A side note: It is not an uncommon error; much of the field of
psychology is guilty of a very similar kind of mistake). There is no exit for white America’s sins. And thus, for Yancy, no exit for individual Whites.
My identity is that I USED to be racist and sexist. But I am no longer. It was hard work to change. It started for me in a feminist class back in the late 1980s, and probably was not completed until I was a professor at JMU. That
is a rough developmental time period. It is not as though there was a date on the door when I found it. We are indeed born into a society that socializes its people in racist and sexist ways. Our history is powerfully entangled in racism and sexism, and we
have a long way to go. But it is also the case that our society has moved toward the exit, at least in my view of the world.
I knew Yancy’s frame was not complete because of my experience. His struggle with the spatial metaphor showed his frame was powerless in its capacity to chart my own growth and change and awakening and development toward the exit. His reply
to my question revealed, that in his analysis I was just a mark in the condemned space. But, this yields a troubling question:
How can we have an anti-racist movement that does not track a white person’s movements toward anti-racism?
My vision that there is an exit and that we can move toward exists in strong contrast to Dr. Yancy’s thesis we (as males or whites or any other majority-dominant group?), are all already condemned. The difference in visions is one of the
great debates facing the identity politics movement.
Best,
Gregg
___________________________________________
Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
(540) 568-7857 (phone)
(540) 568-4747 (fax)
Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.
Check out my Theory of Knowledge blog at Psychology Today at:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge
Check out my webpage at:
www.gregghenriques.com
From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]>
On Behalf Of Mathew Jamie Dunbaugh
Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2018 7:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Sartre, and ?Are all men sexist?
Well, I really appreciate what Helen has said. I was apprehensive about sending this because I find it an unhappy subject. And it's stressful how carefully I have to choose my words. Little is more offensive
than human sexuality. Nothing makes me as sure that this world is, for all intensive purposes, ruled by Satan. I don't mean that literally. The universe might be indifferent, but that indifference has all the aesthetic of evil.
I'm tall, white, and I've been told that I look like an alpha male. Yet I've been single most of my life largely because I don't fit Steve
Quackenbush's description of "all men". I've devoted my whole life to thinking carefully and the search for knowledge, so I take painstaking care when forming judgments of any kind. And I've always been uncomfortable with objectifying women, a sentiment that
has drawn contempt from people of both genders. But as a white man, I'm both racist and sexist, and nobody gives a shit how carefully I think. I understand that the male gender is sexist, but it's because biology demands it. But that doesn't mean all men are
personally sexist. Some of us refuse to participate, and often lose a great deal of power because of it.
If the left is going to corner white men into a demonized position, it had better give them a way out. If you never had any choice not to be guilty, something's
wrong with the whole situation and it's not going to turn out well. Frankly, I'm worried that identity politics is ruining western civilization. I'm still shocked at the loss of emphasis on the individual these days. But
anyone with strong opinions has to admit that this is a challenging moral dilemma. There are statistical differences between groups, in ways the left can be motivated or loathe to emphasize. On one hand, it's good to point out the vices of certain groups so
we might change them. On the other, everyone should recognize the injustice of being considered guilty of something just because you're a member of some group.
I'm surprised to hear people agree so easily that ALL men are sexist. Really? Every single one, and all to the same degree? What about a man who is asexual? Or a man with autism who might not even recognize much
of gender at all? What about a man raised with the highest degree of conscience, devoted his whole life to resisting any and all bigoted norms, even to the extent of losing everything and being judged as weak by his community? There's so much variation in
the world so I don't see how the statement can be justified. Is the male gender
generally sexist? Yes, as is the female gender in its own ways. I'd say biology is sexist, ...but cultural evolution might change that.
All of us were once children who had no idea what's going on and simply found ourselves in fortunate or unfortunate circumstances, enjoying our good luck or suffering our bad luck. We all simply flowed along
the current of incentives, blaming each other and hardly ever realizing that it's the incentive structures ruling over us making it irresistible to harm each other. But each of us is responsible for the world; we are responsible for accepting these incentive
structures or not. And because the crowd doesn't stand up together all at once, and almost everyone is guilty of simply following the current, those of us who don't accept unjust incentive structures often lose. The good almost always lose, it seems to me.
I'll also say that the female gender is not free from responsibility for the incentive structures that make puppets of us, including making men sexist. The attached page from Brene Brown's book "Daring Greatly"
supports my view that women have a powerful role in shaping the dominance hierarchy of men and in driving men to seek power over each other. Also in my experience, other men tend to be more compassionate and understanding of male weakness than women. Biologically
speaking (something we haven't yet transcended BTW) ...It's for women that men must be strong most of all. Also, power is often mysterious but I have some female friends who would admit that if you can come to understand women's sexual preferences, you can
understand power and vice versa. And the "good" and "power" aren't the same thing. While the female gender might hold some responsibility, I hesitate to blame actual women for being this way because doing so would go against all sense. We're all trapped in
the roles that we play and the incentives they provide, and it sometimes takes a life of almost suicidal rebellion to really do the right thing, and even then it's probably a waste unless one can change the norms and change everyone.
ALL people need to forever be expanding their minds to understand more what it's like to be others, and to understand our human nature. We are always undergoing the evolution of domestication and justification. I
see the problem of identity politics as a consequence of progressives generally trying to do the right thing, and I see the justice women can get from approaching the day men will finally understand and respect what they have to deal with, but it goes both
ways... or in all directions. The solution is for all of us to increase our moral sophistication. We're going to have to entrust common people with the responsibility of thinking carefully, and it has to start with intelligent, honest leadership.
Rather than getting every man to admit that he's a guilty sexist, we should keep in mind the incentives our roles come with and hold people accountable to the bigger picture. People should question the priveledges
they get with their roles.
As culture evolves we are all continually learning what justice is, and I would say it is our duty as homo sapiens to continue that struggle. Every individual is responsible for the world.
P.S. As an intellectual, of course my position is that justice depends on people getting better at finding out what's true... so in other words, yes, being more like me. But to be honest, I'm afraid of what the
truth will do to us. I suspect culture evolves towards truth, so I hope the truth can one day be compatible with our feelings.
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