[socjust, p/a/s, curr ev] Fwd: The Significance of Overt Racism

[siderea]

I commend to you this brilliant essay from the Hannah Arendt Center: The Significance of Overt Racism. It discusses how the Nazis used antisemitism to undermine the rule of law, and how Trump's expressed antipathy towards Muslims and Latinxs fits right into that pattern: [...] Arendt discloses for us how we might go about apprehending the

Comments

[fabrisse]

A few years ago, at my request, my father wrote a short essay about living under segregation. He wrote about friendships being terminated -- gently, but decisively -- when both boys got to be 10, and the babysitter who told wonderful stories, but was never given the opportunity to write them down. In his conclusion, looking at that time in hindsight, his main feeling was a sense of waste: of talents, of resources, of opportunities. His way out was via his father, who, whatever his faults, never made racist remarks and jazz. He figured people who made music like that couldn't be the stereotypes his town made out black people (and Jews) to be.

[clevermanka]

Racism understood as consciously held and expressed racist beliefs and sentiments, many scholars suggested, was largely a thing of the past. The story went, today, the majority of whites are really committed to racial equality.

Academia drives me up a wall (I'm a secretary at a Midwestern state university so I get to see this stuff all day, every day). If the people who wrote that story (of most white people being committed to racial equality) had stepped into the worlds of most of the students they're teaching and actually observed what was happening (instead of assuming they already knew), they'd have learned otherwise pretty quickly. Unfortunately, they're learning it now, dragging the rest of us along to read a basic reader book we've already memorized

[livredor]

I am curious: have you tried reading Arendt herself as well as summaries of her writing? She reminds me of how you write in several ways. I think I can best express it as: she's figured out a lot of stuff about how humans work by really perceptive and skilled observation, and she's trying to communicate her insights to an audience who are somewhat resistant to new ideas. Also she writes about fascism and racism, so you know, kind of topical.

[dewline]

Noting this for future study. Urgent future study.