Essentially contested concept: Essentially contested concepts (ECC) involve widespread agreement that a concept exists, e.g., racism, fairness, hate, but not on the best realization or real world examples of when the concept applies to speech or behavior. ECC are concepts the proper definition and use of inevitably involve endless disputes about their proper definitions and uses on the part of their users. These disputes cannot be settled by appeal to empirical evidence, linguistic usage, or the canons of logic alone. The disputes are socially polarizing and damaging when people in disagreement are unwilling to compromise for the sake of social harmony and function, or any other reason.
Racism: Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
The New York Times reported yesterday that for tomorrow’s Mississippi senate runoff election, Mike Espy, the Democrat challenging the Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith faces a very difficult problem in his campaign. Regarding a recent debate between the candidates, the NYT writes that Espy “had to make a choice: confront Ms. Hyde-Smith over her comments about attending ‘a public hanging’, which evoked the state’s racist history, or take a milder approach to avoid alienating the conservative-leaning white voters who will most likely decide the election.
He chose the latter.
‘The world knows what she said, the world knows that those comments were harmful and hurtful’, Mr. Espy said afterward, sounding not entirely convinced.
In a state where politics has long been cleaved by race, Mr. Espy was reckoning with a conundrum that Democrats face across the South — from Mississippi and Alabama, which have been hostile to the party for years, to states like Florida and Georgia that are more hospitable in cities but still challenging in many predominantly white areas. Even as they made gains in the 2018 elections in the suburbs that were once Republican pillars, Democrats are seeing their already weak standing in rural America erode even further.
Now, as Democrats mount a last-minute and decidedly against-the-odds campaign to snatch a Senate seat in this most unlikely of states, they are facing the same problem that undermined some of their most-heralded candidates earlier this month.
More ominous for Democrats was that the deep losses this year among rural and some exurban whites were not just confined to Southern states where they nominated unabashed progressives with hopes of transforming the midterm electorate. They lost four Senate seats, as well as governor’s races in states like Iowa and Ohio, with more conventional candidates whose strength in cities and upper-income suburbs was not enough to overcome their deficits in less densely populated areas.”
Is this racism or something else?: The question is so obvious it cannot be avoided. Why are many rural white voters seen as so sensitive about a candidate who directly confronts appearances or actual racism that they will be alienated? Is that merely tribal politics with no racist component, or is it evidence of racism? Survey data indicates that social unease among white voters about the impending change in their status from white majority to white minority and accompanying loss of social privilege was the most significant factor in Trump's win in 2016.
Since his election, President Trump has employed rhetoric that millions of Americans consider to be racist. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan once referred to a bit of Trump rhetoric as a “textbook definition of a racist comment”. Not surprisingly, Trump and most of his supporters strongly deny any racism plays any role in their political thinking, their rhetoric or their behavior. Some claim they are merely defending their culture, values and/or history. But that logic is flawed. What they defend includes what was overtly racist at one time all across America. Racism was never limited to just the South, and it still isn't. How can one separate defense of a culture, values and/or history that included racism as a significant component of society from a time before the founding of the Republic from a defense of racism?
Campaigning with one hand tied: In his Senate race, Mr Espy arguably is severely handicapped. For the most part, his opponent can use racist dog whistles to fire up whites who are (i) socially uneasy with impending demographic changes, and (ii) outright racist to some non-trivial degree. She can stoke fear and anger, while Espy cannot mount a rational defense without alienating white voters. She can deny any racism on her part and on the part of her supporters. Given the power of emotions and attitudes such as fear and racism to win hearts, minds and votes, Espy faces an almost impossible task. He has one hand tied behind his back.
Moral questions: Americans are clearly divided about whether populists and Republicans are being racist to some extent in their political rhetoric and behavior. In this, racism arguably is an essentially contested concept. Nearly all racist rhetoric and behavior is constitutionally protected free speech, so there is no legal recourse against it. Since this is in the context of a political campaign, there isn't anything to compromise about. Can one call politics with a racist component immoral to the extent that component exerts influence? If not, why not? Are racism and morality completely unrelated matters?
People like Trump who intentionally employ divisive tactics like racism are acting to normalize a concept that, if acted on in some ways, is illegal. When a leader like Trump works to normalize racism, some non-trivial segment of society adopts the thinking and acts on the new thoughts. If one accepts that President Trump is normalizing racism by employing dark free speech,[1] is that immoral? The law is not the only way to define what is moral and what isn't. Legal actions outside the law can be immoral and this is an example if normalizing racism is an aspect of what Trump is doing, whether he intends it or not or whether he is conscious of it or not.
Can racism include prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based not on the belief that one's own race is superior, but on a simple dislike of people of another race without any judgment of one’s own racial superiority?
Footnote:
1. Dark free speech: Lies, deceit, unwarranted opacity and fact hiding, unwarranted emotional manipulation including fomenting unwarranted fear, hate, intolerance, anger, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, disgust, etc.
B&B orig: 11/26/18
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