Apparently I have "white fragility" and didn't know it

I just read an editorial by a young man named Bennett Carpenter, writing in The Duke Chronicle.  Frankly, it’s just so high-brow that a lowly puritanical nut like me is probably in way over his head to comment, but I’ll give it a whirl, since I can't help myself when there is so much irony packed into such a small package.

He starts his article by saying “I am thinking about how an urgent and overdue conversation about racism—on our campus and across our country—has been derailed by a diversionary and duplicitous obsession with the First Amendment.”  What I think he is suggesting is that not all speech is protected by the First Amendment and, therefore, hiding behind the First Amendment is unhelpful.  He is correct in this sense: you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater if there is no fire (which he incorrectly quotes as “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater” – we’ll give him a pass since he’s not a lawyer).  From this standpoint, he is correct in asserting the First Amendment (a) doesn’t protect all speech and (b) isn’t always implicated in speech.  Nonetheless, does it not follow that because the government can’t generally censor speech, and because of this country’s history of engaging in all kinds of speech, we don’t see a great deal of censorship at any level, including at the private level?  In other words, the First Amendment casts a long shadow, which helps protect speech even when it really has no true authority.  Duke University is a private institution that could have easily censored Mr. Carpenter’s article for any reason, some reason, or no reason at all, yet it chose not to do so.  Mr. Carpenter would have nothing to say if Duke did so, since the First Amendment clearly isn’t implicated (Duke is not a government actor).  Yet one can only wonder what howls would issue forth from Mr. Carpenter and like-minded thinkers if Duke decided it wasn’t going to allow his article to be placed in the university newspaper.

He loses me when he seems to suggest that in order to have an actual conversation about race, only those who are “anti-racist” should be invited.  He loses me when he excludes almost all white people from the conversation because they’re suffering from “white fragility” which he defines as “a range of defensive behaviors through which white people (or more accurately, people who believe they are white) deflect conversations about race and racism in order to protect themselves from race-based stress.”  Translated into plain English, I think he’s claiming most white people often try to avoid talking about racism because it makes them feel uncomfortable which, in turn, means they’re racist.  Ironically, even though he’s white, he’s not one of those people.  Reality check for Mr. Carpenter - about 65 percent of the US population is white, so you simply can't just erase them from the conversation.  Moreover, it is an absurdity of cataclysmic proportion to claim, without evidence, that "almost all" white people are racist.  How many of the roughly 214 million white people in America are, in fact, racist, Mr. Carpenter?  And upon what realistic basis did you arrive at your conclusion?

The heart of his argument is that despite appearances of “a nice equivalence between racists and anti-racists—both exercising free-speech freedoms, which must be equally and indiscriminately defended” this is, in fact, false.  Why?  Because “words are actions.”  According to Mr. Carpenter, because of “the centuries-long history of racialized oppression to which hate speech contributes . . . [h]ate speech is thus both violent and an incitement to further violence.”  Since it is per se  violent this should allow the government to step in to stop it and subject to punishment anyone who uses words to “harm.”  Never mind that the “harm” from words is, inevitably, subjective, as opposed, to say the harm from striking someone with a baseball bat.  Moreover, never mind that Mr. Carpenter seems blissfully unaware that there are actually people who might reasonably find some of the things he is saying harmful.  Ironically, either this thought has never crossed Mr. Carpenter’s mind or he doesn’t care because his kind of harm is okay since it's not racist.  Never mind that he might be egregiously offending others who are not racists (more on that below).

Mr. Carpenter implies there ought to be laws against hate speech, but then argues there’s no point in trying to get the government in on it, because “the very government quite literally built on white supremacy [can’t] save us from its effects.” 

The fundamental problem with Mr. Carpenter’s entire argument is that its underlying rationale assumes somehow banning racist speech will help.  We have laws by which we have banned murder and rape but last time I checked, that hasn’t stopped murder and rape. If such speech is tantamount to murder, as Mr. Carpenter suggests, then doesn’t logic indicate banning it won’t stop it?   The fact is that people who already think murder and rape are immoral refrain from engaging in the conduct – they don’t need laws to stop them.  Same with racism.  There are many white people who are not engaging in racism and aren’t having any “white fragility.”  Why?  Because they already believe racism is morally unacceptable and aren’t afraid to say so.  Ironically, Mr. Carpenter seems to include himself in this group.  These folks don’t need Mr. Carpenter’s speech laws to stop them from engaging in racist speech.  They already don’t do it. Racism is wrong.

Moreover, despite Mr. Carpenter’s assertions to the contrary, speech is NOT action.  Yelling a racial epithet at someone is unequivocally NOT the same as lynching them or beating them.  Yes, all three actions are harmful, but ask anyone who has been seriously beaten whether they’d rather just have someone yelling at them.  Reality has to enter the discussion.  In a free society we must come to a place where we draw a line in favor of, not against, ignorant, stupid, and even mean-spirited discourse, if only so those who do it may be shown to be the ignorant, stupid, and mean-spirited creatures they are by their very engagement in the speech.   Mr. Carpenter seems unable to appreciate how simple this is: when we grant people freedom to show how utterly ridiculous their beliefs are, others simply will not accept those beliefs.  That’s why Nazi marches attract more protesters than supporters.  That’s why you don’t see the Keeping Up with the KKK show on television – who’s going to watch it?  The very movement on college campuses against racism is, itself, ironic proof that freedom of speech works best to root out such things.  Are not college students free to rail against racism? 

The irony in all this is deliciously inescapable.  Via freely writing in a university newspaper, which gets freely distributed to students on campus, and which is freely disbursed across the internet, Mr. Carpenter argues there ought to be significant limitations on free speech.  Even more ironic, Mr. Carpenter graciously exempts himself from being one of those people, that is, the kind who say things that harm others.  Yet, his entire column smacks of a holier than thou attitude, as if his Duke education somehow grants him insight into all this that rest of us unwashed and pathetic ignoramuses lack.  Is that kind of noblesse oblige not offensive?  My dad understood race relations extremely well as a result of 30 years in the United States Air Force.  He would hardly need some 28 year old PhD. student explaining the facts of life to him.  He told me again and again from the time I was small that a man is judged by the content of his character, not the color of his skin (I wonder where that came from, Mr. Carpenter?).  Carpenter's entire column is a verbal punch in the face to men like my Dad who diligently sought to make sure his children were clear about what matters when it comes to engaging with others.  Apparently, Mr. Carpenter feels quite at ease offending such folks and is blissfully unaware of just how ignorant, vapid, and silly he sounds.

In the end I must forgive Mr. Carpenter for making such a fool of himself.  He’s a product of a system that has taught him that he makes sense and is behaving righteously.  Yet, as I am regularly reminded, none are righteous, no not one.  We are all in Mr. Carpenter’s boat (including me, most of all).  In making such absurd pronouncements Mr. Carpenter wants to do good; however, what he is really doing, and this is the most grotesque irony of all, is simply trying to soothe his own conscience, to show he doesn't have any white fragility.  Well, Mr. Carpenter, that isn’t going to happen by telling people there ought to be laws barring free speech.  That will only happen through the blood of Jesus, shed at the cross on Golgotha, where everyone is leveled to the same place – prostrate in front of the God of the universe begging for forgiveness.  Until you understand that reality, no amount of whining about white fragility will ever change anything.