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Tuesday, Jan 27, 2015 5:50 PM UTC
When “political correctness” hurts: Understanding the micro-aggressions that trigger Jonathan Chait
A new opus on progressive racial extremism features the liberal writer’s trademark mix of insight and overreaction
Topics: Jonathan Chait, political correctness, New York Magazine, Charlie Hebdo, Charlie Hebdo attacks, Brittney Cooper, Liberalism, Free Speech, Race, Media News, News, Politics News
When New York magazine teased Jonathan Chait’s coming opus on race, politics and free speech last Friday – “Can a white liberal man critique a culture of political correctness?” — the hook alone was enough to send his Twitter haters into multiple ragegasms. I thought folks should save themselves some grief and at least wait until the story itself appeared before defaulting to fury. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad.
But to anyone who hated that teaser, I’m sure, the story itself is just that bad. Chait continues to pick the scab of his suffering over the fact that the every musing of white liberal men (and women, to be fair) about race and politics is no longer welcomed for its contribution to the struggle. He no doubt finished his piece before the Twitter backlash against Nick Kristof for suggesting the police reform movement find a more “compelling face” than Mike Brown, because he doesn’t mention it, though it’s the kind of thing that sets him off.
This is not to say that there are no good points in Chait’s piece, only that his tone of grievance and self-importance, as though he’s warning us of a threat to our democracy that others either can’t see or are too intimidated to fight, makes it very hard to parse.
Chait is over the terms “mansplaining,” “whitesplaining” and “straightsplaining,” as he thinks they’ve become efforts to silence or subdue men, whites and straights. He hates the whole concept of “micro-aggressions,” and I will admit here, I have my own ambivalence about the term: There ought to be a better word for the myriad slights from white people that undermine people who aren’t white. The label mocks itself; if they’re really “micro,” shouldn’t we be spending our time on our bigger problems? Like so much rhetoric from the left, it’s best used preaching to the choir: I’m not sure anyone who isn’t already comfortable with the notion is going to have his or her mind opened by it.
But in his obsession with attacking ideas like “micro-aggressions,” Chait seems unaware that what he is seething about is just his own version of a micro-aggression. Because, really: If you want to dismiss the necessary project of making white people aware of their own racial subjectivity, and privilege; if you want to reduce that project to its smallest and most easily mocked components – well, you’re as fragile a flower in your own way as the women you criticize.
And make no mistake: It’s almost exclusively women of color being called out in this piece. On behalf of white liberal women who’ve had our feelings hurt on social media over the years, I feel like I’m supposed to thank Chait for coming to our defense. Because that’s how much of it reads: as an attack on women of color for saying some not-nice things to white progressive women. It’s chivalrous, almost; and chauvinistic, too, as though we can’t speak up for ourselves.
He singles out MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry and Salon’s Brittney Cooper for rhetorical excess. He cites the brave work of white feminist truth tellers like Michelle Goldberg and Hanna Rosin – women I admire, by the way – and defends them from their critics, though they’re perfectly capable of defending themselves. He discusses one or two male victims of the p.c. backlash – but does not appear to name a single male perpetrator of p.c. excess.
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