I am finding it increasingly difficult, if not damn near impossible, to have civil conversation about difficult topics these days, and in light of recent events, that is putting the point mildly. Much of the hard work stems from the bad faith that often shadows debate and deliberation in this country. People don’t mean what they say or say what they mean. And sometimes that bad faith extends beyond the immediate understanding of the phrase to a kind of self-deception: people deny the facts right in front of them and avoid what it means to act responsibly considering the choices and situations in which they find themselves.
Bad faith joins with the performative nature of virtue. Sometimes I find myself more interested in being perceived as virtuous than in acting virtuously. We wear our politics on our sleeves or on the front of our shirts. That can preemptively end certain kinds of encounters. I don’t talk with conservatives, some say. I want to own the libs, others declare. All with an eye for demonstrating ideological bona fides. Sometimes this can lead to acts of censure. What some call cancel culture is not the singular possession of the so-called radical left. We see it across the political spectrum. We saw it with the response to the murder of Charlie Kirk. All too often censure proceeds from an assumption that those with whom we disagree, especially on certain subjects, are enemies that we hold with contempt.
We go beyond disagreement and draw the conclusion that whoever holds such a view must be a bad person. This happens a lot these days. I do it. I have watched as the likes of Matt Walsh and others attack Mehdi Hasan. They say he should be denaturalized and deported. They argue that slavery is America’s biggest founding myth. Walsh describes himself as a theocratic fascist. He celebrates America and denies Hasan any claim on the country. I suppose Walsh isn’t engaging in bad faith. He is candid and direct with his hatreds. So, it is easy for me to conclude that his positions reflect his character.
But these sorts of judgments are often drawn in response to a wide range of positions. How do I not infer from your stance on immigration or your support of ICE, for example, that you are not a racist? That your support of Border Patrol agents and ICE tear gazing Americans doesn’t reveal something about you? How can I keep from concluding that your MAGA hat isn’t an indication of your character? One can see how this goes. And it is here that conversation and debate often run aground. Symbolic shorthands have already done the work for us. Sometimes we try to smoke out the background assumptions that shape a particular view – assumptions that have a moral and ethical register. But, more often than not, instead of disagreeing, we end up seeing each other as enemies across hard battle lines.
This is particularly challenging for discussions around race. So much of public conversation about race in the U.S. is couched in bad faith. Between masking and the desire not to be seen as racist, we have historically engaged in a delicate dance since the 1960s. We lie. At least that was the case. Now we face explicit racist claims as some seek to dismantle the post-1960s consensus. Dog whistles have become fog horns.
How do we deal with each other civilly when a host of racist assumptions about who I am inform the debate? Or when white nationalism shapes public policy and stands as a critical ideological pillar of the Trump administration? How do we debate DEI? How do we think about the value of diversity under such conditions? And how might we think about the country generally when we are moved about by a past we refused to know and the ugliness of a present that reflects that refusal?
It is clear to me, and I hope it is clear to you, that we cannot avoid or evade the reality of our current troubles. Racism still sits on the throne of this nation, and there are those who rejoice in that fact—they are even evangelical about it. We cannot fall for the old trick that naming this reality will only inflame passions, leaving the racism to fester and the racists to rage.
Today, as I have written here before, we are living among those who long for the fantasy of a white Republic. They desire not only to rid the nation of Black and brown people but aim to banish us and the issue of race from the nation’s moral conscience. In the hands of people like Walsh and many of the 3.9 million folks who follow him on X or consume his content on The Daily Wire, the particulars of Black history are reduced to a mere footnote in the struggle for democracy. In their hands, America’s sins are settled by the wishful effort to wash the nation clean. This is the America they claim as their own. The rest of us be damned or, as in the case of Mehdi Hasan, told to leave the country.
I am trying to figure out how we get to the other side of this madness. I know the path involves engaging one another in good faith and not rushing to judgment about the character of those with whom we disagree. I know that it is, in part, looking back honestly and taking in the lessons of our national history. We must do so in good faith as we try to imagine a different way of being together. I also know that this is not enough.
But it is clear to me that we cannot stand in right relation with one another if we continue to lie to each other.
Panic has grabbed hold of millions of Americans as they fret, among other things, about the so-called great replacement. That panic has led many to believe that the primary purpose of Donald Trump’s administration is to take back the country for them. ICE has been charged to make America white again. The Supreme Court, with its pending decision around the Voting Rights Act, will put Black folk in their proverbial place electorally. Whether people will admit it or not, Trumpism works as a restorative project: it aims to reclaim an American past where white people are at the center—the standard bearers, the measure for what is truly American. In this vision, the diversity of the nation is an ancillary feature of the American story, Ellis Island a minor plot.
Whatever view of America emerged during the 1960s social revolutions, whatever gains around race the nation has made since that period—whether it was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Immigration Act of 1965 or the election of the first African American president—these Americans want to snatch them away. They want to do away with the tensions that come with the exposure of America’s divided soul. People like Walsh want to turn back the clock to ensure a future for the country that looks like what they desire.
In the end, the discovery of who we are as a nation can only be found in a good faith confrontation with the fears that move us about. We cannot hide from each other or from our sins. We can no longer imprison people in categories that cut off their humanity from our own. That only makes us monstrous. A moral choice with political implication must be made: will this country be a beacon of freedom or will it be a white Republic? It cannot be both. That is the source of the madness.
If we are going to make it to the other side of our troubles, we are going to have to stop dancing around what we are seeing, hearing, and feeling. Greedy racists are running wild. And we are going to have to stop lying to ourselves about it. Because the lies, to paraphrase Dostoevsky, are the source of our suffering.
I am white. I am female and 74 y.o. many of my friends have no malice towards POC and wish them good, safe, productive lives. I find in my world, the ones that feel this way have always had the equality gene.
But, I know many more, friends (some ex), neighbors, and associates with common interest who are racists. Usually, they have been this way all their lives. Sometimes racism was an undercurrent, but now due to the racist environment of our country they feel free to express their racism loudly and to play the victim.
I grew up honoring MLK, his ideas, and his philosophy. I am color blind mostly 100% of the time. It hurts me to see blacks, hispanics. Native Americans, and other ethnicities treated less than, by so called white Americans. Everyone in this country should have equal opportunity under the law.
Thank you Eddie for your article. I perk up everytime I see you on TV and your writing. I find your intelligence, delivery, Andra kindness refreshing.
We are in a "valley" phase right now, but soon I hope we are going back up that hill to the shining city on the peak.
Beautiful article, perfectly said. In my book, anyone who disparages Mehdi Hassan is the problem and is the one who should leave the country. I'm tired of these racists thinking it's ok to turn people's upside down and having the singular goal of making America nothing but a white nation. I will fight to my last breath to see that the exquisite diversity of our nation flourishes and is taught to the generations coming up. Our children need to be steeped in the richness of different cultures and races, it's how they learn to be better human beings and stewards of our history. It's how we strengthen our society to actually achieve that more perfect union our founding fathers had hoped for us.
I hope your mother is doing well, I've been less active online for a while and am not up to date on current events with my cherished authors here.....may she be blessed and happy, may her health be restored. Many thanks for your deep and thoughtful articles. 🙏💙🕊️