Die meisten Extremisten haben sich ein Weltbild aufgebaut, in dem sie die Verfolgten und Ausgegrenzten sind, aber das ist nur ein Weltbild, keine faktenbasierte Erkenntnis. Das lĂ€sst sich nur solange halten, wie sie das auch so erfahren. Durch "No Platform" bestĂ€rkt man die noch in ihrer Wagenburg-MentalitĂ€t. Und man macht sich gleichzeitig alle Chancen kaputt, gefĂ€hrdete Menschen noch aufzufangen, bevor sie sich solchen Gruppierungen anschlieĂen.
Hier ging es schon mal um so eine Geschichte, damals beim Sohn des Stormfront-GrĂŒnders. Der hat gegen "die Juden" gehetzt, bis er am College auf welche traf und die ihn nicht nur nicht rausschmissen, als sie rausfanden, wer er ist, sondern ihn einluden. Und dann konnten sie ihn umstimmen.
Und hier ist noch so eine Geschichte, passend zur Weihnachtszeit. Es geht um einen schwarzen Pianisten, der in einer Kaschemme in Maryland, einem Truck Stop, Klavier gespielt hat, und im Publikum saà ein Ku-Klux-Klan-Mitglied. Die haben ins GesprÀch, der Pianist lieà sich weiterreichen unter den Klansmen, und erreichte so den "Grand Dragon", den Klan-Chef von Maryland.
Er fordere die Rassisten heraus, »aber nicht auf unhöfliche oder grobe Art. Man macht das höflich und klug. Wenn man die Dinge auf diese Weise angeht, stehen die Chancen gut, dass sie zuhören und dir auch eine Plattform geben. Kelly und ich haben uns ĂŒber die Jahre immer wieder hingesetzt und uns ausgetauscht. Der Mörtel, der sein Weltbild betonierte, begann zu bröckeln. Dann zu zerbrechen. Und dann fiel es ganz in sich zusammen.«Und mit dieser Herangehensweise hat er erreicht, dass sich der Klan in Maryland aufgelöst hat.Es ist eben schwer, jemanden zu hassen, den man gut kennt.
Ein schwarzer Pianist. Hat den KKK in Maryland aufgelöst. Völlig gewaltfrei. Durch mit den Leuten reden.
Und was mich an der Story am meisten mitnimmt: Er wird auch noch angefeindet fĂŒr seine Methoden. Von anderen Schwarzen, die ihn als VerrĂ€ter beschimpfen. Hier ist seine Antwort:
An dieser Stelle zieht Davis gerne seine zwei Dutzend Klan-Roben aus dem Schrank und sagt: »Schau, das habe ich gemacht, um dem Rassismus einen Denkzettel zu verpassen. Ich habe die Roben und Hauben von mehr als zwei Dutzend Menschen in meinem Schrank, die ihre Ansichten geÀndert haben, weil ich mich mit ihnen an einen Tisch gesetzt habe. Und, was machen Sie? Wie viele Roben haben Sie gesammelt?« Das lÀsst die meisten Kritiker verstummen.Wer gut Englisch kann, kann sich hier den Original-Podcast anhören, wo der Pianist seine Geschichte erzÀhlt.
When young people arrive at college they are encouraged to keep this focus on themselves by student groups, faculty members and also administrators whose full-time job is to deal with — and heighten the significance of — “diversity issues.” Fox News and other conservative media outlets make great sport of mocking the “campus craziness” that surrounds such issues, and more often than not they are right to. Which only plays into the hands of populist demagogues who want to delegitimize learning in the eyes of those who have never set foot on a campus. How to explain to the average voter the supposed moral urgency of giving college students the right to choose the designated gender pronouns to be used when addressing them? How not to laugh along with those voters at the story of a University of Michigan prankster who wrote in “His Majesty”?
This campus-diversity consciousness has over the years filtered into the liberal media, and not subtly. Affirmative action for women and minorities at America’s newspapers and broadcasters has been an extraordinary social achievement — and has even changed, quite literally, the face of right-wing media, as journalists like Megyn Kelly and Laura Ingraham have gained prominence. But it also appears to have encouraged the assumption, especially among younger journalists and editors, that simply by focusing on identity they have done their jobs.
Recently I performed a little experiment during a sabbatical in France: For a full year I read only European publications, not American ones. My thought was to try seeing the world as European readers did. But it was far more instructive to return home and realize how the lens of identity has transformed American reporting in recent years. How often, for example, the laziest story in American journalism — about the “first X to do Y” — is told and retold. Fascination with the identity drama has even affected foreign reporting, which is in distressingly short supply. However interesting it may be to read, say, about the fate of transgender people in Egypt, it contributes nothing to educating Americans about the powerful political and religious currents that will determine Egypt’s future, and indirectly, our own. No major news outlet in Europe would think of adopting such a focus.
But it is at the level of electoral politics that identity liberalism has failed most spectacularly, as we have just seen. National politics in healthy periods is not about “difference,” it is about commonality. And it will be dominated by whoever best captures Americans’ imaginations about our shared destiny. Ronald Reagan did that very skillfully, whatever one may think of his vision. So did Bill Clinton, who took a page from Reagan’s playbook. He seized the Democratic Party away from its identity-conscious wing, concentrated his energies on domestic programs that would benefit everyone (like national health insurance) and defined America’s role in the post-1989 world. By remaining in office for two terms, he was then able to accomplish much for different groups in the Democratic coalition. Identity politics, by contrast, is largely expressive, not persuasive. Which is why it never wins elections — but can lose them.
The media’s newfound, almost anthropological, interest in the angry white male reveals as much about the state of our liberalism as it does about this much maligned, and previously ignored, figure. A convenient liberal interpretation of the recent presidential election would have it that Mr. Trump won in large part because he managed to transform economic disadvantage into racial rage — the “whitelash” thesis. This is convenient because it sanctions a conviction of moral superiority and allows liberals to ignore what those voters said were their overriding concerns. It also encourages the fantasy that the Republican right is doomed to demographic extinction in the long run — which means liberals have only to wait for the country to fall into their laps. The surprisingly high percentage of the Latino vote that went to Mr. Trump should remind us that the longer ethnic groups are here in this country, the more politically diverse they become.
Finally, the whitelash thesis is convenient because it absolves liberals of not recognizing how their own obsession with diversity has encouraged white, rural, religious Americans to think of themselves as a disadvantaged group whose identity is being threatened or ignored. Such people are not actually reacting against the reality of our diverse America (they tend, after all, to live in homogeneous areas of the country). But they are reacting against the omnipresent rhetoric of identity, which is what they mean by “political correctness.” Liberals should bear in mind that the first identity movement in American politics was the Ku Klux Klan, which still exists. Those who play the identity game should be prepared to lose it.
We need a post-identity liberalism, and it should draw from the past successes of pre-identity liberalism. Such a liberalism would concentrate on widening its base by appealing to Americans as Americans and emphasizing the issues that affect a vast majority of them. It would speak to the nation as a nation of citizens who are in this together and must help one another. As for narrower issues that are highly charged symbolically and can drive potential allies away, especially those touching on sexuality and religion, such a liberalism would work quietly, sensitively and with a proper sense of scale. (To paraphrase Bernie Sanders, America is sick and tired of hearing about liberals’ damn bathrooms.)
Teachers committed to such a liberalism would refocus attention on their main political responsibility in a democracy: to form committed citizens aware of their system of government and the major forces and events in our history. A post-identity liberalism would also emphasize that democracy is not only about rights; it also confers duties on its citizens, such as the duties to keep informed and vote. A post-identity liberal press would begin educating itself about parts of the country that have been ignored, and about what matters there, especially religion. And it would take seriously its responsibility to educate Americans about the major forces shaping world politics, especially their historical dimension.
Some years ago I was invited to a union convention in Florida to speak on a panel about Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous Four Freedoms speech of 1941. The hall was full of representatives from local chapters — men, women, blacks, whites, Latinos. We began by singing the national anthem, and then sat down to listen to a recording of Roosevelt’s speech. As I looked out into the crowd, and saw the array of different faces, I was struck by how focused they were on what they shared. And listening to Roosevelt’s stirring voice as he invoked the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want and the freedom from fear — freedoms that Roosevelt demanded for “everyone in the world” — I was reminded of what the real foundations of modern American liberalism are.
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