I did Nazi see that coming. Well, I did, but it's still disappointing.
So I watched the recent Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and I have…questions.
Like why do we, smart people that we are, keep falling for such a silly trope as “fight hate with love”?
One, what does that even mean? And two, WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN
If you’re not familiar with the term “white liberalism” (aka “white liberal racism”), please read up or watch up or better yet both. A hallmark of white liberalism is the profound graciousness it affords to the least gracious among us. It redefines bigotry in terms of unneeded nuance…and then it dares insist that people of color do the same.
I am particularly disappointed with this particular strain of uninformed white-centric liberalism – a liberalism that purports to want to fight racism, but then approaches it in the meekest voice possible.
“Err, um, excuse me, um, sir…Could you please maybe… not…like…advocate….for…like…. GENOCIDE…or something…..if that’s okay….I’m-not-mad-at-you-we’re-still-friends-right?” Not ok.
In the week’s White Liberal Olympics, Sam Bee executes a perfect white liberal triple backflip and sticks the landing. In the segment in question, Sam Bee interviews a “recovering” white supremacist and asks his opinion on how to fight white supremacy.
HOLD UP.
You’re asking former white supremacists how to fight white supremacy? That might almost seem like logic, if 1) there were any such thing as a former white supremacist and 2) there were any consideration at all given to the protection of people of color and the victims/targets of white supremacy. As expected, the former white supremacist advises that Love, not punches, will conquer all. As expected, the former white supremacist, and Sam Bee by extension, exalt the comfort of self-proclaimed racists over the emotional security of people of color. As. Expected.
Sigh.
So.
Why are so many white liberals this concerned with staying on racists’ good side?
Well, it’s all about who you empathize with. And much as I’ve enjoyed her show in the past, this segment on Sam Bee’s show is another example that for even the most well-meaning of well-meaning-est liberals, empathy with whiteness continues to trump solidarity with blackness. Put another way, it’s assumed the audience will more easily associate themselves (or maybe a brother or sister, aunt or uncle) with the person who makes the racial gaffe than the person who is a victimof it. And so goes the endorsement of empathy for Mr. Literal White Supremacist. I guess respectability politics are for everyone.
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Continuing through the segment, Sam Bee invites in Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, whose reinforcing banter culminates in the directive to “hug a white supremacist.” Now this, of course and presumably, is said with some jest, but let’s take a step back, shall we?
The situations they’re describing, in which one might be pressed to confront a former-friend/now-bigot, are not easy things to do. These are hard conversations and not ones that we should ever seek to approach without empathy…but as with all things, even empathy has limits. And those limits come waaaaay before you get to literal “hug a white supremacist” territory.
A couple rules of thumb, primarily for those for which white supremacy is a new concept: – If your empathy has extended to the point wherein you are literally hugging a nazi, nope, nope, stop. That’s not helpful, no matter what late night talk show hosts seem to be selling these days. If your empathy has extended to the point wherein you’re advocating for others to hug nazis instead of doing something, oh I don’t know, actually useful, then I think you don’t understand what empathy is.
“Hug a white supremacist.” Literal words. Spoken out loud. By “allies.” Terrible allies, some might say. All I can say is smdh.
But let’s take a deeeeep breath, and just tease all this apart for a sec. Questions. Who was the audience for this message? What does “hug a white supremacist/nazi/bigot” mean in actual practice? How does “hugging” work with people who are advocating for continued oppression and genocide? Is it just like hugging a cactus, or…? Also, how is this different from doing nothing? How is this different from the ‘ignore racism and it’ll go away’ crowd? What does one hope to gain (or maintain) from empathizing with white supremacists? Has anyone on this show ever read Letter from a Birmingham Jail? (Contrary to not-so-popular belief, not a letter penned by an anthropomorphic jail cell.)
And lastly, do the writers of this segment understand why the work of anti-racism is meaningful? I mean, if we can at least agree the loose goals of anti-racist work are to protect the marginalized while breaking the vicious cycle system of white supremacy, doesn’t empathizing so deeply with nazis and white supremacists actually serve another master? Doesn’t that recast oppressor as oppressed? Nazis as someone to be pitied and hugged for the struggle of maintaining their minority beliefs? That’s…a dangerous narrative. That’s advocacy of non-racism over anti-racism, and spoiler alert, non-racism is weak, it’s toothless, and it’s intensely supportive of the status quo.
So this hug-a-white-supremacist junk doesn’t serve our stated goal, that is unless our stated goal conflicts with our unstatedgoals (of virtue signaling and the like, cuz it’s not like this whole american apartheid system is worth losing any friends over, amirite?).
In which case, I see you. And gross.
Real talk. You gotta know that confronting white supremacy in a real and impactful way is gonna hurt feelings and end friendships. At a minimum. It was the wrongheaded belief that one could somehow challenge bigotry while still hanging out with bigots that has led us down this crooked cobblestone path, wherein some white liberals regard Naziism as just a “conflicting viewpoint” instead of a “murderous worldview that led to the literal extermination of millions.”
Once again, Why are you spending so much time/effort/energy nuancing Nazis, y'all? I’m asking. Again.
But where Sam Bee and that hug-a-Nazi segment failed the most disappointingly was on two fronts: 1. Failing to tailor a message for her entire audience. Which until last week, one might assume includes black people and brown people and all shades of non-white people in addition to the white people she seemed to be talking to. Sam. Hug a white supremacist? Who should hug a white supremacist? Me? I should hug a white supremacist? WHY. WOULD. YOU. ASK. ME. THAT. SAM. BEE.? Inevitable comparisons: Would you ask Jewish people to hug Nazis? Women to hug MRAs? Hillary to hug Trumpf? Ok, I know I’m getting snarky, but the question remains. Imploring your audience, which includes people of color, to hug a white suprema-nazi is asking us to exercise super-human levels of empathy. Why would you ask us to take on even more emotional labor, to suppress righteous rage for the sake of Nazi feels? Or even for the sake of a played out joke?
Sidenote: Asking black people, who’ve literally laid down our lives for the cause of civil rights to abandon our methods and adopt those endorsed by their oppressors is just so so tone-deaf it’s *mwah* peak white liberal.
2. Failing to advocate for actual scalable change. And make no mistake, scalable change is legislative change. This is the one thing I always return to that leads this nonsensical fight-hate-with-love-hug-a-nazi biz to an early and inevitable grave. It’s not a serious proposition. It can’t be. Because it’s not remotely scaleable. Hugging a Nazi, engaging a Nazi, having an hours-long reasoned debate with a Nazi accomplishes less than you’d think. Even if you change one Nazi mind, understand that Nazis are not engaging in recruitment only with one-on-one methods. While you spend the better part of your weekend reasoning out why blacks are not a mongrel race with your good friend Chad (who’s kinda cool, except kinda a Nazi), white supremacists are going for SCALE. Gutting the Voting Rights Act. Gerrymandering like madmen. Arming police with military grade weapons. And legalizing vehicular homicide against peaceful protesters. While many white liberals look back at the 50s and 60s and think that the most powerful thing to come out of the Civil Rights Era was integrated lunch counters and better bus etiquette and non-violent protest, black folk know that what integrated those counters and etiquetted those buses were the legislative victories that made public exercise of prejudice less germane. And as for non-violence, the CR era was puh-lenty violent. Violence and non-violence are both tools, necessary and employed…but that’s a whole ‘nother discussion we’ll get into someday. So. Why was there not a single mention of legislative push in any of last week’s episode? No “call your congressman,” no “ballot measure up,“ no “VOTE”? No, just a “send these guys some money,” and also “don’t punch Nazis” cuz every Nazi is somebody’s ma or pa, right?
Why is racism different? Sam Bee famously rips apart bigots, misogynists, and liars and lays them all bare with a weekly roundup of political absurdity. Why is racism exempt from the typical and powerful entreaties to support legislature? Why is there all the empathy for bigots, but none for their victims?
Maybe the problem is that liberals think punching a Nazi is the only way we want to engage them. It’s not. Punching a Nazi is a merely one of a myriad of approaches, tools in the toolbox, as one might say. Punching a Nazi is not always the best approach, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an approach.
But I digress, because the fact that so many liberals are spending so much time equivocating about the morality of punching Nazis instead of the morality of Naziism gets to the root of the problem: that maybe we don’t think white supremacy/Naziism/racism is all that bad. They’re not big enough evils. Certainly not as bad as punching someone in the jaw — the very act of doing so makes one as bad as a Nazi, I hear. Or maybe it’s because there’s a lax understanding of the violence of words. Words can be violence. And the use of violence to prevent violence does not “make you as bad as them.” If it did, we wouldn’t have laws or enforcement.
My dad used to offer this counsel back in the day, when I was coming of age, just starting to see the world as how it really is. I’ll take some liberty for sake of making a point, but he’d say something like, “Don’t argue with assholes. It empowers them.” True then. True now. Today’s liberal seems content on battling violent rhetoric with only academic bravado. However. Proving you’re “intellectually superior” to a Nazi does nothingto stop said Nazi from causing harm. In fact, the very act of you exerting your awesome brain against his far-less-learned one puts harm into the immediate universe. It actively protects exactly no one. You don’t fight Nazis by proving you’re smarter than them. You don’t fight hate with love. You fight Nazis by FIGHTING NAZIS. You fight hate by PASSING LEGISLATION. You fight hate by CRUSHING THEIR FACIST POLITICAL AGENDA and making bigots and monsters afraid to advocate for death and oppression. You fight. FIGHT is the operative word here. You fight.
So Sam Bee, and white liberal, pleeeease confront the empathy elephant in the room. Please don’t spend or loan any more emotional currency belonging to people of color you purport to protect. Stop being terrible allies. Stop defending Nazi jaws. And also go read Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Go ahead. You need it. We will wait.
MQ