A retired New York City police officer, who is a friend of mine, complained recently about the number of young, able-bodied black men and women receiving welfare benefits. When I suggested that his understanding of why people were on "welfare" ( and who is on welfare: more whites than blacks; more single women than men; more elderly than young) might be inaccurate, he brushed aside my point. As a policeman he had seen many examples how inner city able-bodied young blacks lived off welfare. They spent their days lounging on apartment stoops talking and laughing the hours away. He was positive that these individuals took advantage of the system; that if they had the slightest desire to work, they could find jobs and provide for themselves. In his view, it was laziness that kept them dependent on government support. He then offered a specific example to illustrate his absolute certainty that he was right.
He recounted the time some young black mechanics had replaced the tires on his car. He told me that he had chatted cordially with those men and treated them exactly the same way he would had they been white. When they had finished, he rewarded them for their excellent service with a generous tip which they deserved for their hard work. In his mind, his observations of those on welfare in New York together with this anecdote proved conclusively that if able bodied individuals--black or white for that matter--wanted to work, then they would. The jobs were "out there"; they just had to be willingly to get them.
The sweeping generalization he arrived at regarding welfare and work reflects a method by which too many of us form opinions about the motives and behavior of other people. We observe the people around us, note to ourselves what they say and do, then become convinced we know why they act and think as they do. Once that "understanding" settles in our minds, it thickens and solidifies; it hardens into doctrine.
This hardening of doctrine features in David Brooks' latest column, "The Problem With Wokeness." Brooks refers to a comment he made on Meet The Press, in which he said that there is "much less gun violence" in schools than there was in the 1990's. His remark generated a good deal of "hatred on social media," because, as Brooks claims, he failed to maximize the "size of the problem," and therefore "was draining moral urgency and providing comfort to the status quo."
Brooks identifies the criticism of his 'failure' to adequately understand the "size" of the gun violence "problem" as a "mental habit" analogous to the thought process of "wokeness." The term "woke" "means being aware of racial, gender and economic injustice," or as Brooks puts it, "To be woke is to understand the full injustice" of a practice, condition, environment or situation in American society.
In other words, in citing data that show fewer school shooting are occurring today, Brooks believes he is being judged not by the accuracy of his facts, but by the "correctness" of his "perception" of gun violence in schools. Brooks sums up type of thinking (a "frame of mind" he calls it) as follows: "wokeness jams together the perceiving and the proposing. In fact, wokeness puts more emphasis on how you perceive a situation--how woke you are to what is wrong--than what exactly you plan to do about it."
Like the police officer I mentioned above, who knew the motives of every able-bodied black on welfare, Brooks' critics "know" too his motives and summarily denounced him for them. By condemning his motives, these critics can preemptively enclose Brooks and his ideas in a box which has written on it, "Do not open; point of view invalid." Rather than engage his argument, it becomes easier to shut him down and thereby ignore what he has to say. His voice on the subject becomes as empty as the wind and those who are "woke" have silenced someone who, by virtue of his perception of an issue, cannot be "woke."
It may seem unfair to lump those who are arguing for social justice with the police officer whose perception of how and why young men women receive welfare, food stamps or any public assistance is deduced from images tainted by assumptions coloring his thoughts before they have entered his consciousness. It is true that some of the men and women he has seen prefer to receive benefits and avoid work. But on the whole, the statistics indicate a different story. Therefore, his claim lacks the evidence to construct a cogent position and his argument disintegrates as each word issues from his mouth.
Brooks' critics, though "like" the police officer, are not identical with him. Though they judge Brooks a priori, their frustration with Brooks and his complaint that "The greatest danger of extreme wokeness is that it makes it harder to practice the necessary skill of public life, the ability to see contradictory truths at the same time" is understandable. And they no doubt think Brooks is at the least rather obtuse when he argues 'that most great social reforms have happened in moments of optimism, not moments of pessimism, in moments of encouraging progress not in moments of perceived threat."
Perhaps his "optimism" isn't the right word or approach. After all, the "great social reform" that ended slavery, the Civil War, killed some 600,000 Americans. And the Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and 1960's sacrificed many lives, including the movement's most loved and important figure--Martin Luther King.
Near the end of Brooks' essay, he considers the "debate surrounding the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates," for whom, according to Brooks, "The entire American story was and continues to be based on 'plunder,' the violent crushing of minority bodies. Even today, 'gentrification' is but a more pleasing name for white supremacy." Brooks finds fault for Coates seeing the "problem of racism in these "maximalist terms." Does this view make Brooks un-woke?
Can one be "woke" and moderate at the same time? That is the question Brooks would like to answer with a unequivocal "yes." He believes that "being dispassionate in one's perception of" gun violence or social injustices allows one to fight most successfully against racism or gun violence. I for one am happy that Ta-Nehisi Coates calls attention to the racism that too many argue no longer exists. His voice alerts us to the lingering effects of slavery and to those forces today that, intended and unintended, still abuse people of color. Together, Coates and Brooks provide two prongs that can puncture the propaganda of the Hannitys and Limbaughs, who daily spread lies that warp the minds of far too many, and set a political framework that can counter Trump and his followers who push "alternative facts," argue truth is relevant, and foment division and divisiveness among Americans with Putinesque cunning.
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