Thread by @kareem_carr

I gave up on talking about race on Twitter because I was having the same argument over and over again. In this thread, let me explain THE ANATOMY OF A TWITTER RACE ARGUMENT.

Whenever someone says "X is white supremacy" on Twitter where X is perfectionism or individualism or math worship, there are a constellation of reactions. Many of them predictable.

If X is a genuine point of division, it will often be the case that most white Americans tend to do and like X while most black Americans tend to dislike and not do X. This cultural difference may or may not be problematic.

The statement "X is white supremacy" goes beyond this. It makes the claim that "X has been historically used to exclude black Americans from full participation in a majority white society".

To this, almost immediately, someone will say "X is practiced in many cultures throughout history and across the world. There's nothing especially white about X." This reaction will often seem important at the time but will ultimately turn out to be a distraction.

Since white Americans are humans, there is a good chance that some other humans have liked and will continue to like anything that most white Americans also like. This is not surprising.

Imagine that you want Italian food for dinner but your partner wants Chinese. Your partner yells out "Italian food is your thing not mine. I like Chinese". It would be unhelpful for you to respond "My thing?! Really? The whole country of Italy likes Italian food. How dare you!"

You would be right to say it's not just your thing but after you've concluded your social studies lesson about global foods, your partner will likely still wish to eat Chinese food. This is why the "X is not just a white thing" argument is a waste of time.

Getting back to the real argument, there's also a good chance that there exist some racially-motivated social conservatives who are suspiciously enthusiastic about X in a way that suggests that they're probably using the love of X to signal anti-blackness.

So in the same comment section where you have people claiming "X has nothing to do with race", there will be people using X to further racism. This kind of thing poisons attitudes about X.

Even if one does not mean to imply anything, saying you like X becomes an endorsement of racial oppression and public dislike of X becomes a way of showing support for black people.

Finally, you have the folks who for reasons of personality or personal experience have found X to be genuinely useful in their lives in ways that have nothing to do with race.

There will also be the folks who for reasons of personality or personal history have found X to be a negative influence in their lives in ways that have nothing to do with race as well.

These folks add noise to the discussion because the "X is white supremacy" claim is specifically about the aspect of X that has to do with race.

So it's unhelpful to have a lot of people in the discussion who have a passionate relationship to X in a way that has nothing to do with race. This leads to a conflation of the personal with the sociological and that's confusing and unhelpful for everybody.

If you look at a large enough group of people, some will agree with their own culture and some will disagree. It means nothing that they exist. It adds nothing to the sociological argument when they participate.

There are probably Chinese people who like Italian food more than Chinese food. There are probably Italian people who like Chinese food more than Italian food. It doesn't mean anything to your hypothetical disagreement with your partner about what to eat for dinner.

The resolutions to these race arguments are not many.

1. Everybody can accept X and the way white Americans do things. This will feel like erasure to many black Americans.

2. Everybody can accept what black Americans do as the right way. This might lead many white Americans to feel like they're losing the culture war and their country.

3. We can stop talking about X and race and leave people to figure it out on their own. If the original claim that X is a tool of oppression is true, then X will continue to oppress but now we won't have the tools to perceive or talk about it.

Finally. 4. We can talk about X in a way that makes it clear that people should have a choice about X regardless of race. We could pioneer true social change so acceptance of X is not a condition for full participation in society.

We could reject people who use X as an anti-black dog whistle. We could denounce people who imply doing X means being a race-traitor for black people or that not doing X means a person "hates America".

In other words, we could try to build a society where X is not so damned important and where people feel empowered to freely live their lives in the manner of their choosing without feeling imprisoned by their race. We won't do that. But we could.

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