Thread by @paulcrider

I keep coming across this and I worry it's the latest iteration of "Let's not talk about race," which has historically given cover for ... not addressing racial inequality.

I'm in no position to question the research quality, and I don't. And yet here is a short THREAD.

https://twitter.com/micahanglais/status/1385664513941417987

The paper presents a racial justice framing for a handful of issues and compares their support against these framings: race-neutral, class, and racial justice + class.

So far so good, but what if in the real world there *is no such thing as a race-neutral framing?* 2/6

Suppose Democrats align to "stop making it all about race" as my white mother used to say. Well, Republicans *will* make it about race, by deploying either the dog whistle rhetoric of "welfare queens," "super predators," etc or the overt racism Trump dusted off. 3/6

The relevant comparisons btwn the framings should not be assessed in a void, but in the presence of "racist" framings. And we have ample historical evidence of the effectiveness of racist framing at turning whites against even race-neutral policies that benefit *them*. 4/6

The racial justice framings presented in the paper tend to focus how the policies would help Black and brown people specifically, as if they are a problem class. The race + class framings at least juxtapose addressing racial injustice with helping all kinds of people. 5/6

But another option is positive-sum antiracism, that 1) directly confronts racist framings, 2) shows how these are used to spoil policies that help everyone, and 3) argues that we all gain from racially inclusive policies that securely plug everyone into a dynamic economy. 6/6

I raised similar issues in my discussion of @lindsey_brink's latest essay for the @NiskanenCenter. I think he had this research in mind when he wrote the piece. And I know @mattyglesias has been guided by and promoted it.

https://twitter.com/paulcrider/status/1385076882043854853

And see also this thread by @magi_jay on some pitfalls to avoid when interpreting the results of the paper.

https://twitter.com/magi_jay/status/1386037225729794055

See also this thorough overview including the criticisms I'm trying to make (but by professionals) as well as responses. By Thomas Edsall. nytimes.com/2021/04/28/opi…