Yang and Bengelsdorf Put America First

Respectability politics doesn't work for anyone.

Way back in 2020, former presidential candidate and startup founder Andrew Yang wrote an op-ed about the rise in anti Asian hate speech and violence since Trump and the right began irresponsibly blaming the Chinese for the coronavirus. Such violence, Yang says, is natural; "The truth is that people are wired to make attributions based on appearance, including race." But he argued, Asian-Americans can fight it by being exemplary, selfless, Americans.

We Asian Americans need to embrace and show our American-ness in ways we never have before. We need to step up, help our neighbors, donate gear, vote, wear red white and blue, volunteer, fund aid organizations, and do everything in our power to accelerate the end of this crisis. We should show without a shadow of a doubt that we are Americans who will do our part for our country in this time of need.

Once Asian-Americans show racists that they are virtuous, the racists will stop being racist, and will see the value of those who look different. "Demonstrate that we are part of the solution," Yang exhorted Asian-Americans. "We are not the virus, but we can be part of the cure."

Yang's argument is harmful nonsense, as many Asian-Americnas pointed out at the time. Writer Jeff Yang on twitter explained,

The idea that Asians can overcome racism by bending our heads and working harder—shrugging it off when it happens to us, ignoring it when it happens to others—is the main pillar of model minority myth, and it has been devastating for coalitions with Black Americans and other POC.

The theory that targeted minorities can defuse racism by working on themselves is a version of neoliberal, self-help ideology; it makes individuals responsible for solving structural problems through individual improvement and success. Historically, especially in relationship to black communities, this has been referred to as respectability politics—the idea that if black people act in a dignified and respectable manner, they will force white people to treat them with dignity and respect.

The prospect of forcing white people to do anything is often very appealing to marginalized and targeted people, which is why Bill Cosby's message—pull up your pants! Get an education!—was quite popular among many Black people. When Cosby upbraided Black families for failures of respectability, Ta-Nehisi Coates argues, "much of black America heard…the possibility of changing their communities without having to wait on the consciences and attention spans of policy makers who might not have their interests at heart."

Andrew Yang is wrong about a lot of things, but when he insists that white people can't be persuaded from evil through reason ("saying “Don’t be racist toward Asians” won’t work.") he's got a painful weight of history on his side. Experience strongly suggests that white racists are immune to rational and humane appeals. You can't change them, but you can change yourself. That's been the message of conservative Black thought since Booker T. Washington, and it continues to resonate because of its mix of optimism (Black people can change) and pessimistic realism (white people won't.)

For all its appeal, though, there are a number of problems with respectability politics. The first is that, while its pessimism is hard to refute, its optimism is unfounded. As Ibram X. Kendi writes in Stamped From the Beginning, uplift suasion (another name for respectability politics "was…impossible for Blacks to execute." No one can be perfectly admirable and self-sacrificing at all times; not black people, not Asian people, not white people. You can't end racism by being perfectly respectable and kind and deferential because no one can be perfectly respectable and kind and deferential at all times in all places. We are all, as Kendi says, "human and humanly flawed."

More, respectability politics is based on the idea that acting well will persuade racists where talking to them won't. But there's no reason to think this is true. As Kendi says, respectability politics assumed "that racist ideas were sensible and could be undone by appealing to sensibilities." But racism is based on hate and self-interest, not logic or sense. The exemplary success of Barack Obama didn't lead Donald Trump to abandon his racism; it led him to double down on it, if anything. Black or Asian success is as likely (more likely, even) to spark resentment and racist backlash as they are to encourage anti-racism.

Respectability politics aren't a good way to reduce racism. Worse, they are racist in themselves—as Andrew Yang's celebration of Americanness makes painfully clear.

Yang's focus on proving his American bona-fides echoes the rhetoric of Rabbi Bengelsdorf in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America (now an HBO mini-series.) Roth's novel is an alternate history, in which the fascist Charles Lindbergh becomes president, prompting an upsurge in antisemitic hatred and violence.

In the novel, most Jewish people (rightly) see Lindbergh as their enemy. But Bengelsdorf agrees with Lindbergh that Jewish people are not sufficiently assimilated, and that they must lean into their Americanism. He therefore helps the administration implement a program to encourage (that is, force) Jewish families to move from Jewish communities in cities to the American heartland, where they will be isolated, assimilated—and not coincidentally, more vulnerable to violence.

"The Jews of America can participate fully in the national life of their country," Bengelsdorf enthuses, in terms that it seems likely Andrew Yang would approve. "They need no longer dwell apart, a pariah community separated from the rest."

The problem with touting the Americanization of Jews is that part of what it means to be an American is to be racist. Bengelsdorf is very proud of his ancestor Judah Benjamin, who served in Jefferson Davis' Confederate administration. Bengelsdorf knows that the Confederacy went to war for a cause that was "neither legal nor moral", but he still admires his forefather for coming "close to the very pinnacle of political success" at a time when Jews faced significant discrimination. Judah, like Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller, was able to transcend antisemitic prejudice and grasp hold of powerful Americanness by embracing antiblack racism and hate.

Americanness can mean a lot of things; there are numerous American traditions, some racist, some antiracist. But framing assimilated Americanness as an antidote to racism is deceptive and dangerous. "Denial is the heartbeat of racism" as Kendi says in How to Be an Antiracist.

Yang and Bengelsdorf believe that they can reduce and combat racism by becoming more respectably American. But respectable Americans have never been consistently or reliably antiracist, and pretending they have been just gives them cover to do more harm. Racism isn't some sort of natural reaction to difference, as Yang would have it. It's a specific ideology and a specific program pushed by racists and fascist to solidify their own power.

Asian people, Black people, and Jewish people in America are American; they don't have to prove it. When Americanness, respectability, and virtue are conflated, the only people who benefit are the followers of Trump and Lindbergh.

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This piece ran some years back on my Patreon. Trump and racism unfortunately remain relevant, so I thought I would reprint it here.