Why Conservatives Lose the Race Debate — and How We Can Win It

By Isaac Willour

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

 

‘I want a show of hands of everyone at this table who is racist.”

 

So begins a scene in the newly released Deconstructing Karen from Apple, marketed as “a radically honest conversation on racism.” It’s called the Race2Dinner model: Seated around a dinner table, eight white women are guided by authors Saira Rao and Regina Jackson through a two-hour-long series of talking points on concepts such as complicity and self-centeredness. It’s all part of a quest to bring them to the promised land of anti-racist enlightenment — in the documentary’s words, the realization that “they uphold white supremacy every single day.” The conversations in the documentary are confrontational, even bordering on aggressive, a tactic Rao admits is intentional. “The only thing that’s going to change this is if we change the cultural DNA and the only way you can change the cultural DNA is through personal human interactions,” she says.

 

As a non-white, non-woman, I am performing some demographic crossover of my own by criticizing Deconstructing Karen. But the points made in Deconstructing Karen aren’t merely about white women, despite what the corresponding book by Rao and Jackson, creatively titled “White Women,” may suggest. Rather, they’re an indicator of the path the modern anti-racist movement has chosen to follow for all of its critics. That the movement has chosen this path points to a truth even less pleasing to conservative ears: The race debate isn’t just a culture war. It’s an optics war — and the anti-racist movement is winning, even though it doesn’t deserve to. To change this, conservatives need to rethink how they approach racial issues. That doesn’t mean adopting anti-racism as a worldview. But it does mean presenting timeless truths in the right way.

 

The discussion over how best to heal America’s racial tensions is as much a fight over perceptions as it is one of actual philosophy. The modern anti-racist movement has succeeded not solely due to the arguments made by its proponents, but also due to the emotional, social, and corporate pressure such arguments create, from the quaint dining rooms of Deconstructing Karen to DEI training sessions nationwide. Pushing back against anti-racist premises like “racial disparity equals racial discrimination” is not a mere logical step. In certain social and business circles, Rao and Jackson’s dinner table included, such pushback is often viewed as dismissive of racial trauma and even implicit support for racial discrimination.

 

Is such a view justified? Clearly not. It is profoundly dishonest to suggest that all who disagree with the overarching goals of modern anti-racism do so out of a secret desire to advance racism. However, the skeptics who’d dare to question such suggestions are on the losing end of an optics war. If we’re looking to actually change hearts and minds on a better way to fight racism, then we have no choice but to realize some people do think in this profoundly graceless way, and adjust our strategy accordingly.

 

It starts with the terms we use. In a twist of semantic irony, the philosophy of equal racial treatment, termed “colorblindness,” has taken major hits in the battle of optics. Depending on whom you ask, colorblindness represents everything from being blind to current racism to kneecapping critiques of racist systems. “Colorblindness has helped make race into a taboo topic that polite people cannot openly discuss,” writes clinical psychologist Monnica Williams. “Instead of resulting from an enlightened (albeit well-meaning) position, colorblindness comes from a lack of awareness of racial privilege conferred by Whiteness.” To many Americans ensconced in the principles of modern anti-racism, colorblindness is viewed as the cop-out — the easy way to simply avoid talking about racial topics or acknowledge the pain of racial trauma.

 

That perception of callousness, blindness, and indifference is the shell-scarred ground we have to retake to turn hearts and minds away from the excesses of anti-racism. We ought not be blind to racial trauma, nor should we use terms that suggest we are. Colorblindness is a loaded term, fraught with negative associations, often from the very people we need to convince the most. We don’t want to be perceived as colorblind; on the contrary, we need to be conscious of race while acknowledging the existence of countless other factors in our social outlook. There’s nothing wrong with colorblindness (properly understood), and being overly fixated on race is a very real concern. But a term that implies one doesn’t see race is not going to be persuasive to many who view conservatives as being overly dismissive of racial concerns.

 

For many who buy into anti-racist premises or those undecided on the race debate, colorblindness carries a perception of idealism and of disconnectedness to reality. The conservative outlook on race is anything but. One of the most common misperceptions of people who subscribe to colorblindness is that we view modern society as completely devoid of racial disparities or racist factions. While some people may legitimately use (admittedly clunky and easily misinterpreted) phrases like “I don’t see color” as an excuse to ignore racial prejudice, the true intent of much of colorblind ideology is not a pronouncement regarding current systems, but an aspirational view to the potential of those systems.

 

Most people who aspire to colorblindness or say they “don’t see color” are not doing so out of a sense of moral ambivalence about America’s legacy of chattel slavery or any such heinous secret prejudice. Nonetheless, the term “colorblind” does not inspire confidence. Change up the language, then. If, as leading anti-racist Ibram X. Kendi says, the “heartbeat of racism is denial,” then we won’t use terms that suggest denial. That’s not concession, it’s basic persuasion strategy.

 

We must see racial disparities where they exist and acknowledge racial trauma as real, because for many Americans, it is real. Responding to the trauma of racial discrimination by simply expressing a commitment to a race-neutral ideal is a bad move. It does not give people solace or comfort and portrays well-meaning “colorblind” people as dismissive. We must respond to racial trauma with understanding and support, not merely because it’s effective but because it is the right thing to do. Such moral actions can be the key to changing hearts away from the guilt-laden premises of Kendi-esque anti-racism and towards the more hopeful approach that conservatives offer: a worldview that sees race without treating it as the singular axis of power on which society spins.

 

In addition, we must reaffirm the agency of the individual as the greatest weapon against America’s remaining prejudice. One of the most persuasive aspects of modern anti-racist philosophy is how it offers its proponents a sense of agency. “Believe in the possibility that we can transform our societies to be antiracist from this day forward,” Kendi exhorts his audience in How to Be an Antiracist. “Racist policies are not indestructible. Racial inequities are not inevitable.” Such agency is not merely a means of increasing support for the anti-racist movement, but a means by which Kendi can demonize and discredit anyone who dares to push back on extreme anti-racist conclusions. “We’re either being racist or antiracist,” says Kendi, conveniently using the dichotomy to smear those who aspire to not be racist as actually belonging to the former category. In this worldview, daring to question the extremist anti-racist order constitutes bigotry — individuals who subscribe to such a worldview have moral agency to repudiate such “bigots” in pursuance of their moral mission. The critics of anti-racism have to find a way to counteract such a moral drive by offering an agency of our own.

 

Agency is powerful. It gives people tangible steps in service of an overarching worldview, and this is where colorblindness once again has failed to mobilize its advocates. To the anti-racism movement, advocacy is a force multiplier: a sense of shared mission capable of pointing millions towards objectives like BLM’s opposition to capitalism, Race2Dinner’s goal of eradicating “niceness” among white women, or Kendi’s repudiation of Christianity’s savior theology.

 

The problem is: they’re right. Agency is a force multiplier, and it’s one that conservatives must utilize. We must reach out to the people who see racial activism as a raison d’être and convince them that their own ability to overcome racial discrimination or obstacles is not served by the tearing down of America’s institutions. We must confront racial trauma with the hopeful individual-centric philosophy of heroes like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman as opposed to the endless cycle of activism proposed by Kendi and his ilk. This is tactical: While colorblindness can lead to an exit from the race discussion, conservatives must view this discussion as an arena we cannot afford to cede.

 

Conservatives cannot unplug from the race debate; it is here and will continue with or without us. We have to go about it the right way: with empathy, understanding, and a mind to changing hearts to a vision of America’s fundamental commitments and aspiration as worthy of full-throated defense. That vision matters because we are in a war of philosophy — a war between anti-racists, who would fundamentally transform America’s systems in a sincere but misguided belief in their racist origins, and the conservatives who believe America’s institutions are worth defending despite a checkered and imperfect history of living up to their ideals. But we’re not just in a war of philosophy, so logic and reason can’t be our only tools.

 

The key to changing hearts away from the excesses of the modern anti-racist movement lies in co-opting the movement’s power of persuasion, changing our terms to be more palatable to the people we’re trying to reach, and being unapologetic about the superiority of our ideals. The race debate is not just a battle of historical interpretation, it’s a battle for the worthiness of America’s philosophical commitments to liberty and equality. We cannot afford to come into that battle with clunky terms and expect persuasion to just happen organically. It takes solid terms, a serious strategy for reaching people, and an indestructible resolve to show people a better way — because it is a better way. We have the high ground in the war of philosophy. Now we need to take the optics front. If we don’t, we’re only looking at further losses against the anti-racist movement.

 

Despite the arguably noble intentions of its proponents, the anti-racist movement is grounded in false premises and dedicated to advancing thoroughly illogical and immoral ideas. For too long, conservatives have suffered from a profound marketing problem in the race debate: Our ideas are correct, but if we don’t present them correctly we still risk failure. We cannot allow the American race debate to be dominated by those who repudiate the foundations of the American experiment. It’s time for conservatives, and all those who would seek to combat the extremes of modern anti-racism, to get their marketing act together.