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It is common for my students to parrot back the lingo of an author or discipline without really understanding what the words mean. They pepper their assignments with the borrowed lexicon and walk away satisfied that they have done good work. When I then require them to ditch the jargon, they realize how they had used the vernacular to paper over unsound reasoning, or just plain gibberish.
I find a similar kind of nonsensical prattle in various corners of our Blue Seattle. For instance, many of the political cognoscenti decided that the election in November signaled a victory of moderates over radicals. They circulated this framing without explaining what degrees of leftism were meant in this context. Consequently, not only was their analysis fluff, but they also missed what should have been a major takeaway: Progressive voters rejected their laissez-faire wing. In response to racist policing, the “radicals” backed divestment. Their remedy for the housing crisis: deregulation of zoning. How to address drug addiction, poverty, and racism? Stop enforcing the laws against speeding, public drug use, shoplifting, fare-skipping and failure to pay rent. If by “radical” the pundits meant Libertarian, then they should have just said so.
As a critical race scholar, I have been involved in various diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. These projects often have a rudderless, ad hoc quality to them because key concepts are not well-defined. As a result, central questions go unanswered: Which axes of power — class, race, gender, etc. — should be prioritized and why? Should equity be defined as equal opportunity or outcomes that reflect national, state, or municipal demographics? Does inclusion mean meeting these targeted goals of representation or making sure that everyone feels included via the transformation of certain norms, symbols, and social dynamics?
Without fleshing out such matters, it becomes impossible to articulate a larger institutional strategy with tangible benchmarks, budgets, timelines and persons to hold accountable. Left unspecified and amorphous, DEI endeavors tend to flounder and become performative.
Lastly, I routinely strike up conversations with progressives who say they are anti-capitalist. When I ask them what they mean, it turns out that they desire such things as stronger support for labor unions, increased minimum wage, stricter enforcement of antitrust laws, trade policies that favor labor and the environment, and redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation to better support education, health care, public transportation, and so on.
Ironically, they want government programs and regulations that would strengthen our market economy as such policies have a proven track record (both in the U.S. and abroad) of leading to a healthier business climate, increased productivity, greater social mobility, more startups and robust economic growth.
The bottom line is that the anti-capitalist rhetoric leads many progressives to misrepresent where they stand on core political economic questions, and in the process reinforce a right-wing ideology that casts social democracy as capitalism’s nemesis.
I raise these concerns about progressive babble not as some sort of fussy schoolmarm. Instead, I believe Blue Seattle’s sloppy vernacular trips it up. As we have seen, it results in a misinterpretation of electoral decisions, impedes the effective implementation of progressive policies and animates right-wing discourses that stymie salutary economic reforms. Further, it’s likely that the lack of linguistic integrity animates the unreasonableness, lies, conspiracy theories and demagoguery that plague our nation. And so, in this election year in which our democracy is on the ropes, let us not only be sure to vote, but also to try to be a bit more fastidious about stating what we mean as clearly and jargon-free as possible.
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