Publications and Research
Document Type
Blog Post
Publication Date
11-3-2020
Abstract
Asking “is what is being demanded politically realistic?” or “politically possible?” is a persistent problem with the ways many liberals who imagine themselves as progressive still think about ending systemic racial discrimination, and about protests against racism. Such questions ask us to measure “the realistic” and “the possible” prior to making political demands, and presume that the efficacy of social protest movements correlates with a tacit agreement between activists and those in power about what politics should look like. The demand for realism also betrays a particular racial and class privilege on the part of the person asking the question: they assume that everyone can be heard and understood as they are.
Comments
This work was originally published as a blog post at https://publicseminar.org/essays/when-it-comes-to-racial-justice-why-is-it-wrong-to-demand-the-impossible/