Part 2: What tools do we have to accelerate change?
A THREE-PART ANALYSIS OF THE LONG JOURNEY
In Part 1, I discussed how we got here, beginning with the outrage over George Floyd’s murder. First, we saw a multiracial coalition, then the inevitable backlash.
I wrote:
And now, it’s 2024, and what I had anticipated 3-4 years ago is now happening: The post-George Floyd era, widely spoken of as the time of racial reckoning, was now on the wane.
Again and again I’ve been asked: how do you maintain hope in such a retrograde environment?
I have an advantage that many don’t. I am looking at what has happened across decades, actually centuries, so I know the march toward greater social justice is continuous, punctuated by periods of backlash and disillusionment.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., famously declared, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
This is not my first rodeo. I have lived through several setbacks and retrenchments. I was raised on stories of my ancestors and what they had to go through to develop livable futures for themselves, their children, and grandchildren — which now includes me and mine….
What can we do?
Is there anything we can do? Do we need to wait for another gruesome murder to go viral and catch public attention?
If it was all about what regressive forces have or have not done, then the only choice would be to wait. But I think we can be more proactive than that if we can look fearlessly at how we as progressives can avoid feeding into the backlash narratives.
Here is Part 2 of this analysis. Part 3 will be posted next week.
How did those supporting individual interests justify their stance and accomplish the turnaround from public back to private interests?
Let’s take a look at three historical periods where those advocating private interests saw themselves as good guys saving the traditional order from radical extremists:
First instance was post slavery: In the former slaveowners’ reasoning, the carpetbaggers ruined it for the South by corrupting the newly freed slaves, who were ill-equipped for self-governance, much less citizenship.
Then in the 1970s, when sentiment swung away from public interest programs like the War on Poverty and affirmative action, blame was fixed on Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and similar advocacy groups. Their confrontational approach toward addressing systemic issues like police brutality, economic inequality, and social injustice was deemed offensive — and dangerous.
And now, in this period of retrenchment against DEI initiatives, we see progressives being labelled as “woke police” who advocate a cancel culture, violating the right to free speech and promoting reverse racism. In the eyes of our private interest-oriented accusers, progressives are portrayed as deliberately seeking to make White people — especially White children — feel guilty about a distant past that has no relevance today.
Note that in all three periods, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation given for the retrenchment. This is known as “motivated reasoning,” where people find a reasonable-sounding argument to justify preconceived motives or beliefs. In other words, they find a reason to believe what they want to believe.
By confirming a valued social identity group, these beliefs serve to bind individuals within their group with such force that facts themselves become suspect and replaced by “fake news.”1 Alternatively, they may accept the actual facts, then rationalize their beliefs by attributing blame to an adversary.2
Freedmen acting too free? Former slaveholders form solid alliances in agreement that it’s the carpetbaggers’ fault for agitating their formerly docile slaves.
Black groups acting too uppity? Suburban mainstream White Americans share a group identity that feels threatened by the very term “Black Power,” viewing it as signifying a disruption in the natural order of things. As Stokely Carmichael explained in 1966:
But the question of, why do black people, why do white people in this country associate Black Power with violence? And the question is because of their own inability to deal with “blackness.” If we had said “Negro Power” nobody would get scared. (laughter) Everybody would support it. Or if we said power for colored people, everybody’d be for that, but it is the word “Black,” it is the word “Black” that bothers people in this country, and that’s their problem, not mine–their problem.3
DEI initiatives gaining a foothold when Whites may no longer be the majority? Although a social identity group (White male property owners) wrote the Constitution with one identity group (their own) in mind, the concept of considering group-based interests is now portrayed as unconstitutional and contrary to individual rights.
Note this argument is springing up because of changing demographics, when people of Caucasian ancestry may soon no longer be viewed as prototypical Americans.4
So what can be done?
Standard arguments are to fight back: Take to the streets! Call out everyone perpetuating covert or overt racism! Demand our rights!
As a former street-level, door-knocking activist, I agree these tactics work when the Zeitgeist supports it.
Heart-wrenching tales by former slaves and the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin opened doors and hearts, paving the way for the Civil War and eventual emancipation.
The intensity of the civil rights movement, followed by the explosive urban riots, shook complacency and informed a nation that something different needed to happen.
George Floyd’s 9-minute murder under a police officer’s knee, despite the pleas of bystanders and in full view of other officers, revolted a nation and spawned a racial reckoning.
Each of these catalysts in turn shook the conscience of a nation and revealed a sordid underbelly that had been hidden in plain sight.
I don’t think the Zeitgeist supports a similar radical upheaval at this time. In the three periods that I cited, the country had been entrenched in private interests for a time and was ripe for a catalyst to move it back toward public interests again.
We are just in the beginning of the swing from public to private interests. People are weary and cynical about calls for change. Fighting back with protests and threats is not likely to work.
This is the time for a slow build of consciousness-raising to win hearts and minds. Think of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth traveling from town to town by foot or horse, sharing their excruciating stories. How discouraging, yet necessary, that must have been for them. What kept them going, I wonder.
The question for us now is: how can we mobilize those ambivalent about greater support of public interest rather than pushing them deeper into the private interests camp?
I want to be clear I am not just referring to electoral politics. I am talking about what it takes for us to be able to discuss with family members whom we stopped talking with about our perspectives rather than disrupt family harmony.
How can we bring people leaning toward private interests favoring their own identity group into a greater awareness of how they benefit from supporting public interests that includes other identity groups?
Many of my friends tell me it’s impossible. “You can’t reason with Stupid,” as one person told me.
And there we have it. If the challenge is seen as reasoning with Stupid, we will never be successful. We need a different mindset.
Fortunately, practitioners and behavioral scientists are working on two approaches that show considerable promise:
Truth, redress, and reform (TRR) commissions aimed at promoting the truth of our past, racial healing, and reparations.
The race, class, and narrative action (RCN) approach based on work by Heather McGhee (The Sum of Us), which emphasizes messaging that attracts, rather than repels, those we are trying to reach.
Solution 1: Transitional justice
Transitional justice is designed to help countries address and reconcile with past human rights abuses and prevent future abuses.5 It works by creating a space for dialogue, acknowledging past wrongs, and fostering a shared understanding of history, which is essential for building a peaceful and just society.
Participants, including victims and offenders, are required to engage in truth-telling, seek accountability, and work towards repair and redress, with the ultimate goal of successfully engaging in transitional justice to promote healing. Examples of countries using this process are South Africa, Colombia, and Argentina.
South Africa: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa — a well-known example — aimed to address the wrongdoings of the past, promote reconciliation, and prevent future atrocities.
Colombia: After more than fifty years of armed conflict, Colombia signed a peace agreement in 2016, which included provisions such as truth commissions and reparations for dealing with various wrongdoings committed during the conflict.
Argentina: Argentina has also implemented transitional justice measures, including criminal prosecutions and truth-telling processes, to address human rights abuses committed during the country's military dictatorship.
Could it work in the United States?
In the United States, various jurisdictions and entities are engaging in efforts related to transitional justice. These initiatives aim to address systemic injustices, reconcile historical wrongs, and transform societal relationships. Some examples:
Apologies and truth-seeking: The United States has seen a few instances of official apologies. In 2008, the House of Representatives apologized for slavery and Jim Crow laws by a nonbinding voice vote. Several states and localities, such as the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, have established commissions to investigate racially motivated lynchings in the state.
Local restitution efforts. Several cities in the U.S. are exploring different forms of restitution to address historical injustices, including St. Louis, MO, Evanston, IL, and Amherst, MA. These local initiatives aim to provide redress at the community level and contribute to the broader goals of transitional justice.
Reparations and structural reforms: While reparations is a hot topic in the United States, ongoing discussions and advocacy continues. Furthermore, some states, such as California, have established truth and reconciliation commissions, reflecting a commitment to truth-telling and institutional reform (see blog #97: Racial terror and broken promises).
Advocates of transitional justice and reparations point to intergenerational poverty and wealth that began with emancipation. An often-repeated story is that former slaveowners in Washington DC were paid reparations for the loss of their property, while the freed slaves were virtually abandoned by the federal government with no compensation for their years of unpaid labor.6
Discriminatory practices continued through Jim Crow laws in the South and discriminatory redlining practices in the rest of the country that kept people of color from owning property in affluent areas. Today’s racially based income inequality is offered as proof that without systemic intervention, people of color will simply never catch up to what was taken from them legally.
The glaring obstacle to transitional justice initiatives is how divisive they can be. Many White groups hear about reparations and automatically assume checks will be sent to slave descendants, leaving them out in the cold while feeling equally deserving. They reason why should a wealthy Black person get reparations when they, an out of work coal miner, are left to struggle with no government help.
Solution 2: Race Class Narrative
The second possible solution is based on the ground-breaking work by Heather McGhee (The Sum of Us). I was part of a panel about Heather’s book (see blog #89: Racism costs everyone.
As she explained – and so many people know – what keeps us entrapped in divisiveness is how one group is pitted against another under the assumption of a fixed pie. Those stuck in zero sum thinking believe that if second-generation Mexican Dreamers get something, there is less for Appalachians. If a Black woman is promoted, there is one less job available for a White man.
People who talk only about racial divides automatically stir up zero sum-based resentments by those who see themselves as victimized by class biases.
The solution, then, is to talk about both race and class, thus cutting into the heart of the zero sum mindset. This is referred to as the “race, class, and narrative action (RCN)” approach, because careful attention is paid to the words being used and the subliminal images they evoke.
Research for the Race Class Narrative began in 2017 through collaboration between Heather McGhee and Anat Shenker-Osorio. The Race Class Narrative (RCN) is a research-backed communication strategy that explores the interconnectedness of race and socioeconomic status. Its primary goal is to counteract subtle racial biases and foster support across racial lines for progressive initiatives.
The strategy explicitly aims to resonate with core supporters, particularly communities of color, while also appealing to a broad segment of Whites in support of economic and racial justice policies.
This approach does not shy away from discussions on race and class, instead embracing these topics to illustrate how racism benefits a select few at the expense of broader society. RCN emphasizes the importance of addressing strategic racism that seeks to divide and marginalize communities of color.
It highlights the critical role of engaging core supporters and persuading undecided individuals through a narrative that focuses on shared values, identifies those who exploit racial divisions for personal gain, and celebrates victories and personal stories to garner widespread support for progressive policies.
Based on extensive research, RCN researchers have developed messaging guides, digital toolkits, and other resources to make sure that RCN-based messages attract rather than repel people of all groups.
A major tool in their approach is known as the “Architecture of a Winning Narrative,” providing a 5-point structure for talking across our different identity groups.7 Here is a summary:
Race Class Narrative Architecture Simplified: Freedom From Being Put in Boxes8
Start with what we all believe in: No matter our background – Black, White, Brown, Native, newcomer, transgender – we all share the desire to live freely and be true to ourselves. Note we explicitly mention the different identity groups, rather than make vague references to “all of us.”
Point out the bad guys and their tactics: Unfortunately, there are those who try to cling to power by categorizing us based on our appearance, origins, or gender. This shows up in schools’ policing Black students’ hairstyles or enforcing dress codes on girls. It’s also evident when politicians create fear around transgender people, denying them access to healthcare, education, or sports. Their goal? To make us scapegoat, mistrust, and fight each other, distracting us from what our families really need. The harm must be explicitly depicted.
Celebrate our wins and collective efforts: It’s time for us to stand up, say no to these divisions, and pave a path to a brighter future for everyone, regardless of age, race, or gender. We’ve come together before to fight discrimination.
Imagine a world where we all thrive together: …and by continuing to unite, we can guarantee that each of us can be our true selves, chase our dreams, and live a fulfilling life – no one left out.
What we need to do now: [Insert your own specific action]
Does it work?
The researchers pitted different approaches to forming alliances across different races against one another. For example, they compared colorblind approaches that ignored race with the scapegoating zero-sum story – where protagonists evoked divisive racial stereotypes. In their studies, the scapegoating zero-sum stories were more compelling and won more converts. Divisive messages beat out colorblind messages.
The results illuminated the rather counter-intuitive finding that to minimize divisiveness, positive race messages had to be part of the discussion.
As Heather McGhee explained:9
If we try to convince anyone but the most committed progressives (disproportionately people of color) about big public solutions without addressing race, most will agree… right up until they hear the counter-message that does talk, even implicitly, about race.
Racial scapegoating about “illegals,” drugs, gangs, and riots undermines public support for working together.
Our research showed that color-blind approaches that ignored racism didn’t beat the scapegoating zero-sum story; we had to be honest about racism’s role in dividing us in order to call people to their higher ideals.
As a result, to counter the zero sum mentality, they focused on developing narratives that evoked positive attitudes by emphasizing both race and class.
In a second group of studies, they compared the RCN approach with the “racial repair frame.” This is a conceptual framework that focuses on strategies and narratives aimed at repairing the damage caused by systemic racism, promoting racial justice, and fostering reconciliation. This approach seeks to acknowledge and redress the harm caused by racism, while also working towards building a more equitable and inclusive society.
As shown in the chart below, an RCN approach that explicitly mentioned “White, Black, and Brown people” provoked stronger agreement among the base and those possibly persuadable than did a racial repair frame that focused on “those being harmed the most today, especially African Americans and immigrants.9 This could include initiatives aimed at addressing systemic racism, advocating for reparations, or promoting narratives that emphasize the need to repair the damage caused by racial inequality.
While it pains me to say it, this chart implies that the RCN approach is likely to foster more unified support than the transitional justice approach, because the latter is essentially based on a racial repair frame. I am not ruling out transitional justice. I am simply pointing out that according to the RCN research it has much less chance of widespread adoption.
How do you practice RCN?
Their extensive training materials are worth reviewing.10 One chart provides explicit contrasts of what to say, what not to say, and why.11 For example:
Instead of “all people” or “everyone,” say “people of different races and from different places.” Why? People of color remain engaged when there is explicit reference to race, while White listeners can find themselves included in those words.
Talk about “freedom to vote” rather than “voting rights.” Why? “Voting rights” is too abstract, while the word “freedom” has strong appeal.
In reviewing their list of dos and don’ts, I am reminded how support for same sex marriages took off in public opinion when it was renamed from “same sex marriage” to “marriage equality.” The term "marriage equality" began to be used more widely in the 2000s as a way to emphasize the equal treatment and rights of all individuals, regardless of sexual orientation, in the context of marriage.
This shift was part of a broader effort to frame the issue in terms of equal rights and nondiscrimination.
And it worked. In 2015, the Supreme Court guaranteed the right of same sex couples to marry.
What does a winning race class narrative look like? Here is an example they recommend to build support for progressive issue and tackle divisiveness:
America’s strength comes from our ability to work together — bringing together people from different places and of different races into a whole. For this to be a place where everyone can thrive, we cannot let the 1% and the politicians they pay for divide us against each other based on what someone looks like, where they come from, or how much money they have.
We need to join together to fight for our future, just like we won better wages, safer workplaces, and civil rights in our past. Coming together, we can elect new leaders who will deliver better healthcare for our families, quality schools for our kids, and a fair return on our work.
Is the approach successful? The researchers provide background material on their work in the Midwest, where people who were willing to change their languaging to reflect RCN principles were able to win campaigns and make converts.12 Their explicit goal was to “neutralize the use of dog-whistle racism, resonate with our base, especially people of color, and bring along the largest possible group of White people on our economic and racial justice policy solutions.”
What does this mean for us?
In Part 1 of this series, I said we don’t have to throw up our hands and declare that there is nothing we can do during this period of retrenchment. We have agency. Information is available to guide us.
I am heartened that so much is going on about transitional justice now in this country, and even more heartened by the RCN framework.
What’s required is our commitment to learn how to language what we are saying to those whose opinion we want to win over. Just “telling it like it is” can’t match disciplined, empirically-based word choices that have been demonstrated to produce the results we are seeking.
Meanwhile I ask, are you willing to consider the RCN approach to languaging?
Questions to ask yourself
What are the pros and cons for the RCN approach as you understand it? Think about languaging. What phrase bothers you? Can you reword it to be more appealing?
Think about a family member or friend that you have trouble talking with about hot button issues. Would you consider the RCN approach to the discussion?
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Kahan, D.M. (2016). The Politically Motivated Reasoning Paradigm, Part 1: What Politically Motivated Reasoning Is and How to Measure It. In Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (eds R.A. Scott and S.M. Kosslyn). Return to reference.
Bisgaard, M. (2019), How Getting the Facts Right Can Fuel Partisan-Motivated Reasoning. American Journal of Political Science, 63: 824-839. Return to reference.
Danbold, F. (2018). Understanding Dominant Group Resistance to Social Change: The Role of Prototypicality Threat. Psychology, UCLA. Return to reference.
