Whip It Good

The same month, Pat Robertson, a former Republican presidential candidate and the host of the Christian Broadcasting Network’s flagship show, The 700 Club, said that militants are telling “people of color … to rise up and overtake their oppressors.” He worried that, “having gotten the whip handle—if I can use the term,” people of color were now in a position “to instruct their white neighbors how to behave.” Robertson warned that if this trend continues, “America is over. It is just that simple.”
Lawrence Glickman “3 Tropes of White Victimhood”

It's tempting to tackle Mr. Robertson's impression that non-Whites being in a position to instruct their White neighbors how to behave would be the end of the United States, but it's so laughable that it's something of a gimme. So, instead, let's take his concern that taking hold of the whip handle and overtaking oppressors is such a terrible thing.

If it is believed that someone, of necessity, will (if not perhaps must) always "have the whip handle" then the only question is in whose hand should it be. As the article points out, the throughline from Reconstruction to modern grievance politics is that White people deserve to wield the whip. Whether it's because they will be gentler with the it than Black people, because they have learned the lessons of their prior irresponsibility or due to their innate ethical superiority, it's best if the whip stays with them. Whether Black America (or Latin America) was or was not deserving of slavery, second-class pseudo-citizenship and deprecation, Whites have never deserved such treatment, then or now. And while commentators may argue whether or not Whites wield the whip in a way that preserves human dignity, liberty and freedom to the greatest extent possible, conservatives are in agreement that Blacks and Latinos would simply degenerate into a regime of vicious vindictiveness, powered by an unwillingness to allow the bygones of ancient history to be bygones (leaving aside the fact that the 1950s and 60s are still within living memory for Baby Boomers).

On the other hand, if non-Whites take the whip handle, and refrain from wielding it in the way that Whites did, this would point to something that Conservatives, everyday people and pundits alike. may find unsettling: the abuses of power that characterized much of American history are not facets of human nature, frailty or corruptibility in the face of power, but were specific flaws in the people who built, maintained and supported the intentionally unequal society. Listen to these arguments long enough (and I had heard them plenty prior to this article) and it's not hard to conclude that there are people with an interest in the presumption that all of humanity indulges in rampant oppression when given the chance.

In any event, one can see two unpalatable options facing conservatives; to risk having done unto them as their ancestors had done unto others, or to risk learning that said ancestors were uncommonly unjust people. A third option, which is to avoid the question by remaining on top of the heap, can seem very appealing under the circumstances, despite the risks. When vulnerability is seen as a high price to pay for a just society injustices continue, if only because they're less expensive.

While it's clear that Mr. Robertson believes that "radicals" are leading non-White people away from an idea of everyone being free and equal in the United States, many conservatives have a vision of equality that, in the minds of many other people, simply leaves the old status quo, and its associated inequities, intact. Social justice types like to say that to the privileged, equality feels like oppression. But the force of this comes mainly from the sense that all privilege is unearned, and thus, unjust. To people who understand that they have earned their exalted place in the world, a forced leveling is oppressive, just as much as a forced tilting of the playing field is considered oppressive to the people who find themselves having to play uphill. American conservatives have difficulty in seeing any changes to the current system as being fair to them. And this makes sense, given the standard view of the world as being zero-sum. Any gains for non-Whites must come at the direct expense of Whites, and to the degree that they understand that the deserve everything they have, those gains are seen as a form of aggression.

Changing that view is going to be hard. Triggering people's loss aversion, and the accompanying anxiety is a quick means to influence and leadership. Mr. Robertson knows that he's playing to the fears of his audience, as well as their self-image as good and just people. That's a dangerous combination, because few people who have wielded the whip felt wrong in doing so, regardless of the gusto they brought to the endeavor.