This Trash Again

[Content Note: Privilege; gatekeeping.]

Jonathan Chait is at it again, with a new piece for New York Magazine entitled [DoNotLink] "Not a Very PC Thing to Say," and subheaded, because of course it is, "How the language police are perverting liberalism."

There are a lot of people on Twitter who have said very smart things about this piece today, among them: Sydette, Imani, Jess, and Dianna, whom I am recommending with their permission. That's not a complete list, by any means, but I've particularly appreciated lots of their commentary today.

There's little I can say in response to this piece that wouldn't merely be a variation on what I've already said before.

But I do want to note this important context: Chait et. al. have spent a very long time making a living treating defining the terms of debate as the debate itself.

And that's why we get these petulant thinkpieces about "the nature of the debate" and tortured explanations about how what they do is speech, but what their critics do is something that endangers speech.

Chait is a professional gatekeepers, whose career is built upon having conversations he defines as important exclusively with people who view his being white and male as credentials, but don't practice identity politics. Ahem.

And the thing about professional gatekeepers is that they get very miffed indeed when people start saying fuck the rules of sitting at your table; we'll build our own table.

Oh the terrible rending of garments when you make it clear you don't care about their rules of engagement for discourse, because their discourse is garbage.

Chait, and his defenders, miss the point utterly that no one cares if they don't want to engage with our anger, because our anger is sometimes designed to alienate them.

I'm just saying: When someone who wants to 'splain at me declares my anger too off-putting for dialogue, that ain't a loss for me.

Or the people at my table.