Respectability Politics - A good or a bad thing?

[Lensherr]

Respectability politics or the politics of respectability refers to attempts by marginalized groups to police their own members and show their social values as being continuous and compatible with mainstream values rather than challenging the mainstream for what they see as its failure to accept difference.

- White, E. Frances (2001). Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability.

Essentially, this is social justice activists are talking about when they refer to individuals belonging to a minority group as "pet minorities" and "house niggers"; they believe that the onus for change should not be on them to be accepted into mainstream society but rather on everyone else to be more accommodating of their "identity".

My question for you guys is does this line of thinking help or hurt marginalized groups?

I see it myself as being more damaging, because it comes from a deterministic point of view that says that marginalized groups are incapable for one reason or another of not acting a certain way, so they have no incentive to improve themselves and deserve handouts in order to accomplish anything. This leads to bigotry of low expectations where people start to think "oh these people can't help but act a certain way, so they should be treated like children who can't take full responsibility for their actions."

 

[PuToTyra]

No, that's just assimilation.

Also, good luck teaching respectability to people who are in minority because of their skin colour.

 

[Bassomatic]

I lean to agree with you, speaking for minorities and underclass in this way is just "white mans burden" all over again but in more touchy feely terms.

 

[Rand /pol/]

It's from "Empire Of Dust" if you were wondering.

 

[AnOminous]

My question for you guys is does this line of thinking help or hurt marginalized groups?

I've never heard the phrase "respectability politics" used except by utter spastic fuckups who make whatever group they're espousing look like complete idiots, and they usually use it to respond to people, often on their own side, who tell them "quit acting like a complete fucking idiot." And they use it to justify continuing to act like a batshit crazy moron and sabotaging their own side.

 

[RockVolnutt]

I like how Uncle Tom is tossed around despite not meaning what they think it does.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

No, that's just assimilation.

Yeah, this. Learn to get along with the society you're part of.

 

[Feline Darkmage]

I've never heard the phrase "respectability politics" used except by utter spastic fuckups who make whatever group they're espousing look like complete idiots, and they usually use it to respond to people, often on their own side, who tell them "quit acting like a complete fucking idiot." And they use it to justify continuing to act like a batshit crazy moron and sabotaging their own side.

This. Being respectable is a good thing and its how you advance in the society you're in.

Hating "respectability politics" is counter productive. But of course that's what the self-victimizers want. They want to be the opposite of respectable so they have "haturz" to whine about.

 

[DNJACK]

minorities acting as a block or faction just makes racial tension worse. I dont know how it got so bad in the US.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

To me, "respectability politics" is just another modern buzzword of a mentality that over-analyzes how people relate to eachother, and one that promotes divisiveness.

 

[swiv]

"Respectability politics" implies there's a very narrow set of attributes that a person has to have in order to be respected, when that simply isn't the case. Here in the US, we have such a lax set of cultural standards that you have to be pretty fucked up for people not to respect you. It's just the classic crabs in a bucket mentality, in which unsuccessful members of a minority group accuse their better-off counterparts of being house niggers and such.