{"id":20416,"date":"2020-12-02T22:54:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T02:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=20416"},"modified":"2020-12-15T15:46:21","modified_gmt":"2020-12-15T19:46:21","slug":"uplift-suasion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion\/","title":{"rendered":"Uplift Suasion: Being Too Good for Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is uplift <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/suasion-how-to-be-an-antiracist\/\">suasion<\/a>? Why is this strategy for addressing racism problematic?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion-2\/\">Uplift suasion<\/a> is the idea that White people won&#8217;t be racist if Black people just show them how good they are. Of course, this validates <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/racist-ideas\/\">racist ideas<\/a> and puts the pressure on Black people prove them wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about uplift suasion and why it doesn&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Uplift Suasion<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Uplift suasion is the idea that Black people can teach White people not to be racist by behaving exceptionally. <\/strong>For example, free Black people thought that if they set a good example, White people would free other enslaved Black people.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to being an ineffective method for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-fight-racism\/\">fighting racism<\/a>, it comes with some problematic ideas:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>It suggests that White criticisms of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/black-behavior\/\">Black behavior<\/a> are valid.<\/li><li>It puts the responsibility on everyone except White people to change their racist ideas.<\/li><li>It excuses Black people in positions of power from trying to change policy. According to uplift suasion, just having reached a position of power is exceptional.<\/li><li>It\u2019s doomed to fail because no one is perfect all the time.<\/li><li>It gives weight to the idea that any Black person who behaves well is unusual because regular Black people all behave badly.<\/li><li>It doesn\u2019t allow Black people to be themselves.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Early White abolitionists gave free Black people this idea, and it resurfaced in Ibram\u2019s generation.<\/strong> For example, when Ibram was on a date with Sadiqa at a restaurant that had a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/buddha-journey\/\">Buddha<\/a> statue, a drunk White man fondled the statue. Sadiqa said that she was glad the man wasn\u2019t Black. Ibram had had this kind of thought before and they talked about it. If the man had been Black, Sadiqa would have been embarrassed because he made the whole race look bad in front of White people. As a result, White people would become more racist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>But this suasion didn\u2019t work pre-Civil War and it doesn\u2019t work now either.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is uplift suasion? Why is this strategy for addressing racism problematic? Uplift suasion is the idea that White people won&#8217;t be racist if Black people just show them how good they are. Of course, this validates racist ideas and puts the pressure on Black people prove them wrong. Read more about uplift suasion and why it doesn&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,39,24],"tags":[165],"class_list":["post-20416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","category-history","category-society","tag-how-to-be-an-antiracist","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Uplift Suasion: Being Too Good for Racism - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Can you prove racism wrong by being so good it reflects well on the entire race? According to uplift suasion, yes. But it doesn&#039;t work.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Uplift Suasion: Being Too Good for Racism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Can you prove racism wrong by being so good it reflects well on the entire race? According to uplift suasion, yes. But it doesn&#039;t work.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-03T02:54:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-12-15T19:46:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/getting-to-yes-win-win-negotiation.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"511\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rina Shah\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d07435826f13a8f422d5d333dceac287\"},\"headline\":\"Uplift Suasion: Being Too Good for Racism\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-03T02:54:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-12-15T19:46:21+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion\/\"},\"wordCount\":334,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/getting-to-yes-win-win-negotiation.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"How to Be an Antiracist\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Communication\",\"History\",\"Society\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion\/\",\"name\":\"Uplift Suasion: Being Too Good for Racism - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/uplift-suasion\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/getting-to-yes-win-win-negotiation.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-03T02:54:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-12-15T19:46:21+00:00\",\"description\":\"Can you prove racism wrong by being so good it reflects well on the entire race? 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