Reparations Daily (ish) Vol. 93

A Cultural Battle We Are Not Prepared For: The Far Right Sets its Sights on Reparations

Dec 02, 2022

Happy Friday —

Yesterday, Ye appeared on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ podcast alongside the self-avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

Jones started the podcast targeting the Black community and the reparations movement stating,

“The left came out in the last ten years… and said white people are inherently evil because of the color of their skin and that someone who moved here as a kid from Poland is supposed to pay reparations for what people did hundreds of years ago in this country, is a divide and conquer strategy. Not even getting into the reparations debate, but the groups pushing reparations are trying to cause division.”

Jones then said the “most Nazi-like activities I’ve seen” before getting interrupted by Ye, who interjects with the first of his many antisemitic remarks on the show. You can watch the clip below.

TW: Antisemitism, anti-Blackness, hate speech

Marc Lamont Hill @marclamonthill

Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, just went on Alex Jones. On the topic of Nazis, he said “They did good things too, we've got to stop dissing the Nazis all the time.” Ye is a terrible person. He’s not misunderstood. This isn’t just mental illness. He’s 🗑️

One can assume that if Jones had allowed it to continue without interruption, he would have compared the advocacy of the reparations movement to the activities of the Nazis. In today’s Opinion section, I spend some time denouncing this idea, but more importantly, I ring the alarm and offer some solutions on how we might address the looming cultural battle surrounding reparations.

Here is some news that I’ve read since the last time we spoke:

The VA rejects Black veteran disability claims at a disproportionately higher rate than white veterans, according to a new lawsuit.

What’s next in California’s historic reparations commission?

Will Smith’s new movie about Emancipation is out.

Republicans denounce Trump over his dinner with Ye and Nick Fuentes. But not for inciting a riot?

Providence’s efforts to address past racial harms have been getting some critique.

Eighty percent of Asian Americans think affirmative action is racist — perhaps because it continues to be framed that way.

With radical love,
Trevor

Opinion

A few million people were likely introduced or reintroduced to the topic of reparations yesterday — but not in the way that those of us who support this topic would want.

In 2018, before Infowars, the far-right conspiracy theory-laden podcast started by Alex Jones was booted from Facebook and Youtube, it had a daily average of nearly 1.4 million visits to its website and video content, according to a New York Times analysis.

Infowars numbers fell in the immediate aftermath of the social media bans and may have plunged even further after a judge ruled he must pay back millions of dollars to the Sandy Hook parents for defamation.

Nonetheless, Jones’ reach, combined with the global following of the artist formerly known as Kanye West, means that millions of people will have watched the interview by today’s end.

While much of today’s conversation will (and should) focus on the vile and hateful lies spewed by a former Black cultural icon, who has somehow avoided any real consequences for his behavior until very recently, there is another part of the story I want to focus on.

All Falls Down

In All Falls Down, one of the iconic songs (and music videos) that shot Ye to fame, he raps, “we trying to buy back our 40 acres,” an obvious nod to Special Field Order No. 15 that sought to confiscate and redistribute Confederate land.

Marc Lamont Hill @marclamonthill

Here’s the thing… Kanye could’ve interrupted Alex Jones to correct him as he misrepresented the reparations movement. He could’ve cut him off in defense of Black people. Nope. He only felt the need to correct him about… HITLER. Kanye don’t love us, man. Stop caping for him.

It would be easy to say that the version of Kanye we’re watching is completely unrecognizable. This could be true if we were comparing him to the 2005 version of himself — a year in which he told the world that the sitting President doesn’t care about Black people.

Though, this version of Kanye is one that we’ve watched for years, albeit in different flavors. For a while, the anti-Blackness shined noticeably brighter than the anti-semitism, but now it seems to have switched. For nearly a decade, his ideas and rhetoric have become increasingly dangerous and violent.

It is now bubbling over during what could only be described as a treacherous political and cultural climate. Ye’s Twitter account is suspended again, which is even more damning given how lax Elon Musk has signaled he would be on speech.

Not only does Kanye not “love us,” as Marc Lamont Hill states — he also doesn’t represent us. His brand of Blackness is rooted in hate — while the brand of Blackness I have always known and bought into is rooted in love.

Unfortunately, I have already seen some prominent people with platforms that reach hundreds of thousands of Black people defend Ye and his remarks. Not only does this type of rhetoric engage in a disgusting form of nazi-sympathizing, but it also gives credence to all of the harmful rhetoric, including those aimed at the Black community, spewed during that interview.

Same Strategy. Different Topic.

“Extremist groups could gain momentum in the coming months,” Ronald Brownstein remarked in the Atlantic this morning. I fear that this momentum could sink its claws into the reparations movement.

It’s no accident that Jones’ opening dialogue focused on tearing down the reparations movement. The right successfully manufactured a fear-based cultural campaign to redefine critical race theory — and it continues to squeeze every last drop out of it.

It is now setting its sights on a new target—the growing Black-led reparations movement. Throughout 2022, right-leaning politicians and talking heads have used reparations as a point of focus to uplift their narrative of “reverse racism” and “dividing America.”

Just two months ago, Alabama Senator, Tommy Tuberville, said, “they want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bullshit! They are not owed that.”

A month before that, the word “reparations” saw a noticeable spike, but not because of the breathtaking advocacy taking place across the country. A clip of Don Lemon debating a British scholar on the topic went viral across conservative outlets because of Lemon’s inability to adequately back up his argument for reparations.

A few months after the anti-CRT campaign had officially launched, the man who helped manufacture it said, “we have successfully frozen their brand — “critical race theory,” — into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under the brand category.”

Whether coordinated or not, the right is increasingly using a similar strategy to use reparations as a wedge topic to divide communities further.

Building Narrative Infrastructure

How do organizations and movements respond in culturally significant moments like these?

At times, when there is deep and collaborative organization amongst groups, we can mobilize dozens or hundreds of people to push back on the harmful rhetoric, traditionally through op-eds, press releases, and statements. There will no doubt be some of that work happening throughout today and the days to come.

While useful in moments, these types of rapid-response communications networks aren’t set up to build power in the long run. Instead, we must build what more and more folks have started to call narrative infrastructure.

While long, I typically point to the Othering and Belonging Institute’s definition of narrative infrastructure:

“The resources, networks, and tools available to develop, create, implement, and distribute narrative and storytelling so that it reaches public audiences, including key target constituencies whose support organizers require to bring about lasting social transformation. Elements of narrative infrastructure can include research and analysis, staffing, training, publications, curriculum, or digital media tools. To be impactful, the infrastructure is diverse across movements, sectors, and strategies; has the convening and agenda-setting space to create alignment, and is looking both internally and externally to the movement to set markers for strategy and goals. Communities, movements, and organizations vary in the depth and heft of their narrative infrastructure.”

When I look across movements, particularly racial justice movements, I don’t see the type of infrastructure as defined above.

We are often caught flat-footed and playing defense far more often than offense. More so, other than a handful of celebrities, most of the cultural figures who hold some power and engage progressive social issues are more than comfortable residing at the surface.

Our movements need an infrastructure that cuts across industries and social issues, pulls from economics and social psychology, and situates organizers as experts just as much as the researchers.

Such a network would not only support movement efforts to respond when hateful rhetoric is directed their way rapidly, but it would also allow for more proactive world-building storytelling.

As a new report from the Pop Culture Collaborative outlines, building this type of infrastructure will take serious investment, much more than is currently allocated for this type of cultural work.

Both Donald Trump and Ye have already announced that they plan to run for President of the United States in 2024.

We are not prepared for the cultural damage that these two can have on the reparations conversation if they so choose.