Solnit: Unconscious Bias is Running for President

[bloom]

"...I’ve just spent a month watching white male people in particular arguing about who has charisma or relatability or electability. They speak as if these were objective qualities, and as if their own particular take on them was truth or fact rather than taste, and as if what white men like is what everyone likes or white men are who matters, which is maybe a hangover from the long ugly era when only white men voted. It’s a form of self-confidence that verges on lunacy, because one of the definitions of that condition is the inability to distinguish between subjective feelings and objective realities.

Ryan Lizza, fired from the New Yorker for undisclosed sexual misconduct, tweeted, “The Kamala Harris fundraising numbers drive home just how impressive Pete Buttigieg’s fundraising numbers are” when hers were nearly twice as large, and maybe who has money to donate and why white men have always been carried forward and black women have always been held back are relevant things here. One notable thing about the 2016 election is that some of the leading pundits whose misogyny helped shape the race—including Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin, Glenn Thrush—were later charged with sexual abuse or harassment; that is, their public bias was paralleled by appalling private misconduct. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes were outed earlier; heads of networks, directors, and producers have also been outed as serial sexual abusers in charge of our dominant narratives.

Meanwhile, the New York Times in all its august unbearability just published this prize sentence in a piece about Joe Biden’s failure to offer Anita Hill an apology she found adequate: “Many former Judiciary Committee aides and other people who participated did not want to talk on the record because they feared that scrutiny of Mr. Biden’s past conduct would undermine the campaign of the candidate some think could be best positioned to defeat President Trump, whose treatment of women is a huge issue for Democrats.” That translates as, let’s run a guy whose treatment of women is an issue, and let’s ignore that treatment because even so we think that he’s best positioned to defeat the guy whose treatment of women is an issue, and also fuck treatment of women, especially this black woman, as an issue, really....

The problem, as feminist philosopher Kate Manne put it recently, is that what we say now is not just commentary about what is possible; it is shaping what is possible. She said, “If we knew for sure that a candidate couldn’t beat Trump, that would be reason not to support them. But electability isn’t a static social fact; it’s a social fact we’re constructing. Part of what will make someone unelectable is people give up on them in a way that would be premature, rather than going to the mat for them.” ...What makes a candidate electable is in part how much positive coverage they get, and how much positive coverage they get is tied to how the media powers decide who is electable, and so goes the double bind...."

https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-unconscious-bias-is-running-for-president/?fbclid=IwAR2ZdtO0oET9YBnjZ0ibWWyOQJqByYOaUaeQD3Pe7jK9E6iVPQOFbysiris

[NYMinute]

1. Trump cannot exploit the Anita Hill non-issue

He has bigger problems with women.

On the other hand, a male candidate is best positioned to get back the Trump Democrats.

[bloom]

2. The think of it is - a lot of women want a president who isn't a misogynist

As Solnit discusses - it's really NOT great having a candidate who is merely less of a misogynist than the one we have.

We want someone who 'gets it'. If you don't it - then at least read the article - click on the link.

[NYMinute]

15. Are you calling the Democratic males running for POTUS

misogynists? That is a serious charge.

[DownriverDem]

18. A lot of women

want normalcy. Biden is winning with many woman.

[Demsrule86]

19. Joe Biden is not a misogynist.

[bloom]

10. We can't have white males presuming to know what will motivate blacks and women voters

So we disagree.

[NYMinute]

16. Males have wives, sisters, mothers and daughters

To assume that they are oblivious about women's issues is a bit over the top.

[Demit]

29. Many males treat the women in their lives with paternalism.

Being un-oblivious about women's issues doesn't make men automatically think of their wives, sisters etc as equals.

[kcr]

43. If all it took was having wives, sisters, mothers and daughters

Then sexism would have never existed in the first place. Trump has a wife (he's had more than one), a mother, sisters and daughters. To assume that a male is not sexist because he knows women is beyond naive.

[NYMinute]

45. Let's pull out an extreme example

and paint all the males with it.

[kcr]

47. Let's construct a strawman?

All I did was point out that having a mother, daughter, wife or a sister doesn't magically make a man not sexist. No paint brushes necessary.

[Demsrule86]

20. They are supporting Biden according to polls.

[DownriverDem]

21. Which is why

a Biden/Harris ticket would be formidable. We haven't had a woman VP. Harris would then be positioned to become President.

[saidsimplesimon]

48. point well taken

I agree with your comment.

[Demit]

12. Of course he could. Republicans, Trump in particular, are impervious to charges of hypocrisy.

Trump has no shame. He will say anything for an applause line and his acolytes will comply.

[Demsrule86]

22. It wont work.

[marylandblue]

40. It worked against Hillary and 16 Republican opponents.

[bloom]

34. Yes - and it would work with FOX viewers, etc.

Because they don't know what's going on - haven't paid much attention to accusations against Trump, etc. anyway.

[saidsimplesimon]

3. bloom, thank you,

Let's change that media perception. Both Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren can win a presidential election, if they get the support of all Democrats and our allies in Business and Labor. imo

it’s a social fact we’re constructing. Part of what will make someone unelectable is people give up on them in a way that would be premature, rather than going to the mat for them.” ...What makes a candidate electable is in part how much positive coverage they get, and how much positive coverage they get is tied to how the media powers decide who is electable, and so goes the double bind...."

[bloom]

4. You're welcome. n't

[Demsrule86]

23. They won't win in rustbelt states and the only thing that happens if we prop

Up their candidacy is we lose.

[saidsimplesimon]

27. I see you are of the opinion that

they could not win those states because, not to put words in your post, they are women?

We will never know the extent of Russian meddling in the 2016 election related to vote tampering. I do not rule it out. Perhaps a woman did win?

[marylandblue]

26. Changing the social construct is easier said than done.

People don't give up their social constructs easily, esp3cially when they are afraid, as they are this year.

[saidsimplesimon]

30. We have already lost in 2020

if we don't believe that our Democratic message is built on strength, not weakness, on courage not fear.

I believe we can and must win in those midwestern states we lost in the last Presidential election.

[bloom]

35. +1

[marylandblue]

41. I agree with you. But I see a lot of fear-based narratives right now.

I'm hoping we will get past that and really pick the best candidate.

[unblock]

5. I really don't like the false equating of Biden and Donald fraud

People keep repeating Biden/hill crap without making it clear what's at issue here.

It was the republicans who, as always, were the obnoxiously sexist jerks who refused to believe her, insisted she was lying and had an agenda, etc.

Biden gave her a chance to speak, he believed her, he defended her, and he attacked her critics.

Was he perfect? No, obviously. There were a number of mistakes in that circus.
Was the sexism in what he did and how he did it? Sure.

But Donald fraud and the republicans are beyond unrepentant. They take pride in putting women down, whereas Biden will listen and try to do better.


Is it worth having this dialogue? Of course.
Should we pass over Biden for someone who already "gets it"? Quite possibly; in any event, that's certainly a valid question during primary season.


But to throw out a word like misogyny and suggest that Biden and Donald fraud are moral equivalent offenders here, particularly based just on Biden's performance during the Thomas confirmation process, is ridiculous.

[bloom]

8. Misogyny or not R.S. nails it with this description:

"Meanwhile, the New York Times in all its august unbearability just published this prize sentence in a piece about Joe Biden’s failure to offer Anita Hill an apology she found adequate: “Many former Judiciary Committee aides and other people who participated did not want to talk on the record because they feared that scrutiny of Mr. Biden’s past conduct would undermine the campaign of the candidate some think could be best positioned to defeat President Trump, whose treatment of women is a huge issue for Democrats.” That translates as, let’s run a guy whose treatment of women is an issue, and let’s ignore that treatment because even so we think that he’s best positioned to defeat the guy whose treatment of women is an issue, and also fuck treatment of women, especially this black woman, as an issue, really...."

As R.S. notes - something like 11% of Democratic voters are white men - yet look at the attention white men get.

I get the sense that many of the Biden lovers don't really get it - the difference in supporting him and supporting a woman who would defeat Trump. I don't see Biden as a leader at all. I do see Harris & Warren as leaders.

[unblock]

13. No, that's exactly where she blows it.

Lumping Biden's performance in the Thomas confirmation hearing in with all of Donald fraud's misogyny as all just "treatment of women" is really not helping anything, imho.

Frankly Biden did a very good job given the challenge. He was given just a weekend to conduct the whole thing and it was the first time such a thing became a major televised spectacle and republicans turned it into a circus, and worse, turned the question of "should Thomas be confirmed to the Supreme Court" into "is he guilty of sexual harassment beyond reasonable doubt".

Republicans are the misogynistic asshole here, Biden really merely failed to overcome that sexism.


I'm undecided and think we have a great slate of candidates, any of which would make a great president, in not keen on running any of them down. Women's rights and "treatment of women" would most certainly improve with Biden as president, as it would with any of our candidates as president.

[marylandblue]

42. None of that matters now. He was a victim of unconscious bias, as are we all.

With hindsight, we can see many places where he reflected the unconscious biases of his day. We shouldn't sweep it under the rug or rationalize it. Rather we should examine it and learn from it. If we don't, then we may fall victim to the unconscious bias of our own time.

[LongtimeAZDem]

14. Calling Biden a misogynist, even implying it, is complete and utter bullshit. Period.

[Demsrule86]

24. She will never accept any apology.

[bloom]

11. More views about the Biden/Hill thing - from VOX

"...While every lawmaker on the committee had his own dedicated time to ask questions, Hill supporters noted that Biden was the one overseeing all of the proceedings and could have used his authority to step in. “The Republicans metaphorically stoned Anita Hill, while the Democrats, Biden being the gatekeeper, let it happen,” Angela Wright Shannon, an EEOC employee who also raised allegations against Thomas, told Roll Call.

Hill’s camp also notes that Biden contributed to the hostile tone of the hearing himself. “I was shocked and dismayed that Joe Biden was asking questions that didn’t seem appropriate and was not in her corner as a Democrat,” Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor who served as Hill’s attorney, told Politico. “The point is that he’s supposed to be neutral, but his questions to Anita Hill were as piercing as anyone’s.”

Biden has previously argued that the rules governing the committee limited how much he was able to intervene, especially when questions were being asked by other lawmakers."

...Biden has also been criticized for not calling more witnesses who could have helped corroborate Hill’s account. Sukari Hardnett and Wright Shannon were both EEOC employees who said they could speak to the culture of the office. Both were not ultimately called to testify, nor was at least one other woman who said she could back Hill’s allegations.

“I did expect that the chair would be fair and gather the testimony from the relevant witnesses, like the three women who were not called in to testify, like the experts on sexual harassment that could have helped inform the committee about how the problem manifests itself,” Hill told Time in 2016....

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/27/18262482/joe-biden-anita-hill-2020-christine-blasey-ford-brett-kavanaugh

[Demsrule86]

25. 30 Years ago ...I don't care. It makes no difference to me.

Trump must go.

[bloom]

6. From 2016 - by Solnit - relating to this subject

R.S. shared this on her facebook page - relating to the above subject. It's an interesting read, too. Mostly about a man on 'death row.'


"There are two things I think about nearly every time I row out into San Francisco Bay. One is a passage from Shankar Vedantam’s The Hidden Brain, in which he talks about a swim he once took. A decent swimmer in his own estimate, Vedantam went out into the sea one day and discovered that he had become superb and powerful; he was instantly proud of his new abilities. Far from shore, he realized he had been riding a current and was going to have to fight it all the way back to shore. “Unconscious bias influences our lives in exactly the same manner as that undercurrent,” Vedantam writes. “Those who travel with the current will always feel they are good swimmers; those who swim against the current may never realize they are better swimmers than they imagine.”"


https://harpers.org/archive/2016/03/259268/?fbclid=IwAR04xp3t8Z2q8on3cg9ym8TPo_Nu0CF9fC8ljQ5YEDPaAOBO0bPAB7z1TY0

[saidsimplesimon]

7. A most interesting read, thanks again

[Demit]

9. Fantastic article. Thanks for posting it.

I didn't know that James Comey "complained that his erstwhile classmate Amy Klobuchar was “annoyingly smart.” Reminded me of Chuck Todd characterizing Hillary Clinton as being "somewhat over-prepared" in one of the debates.

I loved where she says "I am a middle-aged blue-eyed blonde woman and quite possibly wonky myself...so I find Elizabeth Warren magnificent and if that word “relatable” is not going to die an overdue death, that too. When she talks about dismantling big tech or calls for impeachment with a voice full of conviction or delivers another of her well-crafted plans to change the world, that’s compelling and exactly what I hope to see in a leader. And I find Kamala Harris questioning Jeff Sessions and Brett Kavanaugh until they jellify riveting and supremely skilled and powerful, which is maybe what we mean by charismatic."

[BlueMTexpat]

17. Great comments!!

[LisaM]

28. Unconscious bias and misogyny are not the same thing (even if they overlap).

This is a thoughtful piece, and yet some of the reactions act as if the male candidates are getting name-called.

At some point, I just feel like giving up.

[doompatrol39]

31. I'd be really interested in a Venn diagram

of folks (maybe on here, but it probably extends well beyond here) who accused people who didn't support Hillary (mostly but not exclusively directed at Bernie supporters) of misogyny and sexism for not supporting her, but who know are vocal Biden supporters.

I suspect it might be a big overlap and it's more people who are totally invested in the idea of centrist electability than in any sort of identity politics, but it's telling that so many who used "WE NEED TO SUPPORT A WOMAN FOR PRESIDENT!!!" back in 2016 are most cheerfully lining up behind the older white guys.

[loyalsister]

32. Yup

It's an uncomfortable truth that rather that misogyny and white supremacy are not exclusive to hate groups and Trump voters, but are inherent to US culture in a range of manifestations that are not necessarily outwardly hostile.
Catering to the actions and sentiments that prop up both is a de facto participation with support for historical exhibitions and/or current defenses of unconscious bias.
If the recent widespread blatant hostilities towards women, minorities of both sexes, LGBT communities, religious minorities, and immigrants isn't enough to make us all stop giving into it in the interest of political expediency, what will?

[bloom]

36. Yes - a lot of us are seeing the potential of this moment.

Others want to bury their heads further into the sand.

[loyalsister]

38. Warren is doing a great job at connecting institutional misogyny

to policy. It goes back to reproductive politics. Not just exploiting the right to end a pregnancy, but in dismantling the government programs that provided support for child rearing.
Policies enacted in the 90s and zeros have everything to do with economic inequality and the intersection with racism and sexism- and, where we are now. Yet, talking about it is considered a circular firing squad or bashing.
Defense of enacting those policies is a slap in the face.

[earthshine]

33. I refuse to believe that Biden is our only electable candidate.

I think most of them can win based on issues and platform.

[bloom]

37. Yeah. I don't get the Biden love, myself.

I am ready for the women who have been working harder because they had to - to get noticed in their fields.

[BlueWI]

49. This.

Warren, Kloubuchar, and Harris are all exceptionally accomplished and strong candidates. They have earned an opportunity to be heard for the benefit of all of us and potentially to make history as the first woman to serve as president.

[MineralMan]

39. I'll vote for:

[marylandblue]

44. Hey I get it, but if your plane is about to crash, do you want the guy who looks like the best pilot

Or the actual best pilot, who may not look like a pilot at all?

[MineralMan]

46. I'll take the better pilot, if I know which

one that is.

I was just riffing on the title in the OP.