Coleman Hughes: belief

Transcript context

…Is there some way in which you feel uncomfortable by their embrace of you? They haven’t quite earned the opinion in a way you might feel you have? Or that doesn’t enter into it? No, I feel that sometimes. I feel a kind of undeveloped discomfort and inarticulable discomfort with some of the people that like me. I couldn’t exactly say why, but yes, it does come from some sense that the opinion is unearned, or that what is an opinion I’ve come to with great emotional weight and, frankly, psychological wrestling is an opinion that they’ve come to reflexively. That doesn’t sit well with me. In some sense, I would prefer — it makes me feel better about my message if I feel people who wouldn’t otherwise come to the views that I have are coming to it, not reluctantly, but knowing the counterarguments against it and taking them seriously. Taking, for instance, just the fact and kind of sanctity of the legacy of racism in black culture as a meme. Taking all of that seriously and, nevertheless, coming to the opinion that basically the dominant narrative on race is importantly wrong sits better for me than someone that takes it reflexively and without fully appreciating the counterargument. To the extent that white conservatives over-index on that way of engaging with me, it does make me uncomfortable. However, if I had stopped doing things that made me uncomfortable, I never would have gotten to where I am right now. I think that is one of the biggest things stopping many black people, and people of color in general, from agreeing with me publicly, is not that they disagree with me privately, it’s that they don’t want to tolerate those same feelings of discomfort from the white conservatives who will agree with them. I’ve made the choice that I’m willing to tolerate that discomfort, and I think that’s the right decision. How do ageism and racism interact? It’s a common racist trope to take a young black male and call him “boy,” historically. I’ve noticed sometimes when people talk about you, maybe it’s me that’s off, but they say pretty often that you’re “young” or “very young.” You’re not actually that young anymore. Do you feel people see you as too young in part because of racial issues, or is there some underlying condescension when people refer to you as “young”? Or you just don’t notice or don’t think any of that’s there?…

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