"Here 4 the Kids" Smells Like A Very 2023 Racial Ablution Grift. By Jesse Singal

jessesingal.substack.com

9 - 11 minutes

“Hundreds of White women gather at Colorado Capitol after plea from women of color to use their ‘privilege’ to demand action on gun violence,” goes the CNN headline from last week.

The “plea” in question comes from Here 4 the Kids, a brand-new advocacy organization founded after the mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville in March. The top two people listed on its Leadership page are Saira Rao, famous for convincing liberal white women to pay handsomely to host dinners in which they are confronted over their ostensible racism (see this New York magazine article or this Helen Lewis interview), and Tina Strawn, “an anti-racism facilitator, racial and social justice advocate, author, and pleasure activist” whose website touts her “3-day immersive, anti-racism experiences.” In addition to the CNN coverage, the effort got mostly glowing coverage from ABC (which noted some celebrity endorsements) and NBC, though the latter noted that “Organizers had hoped for 25,000 protesters on site Monday, but by 8 a.m., there were closer to 1,500.”

Here 4 the Kids ostensibly exists to end gun violence against children, but if you go to the About page and cut through the fluff and prog-speak, you will see that it is very hard to understand exactly what the organization is or does, save for one very specific demand: Rao, Strawn, and her colleagues want white women to protest the fact that Jared Polis, Colorado’s governor, a Democrat, hasn’t signed an executive order Here 4 the Kids authored. White women in particular need to do this protesting because they “are least likely to be brutalized by the police” — the theory being, apparently, that if non-white women peacefully protest in front of the State Capitol in Denver, they risk being physically assaulted by law enforcement, whereas white women will be left alone.

An inquisitive reader who is sympathetic to the cause of gun control, having gotten this far, naturally has certain questions: Does anyone on the Here 4 the Kids leadership team have any experience in gun policy? Is the executive order actually useful? More to the point, is any of this a good idea that is likely to succeed?

If you’re asking those questions, though, you’re missing the point. None of this is really about reducing gun violence. Rather, it’s about meeting a specific market need: white liberal women’s racial atonement. 

The philosopher Liam Bright has an interesting and provocative paper about “white psychodrama” that I recommend. The basic argument is that America’s complicated and frequently brutal history of racism, and our present, unsettled era — some progress, a lot of unfinished business, a lot to be unhappy and neurotic about — has led to different responses from different types of white people.

Here’s how he describes one type, the “Repenter”:

    One common type among the white majority may be called the Repenter. This character straightforwardly responds to our story with an overwhelming sense of guilt. They see the group they identify with as having committed horrible crimes globally and domestically, and they are ever so aware of the ways in which present material conditions generate continued deprivation for black people alongside relative comfort for many white people. They believe in racially egalitarian ideologies which tell them this ought not to be, and hence feel unhappy with themselves and the state of things.

    The Repenter would deeply, deeply, like to do things to alleviate this guilt. And their form of repentance involves trying to change their interpersonal habits and consumer choices so as to minimize their contribution to the broader social issue, and help the particular black people they interact with. In this way, by doing that sort of self-work, they hope to be able to live in a world that is admittedly unjust while making it that little bit better, and through such efforts be able to honestly maintain a positive self-image.

    So the Repenter invests in lessons on sophisticated etiquette around interracial interactions. They are keen for their workplace to celebrate diversity, and satisfying their desire for both a tolerable workspace and various consumer goods drives what commentators call ‘woke capitalism’. They seek out and do their best to appreciate the work of non-white thinkers and artists. Sometimes all this can be rather ostentatious, and one rather suspects the moral kudos for being seen to do as much is playing rather too large a role in their motivations. But we need not be so cynical; these may well be the result of a heartfelt sense that such behaviour is required by justice, given the genuine guilt which their group membership and historical situation has placed upon them. [references omitted]

I’ve been critical of this approach to racial justice in this newsletter, my book, and elsewhere. And there are some similarly critical accounts of this sort of dynamic that go into more depth and that are worth reading, most notably Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn’s Race Experts: How Racial Etiquette, Sensitivity Training, and New Age Therapy Hijacked the Civil Rights Revolution.

At root, it’s simply quite likely, all else being equal, that a spiritual quest for racial (or other forms of) ablution and forgiveness is going to be incompatible with actually effective activism and policy reform. This case study offers a great example. 

The CNN article links to another CNN article which notes that in April, Polis signed four gun-control bills into law “that raise the age requirement for gun possession and establish a minimum waiting period for gun deliveries, among other measures.” So Polis certainly is on board with reforming gun laws. Will these particular reforms reduce gun deaths in Colorado? You know me: the world is complicated and it’s hard to say. But no one can deny that the law in Colorado, as it pertains to firearms, is now stricter.

Compare that to what Rao and Here 4 the Kids are calling for: they demand that Polis sign an executive order (not pass a law approved by the state legislature) in which his office, having declared a state of emergency, would unilaterally declare “a total ban on all guns and a comprehensive, mandatory buyback program.”

This is, of course, completely unconstitutional on its face, as Polis’s office notes in a quote tucked into the end of the original CNN article, after all the uplifting stuff about white women joining together to protect their sisters of color (both from gun violence and from being assaulted by Denver police because they nonviolently protested). A Polis spokesperson told CNN that the governor “will not issue an unconstitutional order that will be struck down in court simply to make a public relations statement – he will continue to focus on real solutions to help make Colorado one of the ten safest states.” Which sounds reasonable! Rao, for her part, could not come across as more of a lightweight in the story. Here’s the end of it:

    Both Rao and Strawn said lawmakers have failed to curb gun violence and when asked if the new gun control laws in Colorado were a start, Rao said “no” because despite current state laws aimed to prevent them, gun deaths still persist.

    “State legislation does not work. Why? Because guns can cross state lines, you can print guns on 3D printers,” Rao said. “State legislation is not working. It’s just not working, it doesn’t matter what it is.”

Setting aside the ridiculous logic of “if there are still gun deaths, gun control doesn’t work,” that last quote is fairly remarkable. I mean, there’s “being bad at PR” and then there’s “undermining your entire campaign in a single sentence.” Because of course if Rao is correct, an executive order would be just as useless as any law could be. By her own logic, on Monday Polis signs the EO, and on Tuesday (amid a flurry of conservative lawsuits and a terrifying response from various far-right militia types in Colorado and elsewhere) a bunch of illegal guns start flooding into the state to fill the vacuum left by closed-up shops.

This is all so fundamentally unserious. It’s just a depressing amount of wasted time and effort and emotional energy, all geared not at real change but at spiritual quixotism. And I shouldn’t neglect the potential for grifting. Here 4 the Kids is supposedly a 501(c)4. I can’t find any incorporation documents on GuideStar, though I think that’s normal for an organization this new. Either way, clearly Rao and her colleagues are seeking to make money off of it, both from donations and from an attached merch shop selling shirts with brilliant slogans like “Ban Guns / Not Healthcare.” Plus, it seems quite likely that once you sign up for their mailing list you’ll be an easy target for the radical anti-racist trainings these women offer (I donated a dollar and will keep you all updated about what sorts of emails I receive).

In the modern conception of bourgeoisie anti-racism, there’s always a next step: a new training, new verbiage to master, a new campaign, a new form of allyship. The problem is that it all adds up to so very little.