Civility, with Alex Zamalin

About the Guest

Alex Zamalin is director of the African American Studies Program and an associate professor of political science at the University of Detroit Mercy. He is the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Against Civility: The Hidden Racism in Our Obsession with Civility. His areas of expertise include African American political thought, American politics, and political theory.

Best Books

Against Civility: The Hidden Racism in our Obsession with Civility, by Alex Zamalin.

The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin.

THEME MUSIC: “Great Light,” by Deep Sea Diver.

Transcript

[Theme song: “Great Light,” by Deep Sea Diver]

ALEX ZAMALIN: It's often the case when movements for justice—specifically racial justice—are ascending, that one dominant refrain from those who are in power and don't want to trouble, don't want to change the status quo, is a call for civility.

BLAIR HODGES: Civility seems like an unqualified good. It seems like we need civility now more than ever, in a world where the Internet is a huge forum for discussion and where people can anonymously state their darkest thoughts, their angriest rants, their worst insults. Who could possibly be against courtesy or politeness? Who would oppose kindness in word and deed?

Alex Zamalin. He’s the author of a new book called Against Civility: The Hidden Racism in our Obsession with Civility. Tracing the history of civility from its deployment against African slaves, through Reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement all the way to today’s Black Lives Matter protests, Zamalin invites us to think about how that classic virtue has long been used in defense of inequality.

Zamalin is director of the African American Studies Program at University of Detroit Mercy and he joins us, quite civilly I might add, in this episode of Fireside with Blair Hodges.

Interpersonal versus civic civility – 01:18

BLAIR HODGES: Alex Zamalin, welcome to Fireside today. It's great to have you.

ALEX ZAMALIN: Hi Blair, thank you so much for inviting me.

BLAIR HODGES: I was tempted to start this interview off by saying, "You're a big jerk. I hated this book, it was terrible," and then see how you responded to an uncivil beginning to an interview about civility. [laughs] What would you do if I was just like, “This book really sucked?”

ALEX ZAMALIN: [laughs] Well, part of what I want to do in the book, and one of the things I think is important, is to distinguish between civility in interpersonal exchanges, and civility as an organizing concept in political life. So I, in my personal exchanges, try to be as compassionate, generous, understanding as possible.

And so my personal feelings around you responding to me uncivilly—I would kind of have to negotiate on my own whether I like them, don't like them. I don't really have much to say about these interpersonal exchanges. And one of the things I think is really helpful and important, is distinguishing between that moment of interaction between human beings and the larger concepts of civility as they're deployed in politics. When a politician, for instance, calls on a social movement to be civil, or when a state decides to punish citizens because they're being uncivil.

One of the things I really wanted to track in the book was that we often conflate and confuse interpersonal exchanges of civility and political exchanges of civility. And we mistake this belief and aspiration and hope that our interpersonal lives and conversations rooted in civility can easily be transposed into the political realm. And one of the things I want to do in the book is kind of get us to think differently about how we interact with one another, and how we should talk about politics, and organize social movements, and think about justice.

BLAIR HODGES: Great. It seems especially relevant right now, too. It feels like we're living at a time of incredible mass incivility. And there have been times in the past when I'm sure there have been similarities, we'll talk about as we go through the interview. But right now, following four years of a Trump presidency, and a few years of global pandemic, things seem really intense right now—more than I can remember in my own lifetime.

Discussions get heated, social media makes it easy to get in fights, and we have anonymity we can use, [laughs] so I can be a real big jerk to people, or I can get a lot of people together to be jerks to people if I want to. And as you say in your chapter one, a common response we've seen to this are these public calls for civility.

So define it, again, clearly: what are people calling for when they're saying to public groups, “We need to be civil,” what do you what do you see them asking for?

ALEX ZAMALIN: Yeah, so there's the kind of present descriptions, depictions of civility. And I think, often, they're directed towards movements for social justice. I think of Black Lives Matter from its formation in 2012, 2013, up until the George Floyd protests in 2020, where, often, politicians who would have distinct political disagreements and grievances, usually from a right-wing perspective—would denounce social justice activists for being uncivil. And in their view, incivility meant speaking in an angry way, it meant protesting in a direct way, it meant being unafraid to announce your position in terms of freedom and equality.

This is actually a historical dynamic that is repeated from the founding of the nation. It's often the case when movements for justice—specifically racial justice—are ascending, that one dominant refrain from those who are in power and don't want to trouble, don't want to change the status quo, is a call for civility, which in their view, is an example of patience, a kind of setting aside grievance, and so on.

And so for me, I think it's so important to distinguish and understand how political actors use civility to silence protest and dissent. And the way we might think of civility as a kind of vision, of conversation, of engagement of interpersonal exchange, and so on.

When They Go Low, We Go High – 5:43

BLAIR HODGES: From my point of view—I remember for example, during the Trump candidacy when he was making sexist remarks about women, or racist remarks about immigrants, or mocking a reporter with a disability, and all of these things I would have thought would have tanked any politician’s career at any point. And one of the moments I remember really starkly was when Michelle Obama would tell crowds of supporters, “When they go low, we go high.” And I have to say, as a parent, that really resonated with me. And I just agreed with it intrinsically like yeah, that makes sense to me.

What do you make of that, that so many people hear something like that, “When they go low, we go high,” it just makes sense. It just sounds right.

ALEX ZAMALIN: Right. Right. I think that it totally makes sense, especially in a kind of contemporary setting, where there's a real desire to bridge divides, to have a more kind of transparent conversation, to be able to connect with people.

I think in many ways, though, that intuition of reaching across the aisle is rooted in a kind of liberal, if not progressive, mindset. Which is to say that throughout history—whether American history, kind of global history—the orientation towards reaching across the aisle, towards listening to other sides, towards nonviolence, pluralism—that has been deeply connected with a kind of liberal sensibility of openness, transparency, hospitality, and so on. And so I think that, on some level, that desire to exhibit warmth and kindness is rooted in the kind of vision of human dignity.

At the same time, I think when we talk about politics, when we talk about our understanding of the world, it's important to understand the way these concepts can easily be weaponized, can easily be used in specific contexts in order to create divisions between us-versus-them.

So when I think of Michelle Obama's speech, on some level, I think it's incredibly valuable. And as a parent myself, I want my kids to be kind to their friends, to their peers. But when I think about what happens in the political realm, when this becomes the way that we conceptualize political conflict—To say, you know, “when they go low, we go high,” also sets the table for creating a language of us-versus-them. But the problem is that in our history, too often, the us-versus-them is deeply racialized. It's not simply about character at the end of the day. It often depends greatly on where you fit within the racial hierarchy.

So the problem with allowing that conversation to be the basis of politics is it often is sets up a kind of unsustainable conversation where those in power get to define who's civil and uncivil, who's rude and who's not rude. And to me, it's incredibly important to stress the power dynamics that go into conversations around justice and freedom, which, too often these power dynamics are missing when we just talk about civility, because it's a warm, kind of disarming concept that tries to bring us together in a way that masks the ways sometimes in politics it's really hard to bring people together, given interests, given power, given competing perspectives, and so on.

Using civility to perpetuate oppression and racism – 8:56

BLAIR HODGES: Your introduction made it clear to me, it was really interesting to see you say, a lot of people want a common ground and civility, and the idea of civility gives us a sense that we can find that—that we can find a common ground where we can talk about stuff, where we can reach a consensus, where we can collaborate and try to work with each other. A place where reason will triumph.

And that's why your book I think is so important, because it shows that civility itself isn't a neutral thing. And that civility can be deployed for really bad ends. And your first chapter tries to make a case that there's some troubling historical undersides to calls for civility.

For example, you've seen it as a way for people to claim a moral high ground to defend morally indefensible things. So, I think one of the examples that you use is when the South is seceding from the country, and they invoke civility in breaking off from the United States to defend slavery. How are they invoking civility there? This is an example where civility can be used to defend something oppressive.

ALEX ZAMALIN: Yeah, thanks Blair. Well, you know, I think in many ways, looking at nineteenth century rhetoric really created the impetus for writing this book, because I had long been teaching American political thought and looking at the way race was imagined in the nineteenth century.

And the thing that struck me the most was when I began to actually examine some of the earliest invocations of civility, in many ways—contrary to my own expectations—the biggest and most ardent defenders of civility were not abolitionists, were not anti-slavery activists, but we're actually slaveholders.

BLAIR HODGES: Yes.

ALEX ZAMALIN: So I think of 1837 when John C. Calhoun, who was vice president under Jackson and a senator from South Carolina, goes before the Senate floor and says, “The greatest threat to our democracy is not the South,” which is invested in brutalizing, keeping in bondage human beings. “But the real threat is the uncivil behavior of the North that threatens to bring the house down, that threatens disunity.” And as a matter of fact, as Calhoun continues, it's the South—of course, raising all sorts of deeply racist and white supremacist ideas about Southern paternalism, about the way that southerners are invested in enslaving people, and so on. But what's striking is that early on, Calhoun positions himself as something of a great civil hero. And this actually is not uncommon in the organizing conversation within pro-slavery forces.

There's another figure, George C. Fitzhugh, who goes even farther. Who says that it's precisely because southerners are so civil, so kind, so generous, so accepting, that slavery is a positive good. That slavery is something that creates a kind of beloved community for all.

And so, to me, it's that language and use of civility that immediately was troubling. It became clear that it's not a concept that is neutral. It's not a concept that's deployed simply by progressive forces who are looking for more inclusivity. To the contrary, its roots and origins are in a deeply troubled tradition of American history.

Uncle Tom’s civil cabin – 12:24

BLAIR HODGES: It's disturbing to see the way that civility can be deployed almost as a distraction. So Calhoun can get up and talk about civility when the question really is about whether humans should be able to own other human beings as property. But he's now shifted the conversation to this idea of civility and peace, also as a way to neutralize his critics, right? To say, “Wow, you seem really angry, woof,” you know, if someone's responding in a passionate way to say, “Whoa, ooh,” I can position that person as being out of control or being irrational or something when, again, it shifts away from the actual problem and the power dynamics that are going on.

And it's disturbing—I mean as the subtitle of your book says, The Hidden Racism in our Obsession with Civility. So you're connecting civility with this history of racism. Here's a quote from you: "Civility is a central term through which racial inequality has been maintained." That's a huge claim. But you bring a lot of historical evidence to defend it. We talked a little bit about slave holders. You mentioned how, saying, “Oh, slavery is uplifting, and this is, chivalrous, and this brings law and order,” and also depicting Black people as being animal, and uncivil, and needing to be owned and controlled.

And while you're laying this out, though—this isn't a story where you're saying progressive liberal people are enlightened and good and conservative people are bad. You actually include criticism for liberal minded people as well, including abolitionists. So let's skip ahead to Harriet Beecher Stowe, for example, this is the author of the famous book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, that was a huge challenge to slavery, it made a big impact on the American conscience about how slavery worked. So it's a book that many people praise, but you see reasons to even kind of criticize it. Let's talk a little bit about that.

ALEX ZAMALIN: Yeah. I think that, on the one hand, it's clear when the far right uses civility to enforce a kind of racial state, a racially authoritarian state that's inegalitarian and deeply troubling. I think it's much more difficult to isolate the ways in which progressive minded people, liberals, have historically, too, been tempted by civility as a way to excuse themselves from real questioning, from real examination of their own motivation.

So one of the things about Uncle Tom's Cabin that's so striking is that in the narrative, in order to create sympathy in a white readership—which Uncle Tom's Cabin was the second-best selling book of the 1850s, selling I think it was two million copies. The only book that sold more was the Bible.

In order to create sympathy in white readers, Stowe needed to paint an image of Black citizens, specifically the figure of Uncle Tom, as wanting to dispense forgiveness for the sin of slavery, as being incredibly civil. And so in a sense, in order to show the brutality of slavery, liberals like Stowe need to position Black citizens as, on some level, so willing to engage the discourse of forgiveness, of compromise, of reconciliation, in order to blunt the force of the real trauma and violence that slavery inflicted—not only upon Black citizens, but the whole nation.

And so it's this double move that Stowe was trying to balance, where she's trying to get sympathy in her audience, but at the same time, at the cost of painting a deeply simplistic image of Black citizens that actually reinforces a conception of racism that is prevalent in the nineteenth century. As opposed to, for example, someone like Frederick Douglass, who writes a novella around the same time, and it's based on this figure of “Madison Washington.” Or someone like Martin Delany, who writes a book that is called Blake—this is 1859 and it's one of the first kind of Afro-futurist science fiction novels, where they position Black citizens as invested in their freedom, as willing and forceful in the struggle for liberation, as core participants, as opposed to citizens who are simply willing to dispense forgiveness and compassion to white citizens who have engaged in brutalizing activity.

So I think it's clear that Stowe's decision in the narrative was a decision, given the competing examples that were available to her in the nineteenth century. And I think it raises a deeper question around strategies for creating solidarity, anti-racist solidarity, in the face of white supremacy: Is it necessary to rely on the discourse of civility? Or is there perhaps an alternative that could still create the same impact, the same social justice, racial justice, impact without resorting to the simplified caricatures of civil and uncivil?

Civility and innocence – 17:21

BLAIR HODGES: As we go, we'll unpack that vision, because you lay it out in the book. I also wanted to mention, that conversation reminded me of recent stuff we're seeing, for example, the graphic novel Maus, by Art Spiegelman, which is a book about the Holocaust. It's a book about his family and trauma that happened, and it's being banned in certain places around the country. And now it's a best seller as a result. So—

ALEX ZAMALIN: Right.

BLAIR HODGES:— a nice side effect, perhaps, of that. But the idea that children and young people should be shielded from a book like this—and I saw a really interesting discussion about this, which is, white people like me probably prefer stories of the Holocaust that are uplifting, that have some kind of moral message to them, that perhaps depict a white person, a white savior type person, someone who's saving people, or has some kind of happy ending, because the Holocaust is such a horrible thing.

And Maus doesn't offer that. Maus is much more stark. It shows generational trauma—albeit in illustrated form. But that's one of the reasons people are saying that that book would be banned and other books wouldn't. And I can't help but connect it to this idea of civility, this sort of positivity. Maus is not a civil book, in a sense. It's a challenging book. Is that a fair comparison?

ALEX ZAMALIN: Yeah, I think so. I think that ultimately—and this is one of the things James Baldwin was really interested in highlighting throughout his writing, this idea of innocence. Baldwin talked of this notion, he framed it as kind of white innocence, but it's a larger concept of citizens who may know, may on some level understand, the darker parts of society, their history, the more troubling and unsustainable parts of the world, of their treatment of their fellow citizens, but are unwilling to look fully at it, and would rather create romanticized notions that stress unrealistic characters, that stress easy resolutions that avoid contradictions.

Because on some level, Baldwin says, it's much easier to be invested in innocence, because it takes away, displaces, a sense of responsibility from actually changing the world.

Racial uplift – 19:29

BLAIR HODGES: Another point you raised that I'll just mention in passing is that this call for civility after the Civil War had ended was also a way to pave the way for ongoing oppression—the idea that peace and order were these things—“Oh, this is what our goals are, our goals are for peace, da da da.”

The goal wasn't justice, wasn't fixing things, wasn't reparations, wasn't making it up to Black people who had been enslaved. It was civility, peace, calmness. And that paved the way, then, for the failure of Reconstruction, and, you know, Jim Crow laws and all of this. So people who check out the book can look a little bit more at that history.

We're talking today with Alex Zamalin. He's author of Against Civility: The Hidden Racism in Our Obsession with Civility.

In Chapter Three of the book, we encounter Booker T. Washington, and this is a Black advocate for racial uplift. And a number of other Black people at the time took different approaches to Washington. So, Booker T. Washington is a Black person who's trying to offer a vision for Black people after slavery has been abolished, and starts the Tuskegee Institute and is trying to educate and uplift Black people. And you're contrasting Booker T. Washington with other people. Let's spend a minute on that. I think it's useful because we see the same dynamic playing out today.

ALEX ZAMALIN: Yeah. As with any tradition—you know, I'm a scholar of Black political thought—there are liberal, progressive, as well as conservative visions in all traditions of political theory. Booker Washington is no exception. What's clear is that at the same time as Booker T. Washington is trying to create institutions of social uplift—Tuskegee, vocational training for Black citizens—he is invested in a vision of uplift that stresses individualism, that stresses racial reconciliation, that stresses a certain vision of peace and prosperity with his white neighbors in the south.

The point I try to stress in the book is not so much that Washington himself is misguided, or that in theory this cannot work. But instead, that if you look at the figures who aligned themselves with Washington, or who try to use this rhetoric of racial reconciliation to further their ends, it's clear that it attracts the most vicious white supremacist at the time.

So for instance, you look at a figure like Thomas Dixon, who is the author of a novel that inspires D. W. Griffith to write and direct Birth of a Nation, which is one of the most notorious racist films of the twentieth century. Dixon insists that Washington is an example of the ways in which slavery and the post-Reconstruction moment were not that bad. Because at the same time as Washington is trying to call for the idea of racial reconciliation, white supremacists use Washington as an example of the ways in which, in their view, slavery and racism were never that bad.

BLAIR HODGES: Mmhm.

ALEX ZAMALIN: And so what I tried to stress in the book is that, despite their best efforts, even figures who are trying to push to get citizens to appreciate the potential value of civility in a society that is defined, organized, around racism and white supremacy, that kind of project is incredibly difficult, and more often than not, it backfires.

BLAIR HODGES: It also reminds me of Martin Luther King. So today, we have a holiday for Martin Luther King, he seems to transcend political divisions today. We're going to see, every year, politically liberal people and politically conservative people quoting Martin Luther King on that holiday dedicated to his honor. His reputation today is kind of the epitome of civility and nonviolent protests.

So Martin Luther King is this really, really great figure today. And your book, like a lot of research, says that this is actually kind of a version of Dr. King that's been manufactured to appeal to the masses. It's kind of a “safe” Dr. King. And it's not necessarily an accurate Dr. King.

ALEX ZAMALIN: For me, King is an example of a tradition that I in the book called “civic radicalism.” And civic radicalism names a commitment to fight for justice and freedom and equality in a way that eschews and avoids what I call the civility trap. King, I think, exemplifies this because although he's deeply committed to the concept of nonviolent civil disobedience, he never takes that position as a substitute for action. He always considers the most important component of a robust civic life to include citizens who are constantly, vigilantly, vigorously pushing for justice.

And so at the beginning of his political and activist career in 1955, he's involved with the Montgomery bus boycott. And early on, he maintains that commitment to direct action, and freedom, and liberation, despite the fact that his focus early on is on voting rights and equal protection under the law.

But by the time the 1960s unfold, and he starts to see that many figures in the establishment are unwilling to push for more freedom beyond voting rights, beyond equal protection with the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, King starts to become much more adamant about the importance of pushing directly for fair housing, for economic equality. He starts a “poor people's movement,” he moves to Chicago in order to advocate for citizens to engage in rent strike—to withhold rent, given the poor living conditions in parts of Chicago.

So King actually continues to maintain his vision of a robust, active political life without resorting to a “civility” argument precisely because he is invested in freedom and justice.

Violence and nonviolence – 25:54

BLAIR HODGES: Back then we can see people criticizing Dr. King as not being civil, which is interesting to think about as well. We see people—even though he was leading nonviolent protests, the issues that he was raising themselves seem to be the problem. We see people depicting Dr. King as being guilty of sparking riots or this type of thing. And so it's easy then to avoid the content of what Dr. King was calling for, and focusing instead on the social unrest that they could blame him for.

But there also is some social unrest, right? Like there are people who commit vandalism or, you know, here in Salt Lake City during 2020 some people tipped over a police car and lit it on fire at a Black Lives Matter March that I went to. That happened later on and, you know, I don't attribute that to the Black Lives Matter movement, I see that as something that happened—here are going to be people that are disruptive and in all kinds of social movements. But it's easy to point to that burning car and say that's what Black Lives Matter is about, that's the kind of thing that Dr. King was making happen, that's the kind of thing that we're seeing today. What's your response to that?

ALEX ZAMALIN: Well, I think it's important to look at the way that activists have negotiated this terrain throughout history. King is a perfect example of this, because as he was calling for nonviolent civil disobedience, he was being framed as uncivil, irrespective of how committed he was as a person of faith, as an adherent of nonviolent action. He was depicted as uncivil.

So I think to the question of, how did activists think about strategy—often it's out of their hands. Whether they engage in sit ins, whether they engage in boycotts, whether they engage in the most nonviolent direct action possible, those who are hostile to them will always find ways to depict them as uncivil. That's the first kind of point I'd like to raise.

The second is that the most effective change throughout history is nonviolent direct action. But there’s a difference between nonviolent direct action that is focused on institutions of power—for instance, boycotting strikes, and so on—as opposed to nonviolent direct action that is simply symbolic, simply a protest to register some kind of opposition.

So there's a difference between tweeting on social media that you support a movement, and actually being invested in it. This is one of the core contributions of the Civil Rights movement, which suggests that the most effective way to make change is to engage in public acts of solidarity, is to engage in protest and popular movements that are concerned with freedom.

Tone policing up to the present – 28:51

BLAIR HODGES: I also noticed a lot of tone policing that happened. And you show historically, how different white people would come to the fore, prominent white people would enter these discussions and try to—they seemed a little bit more concerned about how the discussion was being had even more than they were concerned about the content of discussion.

So for example, you bring up the white economist, Milton Friedman, and he had this view that the free market would sort racism out. That racism would become less and less appealing and businesses would have to take down those “Whites Only” signs and stuff because it would choke out their business or, you know, these types of things. We obviously didn't really see that happening, civil rights legislation came through. But we do see someone like Friedman saying, “Hey, stop trying to do all this stuff, it's just gonna get fixed.”

Then we have the rise of people like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who did this study blaming Black families, saying there aren't enough Black fathers, this is back—this is decades ago. We still see these things coming back up, we see this white ethnic revival, as one historian called it, where white people were suddenly saying, “Well, hey, I didn't enslave anybody, I don't have any responsibility toward this.”

And these are all responses to calls for greater equality. So there would be protests, there would be boycotts, there would be sit ins and things. And then white people always have some come back here that they're developing to say, like, “Actually, oh, you don't need to do all that stuff. It's gonna get sorted out,” or blaming, “Oh, well, the inequality is a result of Black people being lazy,” or “not enough Black fathers.”

Like white people always have these ways of positioning ourselves on this ground of civility and rationality and pushing the problem back. And that seemed like an important part of the argument you were making.

ALEX ZAMALIN: Yeah. And I think it's consistent throughout much of American history. You see this time and time again. Because I think one of the effective ways civility is used to engage in tone policing, to engage in the silencing of dissent, is through this idea that somehow there are clear moral heroes and villains. And so, in all of these examples, there's this real desire by many of these citizens to make a clear distinction—what they believe is a clear distinction—between the moral father, the upstanding immigrant, the businessman who is willing to engage in thinking through market interest as opposed to racist beliefs.

And so, part of what's interesting time and time again, and so, I think, troubling, is that there's a real temptation to imagine a political problem as something that can simply be solved through more upstanding behavior. And again, I think that creates a displacing effect where many white citizens feel there is less of a reason to engage in activism or social justice protests and so on.

BLAIR HODGES: Do you think that civility, then, today—because you talk a lot about the history—but do you think the notion of civility is still, today, granting people with racist views a space in public discourse, or too big of a space? What do you think about civility as its operating right now?

ALEX ZAMALIN: Well, I can look at the last three or four years. And one thing I've noticed is that in the kind of critique of, assault on, so-called woke culture, Critical Race Theory, there's a push—and this is often done through civility—to bring in some of the most heinous forms of thought and argument.

So one thing that has been clear to me is figures who are on the far fringe. Neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer, folks like Charles Murray, who, along with Richard Herrnstein wrote The Bell Curve in 1994, which advanced a racist argument that Black citizens, citizens of color, somehow had a lower IQ than white citizens—All of these figures were being embraced as a consequence of this liberal desire to hear all sides, as a desire to seek compromise.

So I was always struck, listening to NPR, or sometimes watching the news, how this desire to hear the other side was almost blinding citizens to the actual content of what was being said, and was preventing us from thinking through, to what extent are these kinds of conversations truly productive in the public sphere in discourse? And to what extent do they simply provide a space for some of the most heinous positions we know of today?

BLAIR HODGES: What kind of solution would you offer? What can society do to—it's going to be hard to argue, people will say, “free speech, freedom of speech,” and like you said, we want to feel like, “Oh, I'm a reasonable person, so I'm ready to hear any argument, go ahead and bring your thing.” But it opens the door for some really toxic things. What kind of solutions are there to that problem?

ALEX ZAMALIN: I think the solution, ultimately, is to ensure that there is space for that protest. And what I mean is for the anti-racists, for the activists, for the young people who are saying, “Not in our campus. We don't accept this; we don't want you to speak here.”

I think rather than preemptively demonizing these positions, there needs to be a commitment to understand that there is real substance and content to their critique. And to recognize that—or perhaps to put it differently, to disclose the ways in which civility often becomes a mechanism, often becomes a way in for some of these far-right ideas.

And so, I don't have a solution in terms of policy or a kind of larger philosophical concept. But I think, at the very least, we should refrain from demonizing those who are engaged in pushing back against some of the most heinous ideas we see out there.

Non-neutrality and civic radicalism – 35:14

BLAIR HODGES: That's Alex Zamalin, he's director of the African American studies program and an associate professor of political science at the University of Detroit Mercy. And he's the author of numerous books, the one we're talking about today is called Against Civility: The Hidden Racism in Our Obsession with Civility. You can also check out some of his writings in places like New Political Science, and Political Theory and Women's Studies Quarterly. So a lot of different publications.

I want people to know, as they're thinking about buying this book and reading it, you're not presenting a neutral history, in the sense of “both sides-ing.” We just talked about this—I studied Media Studies and we would call it “the CNN fallacy,” the fact that if you had a report on the earth being round, you need to have a flat earther on the segment as well, or else it's not being fair.

You're not doing that in this book, trying to be the sort of neutral presenter of history, you're actually making kind of a partisan case here. You're giving evidence and reasons for a particular approach to politics. So you're drawing on history, not just to say civility is bad, but to say, “Here's some ways civility has been misused. It's been used to hinder change. It's been used to oppress real grievance.” And then you're also saying, “Here's this alternative, to become a civic radical.” So—and you've mentioned civic radicalism earlier when we talked about Dr. King—let's really define it here. What is a civic radical, what you're calling people to be?

ALEX ZAMALIN: I think civic radicalism is a vision of activism. It's a vision of public engagement that stresses speaking truth to power. That stresses engaging in direct action that is committed to liberation and justice. It's a vision of engagement that takes seriously the role of emotion, sometimes negative emotions like anger and frustration. And it refuses to reduce the problem of inequality, the role of power in shaping the world, into things that could simply be resolved through easy conversations or through a kind of reformed character.

And so, the vision of civic radicalism which I trace throughout the history of Black and white antiracist activism is a history that's clear in its focus on justice. It's clear in its focus on direct engagement. And to me, it's a really valuable vision that folks can learn from.

BLAIR HODGES: What are some examples of how you'd see that working today, something specific, do you see—who's a civic radical that you would see in the public sphere today? Or how do you practice civic radicalism?

 ALEX ZAMALIN: You know, I think of activists who went out on the streets with Black Lives Matter in 2020. I think of all of these Black feminists who've been penning critiques around heteronormativity, around racism, around sexism. I think of many activists who are on the front line of protesting racism, who are out in the street, who are organizing in their communities to create networks of mutual aid and support for citizens.

There are many ways to be a civic radical, but the most important thing is to recognize the importance of engagement, to recognize the importance of doing work that can be committed, that can create social justice.

BLAIR HODGES: Are there ways to do that that include—this is where I would come back to civility again. Like your book, for example. It's written in the language of thoughtful historical and political analysis. And I think some people could fairly call it in a sense, a “civil” book, calling for this civic radical role.

So when we do enter the public sphere, would you say—especially for me, as a white person, when I come into those spaces, I don't feel like it's my place to go in and break tables and mix stuff up, per se. So what would you say about that? I mean, you've written a book, and it's kind of a civil book.

ALEX ZAMALIN: Right? You know, again, I think part of what I'm trying to emphasize is that we should avoid that kind of conversation around civility when it comes to questions of justice. And I think it distracts more than it amplifies and clarifies. And I think that, ultimately, the question should be, you know, to what extent are citizens engaged in and practicing and acting in order to further the project of justice, in order to create solidarity among one another, in order to be connected to the world, in a way that stresses freedom that stresses human dignity, and so on.

Zamalin’s personal background – 39:58

BLAIR HODGES: You don't talk a lot about yourself in this book. So I wondered how you got here. What in your life inspired this kind of book? And I also wondered if you're maybe a convert to this perspective, if this is actually a change for you. I'd love to hear a little bit of background.

ALEX ZAMALIN: Sure. I grew up in Brooklyn, and I'm an immigrant. I'm actually from the former Soviet Union. So I was born in Kyiv, Ukraine.

BLAIR HODGES: Wow.

ALEX ZAMALIN: And one of the things that became clear to me as a young person kind of growing up in a multicultural society in Brooklyn, was that too often the notion of a kind of ideal immigrant, the notion of upward mobility, was so a part of American culture, was so a part of the way many immigrants were kind of forced to assimilate, and it was often done through a kind of pernicious counter-narrative of anti-Blackness.

And so thinking through the way that racism and anti-Blackness were such a profound part of American culture, kind of seeing the way that, often, being an “ideal” immigrant meant on some level to subscribe to certain notions about American exceptionalism, moral virtue, but also adopting certain attitudes of anti-Blackness—it became clear to me that this was not something that was confined to a particular geographic area, or to a particular moment in history. But instead, that this was actually a part of a long history.

And so, one of the things I really wanted to explore, you know, both in my professional career and specifically in this book, is, what are the ways in which certain discourses that are so common in American culture—in what ways did they actually expand to create both ways of identifying, for white people, but also, ways of demonizing people of color?

BLAIR HODGES: I really appreciate that this book Against Civility is a really powerful tool to me. It lays out the history of this idea. Because I lean toward civility, I'm the type of person that says, “Well, just don't give them the excuse to say that we're being uncivil,” like “try our best, et cetera, et cetera.” You know, this is kind of the approach I've had.

But it's been really useful to see it laid out here, how calls for civility have actually operated to suppress dissent, and have been a problem historically, and that there are ways to engage in civic radicalism that include nonviolence, that include peacefulness, but that are disruptive. They're not civil—they're inherently incivil because the order of civility currently is unequal. So they have to be uncivil in that sense. Very fascinating book. I really appreciate you writing it.

ALEX ZAMALIN: Thank you.

BLAIR HODGES: That's Alex Zamalin, author of Against Civility: The Hidden Racism in Our Obsession with Civility. You can check that book out there are links to purchase that on the website, firesidepod.org. We'll be right back with our best book segments to get a recommendation before we go.

 [BREAK]

Best Books – 43:51

BLAIR HODGES: We're back with Alex Zamalin.

All right, Alex, it's time for Best Books, this is your chance to recommend something. Let's hear what you got.

ALEX ZAMALIN: I would recommend James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. Not only because as a New Yorker I feel a special affinity for Baldwin, but because as far as I see it, Baldwin is one of the great writers in American history.

BLAIR HODGES: I think he's the best essayist—I really do believe he's the best in American history.

ALEX ZAMALIN: I mean, it's—to me the book is so profound, because on the one hand, it offers a theory and concept of America that is so insightful around the role of identity, race, gender, nationhood. But it also provides a way of thinking about how citizens are so invested in refusing to acknowledge the moral salience of their actions, and how they engage in complex processes and behaviors to avoid recognizing their complicity in racial injustice.

BLAIR HODGES: “Well, I just want to be an individual Alex, like, I'm just a dude”—

ALEX ZAMALIN: Exactly.

BLAIR HODGES: “I'm just being a nice guy. I don't use racial slurs and do all this. I'm fine.”

ALEX ZAMALIN: Exactly, exactly.

And I think that, at the same time, Baldwin is pushing us to reimagine certain concepts that we hold dear—like freedom, like love. He has these beautiful meditations about what it means to be free, what it means to practice love, where he suggests that practicing love is about a certain sense of mutual vulnerability. It's a certain understanding of radical self-critique and a willingness to transform the world.

Because to actually practice love is not about holding your lover hostage. It's not about simply amplifying your ego. But instead, it's about giving yourself over to the unknown of community building, of solidarity, of transformation. And the conclusion of the book is really a plea for a radical transformation of the world in a way that is more egalitarian, more critical, and more worthy of—as Baldwin puts it—being human, being dignified.

BLAIR HODGES: Why do you think he called it The Fire Next Time?

ALEX ZAMALIN: Because I think that—I mean, the most literal explanation is that he warns the nation that there will be “a fire next time” in terms of something amounting to conflict, radical disagreement, violence potentially, in the 1960s if race isn't taken seriously.

But at the same time, I think he thinks there will always be a fire in the future. And the question is not if, but when. And the deeper question is, how will we, as a community, respond to that fire? Because there's always a choice. There's always an act of freedom. There's always a space of possibility. And to ignore the fact that citizens have the capacity to engage in unimaginable transformative positive change is a refusal, it's an abdication of responsibility.

BLAIR HODGES: Thank you for that. I should say, right before we go, one of the reasons I named the show fireside was as a tip of the hat to that Baldwin book.

ALEX ZAMALIN: Wow, wow.

BLAIR HODGES: It's The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. Fantastic recommendation. Hey, Alex, thanks for talking about your book Against Civility with us today. It was really fun.

ALEX ZAMALIN: Thank you, Blair. I really appreciate you welcoming me to your show, and I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you.

Outro – 47:50

BLAIR HODGES: Fireside with Blair Hodges is sponsored by the Howard W. Hunter Foundation—supporters of the Mormon Studies program at Claremont Graduate University in California. It’s also supported by the Dialogue Foundation. A proud part of the Dialogue Podcast Network.

Alright, another episode is in the books, the fire has dimmed, but the discussion continues. Join me on Twitter and Instagram, I’m at @podfireside. And I’m on Facebook as well. You can leave a comment at firesidepod.org. You can also email me questions, comments, or suggestions directly to blair@firesidepod.org. And please don’t forget to rate and review the show in Apple Podcasts if you haven’t already.

Fireside is recorded, produced, and edited by me, Blair Hodges, in Salt Lake City. Special thanks to my production assistants, Kate Davis and Camille Messick, and also thanks to Christie Frandsen, Matthew Bowman, and Kristen Ullrich Hodges.

Our theme music is “Great Light” by Deep Sea Diver, check out that excellent band at thisisdeepseadiver.com.

Fireside with Blair Hodges is the place to fan the flames of your curiosity about life, faith, culture, and more. See you next time.

[End]

NOTE: Transcripts have been lightly edited for readability.