note

The conversation over Shani O. Hilton's piece on black gentrification has been, I think, healthy and informative. I find Ta-Nehisi Coates's take to be quite persuasive, and while I personally can't take up his call to arms-- I'm not a journalist, I don't want to be a journalist, and I am not and don't want to be in part because I know I'd be so bad at it-- I think he's quite right, analytically and prescriptively.

I have taken a lot of criticism in the comments section of Coates's post. I'm a big boy and I can take (and dish out) the heat. I do want to respond to one line of argument. See here:

I am still in the process of reading Shani's piece, it's a long one alright and I want to give it the attention it deserves.

However I have the hugest of problems with this part of Freddie's post:

I don't think that this is intentional; I think it's a result of a confluence of factors involving visibility, accessibility, fear of appearing condescending, and worry about being in physical danger in poor neighborhoods. If we're going to confront these questions responsibly and fairly, the journalistic class has to overcome that.

It just reads like he didn't quite bother to absorb any of the things Shani and her interview subjects actually said about her experience of living in a gentrifying neighborhood and being a black person, instead it's a full-bore sprint back to Marxist-ish class analysis. And don't get me wrong I have no issues with that type of analysis in an urban-theory, gentrification context in general.

Yet that sentence is just, like... I just imagine this guy trying to put himself in Shani's shoes and imagine why HE wouldn't have done this interview, and the reasons he came up with are the ones I would have come up with, i.e. the whitest reasons ever.

There I said it.

And later:

I think you are giving the critic far too much credit. Those were not explanations for why she didn't do it, those were attacks on Shani character.

He is saying she is a coward (fear of physical danger), rich (no accessibility to anyone who is poor), naive and/or ignorant (no visibility), and elitist (only someone who thinks they are elite have the "fear of appearing condescending"). In short it was an attack to undermine her credibility and discount that she has anything to add to the conversation.

And it was deliberate as well, though of course, if questioned the critic would never admit to it.

The fundamental criticism of both of these comments is dishonest. Both are saying that I am accusing Shani specifically for these dynamics of why poor people are so rarely interviewed in the popular press. I quote myself: "I don't mean to come down too hard on Hilton, who really has done yeoman's work with a lot of the reporting for the piece. The problem is that she's so unexceptional in this omission: elite media consistently and systematically excludes the voices of the worst off. I don't think that this is intentional; I think it's a result of a confluence of factors...." I explicitly said that this was a criticism of the larger journalistic class. To say that I was attacking Ms. Hilton's character is a lie.

I come from a tradition that says that the only way you extend respect to people who are making intellectual or political arguments is that, when you disagree with them, you respond as forcefully as you can. Ms. Hilton is a professional journalist; she isn't sitting at the kid's table, doesn't want to be, and shouldn't be treated as if she is. I have a specific criticism of her piece and I stand by it. If you disagree with that criticism, say so, but don't say I'm criticizing a person when I'm criticizing a profession.