The Trouble with Unity

Like everyone else, I've spent way too much time this year reading and thinking and talking about Donald J. Trump, and trying to put him in societal and political context. So it's great to have the opportunity to speak on Trump, the Latino vote, and more. Thanks to Chip Turner for bringing me to Seattle!

In March, I participated in a terrific panel at the CUNY Graduate Center, as part of the "Conversations on Race and Other Diversities" series, moderated by the legendary Johnnetta B. Cole and including Wade Davis, Vivian May, and Arun Venugopal. Some extremely smart and provocative insights.

Here's the video:

I had no advance warning of Melissa Harris-Perry abruptly ending; I learned about it like everyone else, in articles and emails and posts. Was startling to realize that my last appearance on the show (clips here and here) was Melissa's penultimate broadcast on MSNBC. Regardless of how everything came to an end, I will truly miss the show—less for the opportunity it has given me to periodically talk about important issues with absolutely amazing people than for its role in elevating the conversation by giving rarely heard voices space on national television. The show was a particularly great space for scholars, writers, and activists (and not just pundits) to share their views. I remember being a panelist on one show, a few years back, and noting that all five of us around Melissa's table were faculty who teach and write about politics. Not one talking-points-reciting "Democratic strategist" or "Republican strategist" in sight. When does that happen on a weekend political chat show?

I'm truly grateful to Melissa and her staff for demonstrating, in front of a national audience, that lively public conversation can go beyond the glib and superficial—and that intellectual and cultural diversity on television is possible, so long as the program is committed to making it happen. I hope that MSNBC will build on the legacy that Melissa and her staff created. There's no reason why our national political conversation can't be a whole lot smarter than it is.

So I was on Melissa Harris-Perry on December 12, as part of a good discussion about Islamophobia, and a comment of mine upset Bill O'Reilly, leading to a swarm of hate-tweets and emails. Breitbart had singled out something I said for a brief article only hours after the show aired, and The O'Reilly Factor picked it up from there, truncating my quote to one partial sentence.

Which is too bad, because my point isn't controversial: that every community and every culture has toxic aspects, and that terrorism—globally and in this country as well—has a long and ugly history that predates 9/11. In the United States, that terrorism has often taken the form of white racial violence (lynch mobs, Japanese internment, the Zoot Suit riots, much more). The current demonization of Islam and attacks on Muslim Americans perpetuates that history. 

And the fact that so many people get so exercised by any reminder of America's history of white racial violence is a good reason why we need to have this conversation.

Just for the record, my MHP remarks, in full, from the transcript:

BELTRAN: There are going to be troubled people in lots of different communities. But you're totally right, the way whiteness has a way of individuating subjects in a particular way. And I do think that this is a really scary, awful, alarming moment in our politics.

But I think the one possibly useful thing here is perhaps we can expand the logic of terrorism and talk about white racial terrorism, and talk about the way white fear has garnered racial violence historically from anti-immigrant riots, to anti-black riots, to lynch mobs—find a way to talk about that that doesn't just demonize all white people. That's not the conversation. But to talk about when fear and hysteria happens, that there has been racial terror in this country, and that whiteness has been allied with racial terror.

And we need to have a conversation about that, to help people maybe saying to themselves who are frightened in those communities to realize: Oh, that's the history here; I don't want to be lumped in with that either—I want to think about how to individuate people and not treat them as just a group…

Often, when a scholar visits a campus, the sponsoring department or center designs a flyer or poster to catch the eye of anyone potentially interested in the topic. But they're rarely as colorful or as content-rich as this poster for my upcoming talk at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Fantastic.

Was happy to join some terrific colleagues, from a range of colleges, in contributing to Stephen Nuño's NBC News article offering counsel to first-year Latino students. 

Was honored—am honored—to participate in a just-posted Crooked Timber online seminar discussing Danielle Allen’s recent book Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality. Accompanying a series of critical essays by Heather Gerken, Chris Lebron, James Miller, and others are Danielle's responses and a growing stream of thoughtful reader comments. My entry is entitled "Slow Reading as a Practice of Reckoning with Love and Loss"; Danielle responds to it here. 

Beyond appearing on the always-engaging Melissa Harris-Perry, have been doing more MSNBC as of late—in particular, had the pleasure (and anxiety) of being on NOW with Alex Wagner and All in with Chris Hayes, my first-ever weekday TV appearances. Not sure how often I'll have the opportunity to be Chuck Todd-adjacent in the future, but it looks as though I may be a periodic guest on Alex Wagner. Stay tuned.

Thrilled to finally see my article “Undocumented, Unafraid, and Unapologetic: DREAM Activists, Immigrant Politics, and the Queering of Democracy” appear in From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in a Digital Age (University of Chicago Press), edited by Danielle Allen and Jennifer S. Light. It's an extended version of my article in Contemporary Latina/o Media, so if you've been waiting for the full-length argument, you can find it here!

Had the pleasure of spending a Saturday morning in February on Melissa Harris-Perry chattingwith the brilliant Jelani Cobb and others. Was in the segments "Public transportation barriers help maintain inequality" (I speak at 7:15), "The Class of 2016, GOP style" (on at 5:10), and "Rand Paul makes news on nomination of Loretta Lynch" (on at 2:40).