The Case For Respectability
Why we should respect each other — despite any differences
One of the more controversial topics in justice activism is “respectability politics.” It’s a term coined by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. In her book Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (1993), she wrote:
“The politics of respectability emphasized reform of individual behavior and attitudes both as a goal in itself and as a strategy for reform of the entire structural system of American race relations.”
Though the term is somewhat recent, the concept dates back much further. And it continues to have many critics. Among them is Ta-Nehisi Coates who declares in his bestseller Between the World and Me (2005):
“Respectability politics might make for a fine Sunday school lesson, but it has never saved a single human life or stopped a bullet.”
The debate over so-called “respectability politics” now extends well beyond race relations. I recently watched a video clip of a Christian minister confronted by an angry university student who shouted obscenities and accusations, while condemning the preacher’s soft-spoken, mild-mannered approach as…
