Respectability politics

Respectability politics or the politics of respectability refers to attempts by marginalized groups to police their own members and show their social values as being continuous, and compatible, with mainstream values rather than challenging the mainstream for what they see as its failure to accept difference. The concept was first articulated by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham in her book Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920. In the context of black American history, respectability politics was practiced as a way of attempting to consciously set aside and undermine cultural and moral practices thought to be disrespected by wider society, especially in the context of the family and good manners.^[1] The development of African-American politics of responsibility has been traced to writers and activists including W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, and has been used as a way of understanding the election and political trajectory of Barack Obama.^[2][3] President Obama has also been criticized for his use of respectability politics during his presidency, as when he brought up issues of black criminality during his speech following the November 24 grand jury decision regarding the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.^[4][5] One of the most open proponents of respectability politics is former basketball player Charles Barkley.^[6]

Campaigners for LGBT rights have also struggled with the issue of respectability politics. A distinction has been drawn between an attitude that celebrated and affirmed sexual difference in 1960s gay rights campaigns and contemporary approaches that seek to reduce and underplay sexual differences and portray gay people as having similar values to wider heterosexual society, "a pride [...] premised on a nonconscious agreement with dominant views about what is shameful."^[7] Writing for Slate, J. Bryan Lowder named Caitlyn Jenner as an advocate of respectability politics in the transgender community. "Since the beginning of the civil rights movement for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals," he writes, "there have been individuals who attempted to gain straight society’s approval by distancing themselves from—or stepping over the bodies of—more 'radical' elements of the community. [...] Respectability politics in the trans community, at least on the public stage, is a newer phenomenon, but it appears that Jenner is positioning herself to lead the way."^[8]

See also

• Brown Paper Bag Test
• Cultural assimilation
• Internalized oppression
• Internalized racism
• Niggas vs. Black People by Chris Rock^[9]
• Passing (sociology)
• Pound Cake speech by Bill Cosby^[10] - Cosby was criticised by Michael Eric Dyson in his book Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?
• Uncle Tom

References