I think many people are tricking themselves into being more intellectually charitable to Hanania than warranted.
I know relatively little about Hanania other than stuff that has been brought to my attention through EA drama and some basic “know thy enemy” reading I did on my own initiative. I feel pretty comfortable in my current judgment that his statements on race are not entitled charitable readings in cases of ambiguity.
Hanania by his own admission was deeply involved in some of the most vilely racist corners of the internet. He knows what sorts of messages appeal to and mobilize those people, and how such racists would read his messages. He “know[s] how it looks” not just to left-wing people but to racists.
More recently, he has admitted that he harbors irrational animus (mostly anti-LGBT stuff from what I know) that seems like a much better explanation for his policy positions rather than any attempt at beneficence from egalitarian first principles. If you just read his recent policy stances on racial issues, they are shot through with an underlying contempt, lack of empathy, and broad-strokes painting that are all consistent with what I think can fairly be called a racist disposition towards Black people in particular.
Charitable interpretation of statements can be a sensible disposition in many settings. But giving charitable interpretations to people with this sort of history seems both morally and epistemically unwise.
The prior on “person with a white supremacist history still engaged in right wing racial politics still has a racist underlying psychology” should be very high. Right-wing racists also frequently engage in dogwhistles to signal to each other while maintaining plausible deniability. Reading that statement (and others of his) with those priors+facts in mind, I feel very comfortable not giving Hanania any benefit of the doubt here.
There’s also a textual case that I think supports the racist reading. Woke people walking around “in suits” is not at all a common trope—I’ve literally never heard of someone talking about a woke person wearing a suit as some sort of significant indicator of anything. But racists judging Black people by what they wear—e.g., purporting to be willing to be nicer to Black people if only they dressed more appropriately—is a huge trope in American race discourse. This sort of congruence between racist tropes and Hanania’s language similarly applies to “in subways” and “animals.” These are racist tropes consistently used about Black people, not woke people.
I’d bet against that but not confident
I think many people are tricking themselves into being more intellectually charitable to Hanania than warranted.
I know relatively little about Hanania other than stuff that has been brought to my attention through EA drama and some basic “know thy enemy” reading I did on my own initiative. I feel pretty comfortable in my current judgment that his statements on race are not entitled charitable readings in cases of ambiguity.
Hanania by his own admission was deeply involved in some of the most vilely racist corners of the internet. He knows what sorts of messages appeal to and mobilize those people, and how such racists would read his messages. He “know[s] how it looks” not just to left-wing people but to racists.
More recently, he has admitted that he harbors irrational animus (mostly anti-LGBT stuff from what I know) that seems like a much better explanation for his policy positions rather than any attempt at beneficence from egalitarian first principles. If you just read his recent policy stances on racial issues, they are shot through with an underlying contempt, lack of empathy, and broad-strokes painting that are all consistent with what I think can fairly be called a racist disposition towards Black people in particular.
Charitable interpretation of statements can be a sensible disposition in many settings. But giving charitable interpretations to people with this sort of history seems both morally and epistemically unwise.
The prior on “person with a white supremacist history still engaged in right wing racial politics still has a racist underlying psychology” should be very high. Right-wing racists also frequently engage in dogwhistles to signal to each other while maintaining plausible deniability. Reading that statement (and others of his) with those priors+facts in mind, I feel very comfortable not giving Hanania any benefit of the doubt here.
There’s also a textual case that I think supports the racist reading. Woke people walking around “in suits” is not at all a common trope—I’ve literally never heard of someone talking about a woke person wearing a suit as some sort of significant indicator of anything. But racists judging Black people by what they wear—e.g., purporting to be willing to be nicer to Black people if only they dressed more appropriately—is a huge trope in American race discourse. This sort of congruence between racist tropes and Hanania’s language similarly applies to “in subways” and “animals.” These are racist tropes consistently used about Black people, not woke people.