What is Respectability Politics?

What is Respectability Politics?

In US politics, respectability politics is a common approach to social justice that minimizes difference or "bad behavior" in order to appeal to the majority group.

Respectability politics is a school of thought that uses respectability narratives”or examples of marginalized people who adhere to the majority's code of conduct”to effect social change. Respectability politics seeks to reduce perceived differences between the majority and marginalized groups, as well as to erase perceived "bad behavior" by marginalized groups. While respectability politics can bring about meaningful change, it ultimately harms underprivileged people by enforcing the dominant culture, erasing cultural uniqueness, and ignoring struggles.

 

Examples of Respectability Politics

Throughout US history, many political figures have used respectability politics to effect change for a variety of demographics, including:

African Americans: The civil rights movement in the United States of America has long grappled with Black respectability politics (dating back to W.E.B. Du Bois's work The Soul of Black Folks) as a means of addressing systemic racism and encouraging support for Black people in the country. When Barack Obama ran for President of the United States, many Democratic politicians used respectability politics to minimize his perceived difference from white people's culture and encourage white voters to vote for him. Following President Obama's election, politicians portrayed him as an example of "Black power" or the "Black elite," implying that he should serve as a role model for the Black community, particularly for Black youth and Black students, by modeling "good manners," or stereotypically white behaviors.

Dreamers: Many activists working for the rights of young undocumented immigrants, also known as Dreamers, use respectability politics by disseminating images of Dreamers wearing graduation caps and gowns. This minimizes perceived "bad behavior" or negative stereotypes of Dreamers while emphasizing "elite" individuals to imply they are similar to the majority and thus deserve rights.

The LGBTQ+ community: During the Supreme Court's decision on same-sex marriage, many LGBT activists downplayed the community's distinctive features, arguing that all LGBTQ+ couples shared the same family values as mainstream straight families.

 

The Origin of Respectability Politics

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, an African American studies researcher, coined the phrase "politics of respectability" in 1993. Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920, her book, identified respectability politics as a means for marginalized groups to gain favor and equal rights in mainstream society.

 

4 Issues with Political Respectability

Respectability politics causes a number of issues in activism:

1. Enforces the dominant culture: At its worst, respectability politics works to enforce the dominant group's rules and expectations, encouraging (or requiring) marginalized groups to abide by the majority group's status quo before they can become acceptable or accepted.

2. Erases cultural differences: Respectability politics ignores cultural expectations or background by implying that all cultures share the same ideals. Respectability politics, as a result, tends to erase the unique characteristics and experiences of some groups and relies on the fallacy that only people like you deserve rights and respect.

3. Ignores struggles: Respectability politics ignores the struggles and hardships that other members of the group, particularly lower and middle-class members, face by focusing on a small group of "elite" individuals within a marginalized group. This can lead to a lack of support or policies to help other group members' well-being and mental health, and it reinforces the myth that because a few people were able to "rise above" their circumstances, all members could do so as well.

4. Ignores intersectionality: In favor of a simple, streamlined respectability narrative, many arguments based on respectability politics ignore the unique intersectionality of marginalized groups. Many arguments in women's history that used respectability politics, for example, emphasized the strength of white women in white America; this tactic ignores other marginalized women, such as the intersection of Black feminism, which addresses both sexism and racial inequality against people of color.

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