Interested in how avoiding "political" topics by emphasizing kindness allows us to make systemic problems look like individual ones? Check out my interview with New Books Network about Nice Is Not Enough!
https://newbooksnetwork.com/nice-is-not-enough?fbclid=IwAR1eBbi7-i61gj9LB4m1d_20zDQbzxHkYKsVU4GF2QIShFro-8b5JOT1jjkPodcast | C. J. Pascoe, "Nice Is Not Enough: Inequality and the…
C. J. Pascoe, "Nice Is Not Enough: Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High" (U California Press, 2023)
"When a regime of kindness is used to shut down the ability to address inequality by preventing civil rights activism, participation in queer rituals, or mute the language to tackle gender based violence, then kindness becomes a way to support inequality while obfuscating the fact it is doing so."
https://www.ucpress.edu/blog/62935/a-conversation-with-author-c-j-pascoe/
A conversation with author C.J. Pascoe
A Q&A with author C.J. Pascoe on the shallow culture of kindness in American high schools
The story of American High is a story that is bigger than this high school. It is a story that tells us something about America itself and the way we rely on individual solutions when systemic ones are needed. After all, if inequality can be systemic, so can care.
These youth activists and allies are calling for a “politics of care,” an approach to issues of power, resource distribution and public morality that centers human needs, vulnerabilities, and systemic disparities rather than relying on individual solutions like kindness and love.
Much of my time at American High was spent with youth activists and their adult allies who, together, created space and demanded possibilities for a more just and equitable organization, and indeed, society.
I get that Nice is Not Enough may sound like it is a sad story about inequality. But it’s not, I promise!
Inequality is the way that the class status of some students comes to look like individual merit rather than economic privilege through popular school rituals like the Mr. Eagle Pageant, an annual fundraiser.
Inequality is the way that girls are left on their own to enact a “girl power feminism,” an individual gendered resilience with which they confront the daily onslaught of symbolic, discursive and physical gendered violence they face in and out of school and online.
Inequality is the way students say racism is “sugar coated” such that some white students can wear Make American Great Again hats at the annual MLK Jr. assembly, but other students struggle to mount a Black Lives Matter display.
A politics of protection can help us understand how inequality works, even at a school full of “the nicest people in the world.”
