The Backlash Blues: Addressing Fear in an Authoritarian Climate
“Backlash Blues” is a reference to the poem by Langston Hughes and the song by Nina Simone, based on it.
by Suhlle Ahn
Let’s talk about fear. Not the kind of intense fear that can be triggered by having your physical safety or even your life unexpectedly threatened, but rather the vague fear that keeps some of us from speaking up or speaking out too boldly; the fear of upsetting the apple cart or touching a nerve among the more powerful card-holders in any social organization, which causes us to bite our tongues, even if we feel strongly about a thing.
In particular, let’s talk about the fear of provoking a backlash. Especially a backlash against taking an honest look at our past and present dealings with race—especially in America, but, as the past year has brought home, globally, too.
But first, let me mention that I am drawn to the subject of fear because, in truth, I understand and have empathy for it.
For one thing, I’m by nature more timid than bold. I was raised, as well, by a peculiar parent, who was politically liberal and a staunch defender of democracy, but personally authoritarian and very much an absolute monarch in the way he governed at home.
For another thing, we—our politically liberal, Asian family—lived for years in the reddest of red states in the U.S. during the late days of the Cold War, when supporting universal health care if you looked like us could get you branded a different kind of red.
So I address the issue of fear not from a position of fearlessness myself, but quite the opposite.
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As Lawrence B. Glickman wrote in a May, 2020 essay in The Atlantic, describing the history of the term backlash:
“Backlashes appear as seemingly serial and discrete events—against the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, or the women’s movement in the ’70s, or the gay-rights movement in the ’90s. But this obscures an underlying continuity: These individual backlashes are all instances of a reactionary tradition, one that is deeply woven into American political culture and that extends back to the era of Reconstruction, at least. And the backlashes are powerful not only for the fury they represent, but in the fear they instill in political leaders, even progressives, who hesitate to push things ‘too far.’”
Pushing things too far…
Tragically, but with the kind of hope sometimes born of tragedy, the murder of George Floyd a year ago created an opening—an allowance for a degree of racial reckoning across the globe.
Yet already in America the forces of backlash have begun to fire up their engines…again.
I’ve been thinking about what strikes me as the twin fears of backlash. The first is the fear of losing power, authority, or status, which threatens to lash out if those pushing for change cross a tacit line in the sand. The second is the fear of being lashed out at, which causes the individual or group testing that line in the sand to stifle or inhibit its own momentum.
This fear on both sides is what becomes the core of authoritarian societies: a fear that suppresses, and a fear that learns to self-censor rather than risk incurring punitive action.
In his recent book, After the Fall, former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications to President Obama, Ben Rhodes, takes the reader on a tour of three countries or regions (Hungary, Russia, and China) where increasing authoritarianism has taken hold, following a period of greater openness.
Discussing the social climate in Hong Kong between 2013, when Xi Jinping was elected President of the People’s Republic of China, until 2019, when the extradition bill that precipitated the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement was proposed, Rhodes quotes the observations of Wilson Leung, a barrister with The Progressive Lawyers Group in Hong Kong, describing the way residents of both Hong Kong and Mainland China gradually learned over a period of years to not go there:
“‘Fear silences people, as much as any particular governmental dictate. There’s self-censorship,’ Wilson told me.”
“In these semi-authoritarian or authoritarian regimes, they’re very good at shutting down people from saying anything that might be “political.” And in that context, political usually means something that’s critical of the government.”
“On mainland China, there are very lively debates on many issues. But nothing that would touch the government. As soon as someone tries to say something in the chatroom about the government, everyone falls silent. Because everyone knows that you don’t go there.””
I’ve been thinking about this in relation to the current political maneuvers from the right in the U.S. because…well, how can I not?
To start with, the energy that’s been stirring on the far right, backlash-wise, is undeniable.
2020 data from the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism (COE) saw 5,125 cases of white supremacist propaganda incidents reported (e.g, the distribution of racist, antisemitic, and anti-LGBTQ literature), compared to 2,724 in 2019—a near-doubling, and the highest number ever recorded.
White supremacist and white ethno-nationalist militia members (most notably the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters) also took part in the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. (See also: The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch). And they have since been using the event—now with a martyr figure—as a recruitment tool to radicalize new initiates toward violence as a solution.
Equally disturbing is the fact that many Republican members of Congress first blocked a bill to establish a panel that would have investigated the Capitol attack and now are attempting to rewrite the history of the event as an act of violence perpetrated from the left, namely by Black Lives Matter protesters and Antifa.
While these moves take place at the federal level, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, as of June 21st, seventeen states have enacted 28 laws that restrict access to the vote, in an anti-democratic move that authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat calls a classic authoritarian ploy, which includes threats of violence directed at poll workers.
How can we not see this rash of voter suppression laws as anything other than a re-deployment of the same backlash tactics used in the Jim Crow era? Those tactics undid gains made throughout the 1870s toward wider democratic participation, when the number of Black men voting exceeded half a million.
As a result of that backlash, a small minority was able to reverse a decade of progress and maintain an authoritarian stronghold in the segregated South until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
But I also want to talk about how the twin fears of backlash and fear of provoking backlash can take hold in more local spheres, like schools and businesses and workplaces—i.e., the province of a lot of DEI work, which can sometimes feel miles removed from national politics—and how a kind of authoritarian atmosphere can similarly seep in, keeping many organizations from making changes that result in a genuine widening—a democratization, if you will—of participatory voices.
Because I can’t help but relate the local to the global and see them as fundamentally one and the same.
Because, in my view, advocating in good faith for greater equity and inclusion in schools, businesses, and other organizations should really be about advocating for an expansion of the figurative franchise.
But returning to fear, I want to talk about the quiet, self-censoring kind that can keep individuals from voicing dissent or trying to take action.
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The current backlash against critical race theory (CRT) is a perfect example of an authoritarian climate of fear already sweeping K-12 school districts throughout the country, and likely to unfold further. According to Education Week:
“As of June 18, 25 states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism, according to an Education Week analysis. Eight states have enacted these bans, either through legislation or other avenues.”
In actuality, critical race theory is an academic school of legal thought that argues racism is embedded in American legal systems and policies. Many have pointed out that it’s not actually a subject taught at levels K-12.
But the current backlash largely vilifies CRT as a form of ideological indoctrination, whereby students are taught that all white people are inherently racist and/or complicit in racism because of racial privilege. And critics argue the mischaracterization of CRT is essentially being used to muzzle conversation in the classroom about the role of race and institutionalized racial discrimination in shaping American history.
With this kind of overt, state-level crack-down, how long before educational institutions and businesses pick up on the winds of backlash and start to tone down their commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, beyond symbolic acts or lip-service? How long before an atmosphere of don’t go there settles in?
Already, from what I am hearing—even in states where no such bans have been enacted—the self-censoring in school districts and classrooms has begun.
Or, if you work in a corporation, where (in my opinion), an authoritarian atmosphere is much more common than many would like to admit, I worry we’re already seeing a similar shift.
Two tech companies, Basecamp and Coinbase, have already drawn attention by issuing rules, seen as suppressive, about what can and can’t be discussed at work:
“No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account,” was the directive issued by CEO Jason Fried in a memo to employees on April 26, 2021.
But even where egregious examples of this kind aren’t at play, how long before something like expressing support for Black Lives Matter once again starts to sound “too political” and is something you do only in hushed tones—as many would have felt pressure to do prior to the summer of 2020?
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Self-censoring in any context where an uneven balance of power prevails is an all-too-common mode. Already introduced into the DEI lexicon in 2010, the phrase ‘Backlash Avoidance Model’ was coined to describe the way women in the workplace have been known to abstain from self-promotion—even when it’s viewed as necessary for professional advancement—because they know, consciously or unconsciously, that by engaging in self-promotion, they’ll receive backlash for violating gender norms.
In a women’s leadership survey conducted by Tidal Equality in 2019, respondents were asked to answer anonymously whether they believed the claim that lack of confidence has held women back in their careers. One respondent wrote:
“I am a confident Sr. Leader. I have not been shy about expressing my opinions and my expertise as it serves me. When I have spoken with confidence in the Boardroom, I have been coached afterwards to 'know my place' and [am told] that when I speak up I can be perceived as lacking executive presence. But if a male at the table says the same thing (even after I have already said it), he is praised for his thoughtfulness and insights. If you hear that enough, you start to hesitate before you speak…”
Bold voices will tell you to push back against such backlash. To bulldoze your way forward. To be the change you want to see.
But here’s the truth—bulldozing is quite often the prerogative of those who have the luxury to not fear, because they have some sort of safety net—whether financial, or social, or psychological—supporting them from below.
Avoidance is more often the path of (in)action when the ground beneath your feet feels shaky. When you don’t have an innate, master-of-the-universe temperament; or when the potential loss of a job, without the cushion of family or money in the bank, puts boldness out of reach. In such cases, you’re less free to bull-doze.
The same fear that Ben Rhodes describes among the people of Hong Kong and China is the same fear, in much lesser degree, that I often felt throughout my years working in corporate America.
For corporations can create a similar feeling of authoritarian unease…
It’s the vague feeling of being surveilled. Of being kept track of, placed on a literal (Excel) grid by the higher-ups. Of having certain co-workers, whom you can’t quite trust, whose networks of influence and channels of connection you’re not privy to. Of not feeling free—really free—to voice your dissent.
And you never know who’s going to be purged with the next round of layoffs. You hope it won’t be you. But life starts to feel a little like the Shirley Jackson short story, The Lottery, where a small town’s annual lottery yields one unfortunate sacrificial lamb (read, a person), who (spoiler alert) is immediately stoned to death by the remaining community members.
And because you’re not at leisure to simply alter your circumstances in a flash, and financial obligations nip at your heels, you learn to keep your head down. If you make too many waves, you might, somewhere along the line, jeopardize the security of your job—which, as it happens, isn’t ultimately secure.
And these small acts—the quiet biting of tongues; the tacit avoidance of going there—enables power to accrue to a smaller and smaller circle of decision-makers.
If we broaden the definition of the term, we might re-define ‘backlash avoidance’ as that instinctual habit of self-censoring on any number of fronts in the workplace, because you know you will either be shut down or potentially labelled a troublemaker.
Here’s another personal disclosure. After years of escaping the layoff lottery, my number was finally called. And only now, because I’m employed once again—this time by a team of colleagues who encourage and support real openness of speech and opinion—do I feel secure enough to put these thoughts to paper.
So I’ve chosen this topic in order to bring recognition to fear as an understandable emotion, and an obstacle in the push for racial justice and other forms of equity and inclusion in the workplace.
Nor will I offer glib recommendations about conquering fear, although I have some thoughts about what might help.
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Right now, in many organizations, even where the embrace of diversity, equity, and inclusion seems most sincere, advocacy can still be a delicate affair, if it’s not delivered in the kind of sanctioned, milquetoast, feel-good packaging we’ve all come to recognize.
It can strike a nerve, for example, if it calls into question the matter of CEO salaries, or impacts to the bottom line, or money from advertising, or corporate donations to political action committees.
The double-helix of fear—of backlash intertwined with fear of backlash—may make itself felt if advocacy pushes too far, in a way that threatens concentrated power, or asks those with power to cede a portion of their holdings, literally or figuratively.
In fact, I’m starting to think that if you don’t sense a touch of fear lurking in the form of defensiveness when you push for change, there might not be real skin in the game.
I raise the point because sometimes the degree of impact you feel able to make toward equality and social justice at the local level may feel inadequate to the magnitude of the threat that looms nationally and globally.
In September, 2020, for example, just before its electoral defeat, the Trump Administration issued Executive Order 13950, “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping,” which sought to “foster environments devoid of hostility grounded in race, sex, and other federally protected characteristics” and eliminate “un-American” and “divisive concepts” from Diversity and Inclusion trainings.
The Order applied to any federal agencies, federal contractors (including “sub to prime” contractors), and federal grant recipients.
Here, for point of reference, is a list of the top 100 contractors for the U.S. federal government.
It includes, among business giants like Microsoft and GE (not to mention military contractors, Raytheon and Boeing), organizations such as management consulting and accounting firms Booz Allen and Deloitte, universities Caltech, MIT, and Johns Hopkins, and the governments of California and Canada.
Calling it the use of racial justice rhetoric to undermine efforts toward achieving racial justice, the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) dubbed Executive Order 19350 the Equity Gag Order.
It was only Trump’s defeat two months later that caused it to be rescinded.
Had it remained in effect, how many organizations with lucrative government contracts might have altered, adjusted, or self-censored their DEI training content to avoid any possibility of controversy?
And even with the rescission, AAPF cites Executive Order 13950 as the catalyst for the bills banning the teaching of critical race theory, currently being implemented at the state level.
With actions of this scope, you might well think, what good is democratization in the workplace if we lose the whole democratic (with a small d) ball game?
But bear in mind, it may only be a stone’s throw from the local sphere to the national.
And fighting for small-scale victories needn’t (and mustn’t) preclude fighting for large-scale ones. It may even make you alert to the significance of larger events.
In fact, if the change you’re trying to effect at the local level is substantive; if there’s skin in the game; it’s likely the essence of any reactionary pushback you receive is the same. It’s likely fear, from those with power, authority, or status, afraid of losing it. But rather than expose their own fear, they may offload it onto others in the form of denial, suppression, or a hardline stance, with a hint of menace. Until you find yourself slipping into a habit of self-censorship.
If, as seems likely, the current political and cultural backlash continues to seep into more local spheres, we’ll see to what extent DEI commitments begin to stall or remain merely symbolic, and to what extent real reforms—to policy, organizational structure, and decision-making—are permitted. And welcomed.
If we hope to see the latter, we will have to find ways not to let fear, or backlash avoidance, or the malaise that these can engender, overwhelm or desensitize us.
So to the bold out there in the fight against backlash, globally and locally, my message is this: thank goodness for you! You will lead the way, no matter the overall climate. But have empathy and understanding for the more fearful around you. Understand their situation; even lend a hand if you can.
To the less bold: find like-minded people who may be more naturally fearless than you, or who have more luxury than you to show audacity. Find others, as well, who may be a bit timid, like you. Talk candidly behind the scenes, even if you can’t talk openly in more public settings. Be sneaky, if you must—if you find yourself in situations of authoritarian constraint.
And keep focused on your inner North Star.
Refrain from rolling your eyes if you receive tone-deaf advice about conquering your fears or leaning in in ways that feel impossible, from people who may never have stood in your shoes. But lend support to the bulldozers. We all have a role to play. And seek help from those with power who genuinely want to help push things forward.
I’ve come to believe safety in numbers and the solidarity it breeds are a more valuable strategy than I ever knew. The mere knowledge of friends or a group of like-minded souls can help ease the fear that can leave us paralyzed with inaction.
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A final word about the trend toward backlash and reaction on the national and international fronts…
When I see what’s happening in Hong Kong—a city I feel an inexplicable affinity for (and not just because I’m Asian); when I consider the self-censorship around certain taboo topics that can become the norm in any social climate where fear has become pervasive, it doesn’t take much for me to imagine a United States under a similar authoritarian grip, where much of daily life can still feel normal, but where any discussion, say, of race, or of social or economic inequality, has become strictly taboo.
Maybe it’s because, as I mentioned, my early upbringing gave me insight into surveillance societies. Or maybe my ethnic lineage (Korean) gives me some strange, epigenetic knowledge, descended as I am from people who went from life under one authoritarian thumb to another, until half (and only half) finally emerged as a full-fledged democracy in the 1990s.
But it’s also because—if Americans are honest about their history—authoritarian rule was the norm in the South for hundreds of years, if you were Black. And then again for another hundred years between the end of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights era.
If some want to suppress a nation-wide reckoning on that history, viewed through a racial lens, it might be because they are fearful about what they may learn: that the reality of the past doesn’t always square with the notion of America as a flawless beacon of democratic light since 1776.
As it happens, authoritarian forces were dealt an electoral blow at the federal level last November. But anyone paying attention can see that these same forces are furiously at work trying to undermine the electoral process, so that next time around they may be able to tip the balance in their favor.
Aligned as these forces are with an alarming global trend, who’s to say authoritarian rule couldn’t become the norm here again, this time for the entire nation?
And that atmosphere would infect local spheres in ways I suspect we can’t even imagine.
If the pulse of fear around us still feels relatively weak, it might only be because power has not yet become so concentrated and centralized as to coagulate into a single, defined source.
But that could change in a short amount of time.
Or, as I alternatively hope, I can imagine (with some difficulty) a very different United States, with a very different array of local spheres—of workplaces and schools—where those of us who want progression instead of regression manage to locate each other, stick together, and, knowing our numbers are greater, find new ways to push back against the backlash. To regain openness of thought and action. And clear the air of fear.
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Have you had experiences you’d like to share (anonymously, if you choose) of
self-censoring, biting your tongue, or “not going there” for fear of backlash?
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