Compromising Trust

Public distrust erodes the efficiency and productivity of our economy, government, and society. It accelerates and amplifies weaknesses in our democratic political infrastructure alongside business relationships and social interactions in mutually reinforcing ways. Determining how to cultivate public trust depends on definitions of “the public”: to whom the government and its officials are accountable. Given the history of the United States as a White settler colonial state, its dependence on African chattel slavery, and its continuing racist xenophobia, “the public” is a frustratingly elastic term. For marginalized populations, public trust might vary in intensity over the past centuries since the nation\u27s founding. In analyses and assessments of levels of trust in the strength or fragility of public institutions, Black, Indigenous and people of color (“BIPOC”) have often been excluded from the polls and surveys upon which public opinion or sentiment is based. A lack of public trust in government significantly impacts determinations of constitutional rot and renewal; however, in the absence of BIPOC responses and inclusion in “the public” over the centuries of U.S. history, constitutional rot for marginalized populations has been an ongoing emergency in their continual lack of or restricted access to constitutional rights and protections. This perpetual constitutional rot is far from an unusual condition

The Long Con of Civility

Civility has been much on the minds of pundits in local and national political discussions since the 1990s. Periods of civil unrest or irreconcilable divisions in governance intensify concerns about civility. While its more archaic definitions refer to citizenry and civilization, civility is often promoted as the foundation or goal of deliberative democracies. However, less acknowledged is its disciplinary, repressive effects in maintaining or deepening racial, gendered, heteronormative, and ableist hierarchies that distinguish some populations for full citizenship and others for partial rights and protections. In Part I, I examine a recent series of civility polls, their contradictory results, and how these contradictions can importantly expose the fissures of our contemporary moment and our body politic. In Part II, I describe the historical background of civility around race, gender, and sexuality and the unacknowledged difficulty in defining civility and incivility. In Part III, I extend this discussion to address the recent cases before the Supreme Court concerning LGBTQ+ employment discrimination and lack of accessibility. In conclusion, I identify what it would mean to analyze civility in terms of dignity on the basis of these cases about the equal rights and protections of their LGBTQ+ and disabled plaintiffs. We should be deeply suspicious with demands for civility that are often deployed to quell dissent from marginalized populations and to dampen democratic practices

The Long Con of Civility

Civility has been much on the minds of pundits in local and national political discussions since the 1990s. Periods of civil unrest or irreconcilable divisions in governance intensify concerns about civility. While its more archaic definitions refer to citizenry and civilization, civility is often promoted as the foundation or goal of deliberative democracies. However, less acknowledged is its disciplinary, repressive effects in maintaining or deepening racial, gendered, heteronormative, and ableist hierarchies that distinguish some populations for full citizenship and others for partial rights and protections. In Part I, I examine a recent series of civility polls, their contradictory results, and how these contradictions can importantly expose the fissures of our contemporary moment and our body politic. In Part II, I describe the historical background of civility around race, gender, and sexuality and the unacknowledged difficulty in defining civility and incivility. In Part III, I extend this discussion to address the recent cases before the Supreme Court concerning LGBTQ+ employment discrimination and lack of accessibility. In conclusion, I identify what it would mean to analyze civility in terms of dignity on the basis of these cases about the equal rights and protections of their LGBTQ+ and disabled plaintiffs. We should be deeply suspicious with demands for civility that are often deployed to quell dissent from marginalized populations and to dampen democratic practices

Compromising Trust

Public distrust erodes the efficiency and productivity of our economy, government, and society. It accelerates and amplifies weaknesses in our democratic political infrastructure alongside business relationships and social interactions in mutually reinforcing ways. Determining how to cultivate public trust depends on definitions of “the public”: to whom the government and its officials are accountable. Given the history of the United States as a White settler colonial state, its dependence on African chattel slavery, and its continuing racist xenophobia, “the public” is a frustratingly elastic term. For marginalized populations, public trust might vary in intensity over the past centuries since the nation\u27s founding. In analyses and assessments of levels of trust in the strength or fragility of public institutions, Black, Indigenous and people of color (“BIPOC”) have often been excluded from the polls and surveys upon which public opinion or sentiment is based. A lack of public trust in government significantly impacts determinations of constitutional rot and renewal; however, in the absence of BIPOC responses and inclusion in “the public” over the centuries of U.S. history, constitutional rot for marginalized populations has been an ongoing emergency in their continual lack of or restricted access to constitutional rights and protections. This perpetual constitutional rot is far from an unusual condition