Clinton’s equivalence strategy erased asymmetrical histories of racial harm.

Evidence

Along with his approach to race as a matter of the heart, Clinton also utilized a strategy of equivalence. He leveled the idea of racial injustice, in effect making all grievances the same no matter the particular histories, by demonstrating how all races trade in bad racial thinking. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 314

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Names the ‘strategy of equivalence’ as a discrete rhetorical device that equates all grievances regardless of historical weight.

Related

• Clinton neutralized racial injustice by treating all groups’ grievances as equivalent. (similarity 0.93)
• Clinton’s reconciliation rhetoric flattens racism into symmetric stereotyping that erases power (similarity 0.84)
• Clinton framed racism as a conversation problem rather than a policy problem. (similarity 0.83)
• Clinton-era Democrats continued the conservative framings on race (similarity 0.80)
• Racial inequality is constitutive of Americanness, not an aberration from its ideals (similarity 0.80)
• Racial inequality does not rest only with discriminating individuals (similarity 0.80)
• Clinton’s racial rhetoric symmetrically frames misconduct as the few’s fault, effacing group-specific harm (similarity 0.79)
• Equating antiracists with segregationists is a racist assimilationist political maneuver (similarity 0.79)
• Racism persists as structure, not merely as bad individuals’ stereotypes. (similarity 0.78)