Communities and neighborhoods are sites of political disagreement and contest just like every place else: “the grassroots” and “the people” are only more abstract and diffuse forms of the same imagery. They aren’t pure, and they don’t act with one mind. Their political affiliations are defined by the same kinds of struggles and negotiated meanings that occur in households, workplaces, co-ops, union locals, or editorial boards. The disposition to appeal to that imagery for political validation reflects a naive, Jeffersonian romanticism that equates smallness and informality with democracy and justice…Presumption of that kind of organic collectivity as the font of political legitimacy is a double-edged sword. Ever since the anti-abolitionist riots in the Jacksonian era, racist whites have justified their exclusionist, anti-egalitarian politics in terms of appeal to the collective will of “the community,” “the neighborhood,” “the grassroots,” and “the people.” In fact, the rhetoric has been a staple among those seeking to promote all manner of illiberal and progressive agendas. As anyone who has lived in a small town knows, the small community can be ruthlessly oppressive for those defined as outsiders…
Adolph Reed: Class Notes, 116