You gonna call me out like that?
Blogdiva at culturekitchen not only linked to Debra Dickerson's article at Salon, but had the NERVE to point it directly at me:
To Prometheus 6: You're not going to like this one, but sugar, you know how I stand on this race thing. It is and it ain't. To y'all, especially my white friends : Read the whole damn thing. It's awesome.
Racist Like Me - Why am I the only honest bigot? By Debra Dickerson
In a way, I'm arguing for class warfare to replace racial warfare. Class conflict makes sense; it keeps the powerful from riding roughshod over senior citizens who can't retire from manual labor in the hot sun. The truth is, I have far more in common with the rich white man than I do with that poor black grandfather (who would never dare to park on private property in this neighborhood). A world of perfect harmony would be lovely, but until the rapture comes I'd rather blue-collar types of all races faced off against us "suits" than one race against the other. There is nothing logical, natural, or beneficial about a world organized by race—the very concept is irrational. Any system divided along racial lines, implicitly or overtly, will be immoral, inefficient, and unstable. (Take, for example, poor whites' hatred of slaves, rather than of slavery, for depressing wages.)
You haven't read "Where We Stand."
Black people had to be broken to be slaves, and White people had to be broken to be masters. How else can you explain slave owners who allowed slaves to buy their own freedom when by law anything the slave owned already belonged to his master?
It is critical for Black people and White people to recognize this, that it is not natural for us to be divided. It is not natural for us to consider our differences to be more than cosmetic. A society was built that trained us to see these differences as significant. The result of that training is ugly.
Now Black people aspire to become all that White people are…never understanding that White people are no more what they should have been than Black people are.
Black people have only been free for two generations. White people have only had free people of other races around them for two generations. Neither group has mastered their situation yet, and who can blame either? Because this society still gives racialized feedback so clearly and strongly that the honorable efforts made by many on both sides of the veil are simply overwhelmed.
This is not going to be the standard P6 hyper-rationality.
I don't like the fact that I feel compelled to be a Black partisan because it shouldn't be necessary. But the FACT is, my family comes up short because of this shit.
Our national psyche is twisted because of race, and avoidance, and denial, and it's not like we don't have enough fucked up stuff to work on that we'd all be bored if we suddenly got real, grew up and dealt honestly with this crap.
It's not happening, though. Look around, tell me it's happening. You can't
So I speak, directly, honestly, make some of you madder than hell. I can't bring things to a close, but maybe I can start it up. And I'm on Black folks' side because dammit someone has to be. I don't lie about things, I don't exaggerate, I don't say anything I'll have to retract. Under those conditions, anyone who's unhappy with what I say can piss off.
But I hear the opposition too. I was going to say no one can claim otherwise, but of course that's not the case. I just got that email from an asshole blogger the other week that said "Why you hate Jews"…apparently he wrote something describing me as an anti-semite, like I give a fuck about anyone stupid enough to read his stuff. Heads bleed, walls don't.
Yeah, white folks don't want to know from racism. Tough. Black folks, well, I'll be coming at y'all in a little bit with all respect but no restraint…but anyone who knows me knows that. Anyone who reads here knows that.
I don't divide things along racial line. I live within a divided system, like all of you do. I'll never be foolish enough to disregard that fact. I live in a system that requires poor people to fuel the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Frankly, I feel the most disruptive thing that could happen in this society is establishment of justice.
But if a chance to help bring justice comes up, I'll jump right on it. Hell, I'm trying to figure out how to shepherd it along. Not for the sake of the disruption. And honestly, not for the sake of the abstract culture, but for the sake of my family.
