Some of that dark evil
Blogcritics has a post titled Am I racist? that I almost missed (but caught yesterday). I want to share my reaction in the comments.
Mr. Saxton:
You know P6, that by painting all white people with such a broad stroke of the brush with statements such as the above, about their reactions to black people (guilt/defense)that you're being a bit of a racist yourself for pre-supposing & pre-judging people.
Nonsense. I'm not pre-supposing or pre-judging, I'm pre-paring. The broad brush is applying a base to the canvas on which details are applied.
Liberal guilt came as the first response to seeing on TV how truly fucked Black folks were under the Dixiecrat regime (and yes, the North had the same issues, but differently manifest--like a different tone being used for the base).
Our current political state is wholly a reaction of Conservative Anger (remember Angry White Men? all the rage against being constrained in [collective] your choice of terms used to refer to folks?)
Now we are all reacting to the reactions.
Mr. Manning:
You know, threads like this get interesting because some people get so touchy about the topic of race/racism that you begin to wonder if they've got something to hide.
I think you'll find I'm neither touchy nor hiding anything. Search for posts and comments I've made on Blogcritics.
But for all the talk about how we're all homo sapiens and need to get past our racist tendencies, this statement should be directed at everyone.
White folks are doing fine telling Black folks we are racist. You don't need my help there.
Similarly, I consider long term solutions because short term reactions don't work, even though that's all that gets discussed in our instant gratification culture.
It's not just whites who are guilty of harboring racist thoughts, so why do those who get their knickers in a twist about it pretend otherwise?
Long term, white folks geting[sic] correct has the greatest impact because (collective) white folks have all the social and cultural power in the USofA. Always has...as proven by the FACT that the "Conservative revolution" took exactly ONE election to change the entire direction of the country.
It's a figure-ground thing. Black folks' racism is figure, white folks' racism is ground.
White folks' racism is the texture on the canvas that the paint of Black folks' racism clings to.
Let's see how they come back.
