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Some context around this quote: of *course* “racist” means something, and its v important to name things as such; it describes the material realities/relations of the world we inhabit.
The problem i was describing here is how white ppl frame the threshold for it.
The problem i was describing here is how white ppl frame the threshold for it.
In the case of this particular incident, i was referring to Cliven Bundy, the anti-govt rancher who said, matter-of-factly, that Black people were better off as slaves but took umbrage at the suggestion that he was a racist.
What i was getting at is the notion that racism is a fundamental to life in the US, a force that exerts on everything like gravity, and yet our political class and media is comprised of people who are averse to ever making that fact plain, who treat it like a partisan accusation.
They may be averse to making that fact plain for ideological reasons. They may be averse to doing so because they, being white folks, are unqualified to make the diagnosis since they don’t know what it looks like.
But in the end, what’s the difference?
But in the end, what’s the difference?
Racism is real and pervasive and quantifiable and yet we keep getting dragged into dumb conversations like
“How can you say this person is the equivalent of a child-killer???”
“Are you suggesting, ma’am, that the US of A does not, in fact, slap???”
“How can you say this person is the equivalent of a child-killer???”
“Are you suggesting, ma’am, that the US of A does not, in fact, slap???”
We get dragged into conversations abt biographical trivia like Latinx spouses and Black BFFs and who gives AF
It’s a trap by people invested in gaslighting us or who think that bc they don’t see it that it ain’t happening
It’s a trap by people invested in gaslighting us or who think that bc they don’t see it that it ain’t happening
mad typos here
My bust
I’m on vacation in France and not supposed to be on this hellsite
in short: call racist things racist bc it is true and necessary to do for the ppl who have to navigate it
It doesn’t matter if some Vanderbilt gets it
His getting it ain’t the stakes
My bust
I’m on vacation in France and not supposed to be on this hellsite
in short: call racist things racist bc it is true and necessary to do for the ppl who have to navigate it
It doesn’t matter if some Vanderbilt gets it
His getting it ain’t the stakes
These all example of the drag whiteness exerts on our politics and why we can’t have nice things
Like liberation and equity
Like liberation and equity
Smart brown historian: “American policing grew directly out of of slave patrols and imperatives around maintaining social control of undesirable groups.”
Rando debating them on cable: “my pappy was a good, dedicated cop!”
TV host: “we’re just gonna have to leave it there!”
Rando debating them on cable: “my pappy was a good, dedicated cop!”
TV host: “we’re just gonna have to leave it there!”
And just to be clear: when i say whiteness here, i mean the default assumption that white people should be centered, that social phenomena are only happening if white people perceive them, that the priorities of white ppl are taken as the only legitimate political priorities
It helps to understand so many of our contemporary political crises as fundamentally about revanchism re: that white social order that is becoming more untenable as the country becomes a brown one
This is an existential question for the US: can it even survive if its institutions were arranged around the priorities of whiteness? There are too many energies and concerns among POC that just can’t/don’t align with those institutions or priorities.
And adding some brown people here and there to those institutions isn’t going to ameliorate them
America’s problems with race are way too deep and broad to be fixed by putting darker butts in what had always been white seats
America’s problems with race are way too deep and broad to be fixed by putting darker butts in what had always been white seats
But lemme get off this app and up on this cheese tho
Ask him what his definition is, then, and who he thinks might meet that criteria
