"I grew up living in the past. The future, some versions of which had only the sheerest possibility of happening was treated with the respect of the already happened, seen through the expansively prismatic lenses of what had already happened. 1/
2/ "Thus, when I decided to go to law school, my mother told me that the Millers were lawyers so you have it in your blood. Now the Millers were the slaveholders of my maternal grandmother's clan.
3/ "The Millers were also my great-great-grandparents and great-aunts and who knows what else. My great-great-grandfather Austin Miller, a thirty-five-year old lawyer, bought my eleven year old great-great-grandmother, Sophic, and her parents (being 'family Negroes,' the previous
4/ "owner sold them as a matched set). By the time she was twelve, Austin Miller had made Sophie mother of a child, my great grandmother Mary. He did so, according to family lore, out of his desire to have a family.
5/ "Not, of course, a family with my great-great-grandmother, but with a wealthy white widow whom he in fact married shortly thereafter. He wanted to practice his sexual talents on my great-great-grandmother. In the bargain, Sophie bore Mary, who was taken away from her and
6/ "raised in the Big House as a house servant, an attendant to his wife, Mary (after whom Sophie's Mary, my great grandmother, had been named), and to his legitimated white children.
7/ "In ironic, perverse obeisance to the rationalizations of this bitter ancestral mix, the image of this self-centered child molester became the fuel for my survival during the dispossessed limbo of my years at Harvard, the *Bakke* years, the years when everyone was running
8/ "around telling black people that they were very happy to have us there, but after all they did have to lower the standards and readjust the grading system, but Harvard could *afford* to do that because Harvard was Harvard. And it worked I got through law school, quietly
9/ "driven by the false idol of the white-man-within-me, and I absorbed a whole lot of the knowledge and the values which had enslaved me and my foremothers."

~Patricia J Williams, "Alchemical Notes: Reconstructing Ideals from Deconstructed Rights"
10/10 If you can get your hands on this essay, definitely read it. It's powerful, heartbreaking, illuminating, and intellectually profound and complicated, yet reads like easy prose.

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More from @AlsoACarpenter

12 Dec
Because this book is so good, and this chapter is a must read, here is part 3 from chapter 2 in Darity's book (see QT below for part 2):

Chapter 2.3:

"Some have suggested that the racial wealth gap is explained by black profligacy: blacks’ unwillingness to commit to a 1/
2/ "careful plan of saving and blacks’ ignorance about proper investment practices. A virtual cottage industry has developed to provide 'financial literacy' to black families. But it is striking that there is very little, if any, evidence to support the claim that black saving
3/ "behavior is the source of the enormous racial wealth gap.[15]

"If we consider black and white families with similar income levels, we discover no significant difference in savings rates, nor a difference in rates of return on their personal investments. In fact, in some
Read 17 tweets
11 Dec
Looks like he's now moving into some legitimately false teaching.

I'd suggest this article, "What Does Jew & Gentile Have to do with White & Black?," is much more accurate, Biblical approach then the old canard repeated by Shenvi: alsoacarpenter.com/2018/09/27/wha…
2/ The problem: "If we attempt to interpret and understand these events without the socio-historical context, we start from illicit neutral ground which inevitably obscures part of the very import of their presence in the Biblical canon."

alsoacarpenter.com/2018/09/27/wha…
3/ And if you're unsure that this is an old canard, see here as well:

alsoacarpenter.com/2019/02/25/gal…
Read 5 tweets
11 Dec
Because this book is so good, and this chapter is a must read, here is part 2 from chapter 2 in Darity's book (see QT from yesterday for part 1):

Chapter 2.2:

"One powerful example that challenges the thinking of those who prefer America’s feel-good myth of equality is 1/
2/ "provided by a close analysis of wealth disparity in this country. Wealth is the best single indicator of the cumulative impact of white racism over time. Wealth—the difference between what we own and what we owe (or the difference between the value of our assets and our debts
3/ "or the net value of our property)—is the economic measure that best captures individual, family, and household well-being:

"'Wealth serves as a primary indicator of economic security. Wealthier families are better positioned to finance elite independent school and college
Read 16 tweets
10 Dec
Because this book is so good, and this chapter is a must read, I think I'll post a selection each day so everyone interested can get hold of these truths. (So long as folks seem interested, hahaha.)

Chapter 2.1:

"In From Here to Equality, we intend to convince you that ImageImage
2/ "America has not transcended racism. Nor has the passage of the Civil Rights Act resulted in economic equality for African Americans. Nor did the election of a black man as president signify the attainment of racial equality. Moreover, the incidence of poverty, unemployment,
3/ "overincarceration, wealth disparities at all levels of income, and inferior levels of well-being among blacks cannot be explained by defective black behaviors. There is something profoundly wrong with the way we think about how race and racism operate in American society.
Read 15 tweets
4 Dec
He comes to the EXACT OPPOSITE of the rational conclusion!

If the SAME disparate circumstances of marginalized peoples that existed under Jim Crow persist, now by means of facially "race-neutral" standards, then the burden of proof is on those who would justify these standards!
2/ I literally just wrote about this today:

3/ And, contrary to Owen, you don't have to become an expert to see this. Start by reading some who are! Again, for example:
Read 6 tweets
4 Dec
Folks ask me all the time, “But couldn’t it be past racism that is responsible for current disparities rather than systemic racism?” This, I’d argue, shows that the meaning of “systemic racism” is being missed altogether.

Sorry, another long thread:
2/ I’d argue that “systemic racism” could be defined as any historic and/or current system of ideas, social philosophies, institutions, policies, and practices which have created and/or continue to perpetuate the SUBORDINATED CIRCUMSTANCES and INFERIOR CONDITIONS of historically
3/ contingent, socially constructed, racialized people-groups. (I think Vernellia R. Randal’s is pretty good as well, viz., “polices, practices, and procedures of institutions that have a disproportionately negative effect on racial minorities’ access to and quality of goods,
Read 30 tweets

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