Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/07/people-who-think-they-are-whit.html
…
6 Likes
Long read, and somewhat heartbreaking, but well worth it.
26 Likes
Fuck
10 Likes
35 Likes
That is the point of white supremacy—to ensure that that which all others achieve with maximal effort, white people (particularly white men) achieve with minimal qualification.
That line got me. It explains the great divide between the expectations of Obama and the expectations of Trump so perfectly. Obama couldn’t wear the right colored suit and was shamed mercilessly, Trump literally can’t keep his eyes off half naked 15 year olds among about 1,000 other disgusting things that should be national crises and it’s no big deal.
52 Likes
The realization that pretty much every good thing you have in life is based upon the inherent existence of a ‘blood-drenched heirloom’ of which the benefits can never be truly separated from the exorbitant cost is ‘some seriously heavy shit’ that many people of privilege just don’t want to deal with.
45 Likes
This essay, more than most I’ve seen, really zeroes in on the intersection between racism and the late-stage capitalist economics of precarity and inequality that drove so many whites across so many classes to vote for this grotesque con artist. The key quote for me as to the longstanding mindset that led to this disaster: “Toiling blacks are in their proper state; toiling whites raise the specter of white slavery.”
27 Likes
There are plenty of real struggles to go around. Pitting one oppressed group’s struggles against another group’s struggles, as if there can only be one that is legitimate or important, is exactly how the lizard people maintain power.
Is Trump the racist backlash president? Is he the plutocratic oligarchy president? Why not both?
24 Likes
Of the “key” swing states (MI, PA, & WI) they were probably the least divided by race except Michigan. The big difference is in the 2008 swing states. NC went +41 white men, and +23 white women. FL went +39 white men, and +24 white women. OH went +41 white men, and +17 white women.
Picking on OH a bit more here is white men/white women for 2004 - 2012.
- 2004 - +13/+10 Bush
- 2008 - +8/+5 McCain
- 2012 - +21/+2 Romney
This is income <50K/50K-100K
- 2004 - -16/??? Bush
- 2008 - -21/-5 McCain
- 2012 - -20/+5 Romney
- 2016 - -8/+15 Trump
There was a huge swing of white working class voters in 2016, while in higher incomes (>100K) it remained mostly the same
- 2004 - +22 Bush
- 2008 - +16 McCain
- 2012 - +19 Romney
- 2016 - +22 Trump
8 Likes
In B4: #NotAllWhites
10 Likes
An acknowledger of both the lizard people, and apparently a nondualist to boot. Rock on. 
3 Likes
Another lens to view this through is that Trump did hugely bigger among men in every group. If men voted for him at the same rate as women- it would have been the largest landslide for his opponent in history.
9 Likes
that was one of the very best essays coates has written in a while. i read it this morning and thought to myself–“how much trouble would i be in if i read that essay to each of my social studies classes?”
i’m in texas and teach 6th grade, probably a lot, actually.
28 Likes
A metric fuckton, probably; this essay is too much ‘ugly truth’, not enough ‘sugar-coated whitewash.’
25 Likes
which is, of course, what makes the essay so great.
16 Likes
he was elected by white people who voted for him across gender and class lines.
Hasn’t every president we’ve ever had been elected with help from people (read: women) crossing “gender lines”? (In all but one election, ~100% of women’s votes went to men.) And there are never “working class” presidential candidates to vote for (in the two parties, that is). They all win by winning votes from people who cross “class lines” to vote for (far) wealthier people.
I think I don’t understand his argument.
But nothing I say is meant to provide cover or apology for Donald “Shitbag” Trump.
5 Likes
Hell, I’m Black and reading it still hurt; just imagine how someone who blindly believes in the fallacious ‘American Dream’ mythos must feel upon reading it…
Coates is basically obliterating the falsehood that disenfranchised working-class Whites “won 45 the election,” rather than a toxic combination of cognitive dissonance, xenophobia and subconscious bigotry across all economic classes of White folk in the US.
34 Likes
It’s hard to admit you’re not the hero of your own story. It’s exhilarating when doors open for you, again and again, always in the nick of time, said the Harvard Man.
15 Likes
it is painful, there is no way around it, but sometimes it can be amazing to find someone who feels the hurt in a way so similar to the pain you yourself feel and express that hurt and the conditions that surround it so well. it is a clarification through pain that is yet liberating and uplifting. there are damn few essayists practicing their craft who have the chops to do that and coates is clearly one of them.
11 Likes
Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to be the hero of your own story and yet still acknowledge that your ‘superpowers’ came from somewhere beyond yourself; kinda like Fix It Felix Jr - being ‘the hero’ came easily to him, because he was handed down a magic hammer from his dad, and everyone in ‘Niceland’ was already predisposed to like him.
It wasn’t until he inadvertently traded places with Ralph that he began to understand his own privilege.
15 Likes
