Um, wow… I can’t tell if this tweet is real or driving trollies:
I remember that but the cult churches called it the Catholic Bible. They said bad things about our church. Catholic was the first religion of Jesus untill a king wanted to remarry. So he made the king James Bible.
— Birdyboo (@jessicabirdyboo) February 9, 2018
If anyone is interested the book seems to have been hoovered up by Google and is available at the Internet Archive here:
The refusal to organize across racial lines is currently supported by an establishment that includes black people, and instrumentalizes blackness to serve its own interests - I point to Ta-nehisi Coates as the clearest and most influential example. The insistence of understanding whites as members of a privileged nation first, as unworthy of trust, as difficult to educate, as hopelessly racist, is a construction that holds the racist moment in place, it is not a stepping stone on the path. A cross racial alliance against capital is obvious; it is just anathema to neoliberalism. I will assume you have already read Cornel West’s critique of this line of thinking; if not, here it is again.
The notion that a class analysis could substitute for a race analysis is an absurdity posed by a modern left that seems to have forgotten that the “intersectionality” it is fond of was originally meant to be a marriage between race, class and gender politics; class, conveniently, has dropped out. This is NOT an accident. The arguments you are making are the same one Coates makes in his recent book, the insistence that class politics are always a form of white fascism and can never serve black people. These are the politics that abhor Trump as an inhuman monster but celebrate Obama as some sort of Black messiah, while he for eight years ran the American empire.
This construction is meant to serve neoliberalism, to allow Blackness to be another totem in the pocket of the liberal establishment that can be waved around to cow both whites who wish to be anti-racist and lull blacks into thinking they have any hope in the neoliberal party, which, meanwhile, goes on vitiating the lives of both black and white Americans. Race politics make no sense without class politics; the entire point of racism is that it pushes blacks into an underclass. Ending racism IS a class struggle. Oprah and Barack Obama are not oppressed people merely because of their blackness, and their victories are not automatically victories for all Black people.
We’re about to see Coates’ politics writ large across the screen. While his vision of a Black king ruling a black nation is raking in billions of dollars on behalf of Disney, you might ask yourself how it is that an allegedly anti-racist politics can be so celebrated by a white establishment.
You’re right, much of labor history (going way back before the 70s) has included organizing along, rather than across, race lines. But it would be a shame to ignore the equally long history of labor activism by, and for, people of color. I, personally, do not think it would be a great shame if people of color were the leaders in doing this work and found ways to include whites in their movement. We can’t simultaneously castigate whites as hopeless racists who can’t even speak to black people without asserting their privilege and then expect them to build a pan-racial movement - how would that work? Whites forming organizations and inviting blacks to it after they have already established themselves as the authority is the definition of privileged organizing. We WANT black leadership in the class struggle; we should insist on it. Black leadership of the previous generation saw this as part of the struggle against racism; only our generation refuses to evince any class politics in our study of race.
In any case, the point is that both whites and blacks have to see themselves as part of a common struggle - against racism and imperialism, whiteness and the class system - in order for this alliance to be possible at all.
I pose you my question again: how should poor whites be organized, and by whom, to end racism? How do you actually dismantle white privilege? How can you attack this privilege without confronting the class system that makes up its bones?
Speaking of reparations, I was looking at a map of USia the other day, showing the various purchases and conquests and the cash prices they cost that treasury, and it occurred to me that these big national expenditures only account for payments made to other, recognized national treasuries. There’s no centralized listing of all the smaller treaty payments, in beads and blankets and food. And that’s just what the iron born would call the gold price, there’s also the iron price, in lives and bullets.
If reparations for slavery are hard to calculate, how then to calculate reparations for native genocide? It may sound like a trumps, “what about this other thing?” move, but I’m not letting go of it.
I believe if those pioneers had paid a higher price for the land, we might today be treating it with more respect. It might not be so hard to let go of coal. We might not today be calculating sea level rise against lost value in real estate.
You just framed racism as a vicious circle, yet a person using(?) their right to be seen as aggrieved (whatever that means) does not lead to other people hanging on to privilege.
This is one of those things where “you can’t get there from here” applies.
That people were arbitrarily singled out for oppression is well understood, but that those people then co-opted those arbitrary characteristics as a mean to endure and get out from under that oppression is somehow seen as divisive?
I get it, this is not immediately apparent from a certain vantage point, to be fair, nobody has a practical answer, much less the right one. All we have is people plugging away at the problem, with limited but cumulative success. Which is the thing to keep in mind, people have made progress, it’s never been simple and it’s never been without opposition.
Nobody’s ever ready is what I’m saying.
Are you saying that we can’t end racism but we can make poor white people suffer less?
Because even if that’s not what you mean to say, that’s the end state you’re proposing.
Alternatively I propose that if poor white people are suffering the fallout of racism, then this should pressure them to want to end racism. People resist change, I get that, but the way out is to actually do something about it not complain that they are inconvenienced.
And what organization are you being banned from? The NAACP? Black Lives Matter? It’s only recently that most public higher ed was open to black students, and HBCUs still do not discriminate against whites. You can go to black majority places of worship. There is no mainstream black structures or institutions that would discriminate against you because you’re white. That is a white supremacist myth dreamed up to make it seem like we’ve always lived in an equitable society, and now black people are somehow taking over and discriminating against white people. You’re believing a lie if you think any of that is true. And if you can’t go somewhere that’s a black space, why do you feel you need access to it? Why do YOU get to go where ever you want? What makes you think that’s okay.
And the problem STILL primarily lies with white Americans. White Americans have time and again refused to tackle their own racial hang ups. Why should black people, who have often embraced a cross racial class struggle, but time and again been rebuffed, once again, do all the heavy lifting here. Remember it was black women, especially working class black women, who came out in the absolutely largest numbers for a right of center blue dog democrat who continues to side with the most racist president in recent history. when white men and women voted for a possible child molester. So, black people are doing that work, they are working intersectionally, and have been pushing for that for a long time. There is a long history of radical, leftwing black activism that embraces class and race and gender struggles in an intersectional way. Intersectionalty was primarily developed as a political strategy by black women, as a matter of fact (bell hooks and Audre Lorde) for example.
Really? He’s running around advocating for an exclusive, black nation where whites are completely banned from communication or contact with blacks? Or he’s calling for white slavery? He works with white people all the time. He’s talking to white people all the time. He’s an American engaged in a conversation about race in America. And you’re telling him to shut up.
And so what, he and West disagree - so did DuBois and Washington. The black community isn’t a fucking monolith! Shocker! That doesn’t mean that he’s entirely wrong or that he’s some sort of reverse racist.
Uh… no. We’re not. Black Panther isn’t based on Coates work. It’s based on earlier iterations - and the same material that the other MCU films are pulling from. It fits in with the rest of the film. Is there some problem with a mainstream film having a majority black cast, in a powerful (and fictional) African nation? Aren’t these stories that we can get pleasure out of? Do you think that there is something wrong with enjoying or identifying with a film that has afro-centric overtones?
Intersectionality is great and needed. But when it’s being deployed to demand that the party that has been historically oppressed is the one that needs to do all the work, then it’s only being used to shut down conversations.
Once again, for the most part, black people are still being shot indiscriminately by police, they are the ones bearing the brunt of the war on drugs (while it’s been primarily white people to financially benefit where it’s been legalized - in states where people are still being held on NON-VIOLENT drug offenses). Black people still bear the brunt of being discriminated against at work and in schools. They are still overwhelmingly being segregated into the neighborhoods with underfunded schools. Black women are less likely to be believed in cases of rape or sexual assault. Black families have far less accumulated wealth thanks to centuries of having it confiscated by the white power structure.
Wow. Really? That’s fucking offensive as hell dude. I think that black people can have pride in the first black president and still understand he wasn’t a “black messiah.” And have you heard some people slather over Trump?
I really think you need to think a bit harder about what you’re saying here. Black people have been doing this intersectional work since before our great great great grandparents were born.
Nailed it.
Good morning, everyone. I apologize for being late to this discussion–THANK you for considering my material. If you would like to receive a COMPLIMENTARY COPY of the Preview Edition, text me your e-mail address, please: 313-556-4717. It’s a 20-minute read. This offer is good until 5:55 a.m. Monday, February 12, 2018, whatever time zone you are in. Oneita Jackson
Wait: You can send me a message! I just got hip to this option.
“Nappy-Headed Negro Syndrome” is 13 satires about identity, judgment, and assumptions. It is nonfiction. l wrote the book after l quit my Detroit Free Press job and started driving a yellow cab. I am a writer, so l take notes about my experiences, but l noticed that some of these experiences fell into a theme, which l call the “Syndrome”:
This is not unique to me.
l just call mine “nappy-headed” because that is what my chemically untreated hair is and that is how my curly, wavy- and silky-hair family members referred to me growing up. Just a fact. The irony is my mother has boing boing curly hair.
“Black People Knit” is my drop-the-mic piece. When l read it, l tell the audience that it’s OK to laugh. It is. The scary thing about this piece is the woman restrained herself from begging my pardon. She was so politically correct that she suppressed a natural reaction: lf you are at a loud party and you don’t hear what a person said, you lean in or ask them what they said.
Hello people. Welcome, and come back again soon!
Well, where do white people go to listen?
Good day, Melz2.
I am offering COMPLIMENTARY COPIES of the Preview Edition. See my comments below if you want one, and thank you for appreciating Jason’s post.
Out here in Detroit, major media outlets have difficulty talking about “race.” One editorial editor said he would druther put a stick in his eye than talk about it–oh, my. I think it’s not that difficult if we share our stories. Like the ones in my little black book.
(P.S. l am a former Detroit Free Press copy editor and opinion columnist.)
Good morning, TacoChucks!
Thank you for reading and for responding. I am a satirist who makes observations and who writes about things that strike me.
“Nappy-Headed Negro Syndrome” is 13 satires about identity, judgment, and assumptions–that unconscious bias stuff.
I am happy to send you a COMPLIMENTARY COPY of the Preview Edition. See my comments below.
Now, what struck me about the woman at the party is not that she thought l said l was a “nigger,” but that she restrained herself from begging my pardon or asking me to repeat what l said for clarification.
I’ve been granted more access–excited!
Listen, thank you for requesting free* copies of the Preview Edition, which Dave Eggers says is “damned funny, scalpel-sharp, and moves like a rocket.” If you are reading it, here is what you need to know: It’s proceduralist recursive satire, so funnier if you read it in order.
*See my previous comment on how to get one. I am trying to keep up!
The book features young people, old people, rich people, hood rats, a police officer in the rich white suburbs, and incompetent service personnel.
They are not all white.
In “Learning a Wing or Two,” the first piece, a black woman tells me that the establishment does not take the EBT card. I asked her the price of a chicken wing.
Thank you very much for the offer of the preview copy and the insight.
I was genuinely not understanding the issue because of my perspective being a white guy. The book sounds quite interesting and helpful.
I have to say I am not sure how I would have responded if I had misheard you that same way, but your response helps me understand a bit better.
Thank you again.
You’re welcome. You didn’t text me your e-mail address.
This book may be a 20 minute read, if the reader doesn’t need to stop and Google each cultural reference. Someone whos never been east of the rockies, or who doesn’t ride in cabs, might take a lot longer to finish.
I hope this catches fire, and some aspie fan-boy compiles an “explain xkcd” style appendix of all the references.
People who live in places like Great Britain are not shy with talking about their class distinctions, they flaunt it. Here in USia, we’re still clinging desperately to the melting pot hypothesis, trying to make this one singular American Dream work for everyone.
These skits read like a secret translation dictionary of some kind, it seems Americans are constantly talking about race and class, we’re just not using our words to do it. We’re using our shoes, and our restaurants and our department stores and our members-only clubs.
Thanks again to the author for sharing this stuff. Attractive art about an unattractive subject- carries more authority than any number of earnest manifestos.
Thank you for taking the time to read, anansi133, and to consider the work. What piece(s) resonated with you most?
“The MF With the Shoes”
I compliment a man on his wing-tip boots and ask him what kind they are. “Very expensive.”
“Job Search for Tomorrow”
I go to an upscale department store looking for a friend who works there named Muffy. The sales associate asks me if l am applying for a job. (I am wearing raggedy sweatpants and a T-shirt.)
“Carded”
I am shopping at a store that doesn’t take my credit card. I ask about others forms of payment and, although the question has two answers, the sales associate tells me only one. Why?
“Driving Miss Oneita”
I am in the valet line at a private club, where l have a meeting. No one comes to valet my taxi cab.
“Audio Visual”
I ask for tickets to a movie and the little black girl tells me it’s an Indian movie.
“Guest Who”
I attend a private black-tie event at a private club that is exclusively white-male-only with my white date, and a white woman l don’t know and who doesn’t know me tells me l am late.
“Black People Knit”
During radio interviews, l have been asked, “Why do you think she thought you said you were a ‘nigger?’” Why do YOU think?
“Fecal Matter”
One of my taxi fares becomes offended when l ask him why he’s asking me how l paid for my son’s education at an all-boys Jesuit school in Detroit.
“How Did You Pay for That?”
A five-page listing of the ways l afforded my son’s education.
“ADVISORY”
Even though l repeatedly tell her not to, a woman insists on calling me “baby doll.”
“Oneita Big Dummy” and “Reflections”
Two takes on a traffic stop in the suburbs.
