Comment by scarecrowbob
3 days ago
You might consider some things.
First of all, I don't know you personally. What I wrote about were historical facts.
I understand that often white-bodied folks become very triggered when folks point out that they might have a point of view informed by white supremecy culture. I have no idea what kind of body you have, but you are clearly very upset. I don't say that as a "gotcha, hah triggered ya", I say that as a person who has been often and deeply upset by this culture, and who can recognize similar patterns of hurt and harm in other folks writing. So while I have no actual idea about you or your actual state of mind or body, you read to me like a person who is very upset for reasons that have very little to do with postings on a message board.
On one hand, it's easy for me to say:
a - if you don't like being called out, don't call folks out. If you want to be hypercritical of folks, as you were doing up thread, you're gonna need a thicker skin
b - I believe that when you say "mainstream interpretation" you can pretty easily interpret that as "white", which is what I mean when I write that you specifically are operating from a position of white supremacy. You might not have noticed that in response to references to Frederick Douglass and WEB DuBois you counterpoised a couple of white "leaders", but I certainly did.
Secondly, even if I didn't just do what you're doing to other folks on this board and dismiss your writings out of hand as both based in whatever deep traumas you have around whiteness and general ignorance of the world, your political position is still quite bad.
Your position is what a lot of folks describe as "Blue MAGA", centered on the idea that the US used to be pretty dang good (if flawed) and that we need to work back towards that greatness.
To hold that position you need to ignore a whole lot of real and obvious history, and the way folks in the US have done that is to ignore the actual writings and words of non-white folks.
I am certain that you don't experience that ignorance you are maintaining as a process of de-humanizing those other people (at least until someone points that out, which can be very activating to read).
I don't expect you to be rational about these things, because being made to feel white is very traumatic to folks in white bodies.
I don't expect you to have the capacity to deconstruct your thoughts around race, either.
But if you ever are able to do that work, consider that what I'm describing is a very specific dismissal that you're doing, of a very specific historical selectiveness, and all you have to do to not do that is to read and listen.
That's not a personal attack. This isn't about your personal "character"; that's just the world, and your ignorant and (frankly) dehumanizing political position.
I'm sorry that it feels upsetting and personal to you.
Getting to a position where you can do that work of examining these things may be impossible, and you might find that it makes all the other white-bodied folks around seem quite menacing, but it's certainly work that will liberate you from the need to defend the indefensible.
Sure I'm a total mess. If you read my history I was an exec who fell out and is still rebuilding after being away from the world for a minute (and had my eyes opened/views change on race in America during that process and learning others lived experience though not even close to understanding what that lived experience was/is like).
You didn't call me out you piled on responding to someone else while using low effort/charicture making personal attacks. That's what I took issue with.
I replied to your statement:
" I don't think that the folks (other than the black folks fighting to free themselves) generally were fighting "to remove the cancer of slavery"."
With an example of a white politician who was elected by other white folks fighting "to remove the cancer of slavery" and who was then able to use his political power to sideline United States President Andrew Johnson who was trying to restore the seceded states without guarantees for freedmen, so not some obscure/irrelevant out of power white guy but someone who thwarted the US President's evil attempts. My example specifically countered what you said. Responding to what you say and giving factual examples isn't white centric. It wouldn't make sense to use non-white examples in that response.
I never said we need to work back towards greatness. I said the USA is redeemable and the best way to progress compared to the other options, and gave examples of improvement. I pointed out 'who we are' created children that didn't care about marrying outside race to awful racist parents and Michelle Obama is correct. This historically 'who we are' was directed at pre-Trump America current era America, not our entire history, with the historical reference to show improvement is possible. It's a common way to phrase it (as shown by Michelle Obama's usage), but I think threw the conversation off into something larger than the initial discussion (we need to fight against what Trump and his supporters are doing, and not normalize that they get to define 'who we are'). I'm not trying to whitewash history, I was continuing the original discussion about the Voice of America win and that we need to be positive and build on what wins we can and ham-fistedly referenced the Civil War as showing societal push to improve, and working towards something better.
You are the one who routinely has dehumanized me in this discussion, to the point of talking about me but not too me and labeling me with names/pejoratives and deciding my positions, and defining my motivations.
But you are right, I'm a mess, and I give up. Let Trump America be America now and forever I guess. You all win in your empowering the 40% and getting me as a member of the 60% out of the way.