Saturday, August 19, 2017

Let's Discuss Our Feelings

Remember 2010? Before the nightmarish reality we're living in now? In an interview with Matt Lauer, George W Bush said the worst moment of his presidency was when Kanye West said "George W Bush doesn't care about black people."  Let's revisit the whole exchange and remember that while he is certainly better than what we have now, he was still pretty terrible:

(Click to embiggen)

Had New Orleans 9th Ward been filled with white people, the response to Katrina would have been vastly different. 

(I had to do ONE gif!)
But George Bush had no problem claiming that his hurt feelings were more important than a devastating flood that killed almost 2000 people and dispossessed thousands more. Shoot, George Bush thought being called racist by Kanye West was worse than 9 Freaking 11.

We have to stop doing that, my Nillas. We really do.  Being called racist is not worse than racism. In particular:
  • If you're investing energy railing against the casting of Black actors in roles that you thought belonged to white people, you're part of the problem
  • If you're arguing on-line or on barstools that it's not racism keeping Colin Kaepernick out of the NFL, you're part of the problem.
  • If you're putting out dumb tweets talking about how a democratic senator having been in the Klan somehow mitigates Trump's racism, you're part of the problem.
  • If you're talking about how only All Lives Matter isn't racist, you're a particularly dumb part of the problem.
  • And, for the love of God, If you're investing energy about how confederate memorials aren't actually celebrating white supremacy, you're part of the problem.
I follow some Black twitterers who go hard on White women from time to time. And sometimes, I get them bad feelings and want real bad to say "But I don't do that!" But then, I stop myself and go:

(OK, 2 gifs...)
There is no worse response to accusations of racist collusion by White women than going all #NotAllWhiteWomen. Don't go all #NotAllWhiteWomen. Rather than rush to defend ourselves, my fellow Brunchers, we need to rush to defend anti-racism.

White Supremacists are emboldened and loud and have all of the guns and a real powerful ally in the Racist-in-Chief. Our hurt feelings are a pretty minor consideration, all things considered.