Whites Need to Take Responsibility for Their Racism (Alternate Title: Stop Giving White People 2nd, 3rd and 4th Chances When Blacks Get Zero Chances)
Today I’m kinda out of it, have been most of the weekend. So this morning I was not in my usual mode of trolling my typical political blogs to see what is out there.
So I’ll post a few things I found of interest.
This first one is from a blog called Alas a blog - interesting post on racism.
I don’t agree or disagree with some of this stuff it’s just “interesting” and worth a look.
*********
Sphere: Related ContentEditor’s Note: I’m absolutely not going to let this thread turn into a discussion of how whites really aren’t racist, and people of color are really the problem. So if you want to leave a whiny comment about Al Sharpton or illegal immigrants or any other distraction, I’ll delete it.I want to pull several seemingly unrelated posts together to make a point about contemporary racism. Yesterday, I read this post over at Racialicious. Carmen closes the post with the following sentences about Don Imus and Michael Richards:
The Richards incident started with the racist ravings of a white man, complete with references to lynching, but ended up as a public discussion of why black people keep using the n-word towards each other. The Imus incident started with the racist and misogynist remarks of a white man, but ended up as a public referendum on misogyny in hip hop.
It’s fascinating to me that all roads seem to lead back to discussions of how black people are supposedly oppressing themselves.
I am struck by how common this phenomenon is. The basic pattern that these discussion follow is:
- White person makes incredibly racist statements.
- Some people express outrage over those statements; others seek to downplay the statements.
- Those who want to downplay the statements are able to win the “hearts and minds” of the vast majority of whites, who want operate by the anything but racism philosophy.
- The conversation the turns to how it really isn’t racist or wasn’t intention of the person. Since this allows people to think it is not that person’s fault, they then proceed to the last step.
- Blaming the real victims of racism.
This leads to sentiments like notion Don Imus called women nappy headed hos because of Hip Hop. Once we reach the 5th step the conversation is almost beyond repair. Whites are reframed as victims people of color (in particular blacks) are framed as the real source of the problem, and then the debate has totally shifted.
Professor Black Woman’s post here gives several examples of this phenomenon. In particular, she focuses on how Tucker Carlson discussed the Jena 6 case by discussing Carlson’s reframing:
In the “new” face of racism, two things have to happen: 1. acknowledge that the certain aspects of any racist incident are extreme (not unfair, extreme) or that the black community is acceptable to you & 2. then posit a racist overlaying narrative that essential reframes the discussion around the unfair and extreme behavior perceived to be experienced by white people.
After reading those Carmen’s and Professor Black Woman’s posts, I was reminded of the discussion we had here and at Alas about the Don Imus controversy. I put up very few posts about the Don Imus case, but the discussion generated in those posts two posts reveals how these contemporary racist tactics work.
![[Valid RSS]](http://politicalpartypoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")