“Racism, like all forms of bigotry, is what it claims to oppose--victimology. The bigot is never to blame. Always is he besieged--by gays and their radical agenda, by women and their miniskirts, by fleet-footed blacks. It is an ideology of "not my fault." It is not Ron Paul's fault that people with an NAACP view of the world would twist his words. It is not Ron Paul's fault that his newsletter trafficked in racism. It is not Ron Paul's fault that he allowed people to author that racism in his name. It is anonymous political aids and writers, who now cowardly refuse to own their words. There's always someone else to blame--as long as it isn't Ron Paul, if only because it never was Ron Paul.”
—Who else but Ta’Nehisi Coates?“In modern America we believe racism to be the property of the uniquely villainous and morally deformed, the ideology of trolls, gorgons and orcs. We believe this even when we are actually being racist.”
— - The Good, Racist People, by Ta-Nehisi Coates“Racism tends to attract attention when it's flagrant and filled with invective. But like all bigotry, the most potent component of racism is frame-flipping--positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So the gay do not simply want to marry, they want to convert our children into sin. The Jews do not merely want to be left in peace, they actually are plotting world take-over. And the blacks are not actually victims of American power, but beneficiaries of the war against hard-working whites. This is a respectable, more sensible, bigotry, one that does not seek to name-call, preferring instead change the subject and straw man. Thus segregation wasn't necessary to keep the niggers in line, it was necessary to protect the honor of white women. ”
—Ta-Nehisi Coates (About the Persecution Complex)“The thing is, a black man can’t be president in America, given the racial aversion and history that’s still out there,” Cornell Belcher, a pollster for Obama, told the journalist Gwen Ifill after the 2008 election. “However, an extraordinary, gifted, and talented young man who happens to be black can be president.” Belcher’s formulation grants the power of anti-black racism, and proposes to defeat it by not acknowledging it. His is the perfect statement of the Obama era, a time marked by a revolution that must never announce itself, by a democracy that must never acknowledge the weight of race, even while being shaped by it. Barack Obama governs a nation enlightened enough to send an African American to the White House, but not enlightened enough to accept a black man as its president.”
—from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s article ‘Fear of a Black President’, which is one of the most insightful discussions of America and race in the ‘Obama age’ I have ever read.“David Brooks and Joe Scarborough [are] manly-men who can't find San Francisco on a map and are so macho that they chew coffee beans whole, leaving the French press for you wimpy-ass, Terry Gross-listening, Steve Urkel-looking motherfuckers... Silver's work is humiliating to people who are little more than gossipmongers. The response is to accuse them of listening to public radio and living in Seattle.”
—Ta-Nehisi Coates, Toward a Fraudulent PopulismTa-Nehisi Coates' article in September's Atlantic issue
should be held up as a prime example of how to write. Kudos to him for his exceptional ability, and kudos, as always (you all know how I feel about this magazine), to The Atlantic for being one of the only editorial magazines out there with the guts and integrity to continually publish excellence and grant writers the editorial space to truly express themselves.
The Good, Racist People
nytimes.comNo excerpt for you this time. Read the entire article, it’s not that long. You’re welcome.
“One of the problems with the idea that America needs a "Conversation On Race" is that it presumes that "America" has something intelligent to say about race. All you need do is look at how American history is taught in this country to realize that that is basically impossible. I have had conversations with very well-educated people who, with a straight face, have told me that there are Black Confederates. If you ask a very well educated person how the GI Bill exacerbated the wealth gap, or how New Deal housing policy helped create the ghetto they very likely will not know. And they do not know, not because they are ignorant, stupid, or immoral, they do not know because they are part of country that has decided that "not knowing" is in its interest. There's no room for any sort of serious conversation when the basic facts of history are not accessible. It would be like me demanding a conversation on Vichy France--en Français.”
—The always on point Ta-Nehisi Coates. The quote is taken from a blogpost which points out how some of the problems found within the Brad Paisley/L.L. Cool J song, “Accidental Racist,” can be traced back to our lackluster history education.The Good, Racist People
nytimes.comWhat does it mean when Forest Whitaker is frisked at a deli?
Big Words
bam.orgA film by Neil Drumming.
Support the film because 1) I love BAM and am sad it’s been a year since I was last there and 2) Ta-Nehisi says “it features black people as actual black people- which is to say not standing around discussing how blacketyblack they are.” That tickles me.
Black Confederates Revealed - The Atlantic
theatlantic.comTNC resumes : “I’ve spent much of my adult life studying various theories of race and racism, and the last few years in a rather intensive mode of study. In all of that time one inescapable conclusion has dogged me: Race is such bullshit.
It’s important to keep that in mind.”
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