Stokely Carmichael Was Right: White Society's Fucked

American blacks have no chance for a "normal" life under the white gaze

We Are Respectable Negroes' Chauncey DeVega is making a list of things whites can do that blacks cannot, as supposedly-full American citizens, in 2014. His latest addition? Making a citizen's arrest of a police officer without getting shot. Why DeVega is doing so puzzles me - it's not like white people care how racist they are. They revel in it.

"According to a study by the St. Louis nonprofit Better Together, Ferguson receives nearly one-quarter of its revenue from court fees; for some surrounding towns it approaches 50 percent. Municipal reliance on revenue generated from traffic stops adds pressure to make more of them. One town, Sycamore Hills, has stationed a radar-gun-wielding police officer on its 250-foot northbound stretch of Interstate. 

With primarily white police forces that rely disproportionately on traffic citation revenue, blacks are pulled over, cited and arrested in numbers far exceeding their population share, according to a recent report from Missouri’s attorney general. In Ferguson last year, 86 percent of stops, 92 percent of searches and 93 percent of arrests were of black people—despite the fact that police officers were far less likely to find contraband on black drivers (22 percent versus 34 percent of whites). This worsens inequality, as struggling blacks do more to fund local government than relatively affluent whites."

This is no accident, and couldn't happen for decades unless white Americans specifically wanted it so - it is the outright theft, and an open injustice, that undergirds and asserts white's racism and white's conception of "society," which is so ingrained as a long-standing source of white power, they are 100% positive there's nothing blacks can do about it. So they openly rejoice, just as their racist ancestors planned. 

Which raises an interesting question, regarding the news that Michael Brown struggled with the police officer in Ferguson, Missouri:

Why should Michael Brown - or any other black person - respect whites, their so-called laws, or those who defend them, when we know their entire system is, has been, and will be rigged against us?

The answer's "news" only to blacks, and only a subset at that:

Because the racist bastards will destroy anyone who doesn't,...

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Chauncy DeVega, Me And The Blues

Even when you tell whites something, directly, they seem not to get it

I'm always asked how I can stay so down on America. It's a silly question, usually posed by whites with no clue how their racism affects blacks, plunging us into an unexpected depression we're forced to live with because,...there's no escaping white's racism. The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates (now regarded as black's point man on race) has written of his "Blue Period," and We Are Respectable Negroes' Chauncey DeVega has mentioned the "Blues Sensibility" that captures his soul, too. 

 I am no different - except I have fewer defenses than they do - and that, alone, can curdle into a fierce anger the others also don't possess. The fact, I have to live with people who cause hatred - but don't understand their actions - is as much justification as I need.

But if I was free American - like whites - I wouldn't need any:

Their racist behavior, without justification, tells me so,...

 

Why Do Whites Discuss Blacks - And Not Themselves?

Like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Chauncey DeVega is always good for dissecting white culture. Here he is, on the Santa Barbara shooter:

"When the bad behavior of white people is publicly called to account, said person’s relationship to 'Whiteness' is rarely discussed.   

To be forced to include white mass murderers, madmen, and Right-wing domestic terrorists as part of the tribe is very uncomfortable and disconcerting. 

This is understandable: what reasonable person would not want to excommunicate them from their community and affinity group? 

Only white folks have such a luxury in the United States: a black rapist, thief, or murderer is de facto a representative of 'the black race' with its 'bad culture' and 'pathologies'. There is no parallel for whites. The white murderer, thief, rapist, or mass shooter is an outlier, 'mentally ill', or some type of deviant whose behavior reveals nothing about white people en masse. 

The boundaries of Whiteness and white privilege are heavily policed: bad people are 'them'; good people are 'us'."

Which made TMR wonder, considering the profound effect whites have (and have had) on black lives, why don't whites generally discuss themselves - as a force - in public?

Do their obvious hypocrisies, and advertised insecurities - as they do their self-policing - appear normal to them, as they don't to TMR?

And how do they feel, about the "luxury" they've afforded themselves, at the expense of others?

Like having secured a place for such behavior while vehemently telling anyone, who will (still) listen, it isn't so?

Is there ever a twinge of recognition it's all a lie?

And don't they ever want to start over?

Clean?

If I was white - and not TMR to cultism - that'd be the way I'd go,…

 

Overlooking What Whites Do (Expect A Black Outcome)

"You really went and did it, didn't you?"

I think the cost of Paul Ryan's comments - about black America's supposed "bad culture" - should be added to the nation's reparations bill:

"As I often ask, 'what shall we do with the white people?' 

When an 'Arab' or 'Muslim' American kills people in mass they are a 'terrorist'. When a black person shoots someone they are 'thugs'. When a white man commits a mass shooting he is 'mentally ill' or 'sick'. 

Whiteness and white privilege are the luxury to be an individual, one whose behavior reflects nothing about white people as a group.

There will be not be a national discussion of a culture of 'white pathology' or how white Americans may have a 'cultural problem' with their young men and gun violence. The news media will not devote extensive time to the 'social problem' of white male violence and mass shootings." 

- Chauncey DeVega, noticing the wrong (and wrong-headed)  behavior whites consider normal, on We Are Respectable Negroes

Proof - whites are totally unbiased in their judgements.

Ryan's comments should be added as a visible harm - a cultural continuation of whites hurting blacks - even though whites are now almost completely unaware of what they're doing.

"Dad did it so I can have a pony."

Or are they?

It's mostly women and Republicans.

I mean, seriously, without stressing the point:

TMR can't name many other groups regularly getting away with murder,...

U.S. Conundrum: How Do You Kill Heartless Vampires?

Elephant Love

Chauncey DeVega at We Are Respectable Negroes has been doing some extra scribbling - knocked out "10 Things Everyone Needs to Know About White Supremacy" over the weekend, I think - and TMR's got some highlights for the racists:

One of the few "swinger's clubs" white men were happy to let blacks attend.

"What public policy decisions led to white Americans having at least 20 times the wealth of black Americans? Why are urban black and brown communities economically disadvantaged, and white communities (i.e. the suburbs), have been materially advantaged by comparison? Whose interests are served by a criminal justice system that disproportionately and unfairly punishes people of color?"

Everyone will buy it if you smile while lying.

Whites - just shrug and say "I don't know" as though you're totally-wired but completely clueless:

"If we had elected a Mormon, no blacks would've been president until 1978!"

"White racial innocence, and a sincere belief by many white folks that they do not hold racist attitudes, or benefit personally or collectively from systemic white racism, is an example of how white supremacy has evolved to make itself relatively invisible (to willfully ignorant white people) as a dominant social force in American life."

The son of a guy in racist newsletters - and the guy who read them.

If you're supporting a politician who's against parts of The Civil Rights Act - and another one who owns a ranch called "Niggerhead" - that doesn't make you a racist in 2014, right?

Naw - maybe your political party, but not you.

A miserable conservative white man - hoping to stop big government before it helps anyone else.

"The Homestead Act, the New Deal and the GI Bill, were all examples of wealth creation opportunities and an inter-generational transfer of resources within the white community that African Americans and other people of color were specifically denied access to. The extreme levels of wealth and income inequality in the United States is a story of how race and class work together to structure life outcomes."

Laugh it up, Guys - everyday, you're making us love you.

This has resulted in the racist's latest dishonest rhetorical gambit:

Saying we ought to be "grateful" for what they've done to us,…

Another Week: More Colorblind White American Racism

Does VICE do This Week In Racism on their television show? There ought to be a program for this "colorblind" phenomena - began by Ted Nugent and Paul Ryan - of a weekly roll-out of some new flavor of (supposedly-deceased-and/or-previously-non-existent) racists, determined to have their say on the very subject they're equally determined not to understand. 

Here would be this week's guest, from Salon:

"We don’t need your apology, Princeton kid 

Tal Fortgang wrote an essay saying he's not sorry for being male and white -- but who asked him to be?"

This sociopathic demand whites not feel guilt (or anything else, really) is a never-ending trope of the colorblind racist. Here I am, for the umpteenth time, also refuting it - over two weeks ago - on Althouse:

"Nobody wants, needs, or is asking for your guilt - we want you to discover 'justice'."

That white racists are stuck on this straw man doesn't say much for their intellectual prowess, but, as Chauncey DeVega noticed at We Are Respectable Negroes, it says quite a bit about how language can be used in an attempt to distract from more salient topics:

  "Historically, white supremacy's most socially deleterious power, and what so many white folks are desperately clinging to in the United States, is white racism's ability to elevate mediocre, failing, low-skilled, degenerate, unmotivated, and otherwise sub par white folks to the level of 'respectability' and 'middle class' over people of color who are in almost every way superior to them."

That's it:

Every week I'd host a comedy/game show, featuring a different colorblind racist saying whatever he or she wants, in an effort to fool others (and even themselves) into believing they've sincerely pondered and heard America's most-important issues.

We could call it: 

 SQUIRREL!!!

 

This Mistake Doesn't Happen If You Have Black Friends

“Barack Obama, the country's first president who happens to be black, does not have the will or political capital to speak truth to power on such matters.” 

 - Chauncey Devega, We Are Respectable Negroes 

JANUARY 28, 2014

“Even though Mr. Ryan never mentioned race, liberals attacked his off-the-cuff remarks as racist while the President's moral lecture was hardly noticed.” 

 - Editors, The Wall Street Journal

March 20, 2014

 

If You Ignore Slavery And Civil Rights (Life's A Cartoon)

The 1946 Educational Video 'Brotherhood of Man' Demonstrates How Paul Ryan's and Charles Murray's Ideas About Race and Destiny Were Outdated 70 Years Ago

Respectable Negroes Don't Like The Right's Ben Carson

Give me strength.

I watched Ben Carson's CPAC speech last night and wasn't impressed - the man's hardly electrifying. But I noticed Chauncey DeVega (of the blog We Are Respectable Negroes) watched it, too, and he really ain't havin' it. 

This is how the drafting of Ben Carson looks to blacks.

He ain't havin' it, he ain't havin' it, and, as far as he's concerned, this-will-not-stand:

 "Carson's role,...a black human mascot and cheerleader for the White Right,...

...Ben Carson’s fulfilling of the Republican Party’s fantasy that African-Americans are somehow hoodwinked and bamboozled in their decades of support for the Democratic Party is the first lie.

Here, Republicans, movement conservatives, and the White Right have reframed centuries of black citizenship and struggles for freedom into a narrative wherein African-Americans are dumb, stupid, and childlike.

Apparently, African-Americans are not reasoning and sophisticated citizens capable of making their own decisions in the service of collective self-interest. No. They are stuck on a “plantation” and need black conservatives such as Ben Carson and Herman Cain to rescue them.

...Carson is a placebo, a fake drug and a high, a salve for Republicans. His purpose, like that of other black conservatives, is to be human chaff, an ointment, which relieves them from the mountain of evidence and charges that the Republican Party is a racist organization.

This is NOT the version of "Good Times" I'm used to watching.

A placebo? Wow - a homeopathy metaphor! I like this guy. It IS funny how the very people who claim not to see race, all of a sudden, have found a black man to run with their philosophy - and they know it's an obviously hypocritical race play (and an attempt at racial manipulation) but, desperate, they're plowing ahead anyway, no matter how it looks.

"The case for Carson is all about math and race. Carson is African-American and his supporters think that will be his path to victory."

This black? Good luck with that.

Whites (and Ben Carson himself) seem confused. Sure, blacks notice when a new player is on the field, but it's not like we see another face like ours and lose our minds. It's insulting. Any black person will see through it. And - especially because of that - Ben Carson will appeal to very few.

All aboard the night train!

Hell, considering the readership of We Are Respectable Negroes - and TMR - it appears he's lost more than few already,…