I try to be a nice, respectable, calming, soothing colored fellow who goes to great lengths as to not upset the sensibilities of white folks. I am embarrassed, truly so, when I have strayed from this life mantra. In order to make up for my foul ways I would like to share the following email that I received a few days ago.
As a conservative white dude (i.e. a racist in your book) I have really tried all my life to treat everyone I ever met, regardless of race, creed, yada yada yada as my equal, my neighbor, and the way I would want to be treated. But because of people like you, who cry racism at every turn, who race bait to no end, who do nothing but point fingers of accusation at the slightest mention of race, I am pretty fucking tired man.
So it will begin. And people like you are to blame.
I do not want to be the cause of a race war. I am also ashamed that I was a naysayer during a week when the Tea Party GOP celebrated its commitment to diversity and racial inclusion.
What can I do to make amends? Any thoughts or suggestions?
What can I do to make amends? Any thoughts or suggestions?
18 comments:
I almost made an exception a few months ago with a priceless Irish-obsessed Nordic Aryan fetishizer because the exchange was so funny.
Was that one of the guys who was offended by a Black guy being cast as an Asgardian in the Thor movie?
What can I do to make amends? Any thoughts or suggestions?
Hmm. That's a tough one. You could offer to (ahem) "vigorously integrate" with his mother and/or sister just to show that there are no grudges held on your part...
You can send him some free ebooks? I like Shady's integrating idea. You can tell him you talk about sci-fi sometimes.
Vic78
The paradox of the privileged view of their victims is that they see less-privileged people as both lesser and greater than them. Lesser in that they can be treated as the privileged person sees fit, but greater in that the actions of a less-privileged person can strip them of their agency at a moment's notice. You are nothing to this angry white conservative man, yet you also can force him to act against you without any desire on his part to do so. You MADE him a racist, by not giving him a cookie when he wasn't overtly racist to you, and now he has no choice but to say and do things that he possibly even believes aren't a measure of his true character.
At Which Point I have Hurt the Feelings of a "Conservative White Dude" and Made Him Tired... What can I do to make amends? Any thoughts or suggestions? – ChaunceyD.
You could pretend to be a conservative, grinning, eager Black chauffeur en-route to taking this “Conservative White Dude” to a Republican/Tea party meeting. However, you have second thought on the way there and make a quick detour to the nearest HOOD and shove him out of the car while wearing his three-piece, Brooks Brothers suit onto some drug dealer’s home turf.
Perhaps Conservative White Dude is auditioning to be a well known clown. Just because you point out this country’s political hypocrisy, it’s still collectively racist attitude towards people of color, now he wants to resort to being an admitted, low-life, practicing racist all on account of you (ChaunceyD). This means that his conviction to treat everyone fairly and refrain from being a racist apparently wasn’t that strong in the first instance. What a Bozo!
Before I go any further in the post, "Irish-obsessed Nordic Aryan fetishizer." I've met a few. I usually start out with, I'm Anglo Irish too! I'm a descendant of seamen from Francis Drake's last big voyage. But that means all my Anglo Irish ancestors were all rapists.
Some folk might think that would end the conversation. It rarely does.
My recommendation to this conservative dude is that if he doesn't want to be associated with racists, he has two choices. He can leave the GOP, or he can find his voice and speak out to demand that the racists be booted out of the party. That old adage "one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel" is applicable in the case of the way the GOP addresses the racists among them.
Now re the rest of the post? Remember what Cousin (well I'm distant kin . . . very distant, mind you) Malcolm said. We did not land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us.
I am very so much more sick and tired of crabby whiney angry white guys who are tired of living in a world where less than 1/2 of the nation is willing to put up with their moderate racism. Whether or not we will be better off when the Nation officially becomes Estados Unidos, remains to be seen. And even if the brown people taking over is not really going to change things for The Black Peoples, as a predictable outcome?
I so very much look forward to the day when less and less folk will put up with or excuse that crap. And every year we get closer to that. And they know it. That is why they are raging against P. Obama so aggressively. They see their mythical Whitelandia fading. And they hate that.
And before I hit send. Did you see the vid of Touré mocking S.E.Cupp's wahh wahh whining about how there are so many new words to avoid using, to avoid having the race card thrown at them? She was not too happy about the mocking. But even If I had to do it politely (wait this is not my blog. I have to say it politely) I would have calmly and slowly explained to her, in as tiny words as I could, that it is very easy to avoid having the so called race card played on one. Just don't be mean. Don't say anything vulgar regarding race, ethnic group, or anything close to that stuff. And don't try to score points or be clever or funny.
You conservatives always play the game as if it's 6th grade recess and the object it to get the most kids to say,"Good burn." Stop that. It's juvenile, and stupid and adults never win points. And you don't want to hear the following. But it is true. Clever and or funny conservatives are as rare as snow balls in the fires of hell. So stop trying. Really. Just stop.
Chauncey:
My advice, for what it's worth, is
(1) that you point out to your interlocutor how unbelievably whiny he sounds;
(2) remind him that no matter how hard he tries, his *perceived effort* is not the ultimate arbiter of whether he has been successful in his efforts to become a decent human being;
(3) ask him if his self-pitying threats -- which are the sure mark of a natural bully, by the way -- might possibly be a disproportionate response to a mere verbal and journalistic critique of his attitudes and opinions;
and
(4) send him a big bouquet of flowers when his next birthday rolls around.
This is pretty much the general approach my wife always takes with me, and it seems to work.
Yours,
Chris Dominguez
formerly of Silent Majority blog
...but let me amend just in case you are serious.
(You mostly aren't, are you? But you sound like you might be.)
I used to run across this over at TSM. I found that the best approach with the whiny angry types was to back completely off the ad hominem and just go cold Dr. Spock on them. They seemed to get bored -- and once they were bored, they stopped frothing at the mouth.
The drawback was that logic never seemed to reach them.
Yours,
Chris Dominguez
Silent Majority
Dude, the first time I stumbled on your blogge, I was all like, "This dude is totally gonna start a race war. The only question is when."
Amusing, what he is saying is he has tolerated you people long enough and he is sick of it.. If he was truly about treating everyone equally then it wouldn't matter what anyone said with regards to race relations.
Here is da killer (as Fats Waller used to say)
Does this conservative white dude express the same outrage when conservative whites stereotype people of color and use white racial resentment to simultaneously create fear and gin up support in their base to take the country back?
My guess is probably not...
I am tired too, so very tired. I have known these racists my whole life. Many are my family. They are slippery, but they are serious. Never doubt that. I am tired of their lies and hypocrisy. I am so tired that I can not even list all of the ways the slippery racists make me tired.
Here's how to make amends: advise him to seek professional help. Seriously, he needs it - he's a deeply confused and conflicted person.
This is obvious, simply by looking at his "logic": "I am not a racist; therefore, racism doesn't exist, and anyone who says otherwise is not just wrong - but must be violently opposed... along with everyone else who shares their race."
Wow. Just typing that made me feel disoriented.
No one gets "fucking tired" of being decent, unless being decent was a struggle in the first place. Like an abuser or bully, he wants an excuse for giving reign to his worst impulses. People like him are in desperate need of mental health intervention.
@improbable Joe
I just wanted to say thanks for your comment to this post. It cleared up a lot of things in my mind concerning the attitude that I encounter from a lot of the white people that I encounter.
I've learned that trying to be friendly and personable doesn't seem to work. I guess I'm viewed as being weak. On the other hand, being solmn, but polite hasn't worked any better. However... I've discovered that the Tom Selleck school of acting works best: be enigmatic, get straight to the point, be just a tad threatning and say as little as possible.
Better to be predator than prey.
Glenn
@CDV
The funny thing is that I don't believe that this guy is in the minority. I think the majority of white folk are born and socialized into a racist society, and the cognitive energy it takes to keep the "back stage" racism behind the door and not let any of it leak out into "front stage" racism is draining on them. Having to not reveal what a racist douchebag they are is a lot of hard work and makes them feel like walking on eggshells. Thats why its so invasive to have black people in their work spaces, in their offices and so forth, because now all the white folk have to watch what they say and can't be their real selves anymore. I mean its really tiring, you have to feel for these poor people. They just want to take back their America and forget about all this "P.C." garbage that they suffer through every day. Just think of how good it feels when they can find some black person pointing out the racism in America, so that they can be justified by their entire political party when they can finally "let em have it". I'm crying tears right now for all these poor white people struggling so hard to keep a lid on how they really feel. Just weeping in my fists. sobbing.
I'm sure you are not serious. As you well know you cannot make amends to people for whom retaliatory violence is therapeutic. Is this dude as tired as these people who were willing to kill their own to pursue their terrorist objectives?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/48857613#48857613
We know that they are willing to kill others.
[Life had equipped Wade Michael Page—the Sikh Temple killer, with a powerful arsenal of anger. Fayetteville, though, taught him to aim it. By 1995 neo-Nazis lived and recruited openly in Ft. Bragg, distributing materials and hanging swastika flags over their bunks. In the course of normal conversation, at meals and sitting around the barracks, Page met and became friends with extremists like Pvt. James Burmeister.
Everything changed, for Page and for Fayetteville, in December 1995. That's when Burmeister and two other soldiers went out one night, found a black couple on the street in town, forced them to kneel and executed them. The murders shocked the city and the Army, both of which realized how entwined they had become with racist groups.
The Army brought its boot heel down on any sort of neo-Nazi activity. Page felt this acutely and resented it as persecution of white soldiers. He spiraled down until the Army ran him out of its ranks in 1998, when he reported for duty while drunk.]
[An avowed neo-Nazi skinhead, given to uttering the N-word and listening to white power anthems such as "Third Reich," Burmeister found his victims on a dirt road after midnight.
Michael James was shot twice in the head at such close range that his blood was later found on the right sleeve of Burmeister's shirt.
Jackie Burden ran but was cut down with one shot to her back. As she lay writhing in pain, Burmeister walked up to the one-time aspiring nursing assistant and fired three more bullets.]
The US military in particular and American society in general has a growing problem with militia’s and psychopathic xenophobic individuals.
No one gets "fucking tired" of being decent, unless being decent was a struggle in the first place.
Finally! Thank you.
Here's a similar example, from NewsVine:
Obama and his Gang of Four have set the Civil Rights movement back over 50 years. Haven't you noticed that there is a raging battle between the races in this country, and the flames of discontent are being fanned by the White House?
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