I found a quote online today ...

[Maedhros]

1. I found an article on Salon today that touches on this same issue:

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/08/its_not_about_you_white_liberals_why_attacks_on_radical_people_of_color_are_so_misguided/

In 1892, Anna Julia Cooper described the relationship of the North to the South during the Civil War and its aftermath as that of a big brother to a petulant and sullen little sister. She wrote:

Until 1860 she (the South) had as her pet an institution which it was death by law to say anything about, except that it was divinely instituted, inaugurated by Noah, sanctioned by Abraham, approved by Paul, and just ideally perfect in every way. And when, to preserve the autonomy of the family arrangements, in ’61, ’62, and ’63, it became necessary for the big brother to administer a little wholesome correction and set the obstreperous Miss vigorously down in her seat again, she assumed such an air of injured innocence, and melted away so lugubriously, the big brother has done nothing since but try to sweeten and pacify and laugh her back into a companionable frame of mind.

For more than a century, the fate of African-Americans has been the pawn in a dysfunctional national family drama played out by whites on the liberal left and whites on the right.

Yes, whites on the liberal left helped elect Barack Obama. And black and brown folk have now endured six years of a straight-up, all out, go-for-broke temper tantrum on the right. Seeing themselves as the paragons of reason, liberal white folks have largely stood idly by reasoning with their brethren and sistren on the right to play nice, even though it is so clear that the right is not interested in a clean game.

Your post last week regarding the experience with your daughter's friend and her questions about racism brought out some of these calls for "reason" from white posters, as manifested in the rejection of the notion that "racism" and "bigotry" represent different cultural phenomena. On that score, this article resonated: racism is a political football being kicked back and forth by white liberals and white conservatives, and ideas that violate the accepted paradigm are denounced. We like to fight about racism, but do we like to fight against racism (rather than just racist individuals)?

The various social media and activist campaigns taken up by radical people of color on the left are not about censoring white folks’ speech. They are not about calling white liberals racist. They are about forcing an acknowledgment that racism is painful, harmful and unacceptable. These campaigns force white folks to actually listen to people of color. Yes, sometimes those people of color sound like petulant toddlers demanding to be heard. But to put it like Whitney Houston might, “we believe the children are the future.” Or to get biblical with it, “out of the mouths of babes.”

More to the point, the demand to be reasonable is a disingenuous demand. Black folks have been reasoning with white people forever. Racism is unreasonable, and that means reason has limited currency in the fight against it. Black folks understand, just like white folks do, that reason should be wielded as a tactic, not adhered to as a rule.

I'm not familiar with Brittney Cooper's larger body of work, but I thought she had some good things to say in this article.