"Sit down and shut up!"

[EffieBlack]

On Morning Joe this morning, Joe Scarborough and Craig Crawford wrang their hands and moaned that Barack Obama and black Democrats are causing all kinds of problems because they had the NOIVE to call Geraldine Ferraro on her despicable comments. Every now and then, they let John Ridley, an African American who disagred with them, get a word in edgewise, but this was really all about Joe and Craig lecturing black folk about how we should behave.

Nothing like listening to two white men - one of whom is clearly a Republican, don't know about the other one - bemoan the fact that Obama and blacks are splitting the Democratic party by having the TEMERITY to object to racist comments by another Democrat (and the failure of Hillary Clinton to meaningfully challenge them) which may result in - HORRORS! - white women being so upset with the Democrats that they might vote Republican in the fall. After all, they said, one of the reasons Obama is winning is that "he doesn't make white people feel guilty."

Excuse me?

I am sick and tired of being told to sit down and shut up so that I don't upset white people. Sit down and shut up no matter what people say or do because white people might be offended if I speak up. Sit down and shut up because, after all, we have got to fall all over ourselves keeping white people - in this case, white women - happy, content and in our corner.


This is the same crap we heard early in this campaign - "America's not ready for a black president, Obama can't win, so he'd better not run." Sit down and shut up so we can win this election. Of course, you can come out of your corner and vote for us when the time comes - we'll send a bus to get you to the polls. But otherwise, just sit down and shut up and let us run this operation.

Here's news for Joe and Chris and anyone else who makes these stupid, racist claims.

We, too, are Democrats. Just as much as white people are. We have every right to speak up when, how and for whatever reason we feel like it. And black women are women, too. So when you rattle on about "women this" and "women that" you're talking about US, too, not just the white women you usually seem to have in mind when you refer to "women." This isn't about women v. men. This is about an outrageously bigoted comment made by a person who should know better. And she got called on it.

So, do not tell me to sit down and shut up for the good of the party. One of the more serious problems with this party is our dirty little secret that there's as much bigotry right here within the Democratic ranks as there is anywhere else in the country. We are doing this party and this country a service by calling it out. Barack Obama and black Democrats did not invent racism, we are not perpetuating it. It exists, it is real and it is becoming more and more obvious. Deal with it.

But don't you EVER tell me to sit down and shut up because by speaking up I might upset some white women. If they can't handle an honest discussion about race, if they feel oh-so-offended because a white woman got caught in her true bigoted glory, if they think that white women have every right to talk about issues of concern to them but black people - including black women - have no right to publicly address ours, then I suggest that, instead of telling black people to sit down and shut up, you tell the white women whose feelings you're so concerned about that they have a choice: 1) get over themselves, stay in this party with me and mine and plenty of others who don't agree with them on every issue, and figure out how to get along with everyone else in this party; 2) sit it out; 3) can go vote for McCain and see how that works out for them. That's the choice you seem to want to give us black folk. Try directing it at someone else for a change.

But sitting around sipping coffee on morning television, lecturing black folks about how we're messing it up for everyone else because we refuse to tolerate racist backhanding only helps to demonstrate the racial entitlements, anger, and fear that I have described among a certain element of white folks who see the world as they know it changing before their very eyes and don't know what do to about it.

We're not sitting down and shutting up. You'll get used to it.