On White Fragility

Finally I am reading White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, a white woman who essentially wrote an open letter in the form of a book to her fellow white folks. It's been out for a minute and I have heard much about it but I am just getting to reading it. It is worth my time.

Having grown up with, schooled with and competed with white folks, the book affirms that which I know. Notions of white supremacy are quite humorous to me and seemingly, given life, time and experience, incredible to this white female writer who spills the[ir] tea. I applaud her. She forces the reader to delve into unsupported myths or perceptions, be they of superiority or inferiority. Either way, Don't believe the hype!

As I read this book in the midst of trump's current madness, I ask myself, just how far will [some] white Americans go to uphold or protect the fallacy of white male superiority specifically. What else can this chapter of American history be about? trump has violated [or exposed the hypocrisy of] every ideology that America claims to hold near and dear, he stole an election with help from a foreign agent known to be hostile to the US, he has reduced America to an international laughing stock, he has jeopardized our national and international security, delivered the civil unrest the republican party has baited for decades and now he is portraying behavior unbecoming of even the least skilled mafioso from shake down extortion of a foreign leader to intimidating witnesses with suggestions that whoever the "snitch" is should be killed [he hopes one of his lesser educated and/or deranged followers hears his whistle] and STILL he is in office. INCREDIBLE! Except that he is white and male.

NO other, not even a white female could have gotten away with a fraction of the sins he has committed. That is telling. That he is a white male, he is white America's son, husband, father, brother, dear ole' grandpa, etc. He is the face, the foundation, the sperm donor that supports the false narrative of supremacy that makes their whiteness matter, that which makes them "superior" in their mind to even the most successful and/or intelligent Black or person of color. To paraphrase Toni Morrison, what else does white America have?

Just as President Obama shattered on the world stage, America's promotion that Black Americans are inferior, shiftless, lazy, ineducable, uncivilized, unscrupulous, incapable, unfaithful and so on, similarly donald trump has unveiled for the world to see the fantasy of white supremacy. Again, just how far, how long will America allow this political tragedy to play out on the world stage? How long? While finally I am proud that the Democrats have taken a step to restore what order we once had and show some muscle for defending the nation and the sanctity of government as a legislative and authoritative body to be respected, I am cautiously optimistic that America is ready yet to properly deal with her fragility nor the presence and truth of trump no matter how despicable they find him now as they found him in 2016... Time will tell.

In the meantime, read this book and host an interracial and inter-generational conversation about the book and race in your community; professional and otherwise...

Respect Yourself...

We Need to Talk About How Asian Owned Businesses Treat Their Black Clientele
Tiffany Diane Tso

This is definitely a conversation that MUST take place, at least in the Black community. We give our dollars indiscriminately. We don't hold folks accountable for how they treat us or demand anything in return for our dollars. The Asian merchant business plan is to study our consumer habits, what we like, what we wear, what we buy, what we eat, move into our neighborhoods, sell "us" back to us at even a fraction less than Black merchants (and sadly, we support them over our own), run them out of business, disrespect us, hire none of us, get rich in our neighborhoods selling us products, often inferior products and too often from behind bullet proof glass, send their kids to US colleges to represent themselves as minorities, using strides made by Black Americans against Black Americans to displace us in academia while earning a living exploiting and displacing, disrespecting us in our neighborhoods. It's crazy...

It is the face of why I reject the term People of Color. People with skin color often share nothing more than that, skin color. Implicit in the term is a sense of allegiance, camaraderie or an experience, at least in America, between us. Such is not the case yet these persons are put in positions to represent what it means to be Black or minority in America. They know not our experience. They know not our history that gives them opportunity. They are not alone. They give cover to white America and allows her to use them and others to avoid the discussion of race, specifically as it pertains to being Black in America. That, however, is a whole other conversation...

In the meantime, the Black community must stop supporting merchants and others who value our dollar but do not respect or value us. I am a firm believer that in life, we teach folks how to treat us. We have taught the world that we don't demand respect or gratitude in exchange for our dollar. Kudos to this author, Tiffany Diane Tso, for speaking a truth. The comments to the article actually discount the notion however that it is white supremacy that feeds Asian anti-Black racism but instead suggest that they come to the US with such sentiment already embedded.

Good read. Click here for a link to the article. Check it out. Let the "difficult" conversations begin. Don't be bullied away from worthy discussions that will heal us with taunts of being painted xenophobic or the like for daring to state an opinion that some will condemn as "inciting" or "uncomfortable". For some reason, we have convinced ourselves as a society that we are not supposed to have these conversations or say or do anything that makes us uncomfortable. I totally disagree. That is not how we grow. I appreciate the author of this article. Let the conversation flow...