In 2018, I received an email, a tweet and DM, all about the same subject:
Here’s the DM:
I’m gonna keep this short and sweet. You suck. You are an embarrassment to African-Americans. You’re a disingenuous, racist, insincere, unfunny boorish douche of a man. Here’s an idea for you and the rest of the r-tards in the democrats. Maybe whites aren’t voting Republican because they hate brown people; maybe they’re doing it because they don’t want to give power to a party that seems intent on relentlessly tearing them down for some perverse sense of ‘equality’ and ‘diversity’ that looks a lot like ‘less white people’.
Finally, the email:
Hi,
I would consider myself a moderate and enjoy a lot of your writing but sometimes I feel like you go out of your way to insult white people. I know you aren’t admonishing all white people, but this is about something else.
You always ask how black people making jokes about white people has any effect or how it makes non-racist whites turn against blacks and I thought of a good example.
Have you ever thought about your effect on voters?
I have numerous friends who are tired of being called racist at every turn or being made fun of. They don’t turn racist, but they are more likely to listen to stuff like Fox News and stuff like that, where they don’t have to worry about being insulted, which is an echo chamber of “fake news.” They see people beinefitting [sic] from affirmative action and whether it’s right or not, they become bitter that they don’t get the same opportunity. I think things like Permit Patty and names like Becky is going to cause even more white women to vote Republican in the midtersm [sic]
One great example is the criticism of Rebel Wilson. I’m not saying she was right to block people but it is human nature to fight back or disconnect when you are criticized.
I’m not one to tell people how to express themselves, but the divisive rhetoric and identity politics can have consequenses [sic] and it is not fair to point to one side and not the other.
Looking back, they were all correct.
The results of the election might have had something to do with white people’s aversion to being vilified in the media.
Let’s imagine that they are correct, that the constant vilification of white people made them angry enough to support blatant racists like Donald Trump. Let’s even accept your premise that anti-white rhetoric pushes white people toward the right.
You better make sure you lock your doors.
If DEI, a smattering of white jokes and hearing what Black people honestly think of racism is enough to send white people to the side of white supremacists, imagine what Black people have been considering in their heads for four centuries.
While covering the death of Mike Brown, I was standing on a street corner in Ferguson, Mo., and a brother from Jamaica asked, “Why y’all don’t just start chopping necks?” The only logical response I could muster was: “Amnesia.”
You’d better thank sweet Jesus for Black people’s amnesia. Praise your almighty white god for gifting Black people the superpower of forgetfulness.
If the word “wypipo” is enough to send wypipo into a tailspin, imagine a president erasing all the progress your ancestors bled, marched and died to give America. If you are worried about affirmative action, Mexicans and DEI taking your jobs, imagine how all those Black people felt during Jim Crow. Imagine how it felt watching mediocre white kids attend luxurious K-12 schools and prestigious colleges funded by the taxes of Black parents whose kids were banned from attending the institutions they paid for.
Imagine policies that snatched your children from your arms and put them in pens after you paid into a tax system that destroyed your family. Imagine your heart skipped a beat every time you saw blue lights or an ICE officer’s badge.
And imagine, every day, walking around in a diamond-encrusted, gold-plated land of freedom and opportunity that laid out the red carpet for everyone except the people who looked like you.
Now imagine knowing that the people who raped your grandmothers and lynched your grandfathers and stole your votes had the same plans for your children and your grandchildren.
Yet, no machetes.
Not one single racial massacre can be attributed to a Black mob. No HBCUs have ever had a policy banning white people. We helped white women gain the right to vote. We fought in wars that white people started. We fought for our rights and yours. There is not a single progressive movement in the history of America—from gun violence to Vietnam to women’s right to choose—that did not have Black people standing on the front lines.
The inverse has never, ever, ever, ever happened.
Not with abolition. Not with voting rights. Not with lynching. Not with Jim Crow. Not now. Not ever.
The vast majority of white people have never joined a movement for racial justice, equality or equal rights.
You should thank your evangelical lord and savior that Black people are incapable of keeping that same energy. When you consider the animus and privilege that white people have demonstrated every single day of this country’s existence, the fact that Black Americans have never adopted the ways of white folk is one of the most remarkable things in the history of civilization.
You should write hallelujah hymns to our inability to recollect. The fact that we are not armed with machetes and the justifiable desire to chop throats is a blessing unto this nation. You should be grateful to the Most High that we are, unequivocally, without a doubt, better than you.
Well…not all Black people.
I’m not.
I truly don’t believe that most white people will ever change. Whether 59% of white people voted for Trump out of spite, ignorance or genuine “economic anxiety,” they still proved my hypothesis. But, as I explained to the Jamaican guy in Ferguson, his machete-based solution is something white people would do.
If Black people had an iota of the thin-skinned fragility or the hateful spite that white people seem to have, this entire motherfucking country would be a pile of smoldering ashes.
And now it is.
And we both know exactly who did it.
…Not all white people.
Today’s Reading List:
Polio’s Hidden Figures in Tuskegee by Kate Silver
How to Be a Better White Person in 2020 by Michael Harriot
The Privilege of White Individuality by Michael Harriot
