Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

This is an excellent example of the theme I've been pounding on for weeks.

Meadows brings a black woman who worked for Trump in as evidence that Trump is not racist. Tlaib points out that it is racist and offensive to use her as a prop. Meadows' musters all of his white fragility and manages to flip the whole thing back so that everyone involved has to reassure him that he is not racist. He fucking trades on his friendship with Cummings as well as using his family members of color* to defend himself and assuage his feelings. He manages to get Tlaib to retract and insist that she wasn't calling him a racist. This is what it is like to confront almost every white person with their racism. Every single program on race I have ever been involved in is crafted to take this into account. Because once it happens, we can no longer talk about the underlying racist action. We spend every single moment comforting the person who made the statement.

And Meadows, on a number of occasions, pushed the Obama birther bullshit and stated publicly that we should send him back to Kenya. He's a fucking racist. And the fact that he doesn't think he's a racist is exactly what I'm talking about.

TM

*See: White Fragility, Dr. Robin DiAngelo

I've always been a big fan of the Jay Smooth method of calling out racist acts/actions without necessarily calling the person a racist. That way they're more likely to get them to think about it rather than react to a label*. I think that's ultimately what Tlaib did, with the lovely parting shot of allowing people to draw their own conclusions:

Asked if she thinks Meadows is a racist, Tlaib responded: “Look, I feel like the act was, and that's up to the American people to decide whether or not he is.”

Also, I own the book, but I have not finished it yet.


*'course, I can think whatever the hell I want to about someone, but in engagement and usually in discussion, I am going to hold off calling someone a racist piece of shit unless it's a pretty big thing or a pretty clear pattern of smaller things.