Melissa Harris-Perry responds
This weekend’s post on Melissa Harris-Perry’s piece at The Nation about the lack of real discussion about race among liberals touched a few nerves at ABLC, and I am very glad to see the fact she handily responds to her critics at the Nation today.
I logged onto Twitter on Sunday night and discovered that my recent article for The Nation was causing a bit of a stir. Some members of the white liberal political community are appalled and angry that I suggested racial bias maybe responsible for the President’s declining support among white Americans. I found some responses to my piece to be fair and important, others to be silly and nonresponsive, and still others to be offensive personal attacks. But those categories are par for the course.
I make it a practice not to defend my public writings. Because I often write about provocative topics like race, gender, sexual orientation and reproductive rights, if I defended every piece I wrote against critics I would find little time to sleep. But the responses to this recent article have been revealing in ways that I find typical of our contemporary epistemology of race. Often, those of us who attempt to talk about historical and continuing racial bias in America encounter a few common discursive strategies that are meant to discredit our perspectives. Some of them are in play here.
Do read the entire piece, it’s worth it if only to arm yourself with the knowledge of the fallacies that have been thrown at people who have brought the topic up in the past.
The ending is worth it:
Further, I am grateful to live in a time when white Americans are furious about anyone suggesting that they are racist. I much prefer to live in a country and at a moment where the idea of being racist is distasteful rather than commonplace. In many ways the angry reaction about even the suggestion of racial bias is a kind of racial progress.
And I have to agree, that is progress. But the piece also reveals just how much additional progress is needed. Until we can have a frank and open discussion about what people consider to be offensive, what is racism, and relations between all races, we’re not going to get much further down this path.
What continues to floor me is that if you ask a group of liberals about the need to discuss with an open mind the issues that life-long Democrats have with LGBT or women’s issues, you’ll not only get agreement but most likely a smart discussion of what those issues are and how we need to address them as Americans.
If you mention that there are life-long Democrats that have issues with race, you get furious denials, tactically deployed straw men, and ad hominem malarkey. To the credit of our readers here and at ZVTS, they are the exception. For that, we thank you.
One of the resident idiots over at Salon.com, David Sirota, has weighed in with the typical craptastic article about how it was President Obama’s “right wing policies” that were alienating real liberals. Loathsome ass…
Keep moving people, no “right wing policies/agendas/memes” here. Nothing to see. Nope never happened. Just some loathsome folks who are always, always incontrovertibly racist.
http://blackagendareport.com/content/barack-obama-vs-those-craaaazy-republicans-he-lesser-evil-or-more-effective-evil
David Sirota is a whiny liar. Seems to pay the rent and more these days.
For me the sweetest part of MHP’s post is the response to Joan Walsh, of whom she writes, bluntly, “We are not friends.” Boom!
Yeah, that was pretty great, Allan. Sounds like Joanie needs a refresher in “Derailing for Dummies” — http://www.derailingfordummies.com/
OMG I loved that too, Allan. How dare Walsh take what is a simple, common professional acquaintance and elevate it into a “friendship” simply to use a cudgel in her own idiotic defense? I mean…FFS, if you have to lie about something in order to use it in your defense, maybe there *is* no defense for you, you know??
And it struck me as rather bigoted in and of itself, for her to use a WOC in such a way. To see her minimal relationship with MHP as a tool, through a lens of “how can I use this to my own personal whiny-assed advantage”. Disgusting. Walsh has consistently proven herself to be a total fool and an embarrassment. I really wonder what it will take her for to wake the fuck up. Part of me wants her to respond to MHP’s response…and part of me DREADS it.
I stopped reading Miss Joan’s defensive screed at the point where she was going on about being friends with MHP. It was too much like Corney’s “love” for his “brother” Barack. Which is to say, infuriating. I’m very please that MHP didn’t let it pass.
Brilliant!
Salon has become a support group for butt-hurt losers whose idea of “progessive achievement” was seeing Bill Clinton elected to a second term and not stepping down after being impeached. Because Obama fails to kiss their regal white asses (I’d say it’s because he’s busy actually getting shit done, like passing healthcare reform and fixing the mess Clinton left with the repeal of Glass-Steagall, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, etc.), they’ve turned on him. Actually, they were never with him. Also, because as their Spiritual Sister in Loser Grifterdom (I mean Sarah Palin, not Jane Hamsher) has shown them — “Thar’s Gold In That There Manufactured Outrage!”
Or maybe there isn’t — with Borders gone, what remainders table will stack Joan Walsh’s latest screed?
Let us also remember that Joan Walsh should know all about fiscal mismanagement and lack of leadership: http://www.observer.com/2010/media/salon-names-kerry-lauerman-editor-chief
Kerry! You had me at “butt hurt losers” – LOL!!
And the handful of commenters to MHP’s follow-up still don’t get it, thus proving her point yet again. This is why as an AA I refuse to engage anyone who insists on being willfully ignorant. That’s not to say I won’t discuss race with non-Blacks who are really sincere about having a dialogue, because I am more than willing to do that. But when someone goes the derailing and playing devil’s advocate route that’s when I walk because frankly, I’m just too old for that shit.
Way for Sirota to prove MHP’s point for her on #1. She doesn’t need proof of his leanings if he’s going to just provide it for her free of charge.
Words from MHP we all should live by…
“As an ally my role is to speak up for LGBT issues when in heteronormative environments and to shut up when being spoken to by gay and transgendered persons.”
Those at the short end of a intergroup power relationship invariably know more about that relation than those at the long end.
It doesn’t always work that way, but it should. Considering how many alleged allies of the LGBT movement are happy to dismiss T concerns and erase Bs, even in communities where they’re aware of being the short end of the stick, I wouldn’t congratulate the bulk of us for being advanced thinkers on that matter just yet. But as a B who listens to Ts more than a lot of LGs and allies, I’m uncomfortably aware that the acronym is more bullshit than brilliant
“For me the sweetest part of MHP’s post is the response to Joan Walsh, of whom she writes, bluntly, “We are not friends.” Boom!”
Brilliant!
What is hilarious about the hand-wringing is that, if MHP had written the same article about a black CEO, union leader, or other authority figure instead of President Obama, the people ripping her would be in full agreement with her basic thesis: That a black person has to work harder to get the same credit/recognition as his or her white counterpart would get.
Surely Sirota and Walsh et al. don’t dispute that general principle… It just doesn’t apply when it makes them look bad.
Those people should not have said anything to MHP.
They need to quit, they are not helping themselves at all.
I have been a major beyotch on Salon today – all the usual asshats were there sucking up to Sirota. I know I should ignore them, but I felt in the mood. I have been good about avoiding that site, and I will go back to ignoring it. But when you got bitch-ass Sirota and bitch-ass Joan Walsh in one day, the need to slap is strong. :)
I am in lurve with MHP, just on that last paragraph. Yes, it’s SO much better to live in a country that’s embarrassed to be racist than one that’s proud of it! And yet…
…because frankly, I’m just too old for that shit.
MsKitty, I’m not black but I’m feeling older lately. White people who are sure that racism is something toothless hillbillies used to do wear me out. Just when I think I can’t have this conversation one more time without splitting a seam, I find a way, but at some point I may also declare myself too old for this shit. (It’s the “colorblind” who will be standing there when I finally burst a gasket in my brain.)
Perhaps I can organize a ceremony in which those of us who are too old for this shit pass it on, into the hands of younger white people. Because this IS their first trip to the rodeo, as we say in my culture.
I have thought the world of MHP since first seeing her on TV. When I heard that Joan claimed her as a friend, my heart sank a little. Then she wrote that piece……I never should have doubted her. I’m back to full infatuation with her.