What I am reading this weekend through the consistently unanalyzed and unchallenged mainstream-centered POV that dominates this site:
1) That Christine Blasey Ford is no Anita Hill and that “This time there really was an assault.” First, and mightily, how dare you. No, Ford is no Anita Hill. Anita Hill didn’t try to submit an anonymous letter and keep her life unchanged. She courageously spoke out openly, she kept her voice clear and strong and her head held high, she put sexual harassment front and center in the national conversation, she watched her life get dismantled, she never backed down and she remains the lightning rod of this conversation. So no, again, Ms. Ford does not hold a candle to Hill. I am glad she chose to emerge from hiding, and I pray that she can survive what will come with the fortitude, dignity and unwavering grace of Ms. Hill. As for there “really” being an assault this time, there was no imaginary charge levied by Ms. Hill, and physical assault is not the only valid form of a sexual abuse complaint. What Thomas allegedly did to Ms. Hill was despicable, unconscionable and illegal; what Kavanaugh allegedly did to Ms. Ford was the same.
2) That Trump's base [has] finally figured out it's been conned. I cut back most of my interaction with this site after the November 2016 election, when I and other writers tried in vain to focus the conversation on the issue at hand: racism and white primacy. The constant push back, touting “economic anxiety,” and the drumbeat of what we must do to woo white, blue collar voters back to the party was impenetrable. So now, two years of Nazi rallies, murders, lynchings, ceaseless videos of police violence, more ceaseless videos of white Americans calling cops on people of color for casual daily existence…none of this will move you. Nothing can penetrate the cultural training that, no matter what, it just can’t be about race. Racism remains a cry of wolf that people of color use to get good white people in trouble. And you must always attack it immediately upon its arrival in conversation and introduce mitigating circumstances to keep white actors pure.
So again, recognizing no one will accept this, but because I cannot let the blind narrative and conscious, unconscious or malicious bias driving this narrative stand unaddressed: Trump’s base was not conned. They got — and continue to get — exactly what they wanted: a rich, racist, white man back in power. That’s all that drives white primacy: the existence of white primacy. They don’t need jobs, dental care, health insurance, education, a future...they just need what Lyndon B. Johnson, an actual good ole boy from the South, told us they needed.
Every time you need to introduce other reasons for white people who supported and continue to support a racist, classist, ignorant, incompetent, boorish, Nazi-aggrandizing, morally corrupt sexual abuser, stop yourself and ask this question: “What social training did I receive, and must I find the tools to undo, that does not allow me even to classify people who support a racist hatemonger as white primacists?” Then work on that rather than posting another apologia for “Trumpsters” who got “conned.”
3) Along the same lines, I also am reading that after 9/11, we became a nation that lived in fear. No, we didn’t. And we didn’t become a nation of white male primacists after Obama’s election or after Trump. We were founded on straight, white, wealthy male primacy. The genocide of millions of humans here and in the passage from Africa and after was justified by it. The violent oppression of women, gays, the workers, the poor, all of it, every stitch of this country’s history is sourced from that single thing. If you feel the same nagging resistance to this lens, don’t jump immediately into attacking it, based on cultural training to resist race as a reason for anything other than egregious physical attacks by Southerners. Get to work accepting that this country didn’t change after 9/11. It just added another excuse for hate and violence. It was no joy being a Muslim or an immigrant of color in America before 9/11, to be clear, and after 9/11, white primacists just used that as a reason to exercise their power and hate with reasons that no one would challenge. Because it’s not allowed to assign the simplest and even the most openly stated bias-driven motives to white people. It’s not allowed by other white people. Get to work on why that is.
And Stop. Columbusing. Hate. You did not discover it after 9/11 or 11/9. Your privilege kept you from ever having to see the country I have always lived in. Stop erasing my actual life and those of my forebears by saying this is the worst the country has ever been. Indeed, this is indisputably the best many of us have ever known, and that’s with an actual white supremacist in the White House. It is only the worst you ever have had to acknowledge because cell phone cameras and social media are robbing you of the calculated comfort of “there has to be more to the story,” “we don’t have the full context” and other catch phrases that are taught to dismantle the valid stories of the oppressed. And even Trump, a bigoted buffoon ensconced in the highest office, is not enough of a red pill for you. What in the world will it take for you to accept that this is about hate?
Withdrawn. I don’t care. As with everything else, civil rights, the woman’s movement and even the current progressive victories for Dems, it will be people of color — those who do not buy into the mainstream narrative — doing the work that you will reap the benefits of and refuse to acknowledge the reality that necessitated it.
While you try to figure out how to get us to understand that it isn’t about hate, and if we would just let that go, we could all love one another.
Enough.
And #Blaxit. Again.
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UPDATE:
A few people have responded based on the incorrect belief that a Senate committee came out of nowhere and subpoenaed Anita Hill to tell her story. That is not what happened. The information is readily available. If you would like to argue that Anita Hill was somehow discovered and summoned to testify, I invite you to try to find a source to corroborate that false narrative.
Also, it has been a helpful representation of exactly the issue I was writing about to engage with the comments. Primacy informs the decision to enter a stranger’s diary, read only part of it, be triggered, respond immediately without carefully checking the facts behind your opinion, include profanity and attempt to discredit the writer… That is what the post is about. That, and the lack of awareness or self-analysis of the training that tells you this behavior is okay.
UPDATE 2:
This is a diary about primacy. As you read the comments, consider how the language enforces the points of the diary.
If you’re going to write a hit piece, at least get the history correct.
Is it your cultural training to lie?
What the hell? Do you have a clue what each woman is about?
Damn, when did you know either of them enough to make that kind of comment
you obviously don't know the first thing about Anita Hill
I would suggest you delete this.
So, where are your cites?
if you’re going to argue, do it with the facts at hand, via link, to back you up. Otherwise you’re wasting all our time.
It’s not a damn contest.
It’s not a freaking competition.
That’s a bit of a straw man
Your psychoanalysis-by-buzzword of those who disagree with you is ridiculous.
I don't give a fuck
I'm done with you.
Park your judgmental crap, get down here, and lend a hand.
To imply that you have any right whatsoever to set standards for how they are allowed to interact with you puts you, by my estimation, on a direct par with the very people you are so eager to traduce.
the whole basis for your decisions in this area, because, unfortunately, it echoes more of jealousy than it does of contempt.
What you are demanding is the trappings of assumed superiority, not the actual fact of respect,
what I feel is that you are arrogant and dismissive, and seem to specialize in disunification and disharmony among us brothers and sisters.
Congratulations on trying to use your words as a club to bludgeon other members of this community.
As soon as this diary disappears, we will go back to unification, empathy and solidarity.
You are really full of yourself.
it certainly looks as though you managed to get what you expected, though I suspect you could have had a different outcome if you had cared to.
Not interested in reading more of this exercise in non-solidarity.
Happy for such a reasonable debate, bye.
The hostility and contempt you display towards Ford and every Kossack who disagrees with you is unacceptable.
