Friday, May 28, 2021
A year after George Floyd and 100 years after Tulsa, we're still grappling with race in America. At work, I witnessed a fairly quick complacency about race, a strategy that leaned into "let's not talk about it." The anti-racist drum beat is loud this year. Here's a clip from Tucker Carlson, firebombing White Fragility and using every white male trope to dimish Robin DiAngelo's message:
Tucker is an interesting white guy. He comes across as the earnest anti-smug crucader for the little guy, but really he's just a disengenuous bully. He is so offended by White Fragility that he resorts to namecalling and insults while completing missing the major points of the book, that racism is not good/bad, but pervasive and all white people enjoy the unspoken privileges of their elevated caste based solely on skin tone. The denial here is something, but it exists throughout the country. It's what makes talking about race with white people so difficult. White Fragility is not a perfect book, but it captures certain truths about race in America that I haven't seen in any other book. Whenever a white person gets defensive about race, a red flag should go off. Tucker is a classic example, the guy who espouses replacement theory ideas on his vapid, insufferable show.
No comments:
Post a Comment