Fisking “White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo” – Part One – Fisked by Adedayo Dayo

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

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Fisking “White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo” – Part One – Fisked by Adedayo Dayo*

Don’t ask what compels me to embark on this journey of self-flagellation. I can’t put my finger on it just yet. I thought it was curiosity at one point, especially given the work of others who’ve been examining the work of people like Ms. DiAngelo for the last few years for the same reason I picked up her book: to understand what makes people who are invested fully in identity politics tick.

I don’t know about you, but the gauntlet of reaction upon hearing the phrase “identity politics” runs thusly: surprise, disbelief, defensiveness, annoyance, anger, mockery, and boredom, all overshadowed by that nagging sense of unease and horror. I’m now in the boredom stage, and at the same time the choice to dig deeper is a strong one. One of the authors of the Grievance Studies controversy from 2018 has posted numerous examples on DiAngelo’s published work, sp it was inevitable that I would want to look into it myself.

All that being said, brace yourself for a roller-coaster ride. This isn’t in an amusement park, though – this is in the middle of a bloody swamp and the ride is haunted with woke projection. At some point during this journey you may see a hierarchy pyramid and perhaps a buzzword bingo game, but a majority of it will be focusing on the text itself. Thankfully you will not hear the cussing, the thunk of the book hitting a wall numerous times, and the unintelligible mutterings of this post author delving into the work. Consider yourself fortunate in that regard.

These ceremonials in honor of white supremacy,

performed from babyhood, slip from the

conscious mind down deep into muscles . . .

and become difficult to tear out.

—LILLIAN SMITH, Killers of the Dream (1949)

Cute. You know what else is muscle memory? Getting up everyday to go to work.

Oh, lookie here! The Foreword is written by one Michael Eric Dyson. You know who he is, right? Professional black rights agitator? Purported orator of black truths? Speaker For The Aggrieved Non-White Activist? This should be a doozy.

One metaphor for race, and racism, won’t do. They are, after all, exceedingly complicated forces. No, we need many metaphors, working in concert, even if in different areas of the culture through a clever division of linguistic labor.

This, dear reader, should clue you in from the get-go on the game. As you’ll see, before we even reach the first chapter, the goal is to let you familiarize yourself with the new definitions of common words. Why new definitions, you ask? That’s an excellent question. Don’t ask me if an answer’s forthcoming from Dyson or DiAngelo, however.

Race is a condition. A disease. A card. A plague. Original sin.

This is also a clue. Am I the only one who’s noticed an uptick in the social justice activists’ inability to avoid presentism when publicly airing the grievances they’re trying to make right? I can’t say I know any Calvinists personally, but surely they’re just as annoyed about the theft of their schtick for something as lowly as, uh, race.

For much of American history, race has been black culture’s issue; racism, a black person’s burden. Or substitute any person of color for black and you’ve got the same problem.

Now I may be a glutton for punishment, but this raised my hackles. I literally identify as a non-white person. Race has never been an issue for my culture, and racism has never been my burden. Why is Dyson trying to saddle me with this crap?

Whiteness, however, has remained constant. In the equation of race, another metaphor for race beckons; whiteness is the unchanging variable.

There’s your problem, mate – your metaphor SUCKS. The variable is not the constants in the equation. If “whiteness” = x, what exactly are you trying to solve?

Further down, Dyson says,

To be sure, like the rest of race, whiteness is a fiction, what in the jargon of the academy is termed a social construct, an agreed-on myth that has empirical grit because of its effect, not its essence. But whiteness goes even one better: it is a category of identity that is most useful when its very existence is denied. That’s its twisted genius. Whiteness embodies Charles Baudelaire’s admonition that “the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.”

THUNK.

I’m not sure I can even even right now, and we’re still on the foreword. I can’t tell if Dyson is trying to say that since race is a social construct, he’s simply blowing smoke up the audience’s collective derriere or wielding his currently favorite social construct like a bat is simply a means to a particular end. Bueller? Buh? Wait, is he saying Whitey’s the devil here? I mean, white devils still exist, and normally they wear hoods.

DiAngelo brilliantly names a whiteness that doesn’t want to be named, disrobes a whiteness that dresses in camouflage as humanity, unmasks a whiteness costumed as American, and fetches to center stage a whiteness that would rather hide in visible invisibility.

Oh, there’s the end: black agitator just made up a problem in need of a solution.

DiAngelo joins the front ranks of white antiracist thinkers…

Be aware, dear readers, that “antiracist” has a particular meaning in the vocabulary of identity politics. Hint: it’s actually a mantra, not a technical meaning one could find under “anti,” “racist” or “antiracist” in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary.

Robin DiAngelo is the new racial sheriff in town. She is bringing a different law and order to bear upon the racial proceedings.

Remember what I said about redefining new words? Consider this confirmation of what to expect – because following this racial chicken salad is an Author’s Note from DiAngelo herself, laying out more key phrases that are vital to her cause.

This book is unapologetically rooted in identity politics. I am white and am addressing a common white dynamic. I am mainly writing to a white audience; when I use the terms us and we, I am referring to the white collective. This usage may be jarring to white readers because we are so rarely asked to think about ourselves or fellow whites in racial terms. But rather than retreat in the face of that discomfort, we can practice building our stamina for the critical examination of white identity—a necessary antidote to white fragility. This raises another issue rooted in identity politics: in speaking as a white person to a primarily white audience, I am yet again centering white people and the white voice.

Please note that I am NOT white and yet the simple prose here is not only jarring; it evokes no small amount of horror and anger at the way she singles out one group for the sin that their skin color is purportedly dominant in our country. The hilariously ironic thing is, it’s not easy to distance myself from the emotions which respond to the underlying premise here. And I’m not her target audience. However, that – my not being white – is also a shield from behind which to examine DiAngelo’s claims with some modicum of objectivity.

I must, and I can. Look – you may find my internal agonizing to be self-inflicted, but this is a choice. In order to repudiate and overcome the premise of white privilege, the poison of which has infected every corner of our culture over the last several years, people who’ve seen, read and heard its effects need to know what we’re all facing.

Colorblindness (showing no partiality to race or skin color) is anathema to the advocates of social justice and critical theory.

Privilege and intersectionality must be addressed, they assume, by complaining about it incessantly instead of striving for actual equality.

If you shine a light in the darkness, especially this patch of darkness, knowing what our ideological opponents’ endgame is.

Make no mistake: this is an ideology, sometimes with deadly consequences. More often than not, this ideology has cost people their livelihoods and destroyed their professional reputations, our dear hostess Sarah among their number.

So pardon me for taking this fight directly to them in a manner that doesn’t require bloodshed. Knowledge, after all, is power, and an ideology that focuses on power imbalances shouldn’t mind another dynamic being thrown in the mix, right?

Stay tuned for more.

*I let my guests pick their names and was so tired I put it up. I know why my friend thought that was an appropriate name. She’s mad at herself for reading this tripe, but REALLY it detracted from the article, so I made her use a real name. I’m mean that way.

215 thoughts on “Fisking “White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo” – Part One – Fisked by Adedayo Dayo”

  1. TRYING to read that word salad pretending to be a coherent paragraph about race being a fiction yet at the same time… something … y’know what? My brain just went NOPE. None of that made sense. Which, really, is the fact of the matter. The whole identity politics schtick is a scam, thus the fast talk, the salesman’s pitch that is a rigged shell game, but without the bit about at least being briefly entertained at trying to spot the item that’s hidden under the swiftly swapped cups.

    1. Oh. Good. I’m not the only one. “whole identity politics schtick is a scam, thus the fast talk, the salesman’s pitch that is a rigged shell game” <– exactly. No wonder my mind wants to tune out as I try to read it. Just like it does when assaulted by the "salesman" words at, well anywhere.

    2. Colorblindness (showing no partiality to race or skin color) is anathema to the advocates of social justice and critical theory.

      This is a clue to the shtick. Because color-blindness is both impossible and inhumane. Every illustrator knows that color partiality is a must. Every sane human knows that like prefers like. The language of virtue (think the Meno) and specifically of Christian virtue (which undergirt American culture) being lost, we cannot add: But God (or arete) requires all men, ALL. Full stop. Be treated justly.

      So how to cope with, say, Japanese only wanting to marry (or naturalise) Japanese? Christians, christians, etc? Because only a handful of wierdos like the folks in this blog (a fen thing?) are born xenophiles.

      Teach them that “colorblindness*” is the ideal AND teach the majority group to hate itself.

      Its a good shtick. Teach people a pretty lie, and when reality shows it up, as it will, you can replace it with a much uglier one as “finally the real truth”.

      (*And now you know why Islam is a race!)

      1. Must share a bit of humor and sanity mocking the insane pretty lies

        Woke!Dave has me wheezing. Don’t drink while watching.

        “I’m not going to eat bugs, I’m not going to live in a pod, I’m not (insert latest idiocy here)” has definitely become a quotable meme.

    4. I’m actually pretty much okay with a word salad, but the Russian dressing always makes me puke.
      –

  2. I am not surprised that their skin color doesn’t mean some self-styled intellectual won’t ramble on incoherently thinking the result is somehow profound because of who they are. There are idiots of all hues.

    1. She has one truth that she tells. She was born poor, and grew up poor *in money* and says that if she had born something other than “white” she might not have made it up and out. She’s also a Boomer, and NABALT, but who-boy, the memes were made with her in mind.

      I’ve met her. It did not go entirely well, as we discovered a very real White privilege that tracks directly to social and economic power. The more uncomfortable well-off liberal whites are to criticize a group’s failings,the worse off that group is.

  3. The bottom line of it all is :
    1) Projection is a real thing. More often than not,those who go on the” I Accuse!”path have the same dirt on their hands(and hearts) .
    2) No one group has ever cornered the market on being an @$$hole.

      1. Not if they’re White. The person writing the intro made it very clear.

        I wonder if the term [White] came into common usage, if it might not set the cat amongst the hens? Paging the channers.

        Making Whiteness discourse = white supremacy / Nazis would be a scream.

    2. I had an instinctive negative reaction to your remark about the ‘I Accuse’ path, because as far as I can tell Emile Zola wrote the original purely from outrage at the way his government was behaving, in the full expectation that he would be hauled into court and quite possibly jailed. But I realize that, like so much the Progressive Left has appropriated, the ‘I Accuse’ path has been twisted out ion its true meaning. Just as when the Left jabbers about ‘Speaking Truth to Power’ they really mean ‘Telling Truth to shut up or face power’, ‘I Accuse’ has become a prelude to a frame.

  4. As a mathematician the words “unchanging variable” stood out more than a little. Sigh. On the other hand, since the authors don’t seem to have a grasp of common English I propose that we ignore everything they say.

    1. I don’t think they have a grasp on anything.
      BUT as Adedayo put it — to me — you’d be amazed how much this is shaping the arts, education and HR at every company.

      1. An amorphous mass, unnatural shapes that had no basis in reality, that tortured the eyes and disrupted your sense of balance, driving you into gibbering madness. Uttering words that weren’t made for human throats, nor for human writing. Words that scorched mouths and twisted hands into crippled knots of anguished flesh and bone.

      2. You can perhaps imagine how tempted I was to report some of the language in an email I received complaining about yet another ‘inappropriate’ use of language at a certain organization. If there is a right to speech police based on language offensive to one group, this other language, based in theories of uncontrollable malicious acts by ‘whites’, could be considered offensive to whites. (It doesn’t calm me that the sender is in that position, because of being close to a man who for all his current claimed wokeness was mighty buddy-buddy with white supremacists for many years.)

        And I can express ideas that are fairly malicious along racial lines without using the super banned words.

        1. The speech control is not even seriously claiming to do anything about actual calls to racial violence. 2. There is not support enough for racial violence against minorities (except between minority groups) that banning calls to violence is going to matter much.
        3. Woke Studies is sufficiently lacking in rigor that anyone can use their language and arguments to justify any arbitrary claim.
        4. These kerfluffles about super banned words are pretty much raw acts of power.

        1. Per 3), I’ve been saying for nearly two decades now that Feminist/Marxist criticism and studies are so intellectually barren that any idea that is plucked from that spoiled womb is stillborn. When you can literally prove that anything is a product of -ism/class struggle/inequality, it is because the lens you are using is flawed, not because the world is tinted red.

        1. Curbing their actions to the confines of reality or even consistency would interfere with the quest for power, so it’s right out.

  5. I don’t care what colour, hue, or race a person may be. But I’m not ‘colourblind’, I’m ‘colour indifferent’. I don’t even have a clue what colour most of the folk I know online might be, unless they’ve opted to mention it pr added a photo to their pages. All that count for me is ‘is this person trustworthy’.and ‘does this person follow social or ant-social mores’.

    1. Oh, they’d still accuse color indifferent as being racist, just as they accuse the color blind–because THEN YOU ARE INVALIDATING THEIR EXPERIENCE OF OPPRESSION!!!! Gasp!!! ::faints::

      And if you expect them to behave to what you consider good, moral, or otherwise appropriate standards, then you are also automatically racist, because then you are trying to force them to conform with the “white” standard of behavior. (Even if you are not, in fact white–then you are a self-hating racist who has bowed to the white oppressors.) Which says…all you really need to know about what’s actually going on in THEIR actually-racist little heads, and says everything about how they view “people of color”…

      Ugh, lefties are exhausting. And evil, a lot of ’em.

      1. Sigh. The only thing worse than fanatical religious zealots are atheistic fanatical religious zealots. You cannot reason with them, you cannot avoid them, you cannot even eliminate them on grounds of intellectual hygiene.

        They persist in projecting their own racist views on everybody and demand we cater to their delusions.

        Which, come to consider it, is the fundamental premise of pretty much all Progressive agendas: identitarians, homosexual activists, trans-rights hemorrhoids and everybody dissatisfied with the modern world and wanting somebody else to fix their internal errors.
        –

        2. Activists are obnoxious. It goes with the territory. The thing they’re activating for and an ability to turn it off or dial it down are what determine how intolerable they are.

        3. Evangelical High Church Atheistic Fanatical Religious Zealots suck. And I say that as an atheist myself.
          The Vegan branch especially.
          Turns otherwise enjoyable folk into boors, wearing on ones patience in a heartbeat.

          1. There are atheists who get along just fine in society, will tell people their beliefs if asked, and generally accept comments like “Merry Christmas” or “I’ll pray for you” in the spirit that they’re offered.

            And then there are those for whom their non-belief is the central if not only driving force in their lives. They are the textbook definition of fanatics, those who can’t change their minds and won’t change the subject.

            1. yup
              takes someone you’d otherwise love to be around, and makes you want to punch them in the face.
              repeatedly
              until you can find something heavier

            2. Yeah, I generally refer to that lot as “Evangelical Atheists” and they are every bit as zealous in their efforts to convert people as the average Evangelical Christian (or, since I served a mission myself in my young adulthood, a Mormon missionary–I have no doubt there are many out there who find them at least some level of irritating, lol)…with the added level of serious obnoxiousness, because at least some, if not all, of the evangelical Christians or missionaries out there are doing so out of joy in their faith and a concern for others’ welfare, whereas every evangelical atheist I’ve met is bitter, angry, and their methods of attempting to convert one generally involve insults to one’s intelligence and otherwise rude and nasty comments.

              I have no beef with normal atheists–they have their beliefs, I have mine, and they are respectful of my beliefs and I theirs. In fact, some of the best philosophical/religious discussions I’ve had have been with atheists of the normal variety–we both enjoyed it as an intellectual exercise and deepened our understanding of one another. The evangelical ones, though…ugh.

              On a happy note, however, I saw an article shared on Facebook last night about how a group of metalheads–all geared up in serious metalhead gear–took the time to drown out the Westboro baptists hate-filled protest with…kazoos.

              (Being a metalhead myself, I was very proud of this, one of my tribes.)

        4. Got to see that on facebook recently– some guy was showing his rump on a very nice lady’s page, knowing that she wouldn’t do anything but that she has friends that might bite on his stupidity– and then got incandescent when the only reaction was a bunch of lol reactions under his comment.

          That is, people were laughing at him.

          1. Although I am not one of those women who has experienced the joy of unsolicited dick pics (thank goodness) I always figured the best way to deal with one would be to return a response of ‘lol’ with a few choice remarks on size, or just a video of me laughing hysterically…

            (at least, so long as there was no chance of the a-hole figuring out where I live or work–some of those types, alas, WOULD respond with violence, sigh. But still one should laugh.)

            1. If you’re going to reply with a laughter video, use that one with the clip from Mad Men of the guys laughing hysterically. I think Sarah used it in her most recent GIF post. That has the advantage of not giving the guy any clues to where you live.

      2. They’re Stalinesque in their insistence that their enemies are forbidden to possess our own narratives and points of view. If they believe that we can’t have guns, they’re certainly not going to believe that we should be allowed to have independent thoughts.

        -Albert

        1. “insistence that their enemies are forbidden to possess our own narratives”

          Wouldn’t that make them culpable for Narrative Imperialism? Swanning about the world, declaring which narratives are authentic and which are not, all according to their own arbitrary standards?

          Or should that be Narrative Colonialism?
          –

      3. They will call anybody racist if it means they can win an argument with them (another of their “I win” buttons which to the rest of us mean they’ve lost any and all intellectual credibility). If you hadn’t heard, a fight broke out at a Bernie rally in Colorado last week wherein a white dude buttonholes a black man, calls him a racist, and gets into a fight with him.

        Link is to Tim Pool, a democrat, but one who calls out other democrats for doing stupid things. Like the above.

        This isn’t the first time. I still find it funny in a sad way how white liberals can call black conservatives… racist. Even other black democrats who they disagree with. It tells you all you need to know about how they can’t look at themselves and see the problems there.

        Republicans have their problems. How many times have we been frustrated by their lack of a freaking *spine* when it came to, oh, scrapping Obamacare when they had the chance, cutting spending, standing up to democrats, cutting spending, calling out blatantly illegal behavior (Fast and Furious, Crossfire Hurricane, etc ad nauseum), and did I mention cutting spending? Point is, we don’t blindly follow anybody with an R beside their name.

        Democrats do. It means they can push through truly horrendous things because they no that none of their members will break ranks (though that is changing with insurgency from within, vis Rep Cortez). It also means they don’t call out the hypocrasy that runs through the whole of the party. In a sane world this would kill the party. To be fair, in a sane world Republicans would lose support, too, when they do stupid stuff.

        I both admire and pity those that go into politics with high ideals. Admire, because it is willingly lowering yourself into the sewage of politics. Pity because you don’t ever seem to come out clean.

          1. Not at all. It means, “You won’t agree with my bullshit and pander to my tantrums so I HATE YOU!!!!”

            It’s the leftist equivalent of a three-year-old screaming “POOPY-HEAD!!”
            ———————————
            Dark Willow: “Bored now.”

          2. If we’re going to list terms that have lost all meaning in their mouths we’re gonna need a bigger blog.

            It’s probably simpler to list terms which have NOT lost all historical meaning in their mouths.
            –

    2. I believe their official (or at least it’s a “reason” I have actually seen given) objection to not judging people by “color” is that it prevents you from the apologist actions (this is not the phrasing I wanted, but I hit a sudden block when I got here) they want you to believe you’re expected to engage in when dealing with someone who hasn’t, in their eyes, benefitted from White Privelege.

      1. A long and insightful post by Stanley Kurtz addresses the underlying problem of businesses willingness to appease the wolves in hope of being last eaten:

        American Business Must Rethink Its Relation to Politics
        American business needs to get off the path to slow-motion suicide, and to defend the free-enterprise system. Disabusing a few misguided companies of their “woke capitalist” fantasies won’t be enough. For decades, even staid and conventional businesses have accommodated leftist pressure groups who would gladly do them in. What’s needed is a return to the strategy of the 1970s and 1980s, when American business actively pushed back against ’60s radicalism and helped to usher in the era of Ronald Reagan.

        The writing is on the wall. Even if Bernie Sanders goes down this time, two rising generations of Americans have been seduced by open socialism. Without active pushback, in another generation or less, American business will be lost. You may think a Sanders defeat will mean a long conservative restoration, just like after George McGovern. But even in 1972, the schools weren’t in the straits they’re in today.

        Sixties radicalism fought back against Reaganism by taking over American education. Not only has business failed to fight the leftist education takeover, it has positively abetted it. Business has split the conservative movement by supporting the disastrous Common Core. In search of uniform national markets for its products and dumbed-down “workforce development” requirements, business has helped to undermine the principle of local control and decimated traditional history and civics education, alienating grassroots conservatives in the process. In pursuit of short-term gain, American business has thrown in with a Howard Zinnified education establishment that has normalized socialism — the College Board above all. On top of that, Common Core has utterly failed to produce the gains in basic reading and math competence that were its supposed reason for being. Meanwhile, higher education has become a leftist indoctrination camp with no interruption in business support, let alone efforts by business at building real alternatives to the current anti-capitalist academic orthodoxy.

        We are in a fundamentally new environment, but business doesn’t yet get it. Yes, the economy is still critically important to politics. But cultural issues have vastly grown in salience because the country is split when it comes to core values. Business is trying to placate the cultural left with “woke” gestures, to no avail. The left is going socialist anyway, while woke capitalism is rapidly turning conservatives against business.

        Business undermines national sovereignty and the rule of law by effectively supporting illegal immigration, then it shoots down basic protections for religious liberty in deference to the cultural left. And now developers are using Obama’s “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” regulation as a way to destroy local control over zoning and planning. That will only legitimate the next Democratic president’s neo-socialist efforts to tell Americans where to live. As the nation polarizes over culture, business is caught in the middle, with ever fewer friends on either side. Conservatives are natural supporters of the free enterprise system, but business is driving them away by abandoning traditional American principles to futilely court a left that is already socialist.

        Back in the mid 90s, when I was in academia, I was naively excited to see a new movement among humanities departments called “cultural studies.” As an anthropologist with an interest in culture, I thought the rest of the world was finally catching up. Nope. So-called cultural studies turned out to be a sloppy form of interdisciplinarity meant to license literature professors to pronounce on politics instead of literature. At first, the cultural studies group met in a ramshackle old building at Harvard. Within a couple of years, however, cultural studies was headquartered in a fabulously expensive renovated building. I was shocked to see that a plaque recognizing the donors for that renovation included some of the biggest corporations in America. I knew, even if those corporations did not, that nearly every cultural studies lecture featured vicious attacks on capitalism. A quote famously attributed to Vladimir Lenin is that “capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” But even Lenin didn’t realize that capitalists would actually donate the rope.

        Fast-forward to 2013, when I began a couple of years’ worth of coverage of the fossil fuel divestment movement for NRO. …
        –

        1. Kurtz is a bit older (and smarter) than me so he got to see the writing on the wall early. Cultural Anthropology was riddled with Marxists by the time I began my studies a few years later. It became moderately popular for a bit, then got swamped under the larger leftist wave in the late nineties/early millenium.

          A lot of sociologists also take courses in Anthropology, and vice versa. Psychology, too. The long dead hands of Marx and Lenin stretched through these disciplines as well. All the smart young people in the early eighties knew Russia was going to win. Twenty years on, they were teaching the next generation. Even after they themselves saw the wall come down and expose the rot within.

          We say it a lot around here, “teach your children well.” There is good reason for it, too. One cannot trust the state to do its job and train the young mind in mathematics, logic and reasoning, history, and science. Even less so moral instruction, which in my opinion is the greater duty of parents to teach. The wider world does not care for those we love. Better for them that we make them capable. Better for us, too, because a socialist future is not the kind I’d like to retire in, to say it mildly.

          1. I was floored–though upon reflection not hugely surprised–when I read “Lost City of the Monkey God” and the author discusses the VIRULENT opposition to his group’s expedition/dig/whatever from the academic community. One reason: the guy “in charge” wasn’t a “real” archaeologist” (he was a tv and documentary producer. So, you know, he had actual access to funds and wasn’t answerable to anyone, really). Another reason: They were using LIDAR–because the jungle in which the city was believed to be located is both unbelievably thick, and also full of a particularly NASTY disease (a chunk of the expedition–including the author, who also co-writes a series of thrillers I’m fond of–came down with it, and he was experiencing a relapse as of the book’s publication). The academic community didn’t like the lidar thing–because new and different, but also something that would allow–for a fraction of the cost, overall–a flyover of an area and determine pretty much definitively that something of interest was there. (In other words, it would almost guarantee a successful dig–and so ensure funding. By now, LIDAR in archaeology is becoming an increasingly common thing, but then it was practically unheard of. I suspect this expedition is one of the reasons it became a tool used by sensible archaeologists.)

            But the BIGGEST reason a number of influential archaeologists threw a hissy fit and wanted to utterly discredit the expeditions findings? Because a year or three prior to the expedition, the extremely-leftist Honduran president had refused to accept the election results–which ousted him–and had refused to leave office. He was arrested and thrown into prison (or exile? I don’t recall) by the rightfully elected–and rather more right-leaning–new president. It was the new president who had backed this expedition. The academics who threw the fit? Yeah, they considered him a usurper, and racist/all the other crap/etc they always consider right-leaners. Nevermind that the guy they “adored” had refused to accept the results of a legal election, attempted to set himself up as a dictator, and was part and parcel of the reason that Honduras was one of the countries with the highest murder rates in the WORLD. He was Marxist, and that was all they cared about.

  6. Yep. Reads and smells like “pretentious academia garbage” that gets all preachy preachy and is an utter horror when you peel off the word salad covering it.

    1. Had the same thought. Pretentious acedemia garbage is always deliberately obfuscated. The smoke and mirrors are there just as much as any scary movie, and just as slanted as any name brand’s advertisement.

    1. Actually, the facts always have bearing. The question is which facts. When arguments degenerate into the feelz, it’s because the counterargument has challenged the person’s most fundamental values. This produces a visceral revulsion, particularly if the person cannot challenge the counterargument. Three options are then available: contemplate the counterargument and come up with a logical response; accede to the counterargument and change your views; or result to violence, whether physical, verbal, or social. All three responses are religious in their effect: strenthening the values; changing the values; or destroying the “infidel”.
      The war for America is a religious one in nature.

  8. Two thoughts:1) these “identity politics” folks really do seem to be unhappy – with everything.
    2) the admonition, ” physician, heal thyself”, came to mind upon reading some of their self-righteous baloney.

    1. Yes. Especially the older generation of “woke” who remember, have been claiming that their cultural Marxism would lead to multicultural peace and social justice breaking out all over and….

      Hey-o! Look over there? Trad pub is even more a bunch of liberal white women and some lesbian, and a handful of non-native (lefty) imports.

      It’s almost as if every single thing they support just leaves Black Americans more screwed over on every measure than ever: economic power, political agency, etc. Except wokeness. Got loads of that.

      1. It’s not really about Black Americans at all. It’s about feeling superior to other white people.

        1. Black Americans only matter when they need to excommunicate some minority group that is doing well enough to not be under their control anymore.

          1. Watch for that to be changing. More and more black people are discovering that white liberals never were their friends, and do *not* have their best interests in mind. Most especially black men.

            Like as not, they’ll find some other poor souls to be their woobie. They will use that group, too, until their usefulness ends.

            1. There’s a lot of ruin left in the disaster zone they’ve made of the inner city– especially when it means a large percent of black kids grow up with no dad, and thus are good prey.

              The ones that escape are not “really” black, same way that women who don’t bow aren’t “really” women.

              1. Yep. And it will be felt for generations to come. Growing up fatherless is a vile thing to do to a child, but it does not mean the end. Thousands of children are abused, but grow up, have kids of their own, and *don’t perpetuate the abuse.*

                The same thing is at work with fatherless homes. Its changing. I can’t give you hard and fast facts- I’d dearly love to see an unbiased study done on this- but its more of an anecdatum. I see more families these days. Can’t but see that as a good thing.

                Its a bit like escaping a cult, in a way. Some of the escapees swing far the other way. Out of a sense of betrayal, it seems to me. All one needs to do in this side of the aisle is be truthful to them. They have been deliberatly deceived, they know it, and now they look for it in everything they see and hear.

                It is one of the ways that, in the end, we win and they lose. The truth is freeing. And freedom, as I believe we’ve mentioned a time or two, is one heck of a drug.

                2. I’ve long since concluded that most of the problems associated with “urban African-American youth” are correlated with fatherlessness and otherwise have nothing to do with “Race” or “Culture.”

                  And further, that the absence of fathers in the house are a consequence of LBJ’s Great Socialism Society programs.

                  Data? From where would funding for studying such a connection come?
                  –

          2. I admit, though, I look at the reports that the black South Carolinians are throwing their support behind Bernie (instead of Biden) and want to scream “WHAT ARE YOU DOING???? THAT’LL JUST MAKE IT WORSE.”

            But that’s just one state, I suppose. And I’m not sure that the data didn’t come from polls, and therefore is automatically suspect.

              1. Perhaps they’re engaging in their own version of Operation Chaos?

                One way of “walking away” is to cause the party to walk away from you.
                –

  9. ” I am mainly writing to a white audience” How can you, when you lost your thinking readers in the forward?

    I tip my hat to you for managing to read any of this … book. I would not have been able to make it past that forward. What little was posted was enough to get me talking back to the screen.

    1. “‘I am mainly writing to a white audience’ How can you, when you lost your thinking readers in the forward?

      I assume that this is the same sort of “white audience” as those ladies who pay thousands of dollars to have a couple of “women of color” come over to dinner and scream at them through the entire meal about how racist they are.

      1. Is…is that actually a thing…?

        (On the other hand: capitalism at it’s finest. Sure, pay me a few thousand dollars–cash, please–for me to come and hurl insults at you. Well, not me specifically–the only people whiter than me on this planet are albinos–but you get what I mean. 😀 )

            1. Except one presumably doesn’t have secret feelings of superiority over a paid dominatrix.

              I’m pretty sure that these white privilege masochists are secretly revelling in their imagined plantation ownership, and they’re very very sorry for their charity case dominatrices.

        2. ‘Tis. In the woke olympics, zhe with the most victim points wins. If you haven’t got any points from being born a certain way, you can get them by becoming insane (I identify as…), mouthing correct phrases, attacking group foes, and participating in group shaming rituals.

          If you think of it as a cult, a lot of things become simpler.

          1. “If you think of it as a cult, a lot of things become simpler.”

            To borrow a favorite line from Hammett’s The Thin Man: I don’t join cults. And if I did join ’em, I wouldn’t join cults that are atheistic cluster fucks. And if I did join cults that are atheistic cluster fucks, I still wouldn’t join theirs.
            –

        3. Yes, it’s a thing. I’ve read some tweets from one of the women doing it. . . glutton for punishment is the only phrase.

    2. I’m starting to think the book wasn’t really written as a book. My apologies to Sarah for comments a few days ago when I suggested journaling through her depression; this book sounds exactly like some nutcase free associating and journaling through her madness.

  10. Oh good grief! I know of little so tedious as the circular logic of the sort of religious zealots who engage in arguments of this sort. Everything is explained by their holy theory, including (especially) dissenting heresies arguments. Having crammed their crania into their fundamentalism they are impervious to logic (“a tool of white supremacy”), evidence (“subject to false interpretation”) or ay component of coherent reason. Rather than invest intelligence and effort into raising themselves up such people apply themselves to constructing demonic reasons for their abysmal failure.

    They bore me and don’t even constitute pleasant chew toys; the squeak when you bite them is a minor and irritating chord.
    –

  11. Word salad, indeed. An excellent demonstration of the fact that it is difficult to write good prose while lying to oneself and everybody else.

  12. It’s easier when you think of the people blathering about “whiteness” et al as white supremacists. Except they see whites as a superior malevolence that nonwhites are utterly helpless before… which (of course) requires folk like the person you’re fisking to “protect” all the poor nonwhites from the menace of whiteness.

    No “eyeroll” emotes, so another reason for WordPress Delenda Est…

  13. “his book is unapologetically rooted in identity politics…I am referring to the white collective…we are so rarely asked to think about ourselves or fellow whites in racial terms…the critical examination of white identity”

    Am I the only one who read that and thought, “You must have a lot of faith in the fundamental goodness of your audience. Has it ever occurred to you that ‘asking whites to think of themselves in racial terms’ might not produce the results you want?”

    1. Further proof that the “white supremacy” nonsense nowadays is just that: nonsense. They’re not actually afraid that a huge army of neo-fascists and/or white-hooded hooligans with nooses and burning crosses are going to materialize. They just want to scare or guilt people into doing what they say without questioning it too closely or, indeed, at all. Group A must believe they are all secret oppressors, and Group B must believe all members of Group A are evil and out to get them, because of COURSE that sort of rhetoric doesn’t EVER end badly…

    2. Exactly. It’s well-nigh impossible to get people to build an identity around collective self-loathing. If you’re attempting to raise racial consciousness, it’s not going to end with the people whose consciousness you’re trying to raise deciding that their race is terrible.

      1. Or deciding “I know I’m not terrible but they think I’m terrible & powerful so why not embrace that I’m White And Go For The Being Powerful”.

        IE The Left may be creating Real White Supremists where they didn’t exist before. 😈

        4. Their whole theory is basically “The White Supremacist are correct… but that’s bad, Mmmmkay?”, so that will have some results.

    3. *chuckle* I write fiction. I don’t always think of myself as *human.* Never as a color, or a race. Race is total bunk. Can you mate with and produce viable offspring with a member of the opposite sex? Congratulations, you are homo sapiens sapiens.

      Discrimination based on individual variation of skin color is as bonkers as hating short people. Or folks with freckles. People dislike others for a lot of reasons. Makes a whole lot more sense to do it because the other guy is a blithering idiot than because he can’t tan.

    4. You must remember that racial strife is their bread and butter. They benefit from the results that are opposite to what they claim to want.

  14. It all starts with collectivism. That is the unifying theme with all of the SJWs. Peanut buttering demonic thoughts and behaviors on their self-invented collective, then proposing some form of “dynamic solution for the problem.” The prior wording comes from a private conversation (argument) with a SJW. It’s the same ol’ same ol’.

    I’m buying a case of popcorn for this, Go to it Sarah!

  16. These ceremonials in honor of white supremacy

    I’m 65 years old, those “ceremonials in honor of white supremacy” exist only in Lefty minds. 😡

    1. They mean things like graduation from high school or college, becoming an Eagle Scout, anything based on merit and standards. Correct English, being on time for work, being expected to perform to a standard, etc. ALL those WHITE things that Whites force on people of color and oppress them with.
      You may think that I am be sarcastic or something but the above is the simple truth.

      1. They mean being responsible for own actions & advancements & improvement: things like graduation from high school or college, becoming an Eagle Scout, anything based on merit and standards. Correct English, being on time for work, being expected to perform to a standard, etc. ALL those WHITE things that Whites force on people of color and oppress them with.
        You may think that I am be sarcastic or something but the above is the simple truth.

        You are welcome …

      3. Ah yes, things which we use for ourselves as meritorious measures of performance. If we apply them EQUALLY to everyone regardless of tan-ability, then we’re white oppressors. If we don’t, we’re accused of dumbing down requirements, patronizing, holding them back, discriminatory, racist. Eric Berne called it NIGYYSOAB in his book, Games People Play. Of course the woke racist crowd are stupid, ignorant, and offendable enough to probably think that acronym is a racial slur, rather than having anything to do with race or color.

        1. Kafkatrap.

          But really, if they left you a way out, you might take it, and then they might have to get a real job.

      4. I think our Scoutmaster, Mr. Nakaji, would have something to say about that perspective.

        And it would be family-friendly, but not complimentary.

  17. “Robin DiAngelo is the new racial sheriff in town. She is bringing a different law and order to bear upon the racial proceedings.”

    Herr Dyson is apparently unable to distinguish between “duly appointed legal authority” and vigilantism.

    I had thought that was more commonly a difficulty of white supremacists. Is Dyson a white supremacist?
    –

    1. She is appalled because they were White. If they had been People of Color the hanging would have been OK. She is OK with vigilantism by POC.

  18. “when I use the terms us and we, I am referring to the white collective.”

    What do you mean “we,” white woman? I’ve been Jewish since the day I was born, a category not typically welcomed by “white” folk … or much anybody else, for that matter.
    –

    1. Didn’t you know?

      In Modern Leftish Thought Jews are White. IE Even a Holocaust Survivor has “White Privilege”. 😡

      2. Think there is any chance of them convincing “whites” of that? My ancestors have been driven out of more countries than currently exist, relegated to second-class status in even more and treated as equals in none. White supremacists won’t tolerate us and identity-activists won’t defend us. It’s enough to make a People go off and found their own nation, based on shared faith (not shared epidermal melanin content.)

        Of course, if we do that the neighbors will accuse us of ruining the neighborhood and grant no peace.
        –

        1. From what I’ve seen and heard, there are more “Jew Haters” among Lefties than among most whites today (at least in the US).

          1. Yes, well, one of the defining characteristics of Progressives is that they always blame “others” for whatever is wrong, and Jews are others that few will defend. Without somebody to blame Lefties are in desperate exigency of having to do something constructive, and History shows that never ends well.
            –

        3. My ancestors were persecuted by the Romans, kicked out of Germany and France, persecuted by the English and kicked out of Scotland, came to America and went as far west as they could get before settling down. Other than not being able to marry legally or own land up at times until the last century, it’s been pretty okay for the most part. *grin* Even added a Jew or two back in the early 20s. 1920s, I mean.

        4. Your white privilege is showing because obviously that is much worse than what other people suffer.

          Only of course they will be much more abusive about saying that.

      3. To the left Jews are white, Asians are white. Hispanics (presuming we can define what that is) are white especially if they leave the reservation. Some white folks are black or at least honorarily so (Bill Clinton first black president). Their dictionary was not written by Webster or Johnson but Humpty-Dumpty of Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.

      4. Basically any group that doesn’t have to assimilate to be successful is going to be considered “white” to the intersectionality crowd. People of European ancestry brought up in the U.S. are generally raised in the dominant culture so they don’t need to assimilate. Jews are successful because they value education and a work ethic yet they resist full assimilation. Blacks who value education & work ethic aren’t authentic POC because those values are of the dominant culture, not their “native” culture.

    2. This is the crew that assigns white privilege to Holocaust survivors.

      Forming a civil society with the evilly insane never works well.

  19. “rather than retreat in the face of that discomfort”

    If this woman cannot tell “discomfort” from utter boredom I doubt she has anything to say worthy of attention.
    –

  20. “Make no mistake: this is an ideology, sometimes with deadly consequences. More often than not, this ideology has cost people their livelihoods and destroyed their professional reputations, our dear hostess Sarah among their number.”

    It is a form of religious fanaticism, replete with unfalsifiable claims, original sin and murderous proselytism. That they leave their targets alive is more terrible than crucifixion.

    Wait, what?! This is guest post? Did I miss something i the introduction? Which noble Hun hurled self onto this IED of insanity?
    –

    1. The lady going by Adedayo Dayo after I convinced her “A non-white idiot” was not a good pen name.
      Mostly because, well, it’s not.
      But she thinks she’s an idiot for reading this.

      1. Not idiot. Masochist, perhaps. Or even Maniac.
        Or maybe simply, Stubborn Cuss.
        I rather suspect one would need to be stubborn beyond most reason to persist in the reading of the alleged work.

      2. My only complaint on the identification was over the fact that “a non-white idiot” was not clearly a person other than thee. You’re decidedly “non-white” (especially in summer) and only an idiot would give away as much of her writing time as you do here. 😉

        As for being an idiot … well, aren’t we all, one way or another? The only real question is whether to accept it or deny it. I much prefer those who accept.
        –

      3. So, hypothetically*, if I sent you a guest post that was sane enough for your taste, you would object to my handle as a pen name?

        *I have no spoons to spare for writing much of anything. And enough sleep and low enough stress levels for reliably sane writing is not happening anytime soon.

      4. Eh, she’s fine. Fits in with all of us random electrons like a pea in a pod. Consider those of us who’ve read the Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, and so on. Know thy enemy, and all that.

        It’s unpleasant. But as they’ve named *themselves* as enemy without having the foggiest about us, or even meeting the tiniest fraction thereof, there are times when it behooves one to study. An educated and prepared mind is far harder to blind with tomfoolery.

        1. Well, she’s not an idiot for reading it, she’s an idiot* for understanding it rather than just learning the cant.

          *That would be “idiot” in the “Emperor’s New Clothes” sense.
          –

  21. Oh, boy. My wife has decided to leave me because I hang out here and especially at Ace of Spades, and this book was in the Kindle library that she had shared with me. I was kind of curious as to what was in it, but not enough to actually read it. I mean, I’m pretty sure I know what it says already, if only because of the subtitle. For those who have never seen the cover of this book, it has the subtitle of “Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism.”

    The problem, of course, is that I have never seen a white person who is reluctant to talk about racism, so the book seems to be built upon a fallacy. People such as Ms. Diangelo never seem to shut up about it, and even people like me, who sincerely want to get past it are at least willing to talk about issues concerning race and ethnicity. What we are not willing to do is to just accept the narrative that we’re being offered. I don’t think that’s fragility.

    1. “Fragility” is a word used to discount the lived experience of those with inconvenient-to-the-narrative pain.

      Also, I’m sorry about your wife.

      1. I’m not. If she left him over what he reads, she has ISSUES.
        Seriously.
        Also, this blog? She left you because you’re too intellectual for your own good and like to do deep dives into cultural trends? did she have her brain ablated at some point?

        1. You echo my initial reaction, which was to cite the old joke’s punchline, “You’re better off.”

          And, of course, it wasn’t his reading this blog that caused her to leave him; that was merely the trigger. How she responded to that trigger exposes deeper underlying issues, such as are best not delved into here and now. Suffice to say that when you love and respect somebody what would be otherwise annoying become tics endearing traits. At least, that is Beloved Spouse’s explanation for never holding a pillow over my face to end my snoring.
          –

          1. OTOH, I hasten to add: I am sorry for your loss. It is never pleasant to discover what we thought a rock foundation proved built on sand.
            –

        2. I see I have caught the attention of our illustrious host. (I’m not worthy!)

          Actually, in addition to not checking the box, I overstated my case. I only told her about reading AoS, I can’t say for sure if she knows whether or not I read this blog. I can say that this sequence of events has been very educational because I found out only white supremacist nationalists read AoS, and I went to one of their meetups! The thing is, I find the people there to be very much like the people here, so to me it’s all of a kind, but that’s just me.

          Said soon-to-be-ex is known to have had issues for quite some time. I was happy enough to be the one who did the bulk of the emotional support, and cleanup from the occasional blowup in the relationship, but if my support is now considered unacceptable, then it’s not clear what I can do about it except deal as best I can. So deal I shall. Now is the time to deal with the universe as it is, not the universe as I wish it to be.

          To RES and Synova, thank you for your expressions of support. I do have the support of many friends, some of whom are familiar with the both of us, and I am assured that I’m not crazy. As to whether or not I’m better off, well, that may be true but major transitions suck, and this one has the capacity to suck more than most.

          On the other hand, now I won’t have to figure out how to explain to this person that I want to go to a con called “LibertyCon” so that might actually happen someday.

          1. A lot of us are Morons. (I also have been to a meetup.) I’ve been an ette since … the beginning, I think? I used to post under a nom de blog when I was in the political closet. I killed it dead when it tried to take over. (Writers. Pen names. Don’t ask.)
            None of us are white supremacists. We had a few who’d drop scat, but they were boring so I sent them to the outer darkness.
            BUT in an age when using proper grammar is “white supremacy” who the heck knows.

            1. A few years ago there was some alleged “study” claiming the use of proper spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation on micro-blog sites (e.g. Twitter) were indicative of being a ‘monster’. To which my reaction was, of course, “So?”

              2. “indicative of being a ‘monster’”

                They say that like it’s a bad thing, yet they do things no self-respecting monster would ever consider.
                –

            2. I know you’re an ette. I’ve seen your comments. I also know what morons are like because I’ve been reading AoS for, well, as near as I can tell since 2008, when Slashdot (which had been largely tech-oriented) decided to go “all politics all the time” for the presidential election and I decided that if I was going to read about politics all the time, I should read something that was a whole lot closer to what I believe in. So, I became a moron.

              However, your comments didn’t bring me here. Sabrina Chase did, when she mentioned this place and you on a book thread, and I followed. I don’t always read the posts, but I get notified of posts. This caught my eye because I’d seen the book.

              Anyway, I’m going to try to express what I’m thinking about white privilege, but it’ll have to be in another comment because it’s not fully baked yet.

              Speaking of not fully baked, is there any way that I can keep my comments from being automatically placed into moderation? It’s very annoying.

          2. “On the other hand, now I won’t have to figure out how to explain to this person that I want to go to a con called “LibertyCon” so that might actually happen someday.”

            A strain on finances is one thing, or unequal “outings”. But, “while I don’t share your interests, I do support them” is fairly minimal as far as expected spousal emotional support goes.

            And I’ll assert that it’s not necessary to share interests and demands to share interests can get bad over time, too. (Because it’s almost never equally applied.) It’s nice to have a number of shared interests. Helpful to *find* true shared interests. But utterly vital to support the unshared interests of your partner.

        3. Better to make a clean break now than suffer for ages. A marriage should be as much (or more. I lean muchly towards more) a marriage of the mind as one of the body.

    2. You have my condolences, dude. OTOH, I agree with Sarah that no pity should be spared for your ex.

    3. Why people say they leave, and why they actually leave, are often not the same thing. (And to be fair, it’s pretty hard for any human to figure out why he does something. And as a woman, I can definitely say that women’s motivations can be complex and obscure.)

      But for one adult to leave another adult over politics or books, particularly when the politics or books are not particularly immoderate, and when that person should have every incentive to think kindly… well, that’s pretty harsh.

      Being alone can be a great clearer of minds, so I hope that matters will improve. I will pray for both of you.

      Take care of yourself. You would feed your dog or your horse even if you were sad, so make sure you feed and water yourself.

      1. “… so make sure you feed and water yourself.”

        Most animal shelters have programs (I am advised) that invite people to come in and talk dogs for walkies. This can be an excellent way of taking light exercise for yourself and combining it with a broader good.
        –

    4. It’s “talk” as in when a Dem pol says “have a conversation about”.

      They mean that they stand there lecturing, and we’re supposed to nod.

      I’m sorry it’s not better. 😦

      1. Whenever I read of a Progressive insistence that we have a national conversation about fill-in-the-blank, I always hear it in the tones of an aggrieved spouse insisting “We need to have a talk.”

        Okay, sometimes it is as Ricky Ricardo’s “You got some ‘splaining to do” that I hear, but the principle is the same.
        –

  22. “This raises another issue rooted in identity politics: in speaking as a white person to a primarily white audience, I am yet again centering white people and the white voice.”

    And yet, she’s going to do it anyway.

    I have said dozens an dozens of times, probably often enough that people who know me but not my pseudonym would be able to put us together.

    White Privilege is simply a way to make upper middle class white women the center of attention in any conversation about race.

  23. “Be aware, dear readers, that “antiracist” has a particular meaning in the vocabulary of identity politics. Hint: it’s actually a mantra, not a technical meaning one could find under “anti,” “racist” or “antiracist” in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary.”

    Yes, gawd, this. People don’t realize it. I mean, a person could say that “antiracist” is a “term of art”. It has a unique and not-obvious meaning in the professional context in which it is used. It’s not *enough* to have equality. It’s not *enough* for people not to be racist. It is specifically NOT advocating for equality or an end to racism. It is specifically and purposefully referring to the other extreme of a pendulum swing. “Antiracist policies” are specifically racist policies and generally punitive as an overt goal.

    But using the term guarantees support from those only paying enough attention to figure they want to be a good person so of course they agree that an organization should be antiracist. (See the recent RWA blow up.)

    1. Yes, indeed. The people who use “antiracist policies” are the same people who claim to believe that it is impossible for a person of enhanced melanin to be racist.

      My personal view is that if the US is so bad, they are welcome to go elsewhere. North Korea or China for the socialist/communist types, somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa for the enhanced melanin = perfect victim types. If the US is such a horrible, no good, very bad place for people of non-pallor, why are so many of said people of non-pallor doing everything they can to move here?

  24. “This is a book rooted in identity politics”. Fine. Robin DiAngelo may by accident say something useful about race or politics but wading through her work to find it sounds roughly as useful as going grocery shopping in the dumpster. Being a smart geek whose “white privilege” could never quite translate into being healthy, wealthy or wise, I have no interest in being lectured about it, .

    1. Neither do I, actually.
      Nine out of ten, the leftists of pallor whining on and on about so-called white privilege which has afforded them SO MANY advantages in life, are actually beneficiaries of upper middle class to wealthy privilege. Not their race, at all.

      1. They always bring to my mind the tale of Lewis Carroll’s Walrus:

        “I weep for you,” the Walrus said:
        “I deeply sympathize.”
        With sobs and tears he sorted out
        Those of the largest size,
        Holding his pocket-handkerchief
        Before his streaming eyes.

        “I like the Walrus best,” said Alice: “because you see he was a little sorry for the poor oysters.”

        “He ate more than the Carpenter, though,” said Tweedledee. “You see he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn’t count how many he took: contrariwise.”

        “That was mean!” Alice said indignantly. “Then I like the Carpenter best—if he didn’t eat so many as the Walrus.”

        “But he ate as many as he could get,” said Tweedledum.

        This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, “Well! They were both very unpleasant characters—”
        — Through the Looking-Glass

  25. “DiAngelo brilliantly names a whiteness that doesn’t want to be named,…” I name it, “BULLSHIT”. It’s brown, not white, though sometimes yellowish.

    1. Pale Ivory, here. Which I guess is a very, very light brown.

      Alas it does not become a darker brown when sunlight is applied. It become a rather bright red.

      1. I’m pretty sure you can call my color pale pink 😀 No ivory at all. I do have full sisters who are olive and brown in the summer. Alas I burn and blister.

  26. This book was chosen as a suitable basis for a study session by the church I used to attend every week, After looking at text excerpts and at the type of sites that reviewed the book favorably, I decided, finally and for good, that I can never go back to that church, even though some of my friends are still there. The tipping point was reached.

    2. It is a sad thing, but necessary. Friends are friends, never let ’em go. But there are things the soul will not bear. Lying to yourself is one of them. Doing so causes no end of problems.

  28. “unchanging variable”
    “Race is a condition. A disease. A card. A plague. Original sin.”
    “whiteness is a fiction” then it’s “a social construct” and then embodies a reality when “its very existence is denied.”

    There’s a term I invented when my pre-teen son would spew all kinds of improbabilities to excuse bad behavior or horrendous choices: verbal vomit. I’d suggest that this “White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo” meets the criteria of being verbal vomit.

    I, like John Prigent, am pretty much color indifferent. I don’t particularly care what you look like; there being handsome men and beautiful women of all varieties. But if you’re the single ebony-hued in a dozen vanilla women, yeah, I’m going to notice you before them. Same as I’m going to notice if you speak or write in a black or Indian, or other non-standard English accent or dialect. Notice isn’t bias, and although it is discrimination, it’s neither good nor bad to notice the difference. It’s what you do with the difference, that makes the difference. 😉

  29. Everybody is allowed to blow off steam.

    But most people of any color are kinda busy working for a living, raising kids, going out for beers, and living their lives, rather than whining and writing it down.

  30. Today from a friend in South Africa, who is not prone to be alarmist (note that in SA, black and coloured are not the same peoples):
    ================
    Something is going on here in SA which is pretty concerning. Apparently, a black student at University of the Orange Freestate called for the assassination of 5 white students openly on twitter or facebook. She called for them to be burnt alive, in the wake of a barbaric burning of 3 coloured people in the Cape by gangs of blacks. It’s so serious, Boer defense leaders are making open threats of war to Brilliant-businessman™ Ramaphosa if even one white child gets burnt. These aren’t people who make threats like that on a whim. So it’s not a hoax and yet, you cannot find a single article about it on the internet through a search; Nothing on the news; Complete media blackout.

    I think the one who was calling for the assassination of whites, got all excited by the burning of the coloured people in the Cape and was eager to do that to whites instead. I still haven’t found an article but here’s the video of the leader of the Boerelegioen (Boer Legion) where he warns Ramaphosa. The video is in Afrikaans but it’s got English subs and as far as I could see, it was a pretty accurate translation:

    =================

  31. Leftists have made up their own language.

    It’s confusing for the rest of us, because most of the words are spelled and pronounced exactly the same as well-known English words, but the meanings are bizarre beyond rational comprehension.

    When we speak, or write, in English, they perceive it in their native language, so we never succeed in conveying our intended meaning to them.

    It is not possible to translate between their language and English, because the basic structures of logic, rationality and fact-based evidence are incompatible with the precepts of their language.

    It is a language of, by and for the delusional. Learning their language will induce those delusions, and render one equally incapable of comprehending English.

    Note: Leftists have made similar mockeries of other languages, but I’m sticking with English as the most egregious example.
    ———————————
    My grandpa voted Republican until the day he died, but he’s been voting Democrat ever since.

  32. The only rational reply to these intersectionalists is something on this order:

    What you are trying to foist upon us is rampant nonsense, refuted by the reality we see in front of us every day. Only a fool or a fabulist could possibly promote such idiocy–the fool because he’s not equipped to understand that he’s spouting lies, and the fabulist because he thinks shrieking such such hokum will provide him with some benefit. Which are you, sir? Or madam, as the case may be; and yes, those two are your only choices.

        1. “I can answer your question in thirty seconds, but it will take you thirty years to understand the answer.”

  34. As incomprehensible as all that is when laid out in ‘logical’ terms, some of their adherents have been very successful in producing emotionally-resonant works of fiction using these beliefs. In a visual medium with high production values. Movies like Get Out, Us, Parasite, Shape of Water, series like The Handmaid’s Tale, all of which fall apart when you think about what would create these situations, yet are very effective in appealing to emotion.

    On the other side, there’s what? The Atlas Shrugged movies?

    I think the Dark Knight Rises was very flawed, but an excellent portrayal of Bane transforming Gotham into a suicidal socialist hellscape.

    1. And as much as I hate to admit it, there were a lot of people who LIKED The Last Jedi: who understood what that movie was trying to do and thoroughly approved.

      1. Oh, some of us liked The Last Jedi because we did. Star Wars has always been a hot mess, plot-wise, and sometimes you need the feel. (My husband’s argument about Luke Skywalker’s actions in that movie are centered on how chronic depression feels—apparently, the way he reacted was perfectly understandable to someone who suffers from chronic depression. Also, “Luke always does the stupid thing first.”)

        And yes, we liked all of the sequel movies. For some reason, the prequels didn’t feel right—but as The Phantom Edit showed, that’s partly because they made some *editing* decisions that screwed up the feel.

      2. I couldn’t get past the sheer density of Hollywood Stupid they packed into that monstrosity. Bombers were dropping bombs on starships in OUTER SPACE!!! Do they not teach physics any more, or did ALL the scriptwriters, AND editors, AND technical consultants sleep through ALL of their science classes?

        Then some snide heckler asked how I would improve it. The only way to improve that scene would be to leave it out of the movie.

        There were many such scenes.

        I saw it on ‘free’ cable. As in, I didn’t have to pay extra. It was barely worth what it cost.
        ———————————
        Dark Willow: “Bored now.”

        1. It *should* have been left out of the movie. It was useless for military reasons (Leia’s criticisms were right), cost a lot of people their lives, had physics problems, and served as a tear jerk for a character we hadn’t met yet. The only useful aspect of it was its plot-related eventual effect on Poe at the end of the movie. Only, his initial impulse at the end was the correct one (based on what he knew at the time), and his change of mind was the wrong decision (again based on what he knew at the time).

          1. Not only that, any competent ship designer, military contractor, fleet purchasing officer and potential crew member would KNOW they were tactically useless, and why. Nobody would be stupid enough to build the damn things in the first place!

            Don’t tell me about the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Space bombers are even stupider.

            I didn’t see any of the officers on either side make any sound decisions during that whole movie.
            ———————————
            Dayna: “Don’t you ever get tired of being right all the time?”
            Avon: “No, I get tired of other people being wrong.”

            1. Historically, “bombers” in Star Wars were basically missile trucks. Show up as a swarm, launch a bunch of ordnance, then skedaddle.

              1. ^ This. I’ve played the X-Wing games. Bombers are, really, missile launchers. I don’t what the hell they were doing in TLJ, other than like everything else in the movie it wasn’t just a hot mess, it was a hot mess full of stupid (I agree Star Wars plots have always been a mess–but there’s a difference between “but still fun” and “but so stupid–and also preachy, but mostly stupid–that I can’t even”

                1. Loved flying Y-wings, though I adored the TIE fighter games’ ability to choose your loadout.

                  Take a TIE bomber, load up with heavy bombs, divert laser power to engines, then point blank a Calamari Cruiser ☺

            2. They could’ve consulted with the Rogue One effects staff on how they made the Y-Wings fight. They even dropped a few bombs while attacking the shield generator, but didn’t act like sitting ducks while doing it.

        2. Easy way to get the same effect (wiping out a bomber wing to take out the ship): give the thing heavy point defense to make long ranged volleys ineffective, so that the bombers have to come in close and launch at point blank.

  35. I can’t say I know any Calvinists personally,
    (Waves)
    but surely they’re just as annoyed about the theft of their schtick for something as lowly as, uh, race.
    Did you mean predestination?
    There’s no point being annoyed by Ms. Tiresome.
    She can’t help herself.
    Even Four Points Calvinists will just shrug and note that she opted out of election.

    😉 The challenge is the temptation of fatalism sliding into apathy.
    Dismissing charlatans is really a strength of the mindset. If you start with the assumption that someone’s motivations are totally depraved, word salad becomes a clear statement of evil intent.

    1. I understood that better than the leftist drivel being Fisked. And I don’t even speak Ox!

            1. >> “Or did you think I was speaking in Holstein, of all things?”

              Black Angus, actually? I never could keep the bovine languages straight; it’s all Greek Shorthorn to me.

              1. I know it’s confusing, since while I am not of that area, I do have some Highlander appearance/aspect. And that’s just the obvious issue. And then there’s Belted Galloway which, so help me, look like some sort of resistor or jumper. Then having been born in Texas, but not being longhorn, and raised in Wisconsin, but not being Holstein… and now living in Minnesota (the hogs don’t care) well, yeah.. it’s amazing I can be understood at all, really.

  38. Any sufficiently advanced bullshitting is indistinguishable from competence.

    Ms. Diangelo is not sufficiently advanced.

  39. I can probably draw a whole Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon of how this madness came to be.

    But, at this point, that doesn’t matter at all. We just need to start killing the madness as quickly as we can.

  40. Episcopal? Or the northern version of Church of Christ? Mind you, the southern version has it’s own set of quirks in its gallop.

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