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This is ironically not about Trump or any MAGA. It's about an op-ed from the Times today. Under the heading, "black Americans are not surprised," the author describes how the brutal authoritarianism on display under Trump is actually familiar to Black people.
www.nytimes.com
Fine. I've no quarrel with that idea; in fact, I'd endorse it. But scroll down a bit and we get this:
"“How can this be happening in America?” these people ask. “This is not the country I know, the country of rights and laws and due process.”
Needless to say, these people are almost all white and liberal and are not used to feeling this fear of arbitrary, brutal state authority."
WTF? Why call out white liberals? Especially since most of us are not asking those questions. Most white liberals actually do appreciate the black experience in America, though we have not personally felt it. It's why white liberals, for instance, invented and then championed DEI. Anyway it gets worse a couple of paragraphs down:
Again, Black people are not surprised. Far too many well-meaning white Americans have been what I like to call ally ostriches, believing in progress while burying their heads in the sand when discussions around the past become uncomfortable.
Every day I hear, spoken by these ostriches but also, increasingly, by those who blithely voted for Mr. Trump, thinking he didn’t intend to actually do those things he said he would do, or who just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a Black woman or who feel some version of disbelief.
WTF? The liberal allies were the ones most likely to say that Trump didn't intend . . . ? Not the Trump voters, who are now only increasingly doing that?
****
Some conservatives here will say, "I told you so!" as if I've denied the occasional lunacy from race warriors on the left. I just see them as fringey, or flashes in the pan, or both. It's certainly not a mainstream liberal view.
I think we can all legitimately ask what's the point of this? Is it reverse MAGA, where the anti-Trump leftists try to alienate all their friends? Is it a weird form of self-congratulation, in which the virtue claimed is not positive (i.e. black people understand) but rather the absence of a negative (i.e. white people don't get it)? There's obviously a relation here to the concept of white privilege, but to me this seems to go even further. Maybe not. Thoughts?
Opinion | Black Americans Are Not Surprised by What Trump’s Doing
Many Black Americans are not surprised by the way Trump is running roughshod over the rule of law, because they have seen it happen throughout American history.
Fine. I've no quarrel with that idea; in fact, I'd endorse it. But scroll down a bit and we get this:
"“How can this be happening in America?” these people ask. “This is not the country I know, the country of rights and laws and due process.”
Needless to say, these people are almost all white and liberal and are not used to feeling this fear of arbitrary, brutal state authority."
WTF? Why call out white liberals? Especially since most of us are not asking those questions. Most white liberals actually do appreciate the black experience in America, though we have not personally felt it. It's why white liberals, for instance, invented and then championed DEI. Anyway it gets worse a couple of paragraphs down:
Again, Black people are not surprised. Far too many well-meaning white Americans have been what I like to call ally ostriches, believing in progress while burying their heads in the sand when discussions around the past become uncomfortable.
Every day I hear, spoken by these ostriches but also, increasingly, by those who blithely voted for Mr. Trump, thinking he didn’t intend to actually do those things he said he would do, or who just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a Black woman or who feel some version of disbelief.
WTF? The liberal allies were the ones most likely to say that Trump didn't intend . . . ? Not the Trump voters, who are now only increasingly doing that?
****
Some conservatives here will say, "I told you so!" as if I've denied the occasional lunacy from race warriors on the left. I just see them as fringey, or flashes in the pan, or both. It's certainly not a mainstream liberal view.
I think we can all legitimately ask what's the point of this? Is it reverse MAGA, where the anti-Trump leftists try to alienate all their friends? Is it a weird form of self-congratulation, in which the virtue claimed is not positive (i.e. black people understand) but rather the absence of a negative (i.e. white people don't get it)? There's obviously a relation here to the concept of white privilege, but to me this seems to go even further. Maybe not. Thoughts?
