Halloween Thoughts on Americans and Racism

I wouldn't be surprised if Robin di Angelo (bestselling author of White Fragility) and Ibram X. Kendi (likewise, How to Be an Anti-Racist) turned out to be employed by Donald Trump. 

The three belong to different sects, but sing the same satanic hymn: divide and conquer. The first two want inner division: self-doubt, self-criticism, misplaced guilt. The last goes big time, ambitiously splitting whole populations.

If there's a true religion, it's love and unity. That's the message of the world's major religions, of John Milton, of Dr. Martin Luther King, of anyone seeking the common ground that is somehow still there under our feet, if we but looked for it. Comedians are trying but it's getting harder. Thank you, Dave Chapelle. Thank you, Sacha Baron Cohen.

Here come Ten Commandments!

I'm starting my own religion, even if the only one listening is the Great Pumpkin:

(1) Thou shalt not mistake empathy for "cultural appropriation." You can, if you're Thomas Mann, write a story in the voice of a woman past menopause ("Black Swans.") You can, if you're white and not an immigrant, write a story in the voice of a Mexican woman fleeing to the United States with her young son. That's what Jeanine Cummins did in her wonderful novel, American Dirt. You can, if you're Mark Twain,  become both Huck and Jim.*

(2) Thou art not thine ancestors. If your great grandfather was a lyncher or a Nazi, it doesn't mean you're tarred with the same brush. 

(3) Thou shalt know "Tarred with the  same brush" isn't a racist phrase.

(4) Thou shalt not think being on time is"white."

(5) Thou shalt not pretend individualism is "white."

(6) Thou shalt understand slavery as America's original sin, but not as America's founding idea.

The slave-owning founding fathers were promoting a political reality in which slavery would not exist.

P.S. Toussaint L'Overture owned slaves.

(7) Thou shalt honor common sense. In other words, it's okay to feel you "don't see color."

(8) Thou shalt have a sense of humor:

(9) Thou shalt "take responsibility" for the content of your character, not the color of your skin.

(10) Thou shalt remain down to earth--not swamped in the mystical notion of an all-engulfing white supremacy. 

 

*If you haven't read Zadie Smith's marvellous essay on the topic of who gets to write what, torpedoing that stay-in-your-own-lane philosophy, then read! Her essay appeared in November 2019 in the New York Review of Books.