He has two speaking modes: Dull reading from a teleprompter, demonstrating a third-grade reading level, or rambling on for three hours talking about everything and nothing, communicating not language and reason but the visceral emotions of white supremacy. I imagine it will be the second, though they may give him time…

Dismissed - hadn’t seen it yet. Thanks for the heads up.

For real

Thank you. I think we are working toward the same goal. I am not talking about giving up on working towards the dismantling of white supremacy in general, nor in rooting out the racism inside me, just giving up on chasing some ephemeral badge of honor or identity degree being one of the good white people.

Michael said what I’m trying to say much more clearly, as usual. I shouldn’t have said anything at all.

Yeah, there is an insanity inherent to whiteness. But you know that.

Re: “You’ve never walked in a white person’s shoes.” Well, actually, the way white supremacy works is that everyone had to be acutely aware of what the world is like for white people. A Black teenager is trained to treat a white police officer as the most delicate flower who musn’t feel threatened or disrespected in…

See, I am not talking about self pity. More like acceptance. But I'm gonna shut up because I am clearly not communicating well. Too many words for a simple idea. I struggle to "make it plain."

Gotta say, that response did not feel like it was written “with love” so much as “with condescension.” I hardly think I said that Black people need us. ??? I was saying that on the other side of all “the work” is the understanding that, no matter how many books I read or seminars I take, I am still white. I can’t…

I mean, I did read it carefully. There are plenty of things we can do about racism. But there is nothing I can do about being white. This is just my experience, yours may differ and that’s fine. But the more I read and learn and practice anti-racism, the whiter I realize I am. At the beginning of this “journey”…

Right after reading I couldn’t think of what to say that wouldn’t be a direct example of white bullshit. I’ve been thinking now, and here’s what I think I can say that isn’t bull: I have spent my life knowing that, when it comes to racism and attitudes about Blackness in general, I was absolutely not like the other…

What can I say? Just thanks for the new prayer. Well done.

Do we know for sure? I truly thought it was an accident kf that Justin did it to her.

Knowing AA quite well, I imagine she felt she had “done her part” to make it right and you had chosen to “hold on to your resentment.”

Most people are not very adept at realizing they are still being self centered. The entire stated purpose of amends is to make the offerer feel better, to esse the conscience and make it easier to live with onesself. To give God your defects and surrender your will. So you write a letter explaining what you did and…

I was in AA for 15 years and most amends I made and received were more retraumatizing than healing.

My head has exploded.

Agreed. This is a good sign.

So much of it is collective guilt and shame that, unconfronted, tells them that the loss of white supremacy means they will be treated the way white Americans have treated Black and Indiginous Americans.

No, of course it was always this. I just like the way that Hughes poem talks about it. "America never was America to me."