There are few sentiments that provoke greater disgust and outrage in me than the exploitation of victimhood to peddle racially divisive and toxic viewpoints. The circumstances generally take a familiar progression: nationally distressing events involving race occur that are due, at least in part, to a long history of pervasive and systemic racism, followed by various individuals, often those who share the racial characteristics of the victims, appropriating the moral chastity that surrounds the victims to advance a multitude of repugnant, petty, hateful, and cynical ideologies.
In the past week, two salient examples of this practice (which I've termed "victimism") come to mind: one prior and one after mass protests erupted over shootings of black men by police officers in Louisiana, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C. The first is actor Jessie Williams' sectarian and zealous speech during the BET awards; the second, Michael Eric Dyson's outright racist op-ed in the New York Times titled "What White America Fails to See", published shortly before snipers opened fire on police officers in Dallas during a protest against the recent shootings.
Instead of focusing on the systemic disparity inherent in many police interactions with people of color relative to whites and suggesting substantive change, these individuals, particularly Mr. Dyson, have taken the opportunity to spread a perverted racial vehemence by framing the situation at hand as one-step removed from an all out black vs. white race war; they have, in essence, turned the tragedies of dead black citizens into a platform to air out sweeping racist generalizations and blatant irrationality, cloaking their debased reactions in the moral superiority that naturally accompanies a victimized group. On account of this moral veneer, along with the tempered eloquence of their statements that incorporates a good amount of truth about the racial disparities that plague US race relations, the rhetoric and sentiments of Mr. Williams and Mr. Dyson are both pernicious and powerful, and they cannot go unanswered. Because I find the remarks and ideas in Mr. Dyson's article to be of significantly greater intellectual depravation and vitriol, and thus more ideologically detrimental, this short article will focus on his statements.
Wasting no time, Dyson begins his op-ed with the inflammatory "[I]t is clear that you, white America, will never understand us." There is no clearer or more direct way to run a line between every single white and black person in the United States than this sickening, psychotic statement; with it, Mr. Dyson has abandoned any pretense of good faith and civility towards those who are melanin-challenged. How is it reasonable to address an entire race of people and group them into a preconceived notion of "white America"? How is it reasonable to group all black people into a preconceived notion of what black America is and how it relates to the rest of the country? How dare you, Mr. Dyson, exploit tragedy to buoy a crude and racist "us vs. them" ideology, and then seek to justify this irresponsible mentality by classing all or most of "white America" as at most just a few steps removed from waving a Trump banner? In what academic tradition is any of this boorish thinking seen as cogent and equitable?
The sine qua non of anti-racism is individuality: you don't get to employ the existence of obvious racial disparity in the US for the perverse purpose of wholesale racial truncation and then ignore that criticism with a simple "you call the black people who believe it racists themselves." Believe what, Mr. Dyson? Believe that it is ok to minimize black-on-black crime by calling it "neighbor-on-neighbor" crime and pretending that there is no discrepancy in the outrage in the black community between that and confrontations between police and blacks? Believe that it is ok to group every single white and black person into opposing camps and talk about how the former will never understand the latter, justifying this disgusting worldview with puerile, grade-school quips of "oh, you'll never understand us"? Believe that it is ok to ignore the fact that not only could the vast majority of widely publicized police shootings of black men likely been avoided if the officer acted with greater restraint and less prejudice, but also if the victim followed the instructions of the police? Believe that it is ok to dismiss all of these objections by just accusing your detractors of seeing things through privileged "binoculars"? If that's what you mean by "believe it", Mr. Dyson, then I have absolutely no qualms with accusing you of harboring a fatalistically racist outlook about white people and the future of race relations, which you apparently seek to redeem by capitalizing and adopting the moral shield other people's tragedies.
How does an eminent professor at one of the nation's most respected institutions of higher education consider any of this to hold validity as an actual argument? How dare you reduce the individuality of an entire group of people to a color and a number on account of the bigotry present amongst some members of that group? How dare you employ your privilege as a minority to exploit national tragedies like those in Louisiana, Dallas, and DC and write this racist vitriol of division and subdued fanaticism about how all "white folk" suffer from the disease of whiteness? How dare you demand that whites somehow have to prove to you that they are "different", and that all those who do not satisfy such proof are merely being deluded and "smug" about their participation in a skewed system? In other words, Mr. Dyson, who the hell do you think you are that you believe you deserve or are entitled to any damn proof from me, or any other white person, about what I believe or who I am simply on account of my race?
As a white male, your counterfeit, wholesale characterization of me and all others who happen to share my skin color or can trace their genetic lineage to Europe is utterly foreign to my constitution. "You hold an entire population of Muslims accountable for the evil acts of a few". I've never held a belief even remotely akin to this in my life, though the irony of your objection to that mindset, while simultaneously engaging in the same twisted and perverted logic to present all whites as followers of this view, is palpable.
"What else could explain the white silence that usually greets these events?" The racist conceit that this statement demonstrates is absolutely remarkable. First off, as stated above, "white people" are not one unified group, Mr. Dyson- there is no bullhorn that speaks or does not speak for all of "us". Secondly, beyond the white commentators on the news and those writing articles, and the white protestors on the streets holding signs alongside black protestors, what exactly did you have in mind for breaking this "white silence"? Should white people start sniping at white police officers in random cities through a sophisticated triangulation of gunfire like we saw in DC last night? Should white people all of a sudden abandon their jobs, homes, and schools to scream bloody murder from the rooftops of city hall or hold hunger strike sit-ins at police stations? By your perverse logic, Asians, Native Americans, and Latinos are apparently somehow equally content with observing police violence against blacks on the nightly news and then simply shutting it off and going to bed without so much as a Seinfeldian "that's a shame" acknowledgement. It is telling, however, how your worldview discounts all of these inconvenient truths and lumps all whites as either explicit Trump supporters or "closet" Trump supporters who will eventually succumb to the "white disease" and show their "true" colors. What your article ultimately is, Mr. Dyson, is a poorly constructed euphemism for calling every white American a "white devil", topped off with a fascinating attempt at self-flagellation by casting yourself, on account of your race, as a sort of Christ-figure that is "cursed" to in existence around whites. How lovely.
Do you understand the inherent bias in your statements, Mr. Dyson? Do you understand why they are not only unproductive and maliciously divisive, but evidence of an extremely racially skewed mind that seems beyond pitiful and silly when accusing others of the same? It is not because of complicity, selective apathy, or some secret enjoyment that most people, whether black, white, Asian, etc., are not marching upon Washington or sniping cops in DC over disparate police treatment and systemic racism against blacks, Mr. Dyson; rather, it is the same reason why most blacks aren't up in arms over pervasive gun violence in some African American communities, or aren't taking action over a Latino gang fire-bombing a housing project in LA to force black families to move; the same reason why most people see starving children in various developing countries on TV but turn the channel or comfortably snack on junk food; the same reason why most people see news reports of epidemic after epidemic of illicit drugs ruining thousands of people's lives, yet continue eating their breakfast, get in their car, and go to work: it is because most people, regardless of race, are primarily focused on themselves and their immediate circumstances, and as unfortunate as that is, you don't get to pervert that fact by cherry-picking white people and hurling racist character abuses while shamelessly appropriating the shield of moral chastity granted to you by your racial parity with the victims in Louisiana, Dallas, and Minnesota- understand, Mr. Dyson? Your position as professor of sociology at Georgetown makes me weep for the countless distortions of fact and reason you've piled upon your students over the years.
This kind of single-minded and prejudiced hostility that Mr. Dyson and others of his ilk spew following national calamities needs to be exposed, dissected, and branded as unacceptable and socially injurious, perhaps just as much as the events that inspired are in need of the same. Hijacking the moral force inherent to victimhood, especially racial victimhood, to advance a divisive 'soft racism' is a pathetically loathsome and obscene practice; it doesn't somehow become ok just because it is spoken forcefully and persuasively and resonates with many people, as was the case of Mr. Williams' BET speech earlier last month, and it neither does it become ok when a respected academic loses control of his emotions and nearly turns himself into a a proverbial martyr by penning an article full of puerile and deluded generalizations. Because the perniciousness of these ideas derive from the combination of this soft racism with the veneer of moral rectitude that accompanies victimhood, as well as the truth regarding systemic racism that is indeed supported, often implicitly and complicity, by many whites, Mr. Dyson's proclamations cannot and should not be tolerated. Their racial animosity and divisiveness need to be categorically rejected in place for substantive change and a unity of reason that can realize this country's promise of liberty and justice for all- only from a unity of ideas can racial unity follow, not from knee-jerk self-righteous bullshit like "[I]t is clear that you, white America, will never understand us". Here endeth the lesson, Mr. Dyson.