White Racism 101

Nice to see a professor and a university standing up to DeSantis.  The Florida governor has gone out of his way to pitch a "colorblind society," eliminating courses from the AP curriculum that present race and gender identification.  At Florida Gulf Coast University, Ted Thornhill is being quite blunt about it, teaching a course called "White Racism," in which he lays out the cold, hard facts as to how white Americans have created a system of racism that continues to this day.  He only has to point at his governor to prove it.

His central argument is that many Whites believe they live in a post-racial society thanks to Civil Rights legislation and the election of Barack Obama as president.  Yet, there is still so much discrimination in society, much of it institutionalized, making it even more difficult for persons of color to get a fair shake.  Everyday we see examples of this, yet this notion of a "colorblind society" has permeated the cultural narrative to the point you even hear persons of color promoting it, like Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, both of whom firmly believe that the United States is not racist.

Diversity has become a hot topic again with guys like Elon Musk and Bill Ackman going out of their way to pitch a post-racial society.  Ackman singled out Harvard's first black president, which he continuously harangued until charges of plagiarism brought her short tenure to an end.  This after going after other women presidents at MIT and Penn.  In his addled mind, these persons were simply diversity picks and not qualified for their positions.  He used charges of "antisemitism" as his crutch as they all spoke out against Israel's heinous policy toward Gaza.  He demanded on X and at a Congressional hearing sponsored by Freedom Caucus Republicans that they all resign.

Thornhill will no doubt find it tougher going forward with his class now that he is getting all this attention.  Already he is being attacked on X and getting death threats.  His article in The Conversation, posted on Yahoo! was filled with angry comments, most of them quite personal in nature.  Ironically, this just supports his argument, but unfortunately such irony is lost on most people.

Whites tend to be very "fragile" about their biases and bigotry.  They especially don't like to be called out.  Thornhill points to White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo, which describes why it is so hard for Whites to admit they are racist.  Not all readers were convinced of DiAngelo's defense of "unintentional racism." 

The fact is that most Blacks and indeed most persons of color live in marginalized communities.  It isn't a matter of choice, as many conservatives like to claim, but rather a form of institutional stratification, which makes it difficult for persons of color to get the loans that would allow them to live in predominantly white neighborhoods.  Even when they make the move they are often greeted by hostility.  One of the most notorious cases being when a white neighbor reported Henry Louis Gates breaking into into his own home and subsequently was arrested.  Barack Obama tried to use "beer diplomacy" to address the incident but to no avail.

Obama made the mistake early in his administration of pitching a form of "post-racialism" only to find it didn't gain him any new friends among conservatives, and only led to animosity among his progressive base for trying to be "white."  Obama eventually corrected himself and used the White House to accentuate his Black Presidency because it didn't really matter what he did.  A large cross-section of Americans refused to accept him as their leader.

In many ways this led to the Trump presidency, or what Van Jones called "whitelash" that infamous night when Trump was projected the winner on CNN.  Although you could also argue that Americans simply weren't prepared for another historic first - a woman president.  In many ways, Hillary's failed presidential bid mirrored Reconstruction America where black men were given the right to vote in the 15th amendment, but not women of all colors.  It would take another 50 years for that to happen.

One of the problems with singling out "white racism" is that we see racism, misogyny, and bigotry play out on so many levels, but Ted Thornhill draws a distinction in that racism toward blacks was institutionalized and became an endemic part of our culture.  I just think it is more convenient to deal with these forms of prejudice individually rather than to talk about them in a collective manner.  It is only when you get a person like Ketanji Brown Jackson that we have to address both the inherent racism and misogyny in our country that made it so difficult to finally have our first black woman Supreme Court Justice.

I'm sure Bill Ackman was against such a nomination as much as he was against Claudine Gay being Harvard's first black woman president.  In his privileged mind, this was a diversity pick despite Jackson being far more qualified than any of the three justices that Trump nominated during his term, including Amy Coney Barrett, who had very limited experience.  As it was, Brown's vote split pretty much along party lines with only three Republicans joining Democrats in affirming her nomination.

One would truly have to be blind, as Tim Scott appears to be, to not see the inherent racism and misogyny in our society.  He doesn't even realize that he is being used as a token by Trump to promote himself as some sort of post-racial president.  This reminds me of Dave Chappelle's biting characterization of Clayton Bigsby.  Yet, Tim persists.  This to me is the saddest thing about racism in this country in that persons of color are being used to promote an adamantly racist agenda.