To be black was to confront, and to be forced to alter, a condition forged in history. To be white was to be forced to digest a delusion called white supremacy. Indeed, without confronting the history that has either given white people an identity or divested them of it, it is hardly possible for anyone who thinks of himself as white to know what the black person is talking about at all. Or to know what education is.
James Baldwin, from the essay, "Dark Days"
"But" but" Maybe so and so was saying--
"Maybe what so and so meant to say what--
I've heard these defensive comebacks for so long, I hear them even when the speaker is no longer confronting me. And usually, the speaker is a white American. And no matter how old or how much education, in white supremacy ideology, no matter what experiences granted me a different perspective on the speaker's use of the word "black-- "dragged out to sound like dirt: "blaaaaack." I've always misunderstood or misinterpreted the speaker I'm informed.
"Maybe you're too sensitive. Too critical."
"Racist!"
But always wrong!
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