"White fragility is the sort of powerful notion that, once articulated, becomes easily recognizable and widely applicable.... But stare at it a little longer..."

"... and one realizes how slippery it is, too. As defined by [author of 'White Fragility' Robin] DiAngelo, white fragility is irrefutable; any alternative perspective or counterargument is defeated by the concept itself. Either white people admit their inherent and unending racism and vow to work on their white fragility, in which case DiAngelo was correct in her assessment, or they resist such categorizations or question the interpretation of a particular incident, in which case they are only proving her point. Any dissent from 'White Fragility' is itself white fragility. From such circular logic do thought leaders and bestsellers arise. This book exists for white readers. 'I am white and am addressing a common white dynamic,' DiAngelo explains. 'I am mainly writing to a white audience; when I use the terms us and we, I am referring to the white collective.' It is always a collective, because DiAngelo regards individualism as an insidious ideology. 'White people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy,' DiAngelo writes, a system 'we either are unaware of or can never admit to ourselves.'... Progressive whites, those who consider themselves attuned to racial justice, are not exempt from DiAngelo’s analysis. If anything, they are more susceptible to it. 'I believe that white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color,' she writes. '[T]o the degree that we think we have arrived, we will put our energy into making sure that others see us as having arrived...'... It is a bleak view, one in which all political and moral beliefs are reduced to posturing and hypocrisy...."

Writes Carlos Lozada in "White fragility is real. But ‘White Fragility’ is flawed," reviewing the book "WHITE FRAGILITY: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism" in The Washington Post.

"I admit to having a complicated relationship with Aunt Jemima... For a period of time in the late 1940s and early 1950s, my grandmother, Ione Brown..."

"... was part of an army of women who worked as traveling Aunt Jemimas, visiting small-town fairs and rotary-club breakfasts to conduct pancake-making demonstrations at a time when the notion of ready-mix convenience cooking was new. I never knew about my grandmother’s work until long after she died... [W]hile researching a family memoir... I learned that she made good money and covered a region including Iowa, the Dakotas, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. She was often treated like a celebrity in small towns, but could not stay in local hotels. She kept an eye out for houses that had a small sign in the window that said 'TOURIST,' a code for homes that provided lodging and meals to black people.... As a family, we are offended by the caricature that Aunt Jemima represents, but deeply proud of the way my grandmother used the stage that was available to lift herself up. You see, in those days Aunt Jemima didn’t look like the lady you see on the box today. She was a slave woman, and Ione was expected to act and talk like a slave woman, using the kind of broken patois that blighted the full-page ads in magazines like Women’s Day and Life.... One of the things that irks me most about the Jemima brand is the way the mammy stereotype hijacked what should be an endearing image for black America and tried to turn it into something toxic. Most of us have someone in our family with fleshy arms and a loving smile who serves up cherished advice along with delicious food. They are our aunts and mothers and grandmothers. Our godmothers. Our queens.
You tried to make us ashamed of what Aunt Jemima stood for."

From "Why did it take so long to set Aunt Jemima free?" by Michele L. Norris (WaPo). (Quaker Foods announced that it is retiring the Aunt Jemima brand because to "make progress toward racial equality.")

ADDED: At the NY Post, I'm seeing "After Aunt Jemima, people call to cancel Uncle Ben’s and Mrs. Butterworth’s." I understand about Uncle Ben, but Mrs. Butterworth? I've never perceived Mrs. Butterworth as black.

The syrup, sold in a matronly woman-shaped bottle, is accused of being rooted in mammy culture and was modeled after the body of Thelma “Butterfly” McQueen, the black actress who played Prissy in “Gone With The Wind.” The Jim Crow-era “mammy” character was often used to show that black women were happy working in white households....

That's news to me. I looked up Mrs. Butterworth on Wikipedia and it did not contain that information. I did learn that the voice for the character was done by Mary Kay Bergman, who looked like this:

"Her parents were Jewish," and she died by suicide at the age of 38 in 1999. She was the original lead female voice on "South Park."

Her characters included Liane Cartman, Sheila Broflovski, Shelly Marsh, Sharon Marsh, Carol McCormick and Wendy Testaburger.... Bergman credited South Park for pulling her out of a typecasting rut. 'I'm known for these sweet, cute little characters,' she said, noting her roles in various Disney films. "So I've been doing them forever. My agents were trying to submit me on shows that are edgy, and they're laughing, 'Mary Kay, are you kidding? No way!'" After Bergman's death, the two episodes "Starvin' Marvin in Space" (the final episode for which she recorded original dialogue) and "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics" (the final episode in which her voice was used via archive footage) were dedicated in her memory.

No comment on the role of Starvin' Marvin and Mr. Hankey in the quest for progress toward racial equality. RIP Mary Kay Bergman. Watch this (it's phenomenal):



Mrs. Butterworth voice at 1:11.

ADDED: Norris writes that her grandmother, in the role of Aunt Jemima had to use a "kind of broken patois." And I see in the comments that David Begley is asking, "Just asking, but isn’t 'broken patois' the language of today’s rap music?" Which makes me wonder, what's wrong with a patois? To answer my own question, I naturally look up "patois" in the OED.

I see that it's "dialect spoken by the people of a particular region (esp. of France or French-speaking Switzerland), and differing substantially from the standard written language of the country" or — and this is "frequently depreciative" — "a regional dialect; a variety of language specific to a particular area, nationality, etc., which is considered to differ from the standard or orthodox version."

I was intrigued by this example from "The Sheltering Sky" by Paul Bowles (who was born in New York City):

Then he remembered having heard that Americans did not speak English in any case, that they had a patois which only they could understand among themselves. The most unpleasant part of the situation to him was the fact that he would be in bed, while the American would be free to roam about the room, would enjoy all the advantages, physical and moral.

"[W]hen things get real — really murderous, really tragic, really violent or aggressive — my white, liberal, educated friends already know what to do. What they do is read."

"And talk about their reading. What they do is listen. And talk about how they listened. What they do is never enough. This isn’t the time to circle up with other white people and discuss black pain in the abstract; it’s the time to acknowledge and examine the pain they’ve personally caused. Black people live and die every day under the burdens of a racism more insidious than the current virus that’s also disproportionately killing us. And yet white people tend to take a slow route to meaningful activism, locked in familiar patterns, seemingly uninterested in really advancing progress. Theirs is still a world of signs and signaling, where actions like joining book clubs — often based in some 'meaningfully curated' readings that are probably easy to name: 'White Fragility,' 'How to Be an Anti-Racist,' 'Between the World and Me,' maybe even 'All About Love' — take precedence.... [In social media] people write long posts about the need to examine white privilege, to 'name white supremacy,' and to either proudly denounce family members or call them in to conversations.... ... I know what happens next. In a handful of Sundays, my social media feeds will no longer have my white allies 'This'-ing, or unpacking their whiteness or privilege, or nudging their kids to put down their tablets and march. Their book clubs will do what all book clubs do: devolve into routine reschedulings and cancellations; turn into collective apologies for not doing the reading or meta-conversations about what everyone should pretend to read next; finally become occasional opportunities to catch up over wine...."

From "When black people are in pain, white people just join book clubs/I’m caught in a time loop where my white friends and acquaintances perform the same pieties over and over again" by Tre Johnson (WaPo). If you're wondering what, in Johnson's view, is the right response, I can pick out the 2 words where he says it, and when you see them, you may think it's no wonder white people don't just snap to it and do what needs to be done: "dismantle systems."

ADDED: I read the top few highest-rated comments at the link, and they were all taking issue with Johnson's stereotyping of white people. What percentage of white people react to racial strife by cuddling up in book clubs murmuring about "White Fragility" and "Between the World and Me"?

"Yes, racism is real, but as a crucial factor that enables or prevents social advancement, it has lost a lot of force in the past half century."

"I am sure that there are deep-seated inequality problems in America that affect everyone, and black people in particular. Some are institutional, but many have to do with the culture and behavior of black people themselves. I’m talking about lack of educational achievement, and about the higher crime rate; I’m talking about the collapse of the black family. Seven out of ten black children are born outside of marriage. It is a plausible surmise that households where a mother is present, but no father, are more likely to produce adolescent males with behavioral problems. People are frustrated that conventional political solutions, such as expanding anti-discrimination and welfare programs, have not worked. That’s why they take refuge in the empty thesis of racism. They speak of 1619, when the first blacks landed in America, and they speak of slavery, which was abolished more than 150 years ago. They talk of 'centuries of oppression.' But, they don’t talk about how the social condition of blacks in America well may have been healthier in 1950 than it is today—the integrity of family structure, the level of the crime rate, the relationship to work of the poorly educated, and the values with which many children are raised.... I think we do not live in a really free space where we can discuss these questions. Pressure to conform is intense because nobody wants to give the impression that they stand on the wrong side of the great moral questions of our time.... Because racists say that black crime is terrible, you are afraid even to address the issue and admit that it may be part of the problem.... So you’d rather be silent. And that gets us nowhere—or rather, it gets us to where we are today."

From says Glenn Loury in "Racism Is An Empty Thesis/An African-American professor says that blacks hold their fate in their own hands" (City Journal).

"In their eagerness to display dazzling empathy and solidarity, they only muddied the current conversation about race."

Writes Robin Givhan in "Congress’s kente cloth spectacle was a mess of contradictions" (WaPo).

A brief history of kente cloth would emphasize that it is the pride of Ghana, where it originated, and it is typically worn on special occasions....

[The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 isn't] “black” legislation. No one, whatever their race or ethnicity, should want inhumane police officers roaming through their city....

The stoles read as a vague and confused declaration by lawmakers that they stood together out of respect for the African-ness of their fellow citizens. What they needed to emphasize with their stagecraft is that this is a particularly American issue — a defect woven into our own country’s fabric.

"The Compton Cowboys, a close-knit club of friends, joined thousands of people for a peaceful trip through Compton on Sunday."

"The club, which formed in 2017 to dispel stereotypes against black people, welcomed all riders for a march from Gateway Towne Center to Compton City Hall."

"Seeing the brutality of a white power structure toward its poor black citizens [on the streets of Ferguson], and at its rawest, helped shape the way a generation of reporters..."

"... most of them black, looked at their jobs when they returned to their newsrooms. And by 2014... Twitter...  offered a counterweight to their newsrooms, which over the years had sought to hire black reporters on the unspoken condition that they bite their tongues about racism. Now, as America is wrestling with the surging of a moment that began in August 2014, its biggest newsrooms are trying to find common ground between a tradition that aims to persuade the widest possible audience that its reporting is neutral and journalists who believe that fairness on issues from race to Donald Trump requires clear moral calls.... The fights at The Times are particularly intense because Mr. Sulzberger is now considering candidates to replace the executive editor, Dean Baquet, in 2022, the year he turns 66. Competing candidates represent different visions for the paper, and Mr. Bennet had embodied a particular kind of ecumenical establishment politics. But the Cotton debacle had clearly endangered Mr. Bennet’s future. When the highly regarded Sunday Business editor, Nick Summers, said in a Google Hangout meeting last Thursday that he wouldn’t work for Mr. Bennet, he drew agreement from colleagues in a chat window.... Mr. Sulzberger... told me... 'We’re not retreating from the principles of independence and objectivity. We don’t pretend to be objective about things like human rights and racism.'"

Writes Ben Smith in "Inside the Revolts Erupting in America’s Big Newsrooms/Staff members’ demands helped end the tenure of James Bennet as Opinion editor of The New York Times. And they are generating tension at The Washington Post. Part of the story starts in Ferguson, Mo." (NYT).

We’re not retreating from the principles of... objectivity. We don’t pretend to be objective....

Sign posted in my neighborhood tells white people we "don't get to criticize" the choice of protesters to resort to rioting.

It's "white privilege," we are told, to express a desire for order and security:



A second sign attempts to convince us to abolish the police because they "uphold an inherently racist system" and "protect whiteness and capitalism":



ADDED: I anticipate that my post title will be criticized on the ground that there were a lot of peaceful protesters and we don't know whether any of them participated in anything that can properly be called "rioting." I want to keep the facts straight, and I want to know the facts. I agree that that those who broke windows and looted shops may have been an entirely different set of people from the people who were there to protest police brutality. I await the news reports and investigations that can bring these facts to light. I keep looking!

But that post title is just telling you what the sign says! It's one of the many problems with the sign. Whoever wrote that sign made no effort to separate the peaceful protesters from the rioters. It tells me to shut up about any objection I might have to the rioting because those in the oppressed group get to choose how to fight their oppression. This implies that the form of protest chosen was, in fact, theft and vandalism, and white people are not even allowed to criticize this expression.

"Try to imagine Muhammad Ali without Little Richard’s winking persona, his swing and swagger ('I am the King!')."

"Try to imagine James Brown, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Janis Joplin, Elton John, and Prince without his electrical charge. Little Richard was an original, and he did not hesitate to remind his students of their debt. He once looked into a television camera and, with affection, told Prince, 'I was wearing purple before you was wearing it!'... Richard Penniman was born in 1932 into a large, poor Christian family, in Macon, Georgia. His father was a brick mason and a bootlegger. One of Richard’s legs was shorter than the other, making him a source of mockery among other children. 'They thought I was trying to twist and walk feminine... The kids would call me faggot, sissy, freak.'... Even as a child singer, Richard was known for his high range and incredible volume. But, in his father’s eyes, he was unbearably effeminate and not to be tolerated. When Richard was a teen-ager, he was thrown out of the house and went to live with Ann and Johnny Johnson, a white couple who ran a local venue, the Tick Tock Club.... Throughout his teens, he was in and out of outfits like Buster Brown’s Orchestra (where he got the name Little Richard) and the Tidy Jolly Steppers. He sang, sometimes wearing a red evening gown, under the name Princess Lavonne, in Sugarfoot Sam’s Minstrel Show."

From "Little Richard, the Great Innovator of Rock and Roll" by David Remnick (The New Yorker).

I wanted to find a photograph of Little Richard in the Princess Lavonne persona. I did find this description at Talkhouse, "Pour on the Steam: Little Richard at Age 19/Adam Weiner (Low Cut Connie) tells a tale of magical personhood in a Macon, Georgia bus station":

It was a medicine show spiritualist pseudo-psychic passing through town named Doctor Nobilio who was the first to tell Richard he would be massively famous—he just needed to get the hell out of Macon. He quit high school and joined up with a series of amazingly-titled rinky-dink traveling shows, initially billed as Little Richard, and then as the great Princess Lavonne. He performed with Dr. Hudson’s Medicine Show, Sugarfoot Sam from Alabam, the Tidy Jolly Steppers, and the Broadway Follies. Princess Lavonne was an intense, hilarious Queen in Pancake 31 makeup. He worked on his schtick, but ultimately was an awkward drag performer. He had a natural gift to electrify and seduce, but with his mismatched legs, he couldn’t figure out how to walk or dance in heels so he would just stand still and wait for someone to open and close the curtain...

I'd also love to hear the story from the perspective of Ann and Johnny Johnson. Who were these white people who took in Little Richard when his father was so cruel to him? Or was his father cruel to him?

Bud Penniman. What voice did that man have?

"Melville’s ever-philosophical narrator, Ishmael, asks: 'Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that.'"

"From a world he experienced as spherical from atop ships’ masts, Melville perceived a sea-level humanity, embracing and celebrating the latitudes and longitudes of human variation, now termed diversity. When Ishmael finds himself compelled to share a blanket at the sold-out Spouter Inn, he declares, 'No man prefers to sleep two in a bed.' But he settles in, waiting for his mysterious South Seas roommate who, he’s informed, is peddling a shrunken head on the streets of New Bedford. Queequeg’s appearance terrifies Ishmael mute. But after things equilibrate, Ishmael reconsiders: 'For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal … a human being just as I am. … Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.'... Reflecting on Queequeg’s tatted visage, he concludes: 'Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face — at least to my taste — his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. … Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed.'... Nearly two centuries ago, Melville showed us how easy it is to welcome as our own the touches of others, their equivalent colors, customs and beliefs; their journeys, their transitions. And to remember those who, unwelcomed, suffered. How much could have been avoided, and embraced, had we heeded...."

From "Melville’s Whale Was a Warning We Failed to Heed" (NYT).