POSTED BY MARTIN KICH
This item is a news update from the Boston Globe that was distributed today:
White people need to stop reinforcing the stereotype that White people are not just stupid but ridiculously so.
If I feel that I need to apologize for being White, it is because some people seem almost willfully intent on going out of their way to prove that the criticisms of White assumptions of cultural superiority are not only completely justified but also very likely grossly understated.
Over the last six months, this sort of incident has been in the news so prominently that the only alternative explanation is that the people raising these alarms live entirely news-free lives.
But, at the risk of making a tautological assertion, ignorance is simply no excuse for this level of stupidity.
And if these complaints leave me open to the charge that I am an elitist, then all I can say in my defense is that the bar for elitism is now being set extremely low.
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Stupidity let’s them off the hook. The structural problem is White supremacy. Instead of apologizing for being White, White people (myself included) have to get to work to dismantle White supremacy. White people built it, and White people have to tear it down. We can’t have Black people do all the work, as has been done since . . . .
I think you’re spot on in this observation: “Over the last six months, this sort of incident has been in the news so prominently that the only alternative explanation is that the people raising these alarms live entirely news-free lives.” I wouldn’t necessarily say that they live “news-free” lives, but that the “news” they get is selective and highly processed. My father-in-law used to say that he got his news from The Nation and read opinion pieces in US News & World Report (back when that was a thing)—but he also read the Financial Times. There are fewer and fewer people who go out of their way to read news that doesn’t agree with their political stance.