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White hysteria, Critical Race Theory, and eyes that dare not see
Critical Race Theory is a relatively new analytical approach to describing the reality of systemic racism. But Black observers (and some honest white ones) have been describing the systemic evil of white American (and European) racism in bracing ways for hundreds of years. I have found pungent quotes describing the damage to white people caused by racism from the 15th century and in every century since.
My hypothesis is that it is not just the fear of lost power that causes today’s white hysteria, which is currently targeted, absurdly enough, at an arcane intellectual theory. It is, instead, what happens when people who have been lying to themselves for hundreds of years are challenged. We wish to retain not just our supremacy but our innocence. It is the challenging of our innocence that so outrages us.
James Baldwin saw it in 1963. This is from The Fire Next Time: “It is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.” Ta-Nehisi Coates saw it in 2015. This is from Between the World and Me: “The mettle that it takes to look away from the horror of our prison system, from police forces transformed into armies, from the long war against the Black body, is not forged overnight. This is the practiced habit of jabbing out one’s eyes and forgetting the work of one’s hands.”
The next time you see angry white mobs storming school board meetings, and legislators banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory, just picture people jabbing their own eyes out so they can feel better about what they have made themselves unable to see.
https://baptistnews.com/article/white-hysteria-critical-race-theory-and-eyes-that-dare-not-see/?fbclid=IwAR1sR5EnZXn_QOCdyuhDSTdCO4FDdrKjHi0O1eyl5puhSqshqQr75-98rFk#.YONa_BNKjOSMy hypothesis is that it is not just the fear of lost power that causes today’s white hysteria, which is currently targeted, absurdly enough, at an arcane intellectual theory. It is, instead, what happens when people who have been lying to themselves for hundreds of years are challenged. We wish to retain not just our supremacy but our innocence. It is the challenging of our innocence that so outrages us.
James Baldwin saw it in 1963. This is from The Fire Next Time: “It is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.” Ta-Nehisi Coates saw it in 2015. This is from Between the World and Me: “The mettle that it takes to look away from the horror of our prison system, from police forces transformed into armies, from the long war against the Black body, is not forged overnight. This is the practiced habit of jabbing out one’s eyes and forgetting the work of one’s hands.”
The next time you see angry white mobs storming school board meetings, and legislators banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory, just picture people jabbing their own eyes out so they can feel better about what they have made themselves unable to see.
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