Facebook Publication Date: 2/21/2019 15:02

Someone in the Lace on Race community offered a book suggestion before asking for my input. She course corrected, and asked if that was subtly undermining. I, perhaps to her surprise, answered that it was, partly because it was assumed that this was new information to me, and that I hadn’t thought about how and whether and when to present material.

To be clear, I am very careful of the material I share with LoR. I curate it with deep intention becaue i want to be sure it dovetails with the ethos and mission of the community we are building, and that it does not undermine our overarching message. But more than that–what we bring to you at Lace on Race is indeed thoughtful, not ad hoc or seat of the pants, or hastily assembled. For every meme and or article and or link that makes it, there are at least 10 that have been perused. To think otherwise, one might well be buying into a racist trope: that black people are incapable of complex thought and long term thinking; and that’s something to think as we contemplate again a president of color in less than two years.

We are not assumed to have the horsepower to make thoughtful discernments; so our words can always be taken with caveats. This allowance for the emotional but not the intellectual or the academic is what makes for dissonance when white people insist they respect us, and deep frustration for those of us who experience, on the daily the vast amount of daylight between how white people swear they see us, and how they actually behave around us.

This is not to say that I don’t welcome additonal resources; I do. But don’t be surprised if I demur on the suggestion; it may not be wrong per se; but not be ther right time, or the right fit, or the right voice.

As to the book in question, by D’Angelo: I don’t endorse books I haven’t yet read, and I haven’t read her latest; though her work is solid and I probably would endorse it, or at least parts of it. There are two problems here: one is that we are here doing our best to get white people to listen to and believe black experience without having to have it repackeged and regurgitated by white people so it can enjoy a legitimacy that white people, even progressive white people (sometimes expecally progressives) are loathe to extend to black people–even though little she says is original; and all of it can be found by black thinkers past and current.

This as well: while I am sure I would agree with the thrust of the book, I am also sure that there will be at least some divergence. I disagree with a lot of white thinkers, particularly in regard to primacy, priority, and policy.

The irony: that white people are, in the rare times they join the fiht with any degree of intention, come in directly as ‘commissioned officers’, with the privilege, perks, deference and all else, while the people , the people of color battlingfor years on every front are considered infantry or worse, cannon fodder. The commissioned officers get the attention, respect–and almost all of the resources.

This is not a slam on D’Angelo. Actually, I am probably going to bedoing sessions at a conference where she is the keynote–and the only paid speaker. If she isn’t paid, bet there’s a book table.

Which brings me to the last point, one I made in another post about a week ago, but is even more stark now; when it comes to racial justice work, the people white peiple are willing to trust and promote and support with their dollars are–wait for it–other white people.

Almost no one doing cutting edge work on the subject (almost exclusively people of color) can actually make a living at it; we are tentmakers–and when we try, the punishment from white people is swift and sure How dare we?

Meanwhile Robin, and Tim Wise, can. And do.

Do you see the imbalance of someone, however unintetentionally, profiting off of the pain and subjugation of your people, when it’s all I can do to get less than 1% (yep, that’s right) to fund and affirm and support this work with even a dollar?

This is important to discuss, because it goes to the heart of leadership, trust in the veracity of a black woman you say you respect, and acknowledgement that the work, and the woman who produces it, are both of value.

Comments, yes, please. No likes or hearts without comment.

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