Hush Now, Brown Person, I’ll Do The Talking
Well, here’s a thing. It turns out that “white supremacy” is surprisingly diverse. Or, as the Washington Post’s headline puts it,
To Understand Trump’s support, we must think in terms of multiracial Whiteness.
The author of what follows, Ms Cristina Beltrán, is “an associate professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University.” Her areas of expertise are needless to say sweeping and numerous, extending from “feminist theory” to “Latinx, and race & gender politic,” because “Latinx” and “politic” is how we do things now. Being a leftist academic, Ms Beltrán is of course mystified by the existence of non-white Trump supporters and, by extension, non-white people who dare to deviate from her own leftist assumptions. And so, inevitably, contortions ensue:
What are we to make of… Latino voters inspired by Trump? And what are we to make of unmistakably White mob violence that also includes non-White participants? I call this phenomenon multiracial whiteness — the promise that they, too, can lay claim to the politics of aggression, exclusion and domination.
Given last year’s scenes of rioting, looting and generally feral behaviour, and the feats of illogic to excuse such things – to say nothing of crime statistics over the last fifty years – the conceit that non-white people have somehow been excluded from participation in “mob violence” and “the politics of aggression” is faintly comical. But Ms Beltrán is not a woman to be impeded by observable reality, and hurries instead to list the many shortcomings of Donald Trump, whose seductive powers are, it would seem, dark and diabolical:
Trump… knows nothing of the history of Latinos in the United States and rarely even pretends to find value in Latinos’ distinct identities. Rather than offering his non-White voters recognition, Trump has offered them multiracial whiteness.
If the concept of “multiracial whiteness” sounds a tad unobvious and contrived, Ms Beltrán elaborates:
Multiracial whiteness reflects an understanding of whiteness as a political colour and not simply a racial identity — a discriminatory worldview in which feelings of freedom and belonging are produced through the persecution and dehumanisation of others.
“Multiracial whiteness” is, we’re told, “rooted in… indigenous dispossession and anti-blackness,” and is “a form of hierarchy in which the standing of one section of the population is premised on the debasement of others.” Motives that are perhaps more obvious than persecution, a little more mundane, are simply not considered. Readers may also wish to ponder how a distaste for racial preoccupation is framed, rather boldly, as “a discriminatory worldview.”
Multiracial whiteness promises Latino Trump supporters freedom from the politics of diversity and recognition. For voters who see the very act of acknowledging one’s racial identity as itself racist, the politics of multiracial whiteness reinforces their desired approach to colour-blind individualism.
That being bad, you see.
In the politics of multiracial whiteness, anyone can join the MAGA movement and engage in the wild freedom of unbridled rage and conspiracy theories.
That a non-white person might not be impressed by racial exoticism and its cartoonish condescension, as favoured by leftist academics who use the word “Latinx” unironically, does not appear to have occurred to Ms Beltrán. Apparently, the only conceivable motive to shun such racial fixations, in which individual identity must take second place to “the politics of diversity,” i.e., playing the racial mascot, is to indulge in “conspiracy theories” and “unbridled rage.”
Examples of these unsavoury behaviours include looking askance at the Black Lives Matter movement – a kind of looking that is clearly forbidden – and a concern that a limitless influx of illegal – sorry, “undocumented” – immigrants may not be entirely to the nation’s advantage. These fairly mainstream concerns, shared by millions regardless of pigmentation, are of course diminished and made to sound outlandish by equating them with a belief that all Muslims are terrorists, and that Democrats are “blood-drinking paedophiles.” At which point, readers may wish to consider Ms Beltrán’s own readiness to mouth fanciful conspiracies, not least regarding “whiteness” and its supposed power to rob brown-skinned people of all agency.
In the post-Trump era, the challenge will be to prevail over the extremism of Trump’s White majority while trying to prevent the politics of whiteness from becoming an increasingly multiracial affair.
For Ms Beltrán, then, those who tire of racial tribalism and identitarian drama, and who prefer to be engaged with as individuals, are merely surrendering to “whiteness” and “white supremacy,” and are therefore the enemy, traitorous, or at best, dupes. And for Ms Beltrán, the extremist is not the person who fixates on race as the overriding characteristic and sole basis for “recognition” – as the ideological mass around which all else must revolve – but the person who doesn’t.
Via Damian Counsell, who adds,
BLACK PEOPLE! Remember: You’re only black if white people give you permission to be.
Wokeness. Not even once.
I think you’ve just described much of the orthodox media.
[ Reaches for revolver. ]
So: “When I see “OT” I reach for my revolver.”
I never expected that, David. [makes note to shop for Hugo Boss suits]
Would it be safe to speculate that Ms Cristina Beltrán’s ancestors engaged in wholesale slaughter of an indigenous peoples? Just wondering…
From her page at nyu.edu:
“2012 Casa de Las Americas Literary Prize for the Best Book in Studies of Latinos in the United States.
2011 Winner of the American Political Science Association’s Ralph Bunche Award for the best book in political science on ethnic and cultural pluralism.
2011 Winner of the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association for the best book on Racial and Ethnic Political Identities, Ideologies, and Theories.”
Is there a single crazy left-wing radical in the US who hasn’t won a prize of some kind?
Surely you’ve heard. It’s been the rule for decades now. Everybody gets a trophy.
Not enough Darwin Awards, though.
Not enough Darwin Awards, though.
Well when you have to make one for every single person in Western Civilization for the last 20-30 years, it’s hard to keep them in stock.
Is there a single crazy left-wing radical in the US who hasn’t won a prize of some kind?
My father used to say, “What do you want a medal or a chest to pin it to?” We know what the left-wing radical wants.
it’s hard to keep them in stock.
The nice part about a posthumous award…you don’t have to keep them in stock.
The nice part about a posthumous award…you don’t have to keep them in stock.
If somebody showed up to collect his award I would be very worried.
OT (sorry, David), but here’s a sentence I never thought I’d ever read:
Hmmm. Seems… fishy.
(I’ll let myself out…)
David, may I borrow your revolver?
Well when you have to make one for every single person in Western Civilization for the last 20-30 years, it’s hard to keep them in stock.
Fair enough, but the US was using the Purple Heart decorations that were made prior to the scheduled invasions of Japan until sometime this century. (Even so, the only reason that the US ran out was due to water damage in one storage site.)
The messages in Fresh Prince aren’t as blatant as in today’s media (*cough*DearWypipo*cough) but they’re there. As I said, Fresh Prince is just a copy of Family Ties: the formerly radical 60’s activists (Phil and Vivian) grow up to become respected middle-class bourgeoisie (well, wealthy af) and their children become stereotypes of the the things they fought against. Hilary is Mallory, the vapid, materialistic consumerite and Carlton is the Alex P. Keaton (there’s even a cute Jennifer/Ashley moppet). In the same way that Alex was a source of dismay to his parents for being a corporate capitalist forever sucking up to any tycoon the writers injected, Carlton is a source of dismay to Will for trying so hard to be a WASP. The show’s available on a number of streaming services. Power through the first season, when most of the comedy still revolved around the Philly/Bel Air culture divide, and you’ll see it.
You’re right about Frasier, but it’s for a different reason. One of the common formats for comedies is The Farmer in the Dell[1], where a reasonably normal, well-rounded audience-identification figure is the main character surrounded by a variety of unrealistic one-dimensional comic stereotypes. The stereotypes bouncing off of the main character and his attempts to deal with their shenanigans forms the comedy. Frasier, The Muppet Show, The Orville, Burn Notice, Arrested Development – you’ve seen this a million times. Fresh Prince isn’t that, though – it’s a family-com crossed with a bit of the Beverley Hillbillies.
[1] from the children’s game where the farmer starts out in the middle of a circle of the other children, from which is drawn the rest of the characters in the verses.
… the US was using the Purple Heart decorations that were made prior to the scheduled invasions of Japan until sometime this century.
The reason being that the Allies expected a butcher’s bill of over one million allied combatants if there was a Normandy-style invasion, hence the huge number of medals produced. That’s one reason the A-Bomb was used: it probably saved millions of people overall, including my father-in-law held in a POW camp not all that far from Hiroshima and facing, as were all POWs held by the Japanese, instant death if such an invasion was attempted. Of course one can talk till blue in the face to modern-day woke students about the realities of WW II, but their ignorance is beyond correction.
unmistakably White
band name, as is unmistakably White mob violence and I’m really not sure which I prefer.
That.
Or, “When brown-skinned people misbehave or just disagree with me, which is worse, this is always and forever the fault of white people, somehow.”
Again, I paraphrase, but not, I think, outrageously. And so, this woke piety insults both the alleged corrupter, Bad Whitey, and the supposed victim, The Easily Led Brown Person With No Mind Of His Own.
And they say these things, and write these things, while waiting for applause and in-group approval. Which of course they get.
They’re all Latinx unless they support Trump then saying Latino is fine.
Of course one can talk till blue in the face to modern-day woke students about the realities of WW II, but their ignorance is beyond correction.
I’m old enough to have had an uncle that served on a destroyer around Iwo Jima that mentioned that he saw a couple of squads of US Marines attempting to charge a Japanese machine gun. He never mentioned if said machine gun was ever taken out by US Marine infantry.
I’m also young enough to have threatened one of my platoon’s tank commanders who told me that he was going to take *his* tank to the Rhine while the rest of us were to head in a more eastern direction (as far as I know, where I should have been going will not be declassified until 2040) that he’d better be out of main gun range before I got to my tank.
I have other stories about freezing in 60 ton heat sinks and so forth that would merely indicate that as a youth, I thought the greatest dangers to my country were external.
Silly, silly, and stupid younger me.
‘unmistakably White’
band name, as is ‘unmistakably White mob violence’ and I’m really not sure which I prefer.
I’ve forgotten who the local authority is on these matters, but isn’t ‘Unmistakably White’ the band name, and ‘Unmistakably White Mob Violence’ their breakout album?
Were they formed before or after Average White Band?
Of course one can talk till blue in the face to modern-day woke students about the realities of WW II, but their ignorance is beyond correction.
My father fought in the US Army from the Aleutian campaign, Kwajalein, Philippines (where he was wounded by sniper fire), and Okinawa. After the intense fighting on Okinawa he was convinced he wouldn’t be going home. He always said that bomb saved his life. And now our generation is pissing those freedoms away. Wife reads this morning that Biden picked the Pennsylvania Tranny for our nation’s new “health” secretary. A nation so weak cannot long endure. It’s not like we haven’t been warned. Before he passed, well most of my life really, he warned me about such things. Yet what is going on today is beyond his worst expectations.
Biden picked the Pennsylvania Tranny for our nation’s new “health” secretary.
And a black racial supremacist to head the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice.
As for Biden’s plans to befriend Iran’s ruling mullahs, China’s genocidal rulers, and so on, need I say anything?
Biden’s administration, if nothing else, will be entertaining, if not comedic, laughable, and farcical. One can only hope for the internal contradictions to cancel themselves into disarray, resulting in little harm to the American polity. I fear I’m too optimistic.
One can only hope the likes of this silly twit of an NYU associate professor keeps opening her mouth. I prefer the idiots in plain sight.
Pennsylvania Tranny
I think I remember seeing him play against Willie Mosconi when I was a kid. Heck of a billiards match.
Nah. Not that Pennsylvania. I think you’re thinking of U.J. Puckett and Minnesota Fats.
And they say these things, and write these things, while waiting for applause and in-group approval. Which of course they get.
Reading the bios of some of the people who just LURVED the award-winning Latinx Professor’s column made me yearn for the end of the world. Thanks, David!
I was fairly certain that “Ethereal Bisexual Chanda Prescod-Weinstein” (her bio: “all Black/all Jewish. Prof: Particle Physics/Astro, Cosmology & feminist STS. queer&agender woman/she. creator: Decolonising Sci Reading List”) was a parody account, but apparently this creature exists. We’re screwed.
but apparently this creature exists.
I didn’t see the tweet, but there is a Ms Prescod-Weinstein who’s been mentioned here before, as when insisting that we must have deaf and disabled astronauts. Because space exploration just isn’t difficult enough and dangerous enough as it is. And choosing astronauts with hearing problems, poor eyesight and motor-control issues will make things much more exciting.
She’s described as a “thought leader.”
but there is a Ms Prescod-Weinstein who’s been mentioned here before, as when insisting that we must have deaf and disabled astronauts.
Sounds like a casting meeting for Big Brother.
Prof: Particle Physics/Astro, Cosmology
These are not real subjects.
but apparently this creature exists.
If you watch the video at the link, it’s quite revealing. Ms Prescod-Weinstein is a twitchy, neurotic thing with tediously woke pretentions and a remarkable inability to answer a straightforward and pertinent question.
She and her fellow self-congratulating “thought leaders” are supposed to be talking about the temperaments and qualities required to explore space, a subject in which they seemingly have little interest. The ostensible topic is largely, almost entirely, ignored, and questions of even rudimentary practicalities – the first things one might ask – leave them silent and useless. And so, they opt instead to disdain white people, especially white men, and of course Donald Trump. These are the enthusiasms foremost in their minds.
And this is the standard now, at least in their circles.
Is this Beltran woman a comedienne? Her utter nonsense did raise a smile.
I like to smoke pot, steal televisions and rape white colored women.I can’t read or write in English (or any other language) and I despise white colored people.
That makes me a black person.