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hillratJason Johnson
11/14/17 10:18am
When folks present themselves in a way that appeals to most middle-class bourgeois – that’s the moment when whiteness is at its most threatened.
This is me everyday at work. White people love to find out that I was an athlete freshman year of college because it allows them to put me into some neat little box, “Athletic black guy goes to college and escapes the hood.” But good lord let them find out that I’m the fuck up in my family (the only one without an advanced degree) and watch their brains melt out of their ear. It’s like the idea that there are whole extended families full of college educated Black people doesn’t even compute to them and when it does, it’s extremely threatening.
I was recently working for this one FLAMING ASSHOLE that insisted on calling me by my first name (even my Mom calls me by my last name) as some sort of passive aggressive power play. Why? The idea that I was younger, stronger, and better looking than him was OK; but when it became clear to him that all the things he thought made him superior and sophisticated were things I just kind of did as a matter of course, he felt threatened and had to assert himself in some kind of way . . . .even though I worked for him.
#SAD
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  KC Complains A Lothillrat
  11/14/17 10:34am
  The student-athlete thing goes hand in hand with the “black people get everything for free” mentality that so many white people seem to have.
  If I had a dime for every white person who told me that I could go back to school on a scholarship because there’s “programs for people like me”, I’d have TOO MANY DIMES.
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  hillratKC Complains A Lot
  11/14/17 11:07am
  Funny thing about me being a “college athlete” is that I wasn’t even recruited, I just happened to know some dudes on the team and they told me to try out and I made it. But it fits the narrative, so people like to focus on it.
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Cabbage Patch MatherJason Johnson
11/14/17 9:51am
“You can tell Obama ran scared. And I don’t mean paralyzed by fear, I mean, We gotta be on 10 constantly. We gotta always be on point. I think that’s kinda a very black thing. I think that we should not be misled into not thinking about the impact that has on the larger populace.”
Not to rehash the past 8 years or anything, but that sums up the reason Obama won and Hillary didn’t.
Obama went out of his way to explain every single detail of every hint of a policy move to the American people, both during his campaigns and throughout his presidency. He walked on eggshells of eggshells to appear balanced, magnanimous, and understanding of the needs of everyone in this country, and yet the Republicans still wove and successfully peddled to their base this narrative that Obama was hell bent on stealing the country from “hard working Americans.”
I voted for Hillary. I appreciated her intellect and thought she’d do a pretty good job moving the country forward incrementally. But, let’s face it: there was more than a little arrogance in the way she campaigned (or, didn’t campaign), all but completely ignored a number of states, and eyerolled her way through much of the runup to the election.
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  KC Complains A LotCabbage Patch Mather
  11/14/17 10:30am
  An underplayed aspect of Obama’s campaign and Presidency was how fucking *good* he had to be to be the first African Americans President.
  Coates is right; Obama was always on point. He was meticulous and on point and prepared. He was never not ON, and I think that’s how most black people operate, at least when they’re trying to get ahead in corporate America. You can’t afford to be lazy or appear to not know what you know, because they’ll take every opportunity to use that against you. Obama worked and campaigned like he was 10 points behind no matter what.
  I think Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both approached their campaigns as “I should win because I deserve to win”, and neither one seemed to fight and scrap to be ON all the time. It speaks to their white privilege that they thought the election would be a lay-up, only to get dunked on by President ScrotumFace McWannaBeHitler.
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  Dinosaurs and Nachos, Very Legal and Very Cool!KC Complains A Lot
  11/14/17 11:07am
  If I had one complaint about Bernie, it’s that he couldn’t stomach being treated like the female candidate during the primary campaign. He acted like he was supposed to get an equal seat at a table he didn’t help set and he (or his supporters) pissed and moaned that he wasn’t favored OVER Hillary. They still act like he should have just been given the nomination, primary voters be damned.
  But the corollary probably holds true for Hillary, as well. As much as I’m loathe to admit it, it’s possible that she lost because she wanted to run her campaign like she was a man. Well, she’s not. But the whole tone that she treated the campaign like she deserved it because it was “her time”? Probably because she ran with the same self-confidence a man would have.
  A white man, clearly. She thought she was allowed bad days. Obama didn’t. Definitely a lot of food for thought here.
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Tim WernerJason Johnson
11/14/17 10:08am
If you imagine an America where only black people were allowed to vote and an America where only white people voted, I think it’s pretty clear which one of those two Americas would be better governed, more successful and more respected in the world. White people know this at least subconsciously - and loathe it, because it runs counter to the engrained belief of white superiority, black failure and a lack of political agency and literacy among blacks.
The America where only white people voted would be Putinist Russia, a deeply corrupt, impoverished, Christian-white supremacist oligarchy under one party authoritarian rule. The other would be a liberal, secular center-left democracy like Germany or Sweden with a successful and diversified economy.
There’s a reason why those southern states where the white vote is still king rank at the bottom of every statistic from economics to education. Dewey Crowe is not splitting the atom anytime soon, which is why he believes that he should run the country.
Charles Bukowski put it like this:
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
Which essentially goes back to the point Ta-Nehisi makes here:
“We ran scared, and Hillary, they weren’t scared.” That always sticks with me. You can tell Obama ran scared. And I don’t mean paralyzed by fear, I mean, We gotta be on 10 constantly. We gotta always be on point. I think that’s kinda a very black thing.
The Obama speechwriters who run the Pod Save America podcast made the same point recently. President Obama knew from day one that he was on probation, and was going to be on probation for the entirety of his term. He knew he couldn’t have any shenanigans and corruption in the White House like George Bush, nor personal misconduct like Bill Clinton.
They hate him most of all because he succeeded in that regard and ran the cleanest White House since at least Carter. There’s just nothing they could pin on him, not even the birth certificate. All they were left with was petty bickering about ridiculous topics like the one time Obama wore a tan suit, or the other time he had mustard (mustard!) on his hamburger, even Sean Hannity had a hard time feigning believable outrage over that one. That must have been pretty frustrating for all those “conservative” whites, coming up short again and again against a black man who outsmarted and outworked them.
And yet they’re still full of confidence, though, but it’s still an unearned confidence, not born out of genuine experience, knowledge and wisdom - and that will be their downfall.

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  Cali4lifeTim Werner
  11/14/17 12:07pm
  Excellent.
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  Cookie MonsterTim Werner
  11/14/17 12:14pm
  This brilliant analysis. And me knew most of this on some level — there were those maps going around with electoral vote if only men voted, if only women voted, if only various races voted, etc. But it undeniable that America where white people stopped voting would be better country. Me just happy to hear someone say it (type it) out loud.
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JamieJason Johnson
11/14/17 10:53am
Damn.
My reaction after reading or hearing anything this man says.
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  Cali4lifeJamie
  11/14/17 12:09pm
  Ditto. And then I’m all.. you know, even IF I had done well in school like family and teachers and folk told me and even IF I read everything, studied abroad, sat on think tanks now, was a published author with acclaim, and even IF I was a much better version of me... I’d STILL not say what he says, how he says it, how he writes it and I’d STILL agree with your gif.
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  boredalwaysJamie
  11/14/17 1:27pm
  TBH, that’s my reaction just seeing his name.
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PaulMooneysTongueJason Johnson
11/14/17 10:08am
But there’s a part of me that thinks there’s a kind of death wish at work here (Mutual laughter).
There is. If our humanities are any reflection of our culture/ethos I would certainly say that current times reflect a culture/worship of death.
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  Ugh.PaulMooneysTongue
  11/14/17 10:33am
  Yep. The Right is locked into a particularly grave death spiral. “Eh, if times are changing, and we can either adapt or nosedive, we’ll nosedive on OUR terms.”
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  PaulMooneysTongueUgh.
  11/14/17 1:23pm
  Uh....I’m missing your point. How does the right have anything to do with my point and the arts glorifying/worshiping death? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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LawrenceJason Johnson
11/14/17 4:41pm
when [Black] folks present themselves in a way that appeals to most middle-class bourgeois, that’s the moment when whiteness is at its most threatened. Because whiteness itself is based on a set of values they think they have a monopoly on.
I think this statement cuts deep. I wish he expounded on this thought. I wish he had listed the values.
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  Rooo sez BISH PLZLawrence
  11/14/17 8:06pm
  You can journal it yourself and see what bubbles up, maybe ...
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