THEY DON’T KNOW US: HOW MY FOLKS CAN WIN
In her new book NICE RACISM, which discusses how progressive whites cause racial harm, Robin DiAngelo argues that white folks see themselves as both individual and universal. It’s one of the best points made about race and racism. (Of course, white progressives have attacked the anti-racism white woman for taking money away from blacks who should be exploiting this anti-racism moment, proving her point that too many whites become very defensive when anyone suggests they might be racist). Because they see themselves as individuals, not representative of a race, whites don’t have to worry about what other whites do. White folks may have been ashamed that Donald Trump was President of their country (and most of them, even the less racist progressives, see the USA as their country), but they weren’t ashamed that he was white. Even the Scottish and German people show no signs of being embarrassed that he is from their ethnic tribes. They also don’t have to be ashamed of (or blamed for) what happened on 11/8/16, 11/3/20, or 1/6/21. All white folks have to say is, “I voted for Hillary and Joe,” or “I was appalled by what those MAGA people did at the Capitol,” and their consciences are clear. White women have been especially obnoxious during the last almost five years. The majority of them voted for Trump twice, and some of them were at the Capitol (two died there) on 1/6, yet they are still pretending that the real problem in America is toxic masculinity and sexual harassment from powerful men instead of white supremacist, possibly sexist white women destroying our country with their votes, their calls to the police, and their (figurative) rape screams. Although white women don’t speak for everyone as often as white men do, they too see themselves as universal. That’s why Cindy McCain could say in her recent book that Americans had not yet elected a woman President. As I pointed out in my review of that book, the majority of Americans elected a white woman as President in November, 2016, but because the majority of white folks, including women, voted for an insane, self-proclaimed sexual assaulter, a white supremacist, he won the rigged-against-urban-people-of-color-and-democracy electoral college and shamefully became our President. It must be nice being a white person. However, they have a major problem when dealing with black folks like me. They don’t know us the way we know them. The progressives can pretend that we’re all alike and so black folks will think and behave like them while the white supremacists can cling to their racist belief that all blacks are ignorant, lazy, and criminal, so they can “conquer” us by outthinking us or framing us for “crimes.”
When I encounter whites speaking for Americans or “all humans” on social media, I let them know that I won’t even try to speak for all black women born in Kentucky in 1949. In fact, if another black female was born in Henderson, Kentucky, on March 15, 1949, I won’t even speak for her. Because I know I’m not universal, I don’t assume that people think and behave like me. Therefore I’m less surprised and more prepared when other people, no matter their race, gender, generation, class, religion, or sexual orientation, behave differently from the way I would. When I was younger and closer to my Southern Baptist roots, I could frequently be surprised and tricked by dishonest people. But after decades of dealing with mostly white shameless liars and cheats, I’m less likely to be conned than I was in my twenties and thirties. Still, as a recent blog post (6/18/21) indicated, I can be ripped off by people in the business of taking other people’s money and especially by rotten real estate operatives whose shameless lying and corruption are still shocking (although sometimes amusing) to me after forty-eight years of studying and working in white institutions and an even longer period of dealing with dishonest business folks (a few of them black, like a Bible-quoting landscaper at the end of the 20th Century).
My best weapons against lying, cheating, bullying white folks are not my education, as I suggested in the 6/26/15 blog post, and my good citizenship, as I suggested in a 2018 e-mail to a backstabbing real estate lawyer and in a comment to the Claremont City Council this year, but my knowledge of white folks and their lack of knowledge of my people in general and a black woman like me in particular. How many black women born in the Jim Crow South, who skipped kindergarten because they were living with their illiterate grandmother and who went to an all-black elementary school, where they had only black female teachers until seventh grade, then had no women of color teachers from seventh grade through graduate school, and only three (a black man at Northwestern, a black man and an Asian man at USC) men of color teachers during that period, and who spent much of their academic and professional careers as the only black person, occasionally the only person of color, in departments and classrooms where they were students and then teachers do you know? How many black women do you know who were living with their illiterate grandmother at fifteen and had a PhD in English from USC (supposedly only the second black woman to earn that degree in that department) at thirty? If you know me, the answer is one. If you don’t, none. Even black people find me strange and often don’t know how to deal with me. White folks are clueless when they’re trying to manipulate and/or bully me.
I, on the other hand (like many black folks my age and younger), have plenty of experience dealing with white folks. Once I left the all-black elementary school at twelve, most of my classmates and all but two of my classroom teachers (I had a black male professor for an Independent Study at USC) were white. After high school, the majority of them were white men. When I became a teacher, most of my colleagues were also white men. During the one year I taught there, I was the only black person and person of color in the English Department at Evanston High School, which was so large it had been divided into four schools the year after I graduated. I was also only one of two black teachers in one of those four schools—Michael; the other one was a man. During most of the time I was in the graduate program at USC, I was the only black student in my classes. By the time fellow Kentuckian Gloria Watkins, aka bell hooks, arrived, I had finished my coursework. At Tufts University, I was the only person of color in the small English Department, and at Cal Poly Pomona, I was one of only two blacks, but the other slightly older black woman was on medical leave for many years. While the CPP student population changed from overwhelmingly white to more diverse during the many years that I taught there, the black student population actually shrank, so (except when I taught the undergraduate black literature course) I was more likely to be the only black person in the classrooms where I taught than to have even four black students in a class. In other words, the majority of my teachers, colleagues, and students were white. And once I entered graduate school, the majority of my friends were white. I even lived with white folks at thirteen when my mother was a live-in maid in Highland Park, Illinois, and I briefly stayed with her “on the place,” and when I was a mother’s helper, also in Highland Park, during my fourteenth and fifteenth summers, and every weekend during my sophomore year of high school. During the weekends of my junior and senior years, I babysat four white children who lived in Skokie. I KNOW WHITE PEOPLE!
But white people don’t know black people and especially a black woman like me. Corrupt, racist real estate white folks have the same problem with me that the white social media cyberbullies do. When they see that they can’t outwit me, they try to bully and intimidate me. English teachers are wimpy, right? A woman who writes in Standard English and likes to use alliteration and puns in her social media comments probably sits at home with her cat in her lap, drinking tea, reading and writing poetry (well, I did just buy a collection of Nikki Giovanni’s poetry), and watching the latest costume dramas on television. Uh, that’s not Mary F. Sisney, not even close. The cyberbullies think if they call me terrible names, I’ll block them or at least stop commenting. It never works. Most of them eventually block me. The real estate crooks think they can intimidate me by sending men of color to my door (one of my white friends would call the police if a man of color appeared at her door) with fake legal papers. They think that if they create a hostile enough environment for me I will sell my house like some of my white former allies have and leave. But I’m used to hostile environments. I’ve been in hostile environments since at least the age of twelve. They think that they can get under my very dark skin by sending separate papers in my mother’s name, but just as the name calling on Twitter and Facebook reveals how ill-mannered and crude the racist white cyberbullies are, sending fake papers to a 93-year-old black woman who has been in memory care for five years reveals how racist, corrupt, and cruel these white real estate jerks are.
While corrupt, cruel, racist whites might briefly enrage me, they can’t irritate me nearly as often and as well as I can them. I know exactly what upsets racist white folks. As DiAngelo’s book indicates, even the progressives not only hate to be called racist but don’t really want to discuss race and racism. And as I explained in my 8/4/19 blog post, the most racist white folks hate successful, well-educated black folks. I’m going to send some documents to racist, corrupt Bungalows Board Treasurer Tim Harrison and to racist, corrupt, incompetent head of CMS (Condominium Management Services) Jim McCarthy Junior that will give them nightmares. Because my mother was a hoarder, I even have the 1967 letter from Northwestern announcing my $600 scholarship (the tuition for a year was only a little over $3000 back then, and because my mother worked as a maid there, I paid only half of that; my Illinois State Scholarship covered the rest of the tuition, so I received a stipend each quarter during my freshman year). I, of course, will also include a copy of the document that shows I paid off my mortgage almost exactly four years ago (nearly twelve years early).
Whites have more advantages, more privileges, than blacks do, but one advantage we have is that we know them much better than they know us. We should use that advantage when battling corrupt, racist white folks like rotten real estate operatives. We can laugh at them while they’re trying to bully and intimidate us. And we can get under their beige (also called “nude” or “flesh-colored” because they’re so “universal”) skin by pointing out their racism and by flaunting our achievements. Black folks can win if they use their knowledge of “the ways of white folks” and their “shady” signifying skills to fight back against corrupt, cruel, clueless bigots.
When I encounter whites speaking for Americans or “all humans” on social media, I let them know that I won’t even try to speak for all black women born in Kentucky in 1949. In fact, if another black female was born in Henderson, Kentucky, on March 15, 1949, I won’t even speak for her. Because I know I’m not universal, I don’t assume that people think and behave like me. Therefore I’m less surprised and more prepared when other people, no matter their race, gender, generation, class, religion, or sexual orientation, behave differently from the way I would. When I was younger and closer to my Southern Baptist roots, I could frequently be surprised and tricked by dishonest people. But after decades of dealing with mostly white shameless liars and cheats, I’m less likely to be conned than I was in my twenties and thirties. Still, as a recent blog post (6/18/21) indicated, I can be ripped off by people in the business of taking other people’s money and especially by rotten real estate operatives whose shameless lying and corruption are still shocking (although sometimes amusing) to me after forty-eight years of studying and working in white institutions and an even longer period of dealing with dishonest business folks (a few of them black, like a Bible-quoting landscaper at the end of the 20th Century).
My best weapons against lying, cheating, bullying white folks are not my education, as I suggested in the 6/26/15 blog post, and my good citizenship, as I suggested in a 2018 e-mail to a backstabbing real estate lawyer and in a comment to the Claremont City Council this year, but my knowledge of white folks and their lack of knowledge of my people in general and a black woman like me in particular. How many black women born in the Jim Crow South, who skipped kindergarten because they were living with their illiterate grandmother and who went to an all-black elementary school, where they had only black female teachers until seventh grade, then had no women of color teachers from seventh grade through graduate school, and only three (a black man at Northwestern, a black man and an Asian man at USC) men of color teachers during that period, and who spent much of their academic and professional careers as the only black person, occasionally the only person of color, in departments and classrooms where they were students and then teachers do you know? How many black women do you know who were living with their illiterate grandmother at fifteen and had a PhD in English from USC (supposedly only the second black woman to earn that degree in that department) at thirty? If you know me, the answer is one. If you don’t, none. Even black people find me strange and often don’t know how to deal with me. White folks are clueless when they’re trying to manipulate and/or bully me.
I, on the other hand (like many black folks my age and younger), have plenty of experience dealing with white folks. Once I left the all-black elementary school at twelve, most of my classmates and all but two of my classroom teachers (I had a black male professor for an Independent Study at USC) were white. After high school, the majority of them were white men. When I became a teacher, most of my colleagues were also white men. During the one year I taught there, I was the only black person and person of color in the English Department at Evanston High School, which was so large it had been divided into four schools the year after I graduated. I was also only one of two black teachers in one of those four schools—Michael; the other one was a man. During most of the time I was in the graduate program at USC, I was the only black student in my classes. By the time fellow Kentuckian Gloria Watkins, aka bell hooks, arrived, I had finished my coursework. At Tufts University, I was the only person of color in the small English Department, and at Cal Poly Pomona, I was one of only two blacks, but the other slightly older black woman was on medical leave for many years. While the CPP student population changed from overwhelmingly white to more diverse during the many years that I taught there, the black student population actually shrank, so (except when I taught the undergraduate black literature course) I was more likely to be the only black person in the classrooms where I taught than to have even four black students in a class. In other words, the majority of my teachers, colleagues, and students were white. And once I entered graduate school, the majority of my friends were white. I even lived with white folks at thirteen when my mother was a live-in maid in Highland Park, Illinois, and I briefly stayed with her “on the place,” and when I was a mother’s helper, also in Highland Park, during my fourteenth and fifteenth summers, and every weekend during my sophomore year of high school. During the weekends of my junior and senior years, I babysat four white children who lived in Skokie. I KNOW WHITE PEOPLE!
But white people don’t know black people and especially a black woman like me. Corrupt, racist real estate white folks have the same problem with me that the white social media cyberbullies do. When they see that they can’t outwit me, they try to bully and intimidate me. English teachers are wimpy, right? A woman who writes in Standard English and likes to use alliteration and puns in her social media comments probably sits at home with her cat in her lap, drinking tea, reading and writing poetry (well, I did just buy a collection of Nikki Giovanni’s poetry), and watching the latest costume dramas on television. Uh, that’s not Mary F. Sisney, not even close. The cyberbullies think if they call me terrible names, I’ll block them or at least stop commenting. It never works. Most of them eventually block me. The real estate crooks think they can intimidate me by sending men of color to my door (one of my white friends would call the police if a man of color appeared at her door) with fake legal papers. They think that if they create a hostile enough environment for me I will sell my house like some of my white former allies have and leave. But I’m used to hostile environments. I’ve been in hostile environments since at least the age of twelve. They think that they can get under my very dark skin by sending separate papers in my mother’s name, but just as the name calling on Twitter and Facebook reveals how ill-mannered and crude the racist white cyberbullies are, sending fake papers to a 93-year-old black woman who has been in memory care for five years reveals how racist, corrupt, and cruel these white real estate jerks are.
While corrupt, cruel, racist whites might briefly enrage me, they can’t irritate me nearly as often and as well as I can them. I know exactly what upsets racist white folks. As DiAngelo’s book indicates, even the progressives not only hate to be called racist but don’t really want to discuss race and racism. And as I explained in my 8/4/19 blog post, the most racist white folks hate successful, well-educated black folks. I’m going to send some documents to racist, corrupt Bungalows Board Treasurer Tim Harrison and to racist, corrupt, incompetent head of CMS (Condominium Management Services) Jim McCarthy Junior that will give them nightmares. Because my mother was a hoarder, I even have the 1967 letter from Northwestern announcing my $600 scholarship (the tuition for a year was only a little over $3000 back then, and because my mother worked as a maid there, I paid only half of that; my Illinois State Scholarship covered the rest of the tuition, so I received a stipend each quarter during my freshman year). I, of course, will also include a copy of the document that shows I paid off my mortgage almost exactly four years ago (nearly twelve years early).
Whites have more advantages, more privileges, than blacks do, but one advantage we have is that we know them much better than they know us. We should use that advantage when battling corrupt, racist white folks like rotten real estate operatives. We can laugh at them while they’re trying to bully and intimidate us. And we can get under their beige (also called “nude” or “flesh-colored” because they’re so “universal”) skin by pointing out their racism and by flaunting our achievements. Black folks can win if they use their knowledge of “the ways of white folks” and their “shady” signifying skills to fight back against corrupt, cruel, clueless bigots.
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