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All power to all the people... except for Ralph! Laugh your way into class solidarity with Super Solid. Born on TikTok, the 4 the Proletariat podcast is made for curious, hilariously dark, and immensely hopeful people. Our mission is to build community, facilitate nationwide mutual aid, and tickle false consciousness away with substantive edutainment.
In 2018, a white woman named Robin D'Angelo wrote a book about how white people absolutely crash out and become defensive and angry when discussing race and racism. And white people's response to that book was to crash out and become defensive and angry. Today, just today, I was banned from live streaming on my TikTok account, the number one source of revenue I have for my business, because I played on this dynamic and was repeatedly called the n word. I was harassed. I was harangued.
Speaker 1:People called me racial epithets. People told me to unalive myself. To take my own life. And I'm the one With restrictions on my account, I don't like talking about white fragility. But on this episode, oh, we gonna talk about it.
Speaker 1:I'm Super Solid, and this is the For the Proletariat podcast. Okay. So just to be clear, to be very clear, incredibly clear, pristinely clear, Robin describes white fragility to be a defensive response by a white person when their whiteness is highlighted or mentioned or their racial worldview is challenged. Right? She says that this can be conscious or otherwise.
Speaker 1:Like, when white dudes play the race card or or when white dudes say that black people are playing the race card. Right? Or, like, when white women cry to avoid conflict. Listen, this is this this makes even talking about white fragility makes white people upset. Right?
Speaker 1:And I don't wanna make white people upset. But also, it's something that we gotta talk about because if if you have no idea how harmful you can be or that you're even being harmful, guess what's gonna happen? You're gonna end up being harmful. One of the things that I'm realizing is that there's no soft way for me to approach this topic at all ever, period, because, well, palatability doesn't matter. Respectability politics don't matter.
Speaker 1:You know? I'm still going to be receive the same response from people who are uncomfortable about issues of race. This isn't like a coincidence, by the way. Right? The propaganda that's put out about us being in a post racial society, I mean, it's it's there.
Speaker 1:People are taught that racism is a thing of the past. You know, racism has been mythologized. You know, it's it's a it's this story that we hear about our our our history. It's another hill that we've climbed. Right?
Speaker 1:When we describe American exceptionalism, American, triumph, racism was like this internal conflict that we that we overcame. That's how it's presented to us. We beat we did it, y'all. We did it. We beat racism.
Speaker 1:We did it. And it's not taught as racism isn't presented to us as a functionalist paradigm. And what I mean when I say that, you know, I mean that in a sociological sense. But what I say what I mean, a functionalist paradigm is racism is integral to maintaining the status quo of America. Like, the way our country is built, like, as a machine, it is a part of that machine.
Speaker 1:Right? It it's like the belt in your lawnmower. Right? Without without the belt, the blades don't spin. It is part of what helps us run the country because scapegoatism is part of what helps us run the country because the exploitation of people was part of what helps us run the country.
Speaker 1:So if if they were to teach that racism, scapegoating, othering, bigotry that, you know, all these things were part of how we make the country move forward, people would seek to dismantle those things or just their confidence in the country, their their sense of patriotism might wane. And in no way am I excusing this at all. I'm just saying that this is how we end up in this paradigm. And because racism has been mythologized, white people equate the word racism with evil. Right?
Speaker 1:Like your goose steppers, those are those are the racists. Your overt racists, your your white sheet brigades, you know, people that have those, curly Buddhist symbols, those tilted Buddhist symbols tattooed on them. Skinheads, those are white nationalists, those are your racists. It couldn't be me, Bob, from the from the QuikTrip. It couldn't be me, Susan, from HR.
Speaker 1:Right? And so because the average white person sees themselves as a good person and because they see racism or racists as bad people, they cannot fathom that they themselves might be participatory in racism or hold racist ideas or racist attitudes because it's hard to reconcile those, and then we see a cognitive dissonance there. Right? Just to break it down, just to keep it super simple, I am me and I am good. Racists are bad.
Speaker 1:And because I am good, I cannot be racist because racists are bad. Does that make sense? That's kind of the thought process that happens, if there's any thought process at all. And I don't mean I don't mean that to be disparaging. Right?
Speaker 1:I'm not I'm not trying to be ableist. I'm saying that it's so baked into all of us, you know, even black people are anti black. Right? So baked into all of us that it's less of a cognitive process and more of a reflex because of our socialization process. Many of you have heard me say this time and time again.
Speaker 1:You know? The idea that drives Robin D'Angelo's book, White Fragility, is white defensiveness. Right? White defensiveness describes some of the perceived response is when white people are confronted with issues involving race and racism. And white defensiveness even comes with, subtypes.
Speaker 1:And some of these subtypes include white denial, white diversion, and white fragility. Right? So we've come full circle. Denial is literally what it sounds like. Denial of is just a a rejection of the concept of race and racism itself.
Speaker 1:You will hear things like, I don't even believe in race. Race is a social construct. It's not real. Or, much to my chagrin, you will hear the co opting of Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech where one line has been cherry picked from this speech. And that line is, say it with me.
Speaker 1:We judge people based on the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Except that's not what Martin Luther King said. He said he had a dream. He had a dream that one day, his children would be judged based on the content of their character and not the color of their skin. This was not a playbook.
Speaker 1:It's not a benchmark for whether or not racism is over. It's not an instruction manual. And the worst thing is that when I have conversations with people who bring up Martin Luther King's saying my children will be judged based on the con content of their character and not the color of their skin, I will ask them to name 3 other things that Martin Luther King said. My sister my sister asked a kadunkajud to tell us what Martin Luther King said immediately after and immediately before the whole content of of your character thing. Here's that clip.
Speaker 2:Alright, hyperscat. Alright. Hyper scat. Are you ready? Hi.
Speaker 2:How are you? I'm well. How are you? I'm good. My name is Billy.
Speaker 2:Okay, Billy. It's nice to meet you. Are you ready? Sure. Sure.
Speaker 2:You prove me wrong? Okay. Prove me wrong. You never take accountability for your racism.
Speaker 3:I never take accountability for my racism or or or white people?
Speaker 2:Wait. What made you request?
Speaker 3:Oh, I I just wanted to say that I think that, we need to go into 2025 together, all communities, and that, you know, we judge people. We need to move forward into a world where we don't judge people based on the color of their skin by the content of their character, like MLK said.
Speaker 4:What did he say directly after that?
Speaker 2:Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Speaker 2:Wait.
Speaker 1:I have to have to have
Speaker 5:to have to have
Speaker 2:to have to have to
Speaker 3:have to
Speaker 5:have to
Speaker 2:have to have to have to have
Speaker 5:to have to have to
Speaker 2:have to have to have to have
Speaker 1:to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to the thing that I'm trying to avoid is getting caught up by bad arguments and then getting wrangled in to having the the conversation. That's that's what I'm talking about. A word.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm not trying
Speaker 4:to have a conversation. I just wanted him to know that he was quoting a black person without knowing what the black person said, and that is literally the racism you don't take accountability for.
Speaker 3:No. The dude is saying that we should all, like, work together, man.
Speaker 1:What what did he say
Speaker 4:before that? What did he say directly before that?
Speaker 3:I have a dream.
Speaker 4:No. Directly before that.
Speaker 3:I mean, I don't have, like, the whole speech memorized.
Speaker 4:Yeah. You don't know shit, nigga. That's the point. You're you're now you're quoting a black person to black people doing racism when you don't know shit about that black person or what they said. You just heard your racist ass grandmother say that shit one time.
Speaker 1:Well Okay. So so my grandma, I
Speaker 2:wanna get back to it. I wanna I wanna get back to it. Hyperscat, literally, all you have to do to prove me wrong is just take accountability for your racism.
Speaker 5:Okay? For
Speaker 2:my try again? Yeah. You're ready to try again?
Speaker 3:What did I do that was racist?
Speaker 1:Oh, okay. I just
Speaker 2:are you ready to try again?
Speaker 4:I just told you, bro.
Speaker 3:I think I said the most least racist thing on
Speaker 1:you, man.
Speaker 5:Are you ready are you ready
Speaker 2:to try again, Hyperscap? Gonna
Speaker 4:crash out. He's gonna crash the fuck out.
Speaker 3:I'm not crashing out, brother.
Speaker 4:I'm saying you are going to crash on this.
Speaker 2:Not not a brother. Are you are you ready to try again? We're all brothers in the eyes of God. Well, that's not that's not a a man. So, anyway okay.
Speaker 2:Are are you ready to try again? Oh, my bad, bro. Are you ready to try again? I guess so. Okay.
Speaker 2:Prove me wrong. You never take accountability for your racism.
Speaker 3:But I never take accountability for my racism. I mean, like, if I said something to offend somebody, I'll apologize.
Speaker 4:Right. Prove it. Apologize for what you said about MLK.
Speaker 3:What I wait. I have to apologize for saying that we should judge we should judge people based on character?
Speaker 4:What did he say before that?
Speaker 3:I I don't remember the exact What
Speaker 4:did he say directly after that?
Speaker 3:Dream.
Speaker 4:What did he say 2 weeks
Speaker 2:after that?
Speaker 1:Dream, nigga. Life is crazy.
Speaker 2:Dream is absolutely crazy.
Speaker 4:Like, I'm literally sitting up here telling you, you did a racism. Take accountability for the racism that you did and you're going, oh, what am I going?
Speaker 1:White diversion is again exactly what it sounds like. It is the attempt of the white person to draw attention away from themselves so that they don't have to take accountability for any type of racism, so they don't have to feel comfortable. They may say things like there are other things that you could be talking about. Right? There are there there are so many other things that are wrong in this world or even worse, they may deflect or project racism onto you.
Speaker 1:They will call you racist for talking about racism. I found myself in a conversation on a livestream with, particular kadunkajah that absolutely could not engage with the conversation at all. And I'm gonna be honest with you, I was a little sneaky. I did I'm a sneaky snook. I'm a little sneaky snook.
Speaker 1:I'm a sneaky I'm a sneaky bekey. I get sneaky with it. I know that white people have difficulty talking about racism. I know that white people will do anything to avoid admitting they're racist. I know that white people will do anything to avoid having to do any introspection in relation to racism.
Speaker 1:Racism? Racism. I know that. And so I constructed a prompt, a question that asks it gives out the the task. The task is prove me wrong.
Speaker 1:Prove me wrong. That's all I'm asking for people to do. And the way the the underneath, there's a sentence, right, that I suppose espouses what belief I'm trying to put out there. So the prompt says prove me wrong. You never take accountability for your racism.
Speaker 1:All you have to do in order to prove me wrong is say the words, take accountability for my racism. That's all you gotta do. That's all you gotta do. Here's a guess. I'm I'm gonna for those of you listening, I'm gonna give you about 5 seconds to just guess to yourself how many white people actually proved me wrong over the course of about 4 hours.
Speaker 1:You ready? 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. If you guessed 0, you're wrong. It was actually about 3. 3 people were able to prove me wrong over the course of 4 hours.
Speaker 1:3 people were able to prove me wrong over the course of 4 hours, and some of them needed such harsh and extensive probing. And what we can glean from that is that white people just have a terrible time. They have a terribly difficult time admitting their own racism. In this next clip, I'm engaged with someone who is having a terrible time even engaging. Right?
Speaker 1:Despite being blatantly racist, grossly ableist in the middle of the conversation. He he's having so much trouble having the conversation. Right? Cashing out at me. And so we talked we talked about the diversion and the denial.
Speaker 1:And I want you to see where you can spot his denial and his diversion. Trying to prove me I'm gonna prove you wrong, but not by doing the thing. Oh, no. No. No.
Speaker 1:No. No. No. I'm gonna prove you wrong by trying to prove that you're the real racist. Because for him, the goal is not to actually prove me wrong.
Speaker 1:For him, the goal is to just not be called a racist. Let's listen
Speaker 2:of a racist. Like, I am just the LeBron James of racism.
Speaker 5:Let's not play hypothetical. Let's not play hypothetical. Let's play real let's play real examples.
Speaker 2:Let's do it. Let's say that I am the biggest No.
Speaker 5:No. No. No. Let's use real examples, bro. Let's use real examples.
Speaker 2:Okay. Okay. Okay. Realistically, I'm a super duper big racist. Alright?
Speaker 2:How does me being super big, super duper racist prove to me that you, do take accountability for your racism?
Speaker 5:What in the backwards logic is that, bro? You don't how do you know I'm a racist though?
Speaker 2:This is not this isn't hard at all.
Speaker 5:What what do you mean? Explain what you mean, man. Like, use, like, use some kind of use your words. What do you mean? How how am I taking accountability accountability for my racism?
Speaker 5:I don't even believe in that bullshit. So what are you talking
Speaker 1:about?
Speaker 2:Prove me wrong. You never take accountability for your racism.
Speaker 5:I I don't know what that means. You're speaking Chinese. What does that mean? Give some context.
Speaker 1:Wait. I don't even know Chinese.
Speaker 5:But that's what that's what exactly what I mean. Alright. That time I requested, but y'all kicked me off.
Speaker 2:No. The first time you requested.
Speaker 5:I okay. But either way, let's
Speaker 2:I just wanna remind you, like, that I am the host of this live, and so I see everything that moves, everything that goes on. The re the way you got up here was a light, a notification blinked off in my request. Right? I tapped on there, saw you requesting, and then Alright.
Speaker 5:Let's move on, bro. But then you kicked me off, so let's move on.
Speaker 1:I also did not. Oh, you lost.
Speaker 5:Okay. I kicked myself off.
Speaker 2:My mod did it, and then they apologized for it.
Speaker 5:Alright, buddy. Alright. Let's move on. What's where's the logic?
Speaker 2:I just want you to operate honestly.
Speaker 1:Okay. So
Speaker 2:prove me wrong. You never take accountability for your racism.
Speaker 5:Again, dude. Give can you get sir, can you give an example, please?
Speaker 2:Wait. Why do I need to give an example of what racism
Speaker 5:What
Speaker 2:no. No.
Speaker 5:I know what I know what racism means, genius. Explain what accountability for your racism. What does that mean?
Speaker 2:If you know what it means, why do you need me to explain it?
Speaker 5:Because it's within that do you know what context means? It's within a context.
Speaker 2:Context. You're either the person or not.
Speaker 5:You're the one that has the backdrop. It's your context, bro. I'm asking you to explain. Give an example.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you, I'm not going to explain it. We're So
Speaker 5:what's the point? So what's the point of doing this? What's the point? What's the point of even having a conversation with someone that is
Speaker 1:sharing the same truth? Prove me wrong.
Speaker 5:Prove what? You haven't given any context, bro. And you're asking me how am I how
Speaker 2:are you?
Speaker 1:Do you need?
Speaker 5:Bro, you're a you're a Marxist. You're not even accountable for your own racism. Karl Marx was a staunch racist.
Speaker 2:I just told you, I'm super d duper racist. I'm so racist
Speaker 5:that I when
Speaker 2:it's when my when I was born, my I
Speaker 5:know what racism means. What does what does accountability
Speaker 1:for that mean? Holy sheets.
Speaker 5:And What does accountability okay. Where's your accountability? There's a word accountability.
Speaker 2:Name him super racist. That's what that's
Speaker 1:what happened.
Speaker 5:Hey, mister proletariat. There's a word accountability.
Speaker 2:He'll be up like, no. So wait. Yeah. That's a little racist.
Speaker 4:Okay. And then then
Speaker 5:Okay. You've defined racism. Now define your your accountability word. That's called context, by the way. Let me see what
Speaker 2:it is. Okay. Watch this. Watch it. You ready?
Speaker 2:I take a 100% accountability for my racism.
Speaker 5:Black Swan, it's paid for. Y'all are retarded. Y'all are literally retarded.
Speaker 2:Well, that's not a nice word to use. Why would you use that word?
Speaker 5:I did. Not that I hurt your feelings, buddy. No. Anyway, what's your account how how are you accountable for your
Speaker 2:own racism? Apologize for your able
Speaker 5:account dude, how are you how are you accountable for your own reason?
Speaker 2:Excuse me. Prove me wrong. You never take accountability for your ableism.
Speaker 5:What the fuck does that even you don't even know what that mean. You don't even know what the word proletarian means. Y'all be using stupid ass words. You don't even know what it means.
Speaker 2:Okay. We'll try again. We'll try again. Prove me wrong. You never take accountability for your ableism.
Speaker 5:I don't know what that means. Explain what that means.
Speaker 1:You hear that? You hear you hear you hear how that kadunka chuck I mean, absolutely terrible behavior. I mean, terrible behavior. I want you I'm gonna ask you a question. If that person were to act that way at his job, how long do you think he would be employed?
Speaker 1:How long do you think that person would be employed if he acted that way at his job? One thing that I didn't point out before playing the clip is, the idea of bulvarism. Bolvarism is a type of ad hominem or a rhetorical fallacy that combines circular reasoning and genetic fallacy. Genetic fallacy is a fallacy of irrelevance in which arguments or information are dismissed or validated based solely on their source of origin rather than their content. Right?
Speaker 1:So he's literally saying, well, you're a Marxist. Right? You're a racist. As though that would prove me wrong. Right?
Speaker 1:Almost like a tu quoque. But the thing about bulvarism is bulvarism is moreover the assumption that you're wrong and then never addressing your actual point, but skipping immediately to explaining why you're wrong. Right? And that's a bad way to do things. Right?
Speaker 1:Because in order to explain why I'm wrong, you should probably first explain what is, you know, what is wrong about my argument. You should prove that I'm wrong first. Right? The guy that came up with bulverism is this guy Lewis, c s Lewis. And on the topic, he writes the following.
Speaker 1:Suppose I think after doing my accounts that I have a large balance at the bank, And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is wishful thinking. You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vaporizing about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time.
Speaker 1:If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant, but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must first find out on purely logical grounds which of them do in fact break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of this error.
Speaker 1:So but he didn't prove me wrong. So if so to clarify, if I say my initial assertion is that I believe that you never take accountability for your racism. Before you start calling me a a Marxist and calling me the r slur and calling me the n word and and coking out and crashing out, before you go to doing that, first, you have to prove that I'm wrong. And but he never he if he wanted to prove me wrong, all he had to do was say, I take accountability for my racism. It took it took it took him forever.
Speaker 1:Maybe after listening to, you know, everything I've said, you might feel as though well, Solid, isn't this kind of a loaded question? Aren't you basically asking these dudes to prove you wrong? They never, you know, hit their spouses. Aren't you basically doing the loaded question? No.
Speaker 1:No. I'm not. Because if it doesn't apply, then you let it fly. Let it fly right out the window, buddy. I described this in the clip.
Speaker 1:When I see a subject that's not about me, I move on. So why am I talking about this? To tell you the truth, I don't know other than that I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated. I'm tired of I'm tired of being attacked for talking about racism.
Speaker 1:I'm tired of having studied a thing that I absolutely wish would leave the earth. Trying to educate and entertain people on the thing that I wish did not exist. The thing that disenfranchises so many people that leads to the dehumanization, vilification, subjugation, disenfranchisement of so many people. I'm tired of working my behind off, trying to enlighten folks and then being treated like I'm the one doing the racism. So what do we do?
Speaker 1:Where do we go? Your initial instinct might be, well, I will lovingly address people in a soft way with kid gloves so as not to trigger them or, you know, make them upset or maybe I, you know, maybe if I explain it better, maybe if I explain it in a better way, maybe if I maybe if I tag it on, you know, maybe if I lead the horse to water, they're gonna drink. Respect if respectability politics worked, it would have worked already. You don't have the type of resources necessary to execute the type of educational violence necessary to break someone of that paradigm. You don't.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure that I do. I'm told a lot by some of the white homies that, yeah, I have helped them and I've taught them so much and I've right? And I think the only choice we have is to keep trying. Those who are going to come along like those who are going to stand in solidarity, will. Those who won't, won't.
Speaker 1:And I'm sorry for being so nihilistic. I'm sorry for being so nihilistic, but it's something that I think we're better off accepting. I think we should cherish those who do stand in solidarity. I think we should relish those who do like hot dogs. That has nothing to do with anything.
Speaker 1:I'm so sorry. I think I might be hungry. I think we should relish those that do get it. I don't think we like, gatekeeping is necessary. I'm I'm not saying we invite everybody to the cookout.
Speaker 1:That's not I'm not we're not giving out cookout. We're not fixing plates. But when a comrade does something good, you know, when a comrade is a comrade, when a comrade is standing with you, you don't discourage them as well. But if you don't understand that you're always in need of learning, you're always in need of decolonization, and you're always in need of deconstruction. If you don't understand that, you're not really a comrade either.
Speaker 1:So I guess my solution would be all power to all people, except for Ralph. I suppose my solution would be to do something good for your neighbor.