As if “White America” didn’t have enough angry letters to read, The New York Times thought it was appropriate to publish yet another contribution to the bitter genre during the most joyful time of the year.
On Christmas Eve, George Yancy, an Emory University professor who specializes in Race and “Critical Whiteness Studies,” issued a message to white Americans in a Times op-ed creatively titled “Dear White America“: you are all racists.
“If you are white and you are reading this letter, I ask that you don’t run to seek shelter from your racism,” Yancy writes.
“Being neither a ‘good’ white person nor a liberal white person will get you off the proverbial hook.”
According to the race philosophy expert, all minorities live under the “yoke of whiteness” and every Caucasian perpetuates racism with their mere existence.“As you reap comfort from being white, we suffer for being black and people of color,” Yancy explains in the heavy-handed prose typical of the letter.
He argues that since the American system was built for the benefit of white people, all whites share in its supposed cruelty.
Yancy prefaced his argument by saying he himself is a “sexist” because he is a male in a society that oppresses women.
Anything that blacks may do wrong — such as commit crime — can be blamed on the ills imposed upon the African-American community by the inherently injust system.
...While white liberals may go hogwild at being lectured on how racist they are, the rest of society will be repulsed by the idea.
Contrary to Yancy’s wishes, the majority of Americans don’t want to live in a society where people are deemed racist solely due to their skin color.
In many ways, it sounds like inverted white supremacy — and the consequences for society accepting that idea could be just as bad as the days when America had Jim Crow.
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