In Slate, a 5,000 world article by a black woman with dyed blonde hair about how anti-whiteness white lady Robin DiAngelo may claim to be anti-white but she is really just a huge Becky:
Robin DiAngelo’s idea changed how white progressives talk about themselves — and little else.
By LAUREN MICHELE JACKSON
SEPT 04, 20198:00 PM
Robin DiAngelo knows how to work a crowd. The author of White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism is confident without crowing, rehearsed yet sensitive to the audience at hand, funny and smirking and cajoling. “Seeing the Racial Waters,” DiAngelo’s touring half-day workshop, promises to “explore topics including white socialization, systemic racism, white solidarity, the specific ways racism manifests for white progressives, safety versus comfort, [and] the politics of emotions.” She would, she warned us, “say the word white … about 100 times” in a span of three and a half hours — a joke and a pledge. “You’re all gonna be fine,” she said. We laughed. The work had officially begun.
… The audience demographics were about as expected for an event on racial literacy: some black women besides myself, some other women of color, some men of color, a few white men, and a huge number of white women, in a range of ages and haircuts. …
Virality led to a book contract, and White Fragility has yet to leave the New York Times bestseller list since its debut in June 2018, making it the fastest-selling book in the history of Beacon Press (our shared publisher). …
Pulling out the paperback in public, I soon realized, was an invitation for comment. “Love that book,” a white hairstylist told me, passing by as I sat under the dryer. The colorist, black, later asked me what I thought of it. …
Note: Lauren Michele Jackson’s colorist issued a statement to the press: “Don’t blame me, she made me do it! Lauren told me, “If I have only one life to live, I want to live it as a blonde. BLONDE ME NOW!'”
“White progressives,” as DiAngelo calls them in her book, are also the group most responsible for the social exhaustion that people of color experience on a daily basis. They are the hair touchers, the “you go, girlfriend!” cheerleaders, the “not even water?” inquirers, the “this is not my America” mourners.
Lauren Michele Jackson is the author of the soon-to-be-released hair-intensive book:
Judging from its publicity material, this sounds like an iSteve parody come to life on my theme that post-2008 what black activists want is to collect a monthly intellectual property royalty check for blackness:
Exposes the new generation of whiteness thriving at the expense and borrowed ingenuity of black people–and explores how this intensifies racial inequality.
American culture loves blackness. From music and fashion to activism and language, black culture constantly achieves worldwide influence. Yet, when it comes to who is allowed to thrive from black hipness, the pioneers are usually left behind as black aesthetics are converted into mainstream success–and white profit.
Weaving together narrative, scholarship, and critique, Lauren Michele Jackson reveals why cultural appropriation–something that’s become embedded in our daily lives–deserves serious attention. It is a blueprint for taking wealth and power, and ultimately exacerbates the economic, political, and social inequity that persists in America. She unravels the racial contradictions lurking behind American culture as we know it–from shapeshifting celebrities and memes gone viral to brazen poets, loveable potheads, and faulty political leaders.
An audacious debut, White Negroes brilliantly summons a re-interrogation of Norman Mailer’s infamous 1957 essay of a similar name. It also introduces a bold new voice in Jackson. Piercing, curious, and bursting with pop cultural touchstones, White Negroes is a dispatch in awe of black creativity everywhere and an urgent call for our thoughtful consumption.
I can understand this urge.
I presume that Holland-Dozier-Holland get checks for the Motown songs they wrote in the 1960s like “Heat Wave,” “Where Did Our Love Go?,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch,” and “Band of Gold.”
But were they individual geniuses or were they getting rewarded for their race’s knack for rhythm and blues? Why should some blacks make tons of money for Being Black while most blacks don’t?
Of course, it’s never quite phrased like this because, obviously, the total amount of money that can be looted from the Temptations is less than what can be looted from the Rolling Stones, much less from Apple or Exxon.
