What Can the Browns Do For Us

I’ve been struggling with how to get a hook for this piece about white privilege without repeating what I wrote two months ago.  While I was thinking about what I was going to write, I learned that Roger Ebert had passed away.  Richard Roeper said when it was time to write, Roger would just start writing, so taking that to heart, here's my latest.

In my previous piece I took Joan Walsh and David Sirota to task for being dismissive at best and down right bitchy at worst to Goldie Taylor.  Ms. Taylor for the uninitiated is a commentator on MSNBC, a former Marine, a mother and brand new grandmother, who also happens to be black. 

After taking a firestorm of criticism for that work, Ms. Walsh seemed to walk back some things, (easier to ask forgiveness no doubt), and it seemed like the point that white privilege is alive and well was understood by her and other liberal pundits.

Then came yesterday, Walsh penned a piece that drips with the privilege that she seems to revel in.  In it she bemoaned the shrinking white hegemony in the Democratic party,  stating falsely that whites will be a minority by mid century. 

Population estimates predict that all minorities combined will be around 52%, whites will be 48%.  When you break out the numbers after Whites, Hispanics will be around 20% Blacks around 12%.  If you’re not a complete moron you’d see that  2.5 times as many Whites as Hispanics and 4 times as many Whites as Blacks DOES NOT MAKE WHITES A MINORITY.

Walsh went on to discuss the coalition that got President Obama elected and highlighted the fact that the coalition stayed home in 2010.  She didn't mention that professional lefties like her actively encouraged people to stay home to teach the President a lesson.  Again, teaching the black President a lesson by sabotaging his agenda because it's not yours reeks of privilege

She even gave insightful instruction on how to talk to  "America's newest minority".  My guess is that she doesn't know how people of color should speak to her if they’re not turning down her bed or dusting her mantle (that’s not a euphemism).

To be fair she did admit that white privilege exists but she likened it to other types of privilege, completely missing the point about the pervasiveness of white privilege by acting privileged! Of course when this was pointed out to her on Twitter by another woman of color that I admire, Imani Gandy, it was sloughed off as "ironic snobbery".

Now if we're keeping score at home, Walsh has been dismissive of the valid concerns of Goldie Taylor, Imani Gandy, and Melissa Harris-Perry, and those are just instances that I'm aware of.  I'm sure there are others.  I just couldn't find any in which liberal white women were dismissed thusly.

If the column on the poor oppressed white folks wasn't bad enough, late yesterday she led the charge in being outraged and aghast that President Obama called Kamala Harris the California AG "by far the best looking Attorney General".

It my have been a poor choice of words, but of course Walsh and her many supporters hectored the President about it until last night, according to his press secretary, the President called Harris and apologized for all the attention the comment garnered.

It seems that Ms. Walsh and her cohorts in the elite liberal punditry have no problem holding men, especially the President, to account for objectifying women.  Odd that they are silent when that woman happens to be a 9 year old black girl. Walsh and other so called feminists barely spoke up when the Onion tweeted an insult of Quvenzhané Wallis.

I find it beyond insulting that the same people outraged that the President dare call a pretty woman, "the best looking AG" sat idly by as Wallis was called a c---.  

See that's what privilege is all about, you can't take up the cause for a 9 year old girl because after all it was a "joke",  but you can sure as fuck jump down Blacky O's neck when he does something you disapprove of. 

I'm not asking for miracles, I'm sure there'll be plenty more pearl clutching over the President. There will be more columns bemoaning how people of color just don't get how the liberal white folks really know what's best for them.  

My advice to Walsh and anybody else who tries to explain privilege to people of color, or write columns about how oppressed white liberals are? Pull up your sleeves look closely at the pasty white flab of your under arm, realize you've got it pretty fucking good, and please just shut the hell up.