David Brooks: Listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates While White

[Machiavelli]

David Brooks
The New York Times
July 17, 2015

... the disturbing challenge of your book is your rejection of the American dream. My ancestors chose to come here. For them, America was the antidote to the crushing restrictiveness of European life, to the pogroms. For them, the American dream was an uplifting spiritual creed that offered dignity, the chance to rise ...

Your definition of “white” is complicated. But you write “ ‘White America’ is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies. Sometimes this power is direct (lynching), and sometimes it is insidious (redlining).” In what is bound to be the most quoted passage from the book, you write that you watched the smoldering towers of 9/11 with a cold heart. At the time you felt the police and firefighters who died “were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body.” ...

But I have to ask, Am I displaying my privilege if I disagree? Is my job just to respect your experience and accept your conclusions? Does a white person have standing to respond? ...

Read the whole thing.

[Machiavelli]

New York Times Columnist David Brooks Blasted for White Privilege Letter to Ta-Nehisi Coates

Jordan Chariton
The Wrap
July 17, 2015

New York Times columnist David Brooks was slammed on Twitter Friday after he wrote a column — in the form of a letter to The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates — about Coates’ new book about the African-American experience and white privilege.

Brooks’ “Listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates While White” compliments Coates’ “searing contribution to the public education,” but then switches gears to criticize the book, “Between the World and Me.” ...

Salon, which has made a sport of Brooks bashing, wrote a review of Brook’s column, and opined that “the Times columnist displays more white privilege in one column than some white people experience in a lifetime.” ...

More

[andy58-in-nh]

It appears as though David Brooks has not yet learned that it is now officially racist to disagree with a black person when they accuse you of racism, because the accusation is held to be perfectly self-validating.
 
We have now "advanced" as a society to a wondrous state where people are presumed to be either innocent victims or evil perpetrators based upon nothing more than the color of their skin. Truth, intentions and character don't count.
 
And somewhere, MLK is spinning at 3000 RPM.