Anti-racists fear racism will never be conquered, while racists still nurse a sense of loss and pride
If, for many racists and conservatives, whiteness is a metaphor for a disappearing world, for many anti-racists, shaped as they often are by the contemporary climate of, whiteness has become symbolic of power and privilege. Where once anti-racists might have seen their mission as combating racism, now many see it as confronting whiteness or, rather, combating racism and confronting whiteness have come to be seen as one and the same project.
Coates is perhaps the most celebrated contemporary African American essayist, a figure who, in the words of the late Toni Morrison, “that plagued me after James Baldwin died”. But where Baldwin never lost his hopes for social redemption, Coates despairs that it is no more possible to challenge racism than it is to prevent an earthquake or a typhoon with legal regulation.
Those inspired by Bell’s work have rarely tumbled as far as he did into the well of despondency. Pessimism has nevertheless shaped much of today’s thinking about race. It has helped sustain the perception of whiteness as the source of racism and as the permanent obstacle to overcoming it.
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