Because of the chaos of last night's TRC meeting, something passed through my awareness that I couldn't fully process at the time.

At one point, Commissioner Porter said something to the effect of "black people didn't take me in; white people did." This was in the context of...

whether to be explicit about things like white supremacy or white privilege going forward in the commission's work. A majority of those present felt that directly confronting things in this way would pique the sensibilities of your average white liberal in Iowa City.

I was taken aback by this, because among all the black academics, organizers, and activists I've ever worked with, I've never seen such an intense desire to seek validation from whiteness. No just white people, who run the gamut from outright Nazis to Left Communists, but some...

hypothetical construct in which white dominance is simply taken as an unassailable given that can only ever appeased. The tendency to lash out at IFR among the commissioners was not so much a hatred of that group or the people in it so much as a fear the polite, white liberal...

will take away their approval and the material gains that come along with it.

Except, I have to say, if your liberation is dependent upon the quiet assent of the M*ms's and B*rg*s's of the world, then you're doomed. We've know this since at least the Civil Rights era.

The reason for this is that social justice is, for your average white liberal, a purely moral and not a material consideration, whereas for the marginalized, it's a moral concern BECAUSE it's a material one as well. The liberal can withdraw their support on a whim, should you...

make them feel like a "bad person," because none of this effects their livelihood. So long as they behave, they don't have to worry about police violence or housing discrimination or pay inequity. They also know, should they misbehave, that the cloud of domination that...

hangs over black and brown people will rain on them too.

I can understand the impulse to appease whiteness as a survival mechanism, but if that's all you ever do, then you'll be stuck in a situation where all you can do is survive. Is that really what people want?