$250 Belts? $2,500 Handbags? Racial Profiling and "Shopping While Black" are Wrong. But, the Relationship Between Conspicuous Consumption and Low Levels of Black Wealth is a Far More Important Issue

Trayon Christian was racially profiled while buying a $250 belt at Barneys. Kayla Phillips was accosted by police after buying a $2,500 handbag from the same store. Their treatment is unacceptable.

Racial profiling is wrong—it is also ineffective at preventing crime. Al Sharpton is correct in his efforts to defend the basic right of individuals to shop while be treated equally and fairly—regardless of their skin color.

The United States has been described as a “consumer’s republic”; capitalism, democracy, and the right to participate in the marketplace are conflated with full citizenship in this country. As such, the phenomenon which has come to be known as “shopping while black”, reinforces, through racism and classism, a belief that people of color are perpetual outsiders and a type of Other in American society.

However, in locating the experience of “shopping while black” within a broader social, historical, and political context, we must also confront a very uncomfortable and challenging question.

Of course, Christian and Phillips should not have been discriminated against because they were black and shopping at a luxury store. But, what do the choices by two young people to spend hundreds of dollars on a belt, and thousands of dollars on a handbag, reveal about the impact of conspicuous consumption on the black community’s economic health?

Blacks in the United States possess significantly less wealth and earnings than their white counterparts across all class levels. African-Americans possess approximately 10 cents in wealth for every $2.00 in wealth owned by whites. Black women in the 36 to 49 year old age range have a net worth of 5 dollars. White women in the same cohort have a net worth of 40,000 dollars.

These wealth disparities are a result of centuries of public policy in the United States where white wealth creation was subsidized by the State, and economic resources and opportunities have been systematically denied to people of color.

For example, the Homestead Act, the FHA and VA home loan programs, as well as the G.I. Bill, created untold billions of dollars in wealth for white people while denying non-whites access to the same opportunities.

Because of discrimination in the labor market, black Americans do not receive the same return of investment on their educations as comparably (or even in some cases, less) educated whites. Even ostensibly “race neutral” polices such as “last hired, first fired” have caused disproportionate harm to people of color, as they have long been denied access to jobs by racist hiring practices--yet, black and brown workers are the first to be dismissed when the economy contracts.

Systematic housing segregation means that black communities are also less resourced as compared to comparable white communities.

Three centuries of chattel slavery robbed African-Americans of at least 20 trillion dollars of labor and income.

Wealth is inter-generational. The sum effect of centuries of economic disenfranchisement from the past to the present is that the black community is both wealth and income poor.

America’s system of racial Apartheid was also an active form of economic exploitation against non-whites.

African-Americans who choose to purchase $350 belts and $2,500 handbags are not responsible for the structural inequalities which have produced the stunning lack of wealth held by Black America. However, such aggregate choices by individual African-Americans do contribute to the racial wealth gap because each dollar put into overpriced clothing, cars, jewelry, electronic goods, etc. are fewer resources put into savings and investment.

Why would members of a group that is poor in wealth, and comparatively disadvantaged in terms of income, spend their resources on expensive consumer goods as opposed to investment or saving?

Revisiting the Plantation Retreats Where Black Men Go to Serve Their White Masters: Did You Know That a Person Can Brand Their Human "Slave" With a Bar Code Which Can Be Searched Online?

One of the most popular posts here on We Are Respectable Negroes discusses a BDSM retreat where black men serve as the "slaves" of white male "masters". That piece was part of a larger discussion of questions related to role-playing, living museums, and questions of identity, race, power, and historical memory.

"Playing with Sex, Power, and Race: Did You Know That There Are "Plantation Retreats" Where Black People Go to Serve Their White Masters?" floats about and around the Internet until it gets picked up on a frequent basis, during which it is routinely met with shock, horror, and offense. Said essay does have a life of its own; the Google machine has favored it.

As such, both this week and last, "Playing with Sex, Power, and Race: Did You Know That There Are "Plantation Retreats" Where Black People Go to Serve Their White Masters?" has proven itself to be popular once again.

I often receive emails about how I discovered that retreat, and my thoughts on race and sex play more generally. Given the recent rise--pardon the obvious pun--in emails with those questions, I reasoned that it would be most efficient to answer them in a post here on We Are Respectable Negroes.

As I wrote here, I am not interested in passing judgement about how consenting adults choose to explore their sexuality. However, I am  very fascinated by how sexuality and notions of the erotic reflect a society's collective subconscious.

Redd Foxx was right and best when he said that when the lights are off, all that really matters is who wiped their butts. Such a policy is my civil sexual religion: a person's melanin count is the last thing I care about given the wondrous gift that is enjoying each other's bodies like a great roller coaster that we can ride for free....over, and over, and over again.

I also acknowledge how a person's skin color can be a source of sexual titillation and arousal for those who are differently inclined than me.

With those qualifiers in play and noted, here are some additional discoveries, questions, and thoughts on race play.
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How did you discover the plantation retreat that you wrote about in "Playing with Sex, Power, and Race: Did You Know That There Are "Plantation Retreats" Where Black People Go to Serve Their White Masters?"

I go to many websites and follow these Internets where they take me. I also read and share my discoveries here on We Are Respectable Negroes with all of you so that more innocent eyes can be saved and preserved. Thus, my borrowing a phrase from Nolan's Batman movies, I reach down into the muck and mire so that you do not have to.

Have you discovered other BDSM plantation-slavery role-playing retreats? What about other online resources for those people who want to engage in "slavery" BDSM role-playing?

Yes. There is one in the United Kingdom which you can read about here. They also have an application process. The proprietors are quite interested in "owning" "slaves" who are not white. Blue Star Plantation's "slave master" and "overseers" also host a President Jefferson Davis event--yes, in honor of the Confederacy--where they have a race in which their slaves compete with one another for the approval and honor of the respective masters.

The online community called Fetlife has a dedicated group called "The Slave Register". It has approximatley 6,000 members who enjoy the lifestyle that is being a slave "owned" by another person. Some of the members are interested in race play. Many other members have not explicitly mentioned an interest in that lifestyle.

Have you discovered any examples of race play and slavery fantasies which you found particularly disturbing or surprising?

My instincts tell me that those folks who are really into that lifestyle are not posting online in regular forums. Likely, there is a very private subculture, one that exists outside of the eyes of "tourists" like myself.

However, I did discover that there is a website where you can register the UPC code of your "slave" in an online database. This is the natural evolution of the jewelry, brands, and other tattoos worn by submissives who are "owned" by their "masters". I was still surprised that people would actually register a UPC code, have it tattooed on their flesh, and then make the information accessible on a public database.

African-Americans were forced to wear "slave tags" during the centuries of our bondage in the United States and elsewhere. We were also branded with markings that showed our "ownership" by a specific master. It should not be surprising that some people who are engaged in race play or "master"/"slave" relationships would use current technology.

What do you think of race play more generally?

Do you. Have fun. I am not interested in introducing such dynamics into my personal relationships. I am a pretty direct person. Some of us choose to work out issues of power and trauma in our intimate lives. It is not for me. Consenting adults should be able to do as they wish. Does this mean that such types of kink and sex play ought to be immune from a critical gaze that locates them within an understanding of broader social dynamics? Of course not. As has been said many times--often too much for my taste--the personal is political.

What do you think of X site? Have you seen the Race Play Tumblr site?

There is lots of stuff out there which I am not interested in looking at. Sorry. Yes, I am a pretty curious person by nature. But, I know that there are some motifs and genres of erotica, adult film, etc. where there is overtly racist language coupled with gonzo style sex that is off-putting to me. These rules apply for white men on black women, black men on white women, and all other combinations in which some stereotypical depiction of race, sex, and the body is shown. Not for me. To quote the movie Boogie Nights, such things do not get my joy juice flowing.

I have seen the Race Play Tumblr. I do not know if it is an intentional parody, a pathetic effort to get paid off of the "race play" lifestyle, or a smart hustle.

For those of you who have not seen the site do click here.

I found most of it pretty funny...in a sad, tragic, and "what the hell?" sort of way. I also found this cartoon pretty damn laughable.

Perhaps, that is because I understand the idea of the White Gaze, and how such racist depictions of the black body are not "real" as they are projections of the white racial frame, and a twisted, white supremacist understanding of the humanity of black and brown people? Ultimately, the Race Play Tumblr is a window into white racism; it offers no commentary on the true humanity of black and brown people. What worries me the most is how some people of color have internalized such fictions about their humanity and sexuality.

What was funny about the Race Play Tumblr?

The videos on the site are comical to me. And yes, for many people, they would be disturbing. I get that. But, I did find the following description of one of the videos, and later mission statement of the website's founder's vision, very entertaining. There are many black men and other people of color who would get off from being humiliated in such a way.

I would think that black conservatives such as Clarence Thomas, Allen West, and C.L. Bryant would thoroughly enjoy being smothered by a white woman's genitals and butt, all the while being called racial slurs, to be very, very, very exciting.

You're the house servant of a nice white lady, Miss Livvy Rose, and she's been good to give you a great job inside cleaning & doing chores. Unfortunately she comes in; sees that you didn't clean up a mess on the kitchen floor earlier & admonishes you greatly. She's VERY dissapointed in you, calling all sorts of mean racist names, not just the N-word but many others to describe your race (not sure if I can write them here yet or not!) She makes you lie face up on the floor and sits on your face, smothering you & it's so hard for you to breathe! But she finds great joy in torturing her black slaves because that's what you were put here on earth for. She keeps laughing; sitting on your face in glee. Maybe now you'll learn to obey her better. 

Welcome to my TABOO RACEPLAY site... if you're a black male who find the words Nigger, Coon, Darkie coming out of the mouth of nice lookin white women turning you on... if you've ever had plantation slave sexual fantasies... if the thought of getting owned by a white (or other non-black) woman using your race as a humiliation factor... get on board! I started filming my own racial humiliation clips because I found the other ones for sale on CLIPS4SALE were very grainy, solo webcam models who don't fully understand the fetish but just yell a bunch of racist terms to the camera; not providing a story. I wanted real life stories in a modern age, to set a scene at least that could be somewhat believable... at least you could wish for it anyways.

Those of us who study white supremacy and racism in the post civil rights era often talk about public versus private behavior, and how white racism is much more honest and revealing when the pressure on white folks to publicly conform has been removed. The Race Play Tumblr, and those who are into that lifestyle, give support to such a theoretical framework and hypothesis.

Do you disapprove of race play and BDSM slavery plantations because you are a prude and are repressed?

I am not a prude. I say get your groove on folks. Have fun. I am a very, very sex positive person. As sexologist Dan Savage has said, I am "GGG". I do not have any guilt issues associated with human sexuality rooted in religion or similar mythologies. My parents gifted me with such sensibilities.

I just think that black and brown people who choose to work through racism and white supremacy by having white people abuse them are outside of my realm of understanding. I can understand the opposite, such power play makes more sense to me. But being submissive, in a sexual routine that plays with race, while living in a society that already dominates people of color for not being white, does not compute for me. I am open to learning and listening to those who enjoy such sexual practices.

What will the future of race play hold given the new popularity of slavery films such as Django: Unchained and the recent 12 Years a Slave?

I am not deep enough into thinking about race play as it relates to broader trends in popular culture to offer up an informed answer to that question. Of course, both movies will have their XXX versions. Yes, even the second one.

I am very curious about how race play, and BDSM related retreats, are fueled precisely by the twin lie and emptiness in the American popular imagination about the cruelties and wickedness of the American Slaveocracy. Maybe it is easier for some to get off by offering up an even more twisted version of the white supremacist lie that is/was movies and books such as Gone With the Wind?

But, human beings' capacity for self-deception and creativity never ceases to amaze me. There is sexual role-playing about the Holocaust. I doubt that there would be any taboos about more "realistic" BDSM slavery retreats in the aftermath of a movie such as 12 Years a Slave. And here is the frightening thought: I would bet money that those who are seriously into race play and the motif of the plantation probably know a great deal about the real history and barbarism of the American Slaveocracy. Likely, the idea of their expert knowledge, and using it as part of their sexual oeuvre, is exciting for them.

Lawrence Kasdan is Rewriting the New Star Wars Movie and We Also Get Some Laughs from this Newly Discovered Star Wars: A New Hope Blooper Reel

Do enjoy this newly "discovered" blooper reel from Star Wars: A New Hope before the copyright monster takes it down. The audio track begins at the 50 second mark.

I just hope that the new JJ Abrams' Star Wars movies capture just a tiny bit of the joy and wonder that George Lucas channeled in the first trilogy. Is that so much to ask? When I saw George Lucas several months ago with his new bride taking in an evening movie, he seemed pretty at ease...hopefully that is a good sign for the future health of the Star Wars universe.

The most recent news about the new Star Wars movies is mixed--at best. Michael Arendt, the original writer for Episode 7, has been replaced. Lawrence Kasdan, the scribe of The Empire Strikes Back, is now assuming writing duties along with JJ Abrams. I must wonder, is Kasdan's involvement with the new film a sign that the original script is a mess? Alternatively, given Kasdan's role with the original trilogies, should Star Wars fandom be reassured by this development? Or is this just the typical writing process for a movie that is part of a mega-franchise?

I am editing the newest episode in the podcast series here on We Are Respectable Negroes, and will post it this week. The release of the Star Wars: A New Hope blooper reel, and Kasdan's role in the new trilogy, are together an opportunity to revisit our first podcast where friend of WARN, Bill the Lizard, and I discussed our thoughts on the prequels, as well as offered up some suggestions for the new trilogies.

Meditating on the Varieties of Day-to-Day Racism While The Hulk Fights a Bear and Gay "Sex Demons" are Exorcised on Stage

I propose that we add a new phrase to our shared American and British vernacular. In keeping with our discussion of 12 Years a Slave, when confronted by racism, black folks should say to those who have transgressed us "are you trying to Solomon Northup me?"

Invoking the name of a free black man who was sold into slavery and who escaped back again has many pithy uses. I do not propose a flattening of history or trivializing of the horrors which were so common as to be quotidian; moreover, how does one accurately describe the horrific when it ceases to be unusual and is instead an accepted state of affairs?

We, Blacks, the Roma, Jews, and First Nations Brothers and Sisters--and any people who have had to negotiate systematic oppression--learn to laugh to keep from crying. This is a necessary survival skill.

Life is a journey of the mundane and the repetitious punctuated by periodic moments of absurdity. 

To the latter, I encountered a bit of it early this week, when I was threatened with arrest for having the hubris to request that my food be reheated while eating at a self-consciously mid-tier restaurant which felons and ex-cons dream of, where upon release they will gorge on a celebratory meal. 

Yes, I will soon share details of what occurred once some matters are sorted out. 

[And to she, the wicked crone who transgressed me, quoting the talented and indispensable wordsmith WWE wrestler Mr. Mark Henry, do I look like I got Kool-Aid for blood? Consequences. There will be consequences. I will revel in them.]

Am I crazy? Am I being overly sensitive? Am I imagining things? These are questions that come from life as a person, in a society that is supposedly "color blind", but where racism has evolved to hide itself, and its owners/perpetrators have refined a language of "white victimhood" and the oxymoron myth that is "reverse racism".

Navigating such encounters are exhausting--if you let them get to you. Moreover, one can so easily fall prey and get lost in the maze that is trying to understand other people's behavior.

Consider the following question(s)...and its many permutations. Is said person just shitty, mean, and incompetent? Or is said person shitty, mean, and incompetent--and their shittiness, meanness, and incompetence are encouraged and exaggerated because I am a person of color?

I am very curious about your life strategies and rubrics for such scenarios.

The Movie "12 Years a Slave" is a Horror Movie for Upwardly Mobile Black Strivers in Post-Civil Rights America

The good folks at Salon have featured my newest bit of writing on the movie "12 Years a Slave". Please share it on social media, and comment on Salon if you are so inclined. I would greatly appreciate your support.

In the piece, I try to explain how the film is potent as both a tale of 19th century America, as well as one that resonates in the present, because of how black folks are subjected to the White Gaze, and can have their abilities, talents, and successes treated in a contingent way by a society still structured by, and deferent to, white supremacy and white privilege.

I will post the whole essay here next week. For now, the following passage crystallizes much of what I shared over at Salon:

Of course, in the 21st century black Americans are no longer slaves. But a sense that human rights for Black Americans (and other people of color) are still contingent and at risk is very real and alive in the post-civil rights era. 

When black Americans driving a nice car, one which “people like them” ought not to own as judged by the police, are racially profiled and harassed, it is a reminder of their Otherness.

When black Americans are followed around department stores, asked for identification when making routine purchases, or otherwise harassed for wanting to participate as full citizens in “the consumer’s republic,” it is a reminder that they are perennial outsiders. Even black celebrity millionaires and billionaires are not free of such policing by those who are acting in the name of White authority. Black graduates of elite universities are less likely to receive job interviews than white applicants. Black men without criminal records who apply for jobs are just as likely to receive an interview as white men that are felons. Black Americans who are middle and upper class live in neighborhoods that in terms of public services and net worth more closely resemble those of poor and lower-class white communities. 

Solomon Northup lived in a state of existential threat to his freedom. Black Americans today remain subjected to efforts by a society steeped in white racism and white privilege to put them “in their place” when they are perceived as “getting out of line.” Formal white supremacy is illegal in America. However, many of its informal conventions remain. 

Barack Obama is central to this dilemma and puzzle. He is arguably the most powerful person in the world. He is the exemplar of the multicultural elite class which has come to prominence in the United States after the Civil Rights Movement.

In addition, Obama’s racial politics are very conservative. He actively avoids discussions of race-specific solutions to the problems facing the African-American community. And when he does discuss the latter, Barack Obama revels in his chosen role as the “Scold-in-Chief” of Black America. 

Nevertheless, Barack Obama is subjected to vicious and bizarre assaults on his legitimacy by white conservatives who cannot reconcile his “blackness” and role as the symbolic embodiment of the United States of America. The White Right is so disdainful of Obama’s personhood and humanity, that they will risk destroying the United States economy in order to protest the legitimacy of the country’s first black president.  

African-Americans remain robbed of the equivalent social cache, deference, and respect which comes from similar success and training by, and on the part of, white Americans. Brother Malcolm X pithily summarized this social phenomena as "what do you call a black man with a PhD? You call him a 'nigger'. Because that is what the white man calls him."

In the year 2013, black folks do not have to be 10 times as good as white folks to get half as far--a lesson I am sure many of you were taught and internalized as young people--but, the journey is still not equivalent or fair for we the former.

From slavery to freedom, Black Americans have had to face a white society which wanted, and did everything to, steal our honor from us. Rituals such as being "schooled" by the whip in front of our families and children, Jim and Jane Crow, housing segregation, job discrimination, and institutional racism in a color blind era, are part of a long tradition of efforts by an American society structured by both white privilege and white supremacy to visit day-to-day humiliations, and subsequent limitations, on people of color.

President Obama is one of the most powerful people in the world. Yet, even he is subjected by the White Right's concerted efforts to delegitimate him.

In the spirit of the existential angst channeled by the movie 12 Years a Slave, is the following moment of sharing by Dick Gregory during the 2008 State of the Black Union conference.

What follows is very powerful: It is one of the best and most honest examples of how the effort to humiliate, dehumanize, and rob Black Americans of the rights of full citizenship, and the deference of honorifics and title, operates in the present:

Last week I wrote about my wonder in response to how some black Americans reacted towards the violence depicted in the movie 12 Years a Slave. Upon reflection, I think that much of said pain comes from how the movie dissolves the lie of social distance, and reminds black viewers that yes, they too, could have been Solomon Northup...despite the lie they tell themselves to the contrary.

44 Books and Resources to Help Viewers Understand the History and Context of the Movie "12 Years a Slave"

We have had some great suggestions for the proposed reading list to accompany the movie 12 Years a Slave. I would like to thank all of you who kindly chimed in on that first draft. I have amended the list, and included it below.

The next step is to develop a syllabus to go along with the film. I understand the anxiety about putting one's intellectual property online. But, if you remain so inclined, and after some conversation and editing if necessary, I would be happy to post your proposed syllabus  (of any traditional length) for a college or high school class about the issues raised by the film (and book) 12 Years a Slave here on We Are Respectable Negroes.

Social media is a great way of beginning a conversation in response to the the movie 12 Years a Slave. The next step is to go old school, do some reading, and actually meet in person to talk about the movie--as well as how the centuries-long enslavement of black Americans in the Americas resonates into the present.

Who knows? If you are in Chicago, and organize an event related to the film, perhaps I would attend and participate in your panel or reading group if invited...

1. The Autobiography of Olaudah Equiano
2. Kindred by Octavia Butler
3. Questioning Slavery by James Walvin
4. Many Thousands Gone by Ira Berlin
5. Slavery and Social Death by Orlando Patterson
6. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market by Walter Johnson
7. The Slave Ship by Marcus Rediker
8. White Over Black by Winthrop Jordan
9. Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams
10. A Nation Under Our Feet by Steven Hahn
11. A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartoleme De Las Casas
12. Stedman's Suriname by John Gabriel Stedman
13. Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon
14. Negotiating and Transforming the Public Sphere: African American Political Life in the Transition from Slavery to Freedom by Elsa Barkley Brown
15. Roll, Jordan Roll by Eugene Genovese
16. Party/Politics by Michael Hanchard
17. Trouble in Mind by Leon Liftwhack
18. The African Diaspora by Patrick Manning
19. Children of Fire by Tom Holt
20. From Slavery to Freedom by John Hope Franklin
21. The Confederate States of America by Greg Kirsch
22. "Slave Traders" in the anthology movie series Cosmic Slop
23. Sankofa by Alexander Duah
24. Goodbye Uncle Tom by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi
25. The Mind of the Master Class by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
26. Black Holocaust for Beginners by S.E. Anderson
27. Caste, Class, and Race by Oliver Cox
28. The Water Brought Us: The Story of the Gullah-Speaking People by Muriel Miller Branch
29. Jubilee by Margaret Walker 
30. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Linda Brent a.k.a Harriet Jacobs
31. When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection by Norman Yetman
32. Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
33. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
34. The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638 - 1870 by W.E.B. Dubois
35. Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust by John Henrik Clarke
36. Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism by John Henrik Clarke
37. The Comparative Histories of Slavery in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States by Laird W. Bergad, 

38. "Prices of African Slaves Newly Arrived in the Americas, 1673-1865: New Evidence on Long-Run Trends and Regional Differentials," by David Eltis

39. Slavery in the Development of the Americas by Frank D. Lewis and Kenneth L. Sokoloff

40. The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History by Kenneth F. Kiple
41. Junius P. Rodreiguez, ed., Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression
42. Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, volume II, The Servile Estate by John Ralph Willis
43. Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves by Adam Hochschild
44. Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett Jr.

If You Were Forming a Study Group About the Movie "12 Years a Slave" What Materials Would You Assign?

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The above discussion on Melissa Harris-Perry's MSNBC show about the movie 12 Years a Slave is well-worth watching.

I am going to do a few posts this week about the movie. I shared some preliminary thoughts here. I will be seeing the movie again today. At some point this week, I will offer up something more extensive and cohesive--I know where I want to go; I need to be sure about the destination. This will only come to me after a second or third viewing of the film.

12 Years a Slave is eliciting much praise, emotion, and pain on the part of moviegoers.

My hope is that people will not stop with the feeling of pained emotions and shock at the relative verisimilitude of the violence depicted on black bodies owned as human property in 12 Years a Slave. We/Us must go farther in our efforts to understand the events depicted in that movie.

While I disagree with the suggestion that 12 Years a Slave is "torture porn", I am worried that if viewers treat the movie as the end and not the beginning of learning about the centuries-long institution that was white ownership of black bodies in the Americas, a state of affairs that was a central means for wealth creation in the "New World", then that claim is ultimately proven correct.

Moreover, an emphasis on the pain and suffering shown in the movie 12 Years a Slave without an accompanying exercise in truth-seeking and expanding one's understanding of both the specific facts and context for the American Slavecracy, does in fact reduce the events in the film to a voyeuristic pornography of violence.

After watching 12 Years a Slave, I do hope that folks read the book (at the very least), and then watch documentaries about the global African slave trade--and this is truly wishful thinking--as well as start a study group or reading circle about chattel slavery in the West. Unfortunately, so many people confuse empty Tweets, Facebook "likes", and related acts on social media for the real work necessary to mate personal interest with social change work in the real world.

Ultimately, such a response to 12 Years a Slave would be an example of such processes in practice.

But, we can still introduce a corrective. We have a varied readership here on We Are Respectable Negroes. For those of you who have seen 12 Years a Slave, or alternatively have thought about, read about, and meditated upon American history, African-American slavery, or its many related subjects, what books, articles, songs, or films, would you assign to a study group that wants to truly expand their knowledge about the context and events depicted in the film?

Suggesting such materials can be difficult: I know that if not careful, I will overwhelm readers with books and the like. I am also not a historian. I am however very interested in what a person trained in the specific sub-field of Southern American history during the 18th and 19th centuries, and who studies American slavery, would suggest in terms of reading materials for 12 Years a Slave.

I am eager to learn from them.

My list would begin with the following materials (and excluding the obvious, that the book 12 Years a Slave should be the first assignment for the reading group). These are my personal favorites on the topic of African-American slavery (and its aftermath) in the West. This list is far from comprehensive. But, I would argue that these materials are all excellent and important for those us trying to make sense of the movie 12 Years a Slave.

What would you add to the list?

1. The Autobiography of Olaudah Equiano
2. Kindred by Octavia Butler
3. Questioning Slavery by James Walvin
4. Many Thousands Gone by Ira Berlin
5. Slavery and Social Death by Orlando Patterson
6. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market by Walter Johnson
7. The Slave Ship by Marcus Rediker
8. White Over Black by Winthrop Jordan
9. Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams
10. A Nation Under Our Feet by Steven Hahn
11. A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartoleme De Las Casas
12. Stedman's Suriname by John Gabriel Stedman
13. Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon
14. Negotiating and Transforming the Public Sphere: African American Political Life in the Transition from Slavery to Freedom by Elsa Barkley Brown
15. Roll, Jordan Roll by Eugene Genovese
16. Party/Politics by Michael Hanchard
17. Trouble in Mind by Leon Liftwhack
18. The African Diaspora by Patrick Manning
19. Children of Fire by Tom Holt
20. From Slavery to Freedom by John Hope Franklin
21. The Confederate States of America by Greg Kirsch
22. "Slave Traders" in the anthology movie series Cosmic Slop
23. Sankofa by Alexander Duah
24. Goodbye Uncle Tom by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi
25. The Mind of the Master Class by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
26. Black Holocaust for Beginners by S.E. Anderson
27. Caste, Class, and Race by Oliver Cox

A Few Were Even Laughing: Help Me Understand Why Some Black Folks Were Crying at and Shocked by the Violence in the Movie "12 Years a Slave"

I have just watched 12 Years a Slave. I will develop more thoughts in detail next week. But, I would like to share the following preliminary response.

I went to 12 Years a Slave expecting to feel like its depiction of the graphic violence of black chattel slavery in the United States would leave me feeling as though I had been slapped me in the face or punched in the stomach.

Instead, I felt a very reassuring and familiar hand on my shoulder, as well as a whisper in my ear that said "yes, this is accurate", or "okay, Steve McQueen has done a good job attending to the important details (such as the use of 'slave tags') and this is a very capable work of film-making, with excellent performances that will win several Oscars".

As I watched the gasps, shocks, tears, and listened to audible moments of surprise on the part of the mostly African-American audience at the AMC River East theater here in Chicago, I kept wondering if perhaps I am just a cold person, or that something is wrong with me because I found the violence in 12 Years a Slave rather subdued as compared to the book, and also the institutional barbarism of slavery in the New World, more generally.

As I looked at the brother next to me who had to walk out of the movie during a moment when a slave is "schooled" via the whip, and how his female companion kept shaking her head and hiding her eyes during several of the movie's more harrowing scenes, I realized that I owed some public thanks to the history teachers I was blessed to have in college (and graduate school).

I would like to extend my gratitude for putting the Transatlantic slave trade in historical and global context. I would like to thank my history professors for explaining that black chattel slavery was a cruel business where profit was legitimated by the debasement of human beings.

I would like to thank my history teachers for not allowing or indulging silly notions of "The White Man's" existential evil, but rather making it clear that Europeans were pretty wicked to one another and that Colonialism and Imperialism were natural outgrowths of said fact.

I would like to thank my history professors for giving me primary source materials to read when I started to expound some Afrocentric-Afrotopia influenced misunderstandings about the Transatlantic slave trade, i.e. believing in nonsense like the Willie Lynch Letter, or that at least 100 million black people were killed during the Middle Passage. As one of my favorite, and most difficult taskmasters explained, "why do you need to make things up and exaggerate about one of the worst crimes in human history? The facts as they are stand as a testament to human wickedness on their own."

I would like to thank my history professors for teaching me that black chattel slavery varied by region and country in the West and around the world. And ultimately, I want to thank my history professors for emphasizing how the Southern Slaveocracy was a de facto military state that involved personal tyranny of white on black, as well as daily acts of resistance to our domination and subordination. Tyrannical power over other human beings creates a formula for, and legitimizes gross violence, both interpersonal and societal. This is a fact common across human history and the various divides of race, nation, ethnicity, gender, class, and tribe.

Moreover, African-Americans were never silent nor did we ever surrender to our enslavement; despite a monopoly on State violence and arms, whites lived in terror of slave uprisings and that they would one day be brought to justice for their crimes.

I am not suggesting that I am better, superior, or stronger than the other black folks I watched 12 Years a Slave with several hours ago. However, I do think that much of the shock and surprise is a function of how little so many Americans know about the brutality of black human bondage across the Black Atlantic.

When an older black woman in front of me muttered to herself "I can't believe this is happening", I almost wanted to ask her "how did you think that millions of black people were kept as property for centuries in the United States? With treats and praise?"

12 Years a Slave is one story from one small part of complex system of human servitude in the United States and the Americas. There are so many stories yet to be told in mass popular culture about slaves working in mines, on the plantations of the Caribbean and across Latin and South America, the hell of the Middle Passage, maroon colonies and slave insurrections, semi-free people who hired out their own labor and lived in a liminal space as "independent" craftsmen and artisans in cities, the black slaves who built the railroads, locks, and highways that facilitated American empire, the true life horror stories of black slaves sold to medical schools and kidnapped for live vivisection and other experiments, and the personal psychological warfare that went on between slave and slave owner, those little daily battles through which slaves negotiated their own freedoms and rights in order to carve out a space to be human.

I am interested in how those of you who have seen 12 Years a Slave feel about the film more generally. I do have two specific questions.

Help me understand why some black folks were crying, shocked, and aghast at what they saw on the screen? In my screening, several young people were laughing during the movie. Yes, black youth in their teens and twenties, laughing at human suffering.

Is this a function of anxiety and fear on their part? A sense of shame that comes out as an effort to distance themselves from their own people's suffering? Or is this a reflection of a general culture of cruelty, where so many of our young people across the color line are nihilistic, but simultaneously so immersed in violence and consumerism, that they have been trained to find humor in the mistreatment of others?

12 Years a Slave is a fine movie. It is also a relatively restrained depiction of the various cruelties unleashed by the White Slaveocracy on black people. Americans need to grow up and come to terms with the crime against humanity that was African-American enslavement in the New World, and then decades of Jim and Jane Crow in our own country. For some, American Exceptionalism will make such an act very difficult if not impossible. However, those in denial can still find solace in the fact that in many ways American slavery was unique, peculiar, and special among nations.

Is It All Over Our Face? The Republican Party's Shutdown of the United States Government was an Act of Public Political Masturbation

When I was in elementary school, students had to put their names on a sign-in sheet to use one of the two private bathrooms in our classroom.

This was a great step forward in our personal responsibility because 10, 11, and 12 year old children would now be held accountable for peeing on the toilet, not flushing, or otherwise making a mess. Some of us were smart enough to game the system and either not write their names down, put someone else's name on the sign-in sheet, or sneak off and do their business anonymously in the bathroom. Ultimately, most of my classmates were pretty well-behaved and neat--at least as far as elementary school kids in a bathroom directly unsupervised by adults are capable of being.

I will never forget when one of my classmates, a young boy about 12 or 11 years old, decided to use the bathroom as place to masturbate. Of course, as can only happen to young boys who are so excited about discovering onanistic delight and joy during the school day, he retired to his personal place of self-discovery and forgot to lock the door.

There were screams and laughter and chuckles as the next person to use the bathroom discovered him sitting on the floor, pleasuring himself, he filled with glee and self-restraint long abandoned. Interestingly, while obviously embarrassed by being found out, there was no sense of shame on his part. He would be caught surrendering to his masturbatory urges in that bathroom, other places on school grounds, and even the bus home throughout the remainder of the year.

He liked the attention; public masturbation is its own reward; the thrill is in being discovered and not caring about the consequences.

Moreover, masturbation is both the easiest and also one of the first tricks that young boys learn in life. It requires no skill. One can only get better at it over time.

The manufactured crisis that was the Republican Party's shutdown of the federal government to "prove a political point" was an exercise in political masturbation, one not unlike like the public spectacle put on by my former schoolmate.

While temporarily thwarted in their Ayn Randian Grover Norquist efforts to shutdown the government, and by doing so to cause the United States to default on its financial obligations, the Tea Party GOP still felt a rush from all of the attention garnered by their mayhem. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party, in surrendering to the Tea Party's hallucinatory ideology fueled spectacle, have taught those brigands and seditious political actors that there is a positive reward for their bad behavior.

In a few months, the Republican Party will engage in another episode of public political masturbation as they hold the American people hostage again when this short-term extension of the debt-ceiling limit expires. Another manufactured political crisis will ensue. The Republicans will again publicly masturbate and cum all over the American people--and without the courtesy of using a towel or cloth to contain their mess of fluids--they will smile, laugh, and be encouraged to make a mess again, again, and again and again.

The more they are condemned for their irresponsible and reckless behavior against the Common Good and long-term prosperity of the United States, the more the Republican Party is aroused and excited. They have mastered the pathetic magic trick that is public political masturbation.

As the classic Chicago house music song implies, yes indeed, "it is all over your face" America.

Republicans, and the Tea Party faithful especially, are now serial public political masturbators. Republicans are now very aroused and excited by a belief that they "won" the debt ceiling shutdown standoff.

Put on your boots and gloves folks. Thanks to the Republican Party, American democracy is now a peepshow or XXX movie theater circa 1970s Times Square in New York City.

Shutdown: The Republican Party is Possessed by a Hallucinatory Ideology. Those Outside of the Cult Cannot Understand Them.

If you like and support the work we are doing here at We Are Respectable Negroes please try to support us with a donation. My online work is a blessing. It is also work and a labor of love. I appreciate all of the support the fans and readers of the site have given me over the years.
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The United States government may will apparently not default on its financial obligations later this week. The Republican Party has continued to hold held the American people hostage by refusing to end their shutdown of the federal government. The power of the Tea Party over the Republicans, and the latter’s Stockholm-like surrender to them, heralds the end of “normal politics” for one of the country’s two main political parties.

Functional political systems are dependent upon compromise and horse-trading. Broken political systems can be exploited by political ideologues that are unwilling to compromise unless their demands are met. The United States, as a constitutional republic, is especially vulnerable to small factions who can infiltrate the government and then betray the standing bargains and norms which—to this point—made America a model for political stability and legitimacy around the world.

To those outside of the Right-wing echo chamber, the behavior of the Republican Party GOP is deranged and irrational. The Republican Party’s brand name has been tarnished among the American people. The majority of the public (correctly) blames them for the unnecessary harm that the shutdown is causing the American and global economy. The Republican Party, when they also forced a government shutdown during 1995 and 1996, will be likely punished by voters for its political recklessness and irresponsible behavior in upcoming elections.

Ultimately, the Tea Party GOP is proceeding from a political calculus in the present that threatens to bankrupt and ruin the Republican Party for many years into the future.

Outside observers are unable to grasp the Republican Party’s political logic because they are not among its true believers and faithful. The Republican Party is now a cult. Here, faith, as in religion, is a belief in that which cannot be proven by ordinary means. As such, how can we as a society resolve political disputes if one group of people is committed to magical thinking, and is therefore immune from appeals to empirical truth?

“It is true because we believe it to be so” is a logic that has brought down many societies and governments. Unfortunately, such a slogan is also the motto of the current Republican Party.

On matters ranging from global warming to tax policy and the severe consequences of defaulting on the United States’ obligations to pay its bills, conservatives have embraced positions which are factually incorrect and exist outside of empirical reality.

Because the Tea Party GOP is a cult, they have mated an obsession with purity and ideology within a framework that expels pragmatists and realists as “heretics”. America’s politics is broken because the Tea Party are political jihadists engaged in a war against “non-believers” and fighting an Inquisition within the broader Republican Party. 

White Privilege and Film Together Again: Did You Know That "12 Years a Slave" Makes Scarlett O'Hara's Struggles in "Gone With the Wind" Seem Petty by Comparison?

Like many of you, I am eagerly awaiting the new movie 12 Years a Slave. The early reviews suggest that the movie is going to win several Oscars. I have spoken with someone that has seen the movie and he described it as The Schindler's List of African-American history on film.

12 Years a Slave is powerful. And if director Steven McQueen's past movies are any indication, he will hold nothing back in his raw depiction of how power is not an abstraction--it is enacted by and through its relationships with the human body and psyche.

In surveying the early reviews of 12 Years a Slave, I came upon the following quote from the Hollywood industry magazine Variety:

This epic account of an unbreakable soul makes even Scarlett O'Hara's struggles seem petty by comparison.

Upon reading the above "blurb" on the website Rotten Tomatoes, and then the full review, I was less shocked than I was disgusted.

One of the themes I have returned to in my essays on We Are Respectable Negroes, Alternet, and Salon is how the colorline, and day-to-day white privilege and White Supremacy, are systems which are sustained in the post civil rights era by social and political institutions, an empathy gap towards people of color, and historical myopia by otherwise well-meaning white folks.

As the lede to an otherwise spot on and sharp endorsement of 12 Years a Slave, Peter Debruge's suggestion that the pain and loss experienced by a white woman who profited from White Supremacy, and owning black people as human property, is in the same moral or ethical universe as the suffering experienced by black bondspeople, remains bizarre. Yet, it is a near-perfect example of colorblind racism and White Supremacy in practice.

I am also disappointed by how a film reviewer for a major publication could read the film Gone With the Wind without a critical eye, and thus continue to further the myth of the Confederacy as a type of noble "Lost Cause"--and its white elites as "victims"--instead of identifying white slave owners as racial terrorists who deserve(d) no pity, empathy, sympathy, or human compassion.

Gone With the Wind is White Supremacist propaganda. Unfortunately, even in 2013, there are large numbers of people who fail to recognize how their fantasies of big plantations, fancy dresses, and "Southern hospitality" were based upon murderous cruelty towards black Americans. The white racial frame and Whiteness together facilitate many lies: one of the most prominent of those lies is a self-delusion that Whiteness is benign and exists as something neutral, good, and outside of history.

Peter Debruge's effort to create some equivalence between the real life events depicted in 12 Years a Slave and the "struggles" of Scarlett O'Hara are akin to a person taking pity on how Nazis came upon "hard times" when their stolen Jewish labor was taken from them at the end of World War 2. 

Any person in the public square making the latter suggestion would be run out of town, mocked, and derided.

By comparison, and as we have recently seen with deranged suggestions by Tea Party Republicans that extending reasonably affordable health care to the American people is a crime like slavery, black folks' history can be played around with, misrepresented, and lied about at will and with few consequences.

Peter Debruge's comments about 12 Years a Slave is just one aspect of a multifaceted and complex colorblind white racism in the post civil rights era and the Age of Obama. 

Of course, overt White Supremacy is real and remains dangerous. Thankfully, it has been reduced to an outlier and near-caricature by the Black and Brown Freedom Struggle. 

The new White Supremacy is far more difficult to counter because it works through taken for granted assumptions and spurious "commonsense" notions about unequal racial outcomes being based on "culture" as opposed to genetics and biology. Here, racist outcomes that reinforce White power are naturalized and made to seem normal. In all, colorblind white racism is based on unthinking assumptions.

Moreover, the new White Supremacy, especially as practiced by good white liberals and others, is enabled by both a lack of critical reflection and a willing surrender to seeing the world through White eyes and White Privilege. Such a bias does not encourage its owners to question basic priors about social relationships and power.

I do not know Peter Debruge. I will assume he is a good and smart person. But, there is something very wrong when he is able to equate--without thinking (is this not the core basis of implicit racial bias?)--the cruelty experienced by a person owned as human property, and the sense of loss when their owner is deprived of said human being's labor and owned personhood.

12 Years a Slave is a reminder of how there remains much work to be done in educating the American people about the crime against humanity that was the enslavement of millions of Africans in the "New World".

By comparison, in the post World War 2 era West Germans did a far better job of owning up to the Holocaust. White Americans lag far behind them in owning and making reparations for the centuries of crimes committed against African-Americans. So much for American Exceptionalism. But then again, like Santa Claus, American Exceptionalism was always a useful lie that could not withstand much critical scrutiny.

Hopefully, the movie 12 Years a Slave will inspire viewers to do some research, buy and read some some essential historical texts, and then grapple with the centrality of chattel slavery (and the genocide of our First Nations Brothers and Sisters) to the rise of America as a global power.

Manimal is None Too Pleased: Yes, Black People are "Dog Biscuits". But, the LAPD's Dogs are Only as "Racist" as the Police Who Direct and Control Them.

I feed pigeons, geese, squirrels, and other animals to recruit my man-beast army. We are coming for you...kneel and pay homage now as opposed to later my friends if you want to survive.

I know that dogs are better than people. Part of his belief was nurtured by the time I spent during my formative years riding around in a "Cadillac car"--as my friend's grandfather called it--he who was a bootleg black preacher with a homemade talisman on his rear view mirror that read "Dog equals God". 

I miss all of my doggie friends who I have lived with over the years: they gave me and my family love, affection, loyalty, and smiles more than we ever game them in return.

Dogs have been an evolutionary and competitive advantage for human beings which helped us to become the dominant species on the planet. They are our Frankenstein monsters. We made dogs; thus, we have a sacred obligation to them. But, in their special role, our canine friends have also been used by European colonialists and invaders to kill indigenous people and to hunt down runaway slaves. Dogs are only as "good" or "bad" as their owners.

In all, dogs take on the character and temperament of the people around them. Dogs are similar to children in that regard. As such, we cannot blame our doggie friends for their "bad" behavior.

The UK's Independent has a story about research by the Police Assessment Resource Centre which details how the Los Angeles police are more likely to use dogs against black and brown people. This should be no surprise. Police are more aggressive, deadly towards, and exercise preemptive and unnecessary violence against both people of color and the poor and working classes.

Ultimately, it is a given that police would describe black people as "dog biscuits", and brutalize he latter whenever given the opportunity.

Pardon the obvious pun, the only "dog" in The Independent's story about "racist" police dogs is the comments section.

Black life is cheap. American history and the present has repeatedly demonstrated the truth of that fact. 

We also know that white racists love any opportunity to justify police brutality against people of color. The Internet makes the world much smaller; consequently, a story on a British newspaper's website about supposed black criminality and police brutality attracts White Supremacist trolls from the United States and around the world. 

Isn't globalization a wonderful thing?

Dear Chris Hayes, The Human Face of the Republican Government Shutdown Should Not Be a Black Woman

Lashante Austin is a furloughed employee who works at the Statue of Liberty in New York City. Like 800,000 federal employees, she has been without a paycheck, is behind on her bills, and struggling to survive because the Republican Party has shutdown the United States government.

Lashante Austin is the human face of the most recent crisis orchestrated by the Republican Party. MSNBC's Chris Hayes featured her on Thursday evening’s edition of "All In" as a way of reminding viewers that federal workers are not just political pawns. They are people with families, children, hopes, fears, worries, and dreams. 

Chris Hayes made a reasonable assumption in his decision to feature Lashante Austin as a guest on his show: the American people would empathize with her economic struggles and pain.

However, Hayes' logic proceeded from a flawed prior.

Lashante Austin is black and she is female. For conservatives, she is the very embodiment of why the United States government should be drowned in the bathtub like a baby. The Tea Party GOP wants to punish and hurt Lashante Austin. Why? Because her body and personhood symbolize the bogeyman talking point known as “big government”. 

Lashante Austin is a cue to the mythic welfare queen who helped Ronald Reagan (and others) win a presidential election. Mitt Romney deployed this narrative as well, where he suggested the Barack Obama was the “food stamp” president giving away money to lazy people of color. From the Southern Strategy in the 1960s onward, where Republican strategists under Nixon concocted a narrative that linked black people to “bad culture” and “government dependency”, the image of the black and brown female body has paid political dividends for the Right.

For example, the idea of a black female federal employee is part of a cultural imagination which includes stereotypes of lazy, inefficient, African-American employees at the DMV and post office who are “disrespectful” and lord their power over the public. 

And if the comments on MSNBC's own site and elsewhere about Lashante Austin's struggles are an indication of the broader response to her story, then she is a lightning rod for resentment against federal employees, and a deep sense that non-whites and women who work for the government are unqualified for their jobs, overpaid, and should expect to be fired.

There is a politically strategic element in how the Tea Party GOP has been able to link hostility to people of color, the poor, and their effort to destroy government and the social safety net. Rooted in the triumphs of the civil rights movement, African-Americans support a robust federal government as a means of protecting their civil liberties. People of color are also over-represented among federal employees. Consequently, the Republican assault on the federal government accomplishes multiple goals.

First, it further marginalizes people of color by forcing them out of their jobs. The Republican Party is the United States’ de facto white political interest group and organization. The Democratic Party’s base is increasingly pluralistic and racially diverse. Thus, the government shutdown disproportionately hurts people of color and weakens them both materially and politically.

Second, the Tea Party GOP, which is now a Southern political party and the contemporary descendant of the Confederacy, can link black and brown people to food stamps and other government aid as a means of ginning up white voters’ support for cutting such programs. White people in Red State America are greatly hurt by cutting those programs as well. But, the Tea Party GOP can distract their white voting base from this fact by focusing their rage and resentment towards blacks and Latinos—instead of the plutocrats and the 1 percent.

The most visible embodiment of the link between white racial animus and the notion that people of color are uniquely dependent on the federal government, an entity which the Tea Party GOP wants to destroy, is seen in the political rhetoric used by conservatives to describe black people who support the Democratic Party, as well as the idea of a responsible and robust government that supports and nurtures positive liberty and freedom. 

Conservatives and the Right-wing apparatus consistently suggest that Black Americans are stuck on a “Democratic plantation” and are uniquely “addicted” to the federal government.

Of course, such language is an abuse of history and the memories of the many millions killed by chattel slavery in the United States and the West. In the context of the government shutdown, such language is a reminder to the White Right and its supporters that black people are somehow uniquely connected to the United States government. Moreover, from this perspective, black Americans do not have full political agency and are just leeches and parasites on White America.

Government is viewed by conservatives first and foremost as an imposition on the liberties and rights and freedoms of White Americans. “States’ Rights” is shorthand for such a sentiment. Consequently, how better than to maximize the liberties and freedoms of white people than by limiting a federal government which is seen as unfairly protecting black and brown people?

Chris Hayes assumed empathy and sympathy in a society where little to none exists for people of color in general, and women of color specifically. Research in social psychology suggests that this is true, to varying degrees, among white conservatives, independents, and liberals.

For the Tea Party GOP, the hostility to Lashante Austin is especially strong, and Hayes’ efforts to put a human face—one which happens to be black and female on the government shutdown—is even more prone to backfiring because of how white racial resentment and colorblind racism holds power over conservatives and others in the post civil rights era. In all, the election of the country’s first black president has only increased racism’s hold, both overt and covert, among the White Right.

I am not arguing that we should surrender to the bigotry and use of symbolic and colorblind racism by the Tea Party GOP to mobilize its voters in support of policies which hurt the Common Good and the American people. However, we should be mindful of how the visuals and optics that are used by the media during the Tea Party GOP’s hostage taking of the United States government can either help or hurt the efforts to end this political crisis.

I have a bold suggestion. It is one that will be met with some upset and controversy. White people should be the human face of the shutdown of the United States government. When guests are needed to talk about how the Tea Party GOP is hurting the American people, there should be a white senior citizen, white soldier or veteran, white single mother, or white male government employee interviewed on television or radio.

To show the human pain of the government shutdown as profoundly impacting people of color is a deed that is unable to cross the empathy and sympathy gap which is the colorline in American society. The White Gaze has little to no use for the suffering and hurt experienced by black and brown people.

I feel Lashante Austin’s pain. Unfortunately, for others, Lashante Austin, a gainfully employed and hardworking federal employee, is just one step away from being a black welfare queen who lives by "sucking off the government tit" and “good hard-working” white people. The Republican Party has a well-tested playbook for fueling the destruction of the social safety net and the federal government, one that is in many ways dependent on mobilizing white racism and anti-black and brown bias.

Let’s put a white face on this crisis. It is easy for Republicans and the Right-wing media to spin a narrative where the shutdown is a noble act that punishes black and brown folks as part of “big government”, where they (and the poor and working classes) are ultimately just a group of “useless eaters.” The Republicans would have a much harder time of deploying such a meme if the faces of their victims were white, male, and perhaps even wrapped in the American flag.