With(out) Others

bell hooks always gets me as a teacher and scholar, as a citizen, too, and especially when she courageously addresses what it means to love. I know many of you will think this is a corny way to address a complex problem, but I mean to address only a particular aspect of the problem here. That is, I have been thinking about antiblack racism in white communities for much of my life. I grew up in Oklahoma, for crying out loud. Tulsa. One of the worst race riots in US history occurred there–one most people know little about.



Part of what keeps the whites of the United States so in the zone regarding white power structures and antiblack racism is not an unconscious racism but a conscious disavowal of love for others. US Libertarianism itself is basically nothing more than a revision of common liberties in democratic, capitalist society as a singular Liberty individuals covet and express without others. It’s that plus Austrian School economic theory. To my point. Black people for these whites are the most convenient representation of the other or all others. Blackness becomes a receptacle for all seething fears, general anxieties, and hatred of others. White people want to discuss Ferguson, for example, in a “rational” manner, insisting we “put feelings aside”, that we “remained balanced”. I mean, they have unconsciously taken the known racist excuse “not all white people” and are using “not all cops”. It’s clear to me, they think they are being fair. After all, they are just thinking about themselves. From liberal white to libertarian white, all this is a interpellative means to reject love. I swear it is.