Is Thinking Black Leaders are Sell-Outs the Ultimate White Privilege?
http://alabamaliberal.com/is-thinking-black-leaders-are-sell-outs-the-ultimate-white-privilege/We’ve seen this in white progressives’ (cough, Bernie, cough) belief that they could somehow be better for black rights than the first Democratically elected racial minority-President in the history of the world. We’ve seen it in the accusations that the Congressional Black Caucus and particularly veteran Congressman and Civil Rights legend John Lewis are “sell-outs” for backing Hillary. We’ve also seen it at an Occupy Wall Street rally in Atlanta that refused to let Congressman Lewis speak solely because, you know, he’s “The Man.”
There are those that will say this is the ultimate form of progress that a Civil Rights legend could go from Selma to “Sell-Out” and that the black movement is viewed as a full part of the mainstream, but I’m not sure I would see it that way. To me, the idea that any black leaders who have power and real political influence are just another cog in The Establishment is naively wrong at best. At worst, it’s morphing modern progressivism to ignore the voices it supposedly wants to help and think it knows best how to solve other communities problems with solutions that may not have any real affect on how they live.
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and entitlement, IMO. Is it the "ultimate" white privilege. Hmmm, there are so many to choose from 
Also, for the record, I don't think many of them are nearly as progressive as they think they are.
I had some interesting conversations with both white and black activist I know about privilege and how to be a solid ally around the time Ferguson was happening. It is an interesting and complex topic. One thing we agreed about, as white allies, was that sometimes it demanded the ability to sit quietly and feel uncomfortable. You can be infuriated by injustice and totally committed to the cause, but your white body is never on the line the way black bodies are. And you still get to have the white privilege, even when you work to end it. People sometimes distrust your white presence at first. But you care about justice, so you sit quietly and feel uncomfortable for a bit, until people get to know you. Talking less and respecting more is alway good place to start. So yeah, calling out black leaders, not cool.
I dunno. Maybe Clinton is just more willing to sit with the uncomfortableness of it all. There IS no real answer that I see, not at this point. The only thing I see to do sometimes is to keep working at relationships.
I think this is a great topic, and I want to post more in about detail about it after the primary is past. It is about so much more than a campaign, but I think no matter what is said right now, the campaigns will shade the topic.
Response to wildeyed (Reply #10)
Response to ismnotwasm (Reply #19)
Along with his cousin Point Missed. 
when I get a reply from named removed and never got to actually read it. Named removed seems to be a big fan of my work these days 
There's a lot of crap to wade through in the process, there's a lot of privilege that won't go down without at fight, but you can't stop progress, as they say. 
I started following another young hard-hitting blogger. It was a thing of beauty: focused, confident, and take-no-prisoners eloquence. Bravo! 
