Michael Eric Dyson: 1 Erick Erickson: 0

Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at Georgetown University and author who has written extensively about race, visited Anderson Cooper last night to discuss racism and privilege with Erick Erickson, the proprietor of RedState.com. And the conversation was literally a perfect reenactment of every conversation that has ever happened between a social justice advocate who is aware of the concept of white privilege and understands its effects, and a privileged white wanker whose garbage-brain is so choked with unexamined privilege all zie knows how to do is grin smugly and say things like, "My family's from Sweden. How exactly did I benefit from [slavery]?"


[The transcript is here, and begins with the video clip of Howard Dean.]
That whole exchange is unrelentingly infuriating. Thank Maude Dyson managed to end on such a brilliant note: "Look, if you're a white person and you get stopped by the cops, and the cops don't assume that when you reach for your wallet it's a gun, that's a form of privilege that has nothing to do with how much money you have or what country you're from."

I loved, by the way, how Erickson claims: "Everyone wants to hurl the racism charge, particular towards Republicans and towards conservatives, simply because they don't agree on policy." LOL! Yep, that's the only reason that people might suggest that the Republican Party and conservatives trade in racism.

Perhaps someone should direct Erickson to Elle's response to the open letter, posted on the site he founded, addressed to "American Blacks" which was one of the most condescending pieces of contemptible shite I've ever read in my life.

That letter's not about a policy disagreement, Erickson. That letter's about a fundamental difference in whether one views oneself as an equal part of a dynamic and varied humankind, with all its differences and idiosyncrasies and failures and flaws and goodness and heartbreaks and betrayals and inspirations, or as the center of a universe in which everyone else just happens to reside, most of whom one could do without.

And in the sense that progressives want to build a country (world) in which everyone has equal opportunity to thrive, and conservatives want to build a country (world) which favors particular people and skills so that some may thrive mightily while others fail miserably, I suppose that is a policy disagreement. But the policy flows from primal differences in the way we view ourselves and our relationship to and with other people.

[H/T to Shaker Evie-lu.]