Thank you for taking the time to read and respond. I think what you are saying to me is the title to my essay - Can You Please Shut Up About White Supremacy?

Your point, as I understand it, is that the vocal (white) left is co-dependent with the vocal (also white) right on the topic of racism. Both sides talk and talk and pull attention without actually doing anything. This is what you call "preaching" and you think Tim Wise (and me by association and this essay) are prime examples. We keep trying to bring people together to fight racism, but we are not actually doing it. To you, that is worse than not trying.

You think it would be better to just accept that the USA is actually "the divided states" and let people live in their separate communities. You say if so-called progressive San Francisco can't be unified, then it probably can't happen. We should just give up on the "United" because it was never true in the first place.

I'm trying to figure out how that would work. Would each city become its own country? Would each neighborhood? Would we have ethnic or religious clensing like when India divided? Would we create reservations for minorities? Making "the divided states" real would be traumatic for everyone. I suppose that is why I have yet to accept it, even as I can your point quite clearly.

John Biewen has a podcast series about American democracy titled something like "the land that never has been yet." Basically, he is saying what you are saying. We claim to be a democracy but it is a sham. We have never lived up to our stated ideals. I think Biewen, Wise, Woods, and myself would like for us to live up to some sort of collective set of ideals and we are proposing we need to understand how whiteness has functioned to keep us from those ideals. You seem to be saying that is a fool's errand, and our positionality as white men might be making us blind to why we are so deluded.

I think my essay asks that same question about whether white men should just shut up, and Laura's essay tackles it head-on. She calls it the "elephant." What is the purpose of white people preaching about racism? The choir already heard the sermon and the rest of the people tuned it out long ago. So it must be about stroking the ego (and pocketbook) of the preacher.

You might be right. I certainly have a hard time bothering to read these writers. In my essay, I said I was looking forward to reading Wise's memoir but frankly it isn't very high on my list. I'm the choir and I've heard it all before.

To the extent that Woods, Wise, and myself (I suppose) style ourselves as truth-tellers, there is a trap that we could fall into which is to think that we are going to "solve" racism. It is seductive to think that my words could make the difference. That is an individualistic narrative that I grew up with and am subject to, even as I intellectually deny it. We need to have collective action and movement.

So yes, this essay could be viewed as unproductive navel-gazing, especially without any action to go with it. It seems that is how you took it and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

My question is: What would it be like if Wise and Woods and D'Angelo did all go home and shut up? What if white people on the left stopped writing and speaking about racism? Would that lead to actual productive action?

Thanks again for responding. I write to discover and I have HUGE blind spots in this area.