Interrupting Internalized Racial Superiority and Whiteness

This was the title of an instruction given by the City of Seattle’s Office of Civil Rights, in which white people were segregated — yes, segregated — from other races in order to learn how to be less white. They were told that whites feel superior to other races, and that this sense makes them incapable of acting in a humane way toward other races.

How do whites do these dastardly things? By having ideas such as perfectionism, comfort, objectivity, individualism, and intellectualization. The white people were told that they had to let go of such racial barriers as comfort, physical safety, social status, and relationships with some other white people.

Mentally balanced people regard perfectionism, comfort, objectivity, individualism, and intellectualization as good things. Lunatics, psychotics, dimwits, and sickos think that these things are bad. The conclusion is that the City of Seattle is governed by lunatics, psychotics, dimwits, and sickos.

Furthermore, to “accuse” white people of these “defects” is a gross insult to black people. It is as if to say that African Americans are incapable of the pursuit of perfection and of comforts in life, of being objective, of self-reliance, and of being intellectual. This sounds like something you would hear at a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan. Yet is this not what Seattle is saying to its white employees? They are saying that if you cultivate these qualities, you are going to make African Americans feel downtrodden because they do not have these qualities. What an insult!