Final thoughts on the effectiveness of non-performative allies and their sheet cakes

More ranting I’ve done on the ever-patient my friend’s wall. DEFINITELY beating a dead horse, now, but it makes me so heart-sore and angry. It’s like black people can’t even have fucking RACISM without some butt-hurt white person who thinks they’re open-minded, but really isn’t, telling us how to feel about our own experience. These people have to hijack even our racial experience and make it about them and what they feel/need/want. Boo-fucking-hoo. The self-centeredness is WORSE than the racism because the easy racists are the ones who know they are. The ones that think they’re not racist when they SO ARE, are the worst of all. And they don’t see it. But we do. WE SEE IT. And we see YOU.

After this, I think I’m done giving Tina Fey and her apologists my fucking time and energy and neurons. So, lasties, folks (I hope):

“There has been an “adverse reaction” to POC since forever, and it hurts! And we’ve been crying out and getting nothing for centuries. Now, the people who aren’t personally affected on a daily basis by racial stigma are butt-hurt because the people who do live it aren’t falling all over themselves to laugh at something someone privileged and out of touch with POC (for all I know, she may be very in touch with white people, but then, her jokes aren’t hurting white people)? SMDH. It’s not about Tina Fey-apologists’ butt-hurt. It’s about what all of this consternation is based on and where it comes from. The pain of an entire chunk of humanity. Yes, sometimes humor comes from pain, and sometimes the best comedians draw from pain and observation to enlighten as well as entertain. But this is not one of those times. Tina Fey is NOT that comedian. She’s not the forward-thinker that all sides of the discourse will rally around. She’s not smart enough and she’s not funny enough, and she can’t see past her own privilege nearly as well as she thinks she does. I know it’s important for her apologists to have SOME white person, any white person, be a voice for reason and understanding and intelligence. But IMHO . . . they could’ve done a lot better. Her humor is lazy and dull and compromised. It’s easy and doesn’t challenge anything, merely points out facts and laughs at them, while glossing over the directly-related fact that people are dying while other people subsume their white liberal guilt in cake and bullshit “progressive” comedy. THAT’S what this looks like to many POC. Maybe not all. But a lot. And throwing our lack of understanding and “subtlety” in our faces doesn’t invalidate or make our dismay, concern, and anger any less potent, deserved, and real. This isn’t an abstract for us . . . this isn’t Ethics 101 or a master’s class in comedy-writing. POC aren’t trying to soothe our white liberal base with glorified self-obsession/self-centeredness and absolve the feelings of guilt that go with that. This is about life and death, for us. It’s about a lot of things, really. But it’s not about Tina Fey and it’s not about the people who find her so funny. To quote The Root: IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU. It’s not about how YOU deal with guilt or racism, or what YOU find funny. It’s not about YOUR butt-hurt or offense. or how misunderstood YOU are. It’s not about whether or not YOU’RE subtle enough to get my really clever, witty, and spot-on, like, OMG! analogy about racism/cancer (because the fact is you can’t and you never will. Not from the inside . . . you’ll always be a spectator regarding the negative effects of racism and you are LUCKY). It’s not about YOU. In the end, if you take nothing POC say about race and Tina Fey and all this shit to mind or heart, take this: It’s not about you. And it’s really hurtful, offensive, and unfair that the Tina Feys of the world are making it about them and their selfish, pathetic lack of action/refusal to prioritize speaking out effectively.”