Black fear of betrayal pairs with white fear of exposure

Evidence

Looked at like this, white fear is the belief that black people are dangerous; the danger, though, stems from the fear of black revenge or of God’s punishment for our national sins around race. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 228 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

But many black people did not forget, and carried that sense of history experienced in the moment when something triggers the recollection that collapses past and present. History and time blur as the traumas of the present call forward a litany of past betrayals. Slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, police killings, prisons, black ghettos, failed schools, and the people and politicians who sanctioned it all packed into one pile of American shit. This is what the late poet Amiri Baraka called, in his classic work Blues People, “the changing same”—that sense of alienation rooted in terror and trauma, which remains no matter the shifts and permutations in our lives, and is exacerbated by the country’s forgetfulness. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 456 (#expands, via linked claim)

White fear is clearly dangerous to black people as individuals, and that fear affects how black people behave politically and how we respond more generally to racial inequality. The fear of white fear distorts black political behavior. We have to constantly censor our rage. I can’t be “the angry black man.” I can’t call Bill O’Reilly a dumbass (at least not in public or on television). No matter the horror of the moment, our anger must be overcome and expressed reasonably out of concern of triggering white fear or making white folk uncomfortable under the weight of racial accusation. That’s why black protesters must constantly allay national fears, no matter the context, by proclaiming their commitment to nonviolence. It’s a litmus test to make sure you’re one of “the good ones.” Constantly policing what we say and how we feel, many African Americans often don the mask in public debate as our spirits wage war against the rage that threatens to consume us. We have to confront, every time we open our mouths, the possible consequences of making white people afraid. It can be exhausting. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 244 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: White women fear black women’s power to expose their hypocrisy — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 203; White fear of black anger distorts and constrains black political behavior — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 244; White fear of blacks stems from feared divine or black revenge — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 228 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• White fear of blacks stems from feared divine or black revenge #corroborates (0.80) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 228
• Black memory collapses past and present betrayals into one trauma #expands (0.78) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 456
• White fear of black anger distorts and constrains black political behavior #corroborates (0.75) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 244