As was I. I hate when white people post those Bill Cosby quotes on their Facebooks. Its a cop out way for them to criticize black people while thinking they're not racist because they're quoting a black man.

The problem is that it's perfectly fine to criticize black people--or more specifically, certain aspects of black culture--without being racist. Every tribe, affiliation, and demographic on the planet has an in-group blind spot that only outsiders can notice, and there's nothing malicious or condescending in offering a third-party perspective. Can you imagine if white people told black people they should never criticize white privilege because they're not white? Or if men told women they're sexist for pointing out institutionalized sexist attitudes?

When our discourse boils down to "You don't know me because you're not me", we risk devolving all our morals and values into a relativistic soup where every person is right, no one is wrong, and we're all special in our own ways. Worse, we risk turning constructive debate into a game of one-upsmanship where the person with the most tragic life story is the automatic winner. If, for example, only black people can criticize the black community, then are black women not allowed to criticize black men? What are atheist black lesbians allowed to talk about? Are they confined to only discussing the world through the prism of an unbelieving female African-American homosexual?

Sorry for the dissertation, but this issue really bugs me.

i like your comment, sexy duck cop

Then they should be able to make their criticize without having to outsource their frustrations through Bill Cosby.

Shut up, you Jello Pudding Pop.

"Then they should be able to make their criticize without having to outsource their frustrations through Bill Cosby."

Agreed, but I've still found myself using Berkeley linguist/New Republic columnist John McWhorter to channel my views as political cover regardless. White guilt is a helluva drug.

Yes all that is very true Sexy Duck Cop.

Where the anger comes from is that the main platforms of expression and debate have traditionally, and still are largely, controlled by straight white males. So while it's perfectly fine for white males to consider themselves objective third party critics of everything they don't understand or feel a part of, they have the particular advantage of controlling the "normal center" and thus disenfranchise everybody from taking part in any dialog in the first place. What ends up happening is everybody on the outside has to streamline their opinions into something the white male can digest, and god forbid they should be pissed off about it.

Congress is a perfect example, so is Hollywood.

yeah also holy shit

You and SolRo can share these.

Wait, this is real? I figured it was an attempt at a comedy sketch on Soul Train...