In America, there are no “good white people” and there are no “well-intentioned white people.” But, they can become something better.

“Whiteness is a metaphor for power.” — James Baldwin

I’m tired of hearing about “well-intentioned white people.” I’ve started to ask myself what that really means when white people say that, often with a chagrinned look on their face, as if to say, Yeah, white people are dumb about race but can you blame them? They just don’t know any better. They’re just innocent. They were just born not knowing. White discourse that excuses white supremacy, probably the most vicious, sadistic force in the history of humanity, asks non-white people to be duped again, and again. White helplessness, especially in the feminine version, kills Black people, kills indigenous people, kills people of color. Gives white men an excuse to lynch and massacre in the name of white female virtue, when the lynching and massacres are in their own self-interest. But since white virtue can never be attained by non-white people, we are always the criminal.

Even when we’re apologized to, the apologies are usually tainted by the poison of white virtue. A kind of photo negative of the way in which the white paint made by Liberty Paint in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man needs that one drop of black…