White folks can never get it

In response to the Root’s list of 10 figures who they would erase from African-American history (one of the primary ways to make the list was “be a black conservative”), John McWhorter has composed his own list. Needless to say, I think it’s far more interesting and constructive — in McWhorter’s world, being conservative doesn’t get your African-American membership card torn up. Number four on his list was Price Cobbs, a psychotherapist who “treated” people by having them get into screaming matches venting their “black rage”:

The constructiveness of things like this is decidedly unclear, and yet Cobbs did over 100 of these sessions, ideally culminating in screaming matches out of Norman Lear sitcoms of the period. Buoyed by the success of the book—I recall it as a common coffee table sight when I was a tot—they set a mood. People elsewhere started doing similar “ethnotherapy.” The idea got “into the air” that whites are always racist in ways they are not aware of, must be informed of this, and that it’s okay if the black people bearing the news are less than civil because it’s just desserts (and “therapeutic” for all concerned). The paradigm lives on today in diversity seminars, psychology and ed-school curricula, and the whole idea that there is a uniquely complex Race Thing that whites can never completely “get.”

I’ve definitely heard that one before. “You’re blinded by your privilege, of course you don’t see what’s wrong with this horribly racist piece of work.” Et cetera. I’m sure you’ve heard it before as well…