Thank you, I appreciate this. And to be very clear, I definitely did not intend to imply that we are post-racial as a society, or that the experience of the majority of visibly Black people's experiences in real life is devoid of racism or fear of racist antagonism. That is very real and very valid.

The context of this comment and this article is generally alluding to more liberal and intellectual spaces in American culture. Of course, Marxist leftist spaces that aspire to be post-racial for different (but also identical) reasons to right-wing racism deniers doesn't make those spaces fundamentally safe for Black people, by any means.

But among Liberal spaces, for example (and to be very clear, quite conditionally-- the obsequious desire for guilt-laden liberal white people to be "nice" to Black people goes away once they are perceived as "scary" because they don't fit the bill of an "upstanding" or "cool" or "intellectual" Black person), I think of how Claudine Gay is currently being defended in spite of her disgusting remarks in front of Congress, with the excuse that she is merely being "attacked because she's a Black woman."

In reality, her two peers who are white women and presidents of equally "esteemed" MIT and Penn, were under precisely the same fire. And should be held to precisely the same standards. But this type of argument is being invoked with constancy in liberal spaces; there is a sense when it comes to matters of social justice (for those who consider themselves "advocates," and that is a not inconsequential portion of the American population; though not nearly enough to eradicate anti-Blackness altogether, of course) that people of color or anyone victimized by racial hierarchy is beyond reproach.

That engenders a sort of infantilization in which no one who is marginalized ever carries any personal responsibility whatsoever - a reactionary and oppositional departure from the "personal responsibility" canard that used to be weaponized to justify mass incarceration of people of color. There is a middle ground.

But I value you sharing your experience, and I want you to know that I hear you and understand that your experience is entirely valid. And I still don't feel that anything I've said undermines that, though the additional context I concede is useful to include, lest there be any shred of a doubt that systemic racism and anti-Blackness in particular is still very much an issue, and very much a painful reality for Black people in America.

Thanks again for reading and commenting!