For those of you who don’t know the lingo, let me explain.
Listen instead to what Pritzker said in a conversation with another powerful white man that we weren’t supposed to hear.
Crass, just to be clear, is an adjective that means “lacking sensitivity, refinement, or intelligence.”
They just got caught.
We’re used to that brand of racism. The way Pritzker talks in code, though, stokes the greatest fears of black folk who navigate white spaces or welcome whites into theirs. The fear of how white people really talk about you when you aren’t within earshot. The fear that your white allies really only value you as a token, and see your blackness as a commodity to leverage toward their own popularity or a way to secure their liberal bona fides. What happens when you’re not “safe” in their eyes or don’t conform to their ideas of an acceptable black person?
