It's Black History Month. But this is white history. White hate crimes, white hate speech. I still try to claim I wasn't brought up to hate. But hate… - Adrienne Rich

" "

It's Black History Month. But this is white history. White hate crimes, white hate speech. I still try to claim I wasn't brought up to hate. But hate isn't the half of it. I grew up in the vast encircling presumption of whiteness-that primary quality of being which knows itself, its passions, only against an otherness that has to be dehumanized. I grew up in white silence that was utterly obsessional. Race was the theme whatever the topic. (XXI: "The distance between language and violence" p 181)