Hi Kay, this is an excellent rebuttal of my work, but I think you have misunderstood the thurst of my arguments - so I've come to clarify them as best I can in the hopes that we can agree a common ground, or in the very least that people can see our reasoning for why we write the way we do and the things we do.

Racism is indeed everywhere and injustice and inequality are wrong. I take an anti-identity politics stance, not a pro-racism stance. People presuming that I have a divide and conquer approach to all black writers need to read more carefully. See my recent article about Jeanette Espinoza and my near fan-girling admiration of Steve QJ for more.

You said in your article.... some of us are black, homeless and disabled. Are they more worthy of being talked about? Absolutely! That's the point. Because being homeless and being disabled are both examples of non-privilege that bear no relation to skin colour. Being black will add to that burden because, as you've pointed out - white people can be unthinking dicks and black people have to negotiate this in a world set up for the benefit of white people.... but to ignore all other facets of privilege because they don't fit a narrative of identity politics (ie, i am the utmost in social disadvantage) is a message that turns people off. It encourages in-fighting between groups rather than cooperation amongst them.

You have equated where your neighbours put her bins (in a very beautiful neighbourhood with huge magnificent canopies and well cared for streeets) with killing and bullying black children. To you, those may be indicative of the same problem. To those further down the economic chain of command, your problem looks like a minor dispute about relative luxury. It's not that you're wrong about your neighbour's attitude and approach - she sounds like she hasn't really considered your feelings but it's hardly 'death-dealing' and an example of her being 'addicted to pain and suffering'.

Perhaps if you went round and said.... 'hey, would you mind moving your bins' she might say yes. She might also Karen out and call the police, but she might not. Your presumption that she's being a total bitch is an interpretation your brain has thrown up because you're seeing everything through the narrative oppression of race - and perhaps only through race. What if she put her bins there because she's disabled and it's not as far for her to walk? I don't know her, I don't know the answer to that quesiton. I just know that you've made an assumption about a relatively minor point of household waste management and equated it to centuries of oppression.

You can do that if you want.... but what my writing is really about. Is that if you continue to make those assertions, a demagogue (someone like Trump) is going to point out the flaws in your argument and he's going to radicalise the economically disadvantaged to the political right. The middle class BIPOC living in affluent areas and democratic areas will largely be protected by the left-wing liberals that surround them. Poor BIPOC living in Conservative areas will find themselves in significantly more danger. Those areas will become akin to being in a race war. Steve QJ just wrote an excellent article about this very thing.

You see my writing as dividing people. I see my writing as a warning for people to consider the longer implications of their strategy. Identity politics is a lure because it allows you to psychologically be the victim at all times. It feeds a world view that makes everyone else the oppressor and when combined with social media, concentrates the mind on short term winning at long term cost.

If you focus on total privilege and appeal to an economic argument you do the following things. You acknowledge that black people are 10x more likely to be poorer than white people (because of systemic racism) but there are likely 10 time as many poor white people than black people. If you raise the liviing conditions of all of these people and you do so under a left wing model of collective economic socialism, you lower racism by the back door. See Maslow's hierarchy of needs for more about why this might be the case. Community funded groups, social mixing, free health care, free nursery places, better social work will lead to lower crime, lower community discord and a reduction in racism. You do that without creating a narrative of heroes and villains. Identity politics, by it's nature pits one group of people against another - as demonstrated by your firm belief that the bin placement is an act of total war.

This has been a much longer comment than I originally intended, but I think you have fundamentally misread the intention of my work. I am not saying 'we should focus on poor white people' - I am saying 'be careful about what happens when you ignore poor white people, be careful of the unintended consequences of white privilege becoming your only model to measure your place in the world'.

And yes, stories about racism and white supremacy are important. Oh, and I do read Time Wise, Marley K and Jessica Wildfire - they are all excellent writers. :o)

And also, as an afterthought, kudos for coming out swinging for your world view and tagging me into it. You think I'm wrong and rather than block me - you've come to debate me - I'm a fan of that because there's always something to be learned in the crucible of discussion. Thanks for the tag :o)