What is blame? How does it feel? In permanently racist ‘white’ societies (Bell, 1992; Wilson, 1999), does ‘blame’ have a political function? Most ‘black’ people are deeply aware of the ‘white colonial ‘blame game’ – as it related to European nineteenth century ‘scientific racism’ with its claims of biological inferiority of African people – as a justification for dispossession, expropriation of land, enslavement, colonialism and genocide (Hudson,1996; Stepan,1982, Siegal,1996; Smedley, 1998).
In this presentation Johnson shows that ‘blame’ is not merely anger but a ‘tool’ used by ‘white’ racists and ‘racially illiterate blacks’ to confuse the issues around of total liberation from the system of racism. Johnson take the listener through the construction of ‘blame themes’ by ‘whites’ and ‘blacks’. He shows that in reality and in various ways ‘blame’ constructs and reinforces ‘a racial hierarchy’ in which ‘whites’ were at the top and ‘blacks’ were at the bottom and other ‘races’ were in between.
Recognizing that racism even exists remains a challenge for most ‘whites in general’. Most believe that Civil Rights eliminated racially discriminatory practices and that any problems that ‘blacks’ may experience now are of their own doing – Johnson reconstructs these false notions.