This was the first comment I put up on medium, and for better or for worse, it is still the one that has received the most claps. Nevertheless, although I think it makes a valid point, I don’t like using this level of snarkiness anymore, because it usually inspires responses like this: a reductionist ad hominem attack, followed by accusations of racism and finishing with a STFU White Boy. I could reply in the same spirit by saying that anyone who accuses me of projecting after getting that much out of my four word comment is herself projecting. But rather than trade insults, I’ll try to respond to your one actual argument.

The fact that I think there is an inconsistency in this author’s position does not imply that I believe nobody can ever give anyone advice about anything. My objection is that this essay was written not as advice but in the form of commandments that by the very nature of their form imply that she is expressing the wishes of all black people. When she responds to counterexamples by saying “no one can speak for the entire black community” she has invalidated her own position as well. Why is it that what offends her black friends, or what she thinks might offend her black friends, is a more valid basis for interracial courtesy than some other black person’s reaction? She has no answer for that as far as I can see. If she had taken or cited polls, she might be able to prove that those black people who disagree with her list are outliers, and thus her command format would just be a slightly misleading heuristic. But without such polls, I’m skeptical that most black people agree with everything on her list.

I bear this author no ill will, and in my opinion much of what she says is true. I just think that the format of suggestion and discussion is a better way of dealing with this topic than rules and commandments. Our previous rules of courtesy were written for and by privileged people, and they need to be changed to accommodate the needs and feelings of the marginalized. But nobody brought down the Book of Woke from Mt. Sinai. We are making it up as we go along. My personal opinion is that the sought-after behaviors will emerge more naturally from stories than from rules. There are some neuroscientific facts that support this view, which I discuss here. https://teedrockwell.medium.com/the-woke-revolution-in-moral-habits-5a9694abc46f That’s why I prefer Medium writers like Rebecca Stevens, whose stories of her own encounters with racism speak louder than any rules that might be generated from them.