DCentric

It turns out the City Paper’s cover story on Courtland Milloy by Rend Smith has inspired an ongoing, online conversation. I pointed all of you to Natalie Hopkinson’s excellent response to the feature at The Root; in it she mentions how Smith asked Milloy if he likes white people. Smith explains why he went there, via this post for the City Desk blog, “Asking a Rude Question of Courtland Milloy“:

Root editor Natalie Hopkinson figures out one reason I asked: “Even though Smith is black, I don’t doubt that he was accurately channeling some urgent wonder among the Twitterati,” she writes.

That’s definitely true, but it also goes a bit deeper. As I point out in the piece, Milloy has often done a fantastic job relaying the kind of D.C. barbershop discourse on gentrification many non-black residents might otherwise miss out on. The assumption that he’s just not fond of whites can end up being the elephant in the room, though, and it’s an easy way for those who prefer to treat his admittedly rabble-rousing analysis as nothing more than a collection of bigoted rants. In light of that, neglecting to ask Milloy how he felt about white people—as uncomfortable a moment as it might have created—would have been a disservice to both the “Twitterati” and Milloy.

It wasn’t exactly the first time he’d heard such an inquiry, anyway. The impression I got hanging out with Milloy was that he gets prodded about his racial outlook fairly frequently. It’s also interesting to note that the question bore fruit. Milloy didn’t just reply with a simple, “Of course I do,” but with a long, expository answer that provided insight into both his amiable, humanistic side, and his angry, fed up side.