Alexandra Pelosi "is declining to understand the critique."

Says Ta-Nehisi Coates, attacking the filmmaker for a documentary that shows poor white people in Mississippi and poor black people NYC displaying divergent attitudes toward the government. The white people want the government out of their lives, and the black people accept government intrusion that comes in the form of welfare benefits. Coates assails Pelosi for thinking that by offending "both sides," she can get away with demeaning poor people:

That a person who would use journalism to render whole geographies as cartoons, would journey to friendlier environs and pull the same vapid trick should be expected....

Since when did shitting on poor and working people become worthy of self-congratulation? When did punching down become avant-garde?

That's how Coates frames it. Now watch the video:



ADDED: I love when Bill Maher says (at 8:48):

You and I are not racists. I just gave my imaginary child's college fund to Barack Obama, and your mother is Nancy Pelosi. So of all the people in the world — we are not out to fuck black people.

That's a very crude analysis of racism! They stroke themselves with this belief that because they support the Democratic Party, they are certified non-racists. Where's the self-criticism? Isn't it at least possible that their party's policies represent a low opinion of black people, that they are paternalistic, that they take advantage of a seemingly locked in voting bloc?