We watched Face The Nation as a family this morning, which featured a panel made up of a young Muslim woman, a young Latina woman, the African-American woman author of The Warmth of Other Suns, and the white male author of Hillbilly Elegy. The discussion was led by John Dickerson who for some reason was working on this holiday which was taken off by most of the other network “stars” who not too unsurprisingly were sat in for by people of color (have you ever noticed who’s driving the buses on holidays and weekends? Be that as it may, we commend this network for the show despite the likely low listener numbers on this New Year’s Day.

Each of the panelists’ task was to describe from his or her experience what it is like to be members of their particular racial, ethnic, or national group—I believe that the context for this discussion is the presumed hostile climate anticipated in the Trump administration, but I don’t remember for sure whether that was stated—I was enjoying my eggs and bacon, and had already begun to “turn off” the discussion when I heard the premise of the panel and its composition. Now why would I do that—after all, this prime time Sunday morning show is ABOUT US and back in the early days of my life, we were thrilled to have any such political or social attention—we even enjoyed Amos and Andy (at least many of us).

Well, here’s the deal, and I realize that as a black person I have only a narrow ledge to balance on lest I fall off into “unconstructive” or “incomprehensible” or angry oblivion. We are more discriminating than we used to be, so here’s my take on the panel.

For starters, the panel leader, Dickerson (whom I actually believe is generally very good on this program, was the “neutral,” “normal” white man—it was just the 4 “ethnics who were there to talk about their thoughts, experiences and feelings; remember, the hillbilly elegist was a very particular white man whose plight as an Appalachian was I guess the equivalent of the other three panelists. Dickerson as the moderator evidently was there to pose questions at the panel, not to represent his ethnic background—oh wait, true real obvious mayflower whiteness is presumed not to be anything except “ normal” so it needs no ethnicity or anyone to speak for its experience.

Yielding to my imagination, I thought wouldn’t it be refreshing (as long as it didn’t cause me to faint and fall into my eggs) if the beleaguered panelists of color (not actually, if we think of the whole world) rose up as one and demanded that Dickerson represent his “ group” and talk about how ingrained but breathtakingly unacknowledged whiteness leads to the life struggles that they were describing via institutional racism that is so alive and well in America? Even as a peripheral move, if the ethnics could have asked about the hillbilly elegist’s presence I think it would have added much-needed depth to the conversation, particularly since he can do something they can’t, namely use his whiteness to merge into the same world Dickerson inhabits so successfully and comfortably. Some attention was paid to that though when Dickerson and the elegist agreed as one that even if hillbillys escape, they take it with them internally. But unless the elegist keeps a name like Clem Hatfield or something, nobody knows where he came from on Wall Street or Harvard unless he tells them, while the other three panelists get to have disturbing ego-draining encounter experiences the rest of their lives regardless of accomplishments.

Wouldn’t it be great if panelists of color summoned the courage to demand that their white cohorts participate more fully in defining what it’s like to be white, the assumers of power and privilege, and with the right to oppress?

NOTE: Typing While Black welcomes this guest blogger!