Since some of the things you've cited, here, are things we'd somewhat clarified for one another in other posts. For the moment, I'm more interested in focusing on the issue of getting uninformed White people to understand what affirmative action actually is. I'll quote you:

"They know why affirmative action is needed. They just want to beat me up. I’ve never met a white person I could explain it to. And I’m good at explaining it."

Now, first, I believe 100% that you've explained it skillfully...and your audience just didn't want to hear it.

So let's land on that reality, for a moment...

Have you authored anything online where you summarize the necessity and application of affirmative action? Something to which you could link me? Or have most of your conversations about affirmative action been extemporaneous and free-flowing, in the moment, in person?

As far as the "mansplaining" point: my understanding is that when Rebecca Solnit originally coined the term in her 2008 essay, she was referring to men who automatically think they know more about anything than any woman BECAUSE they are male...or, alternately, those who try to gaslight a woman into questioning her own experiences with misogyny AS A WOMAN?

Is this not the definition of "mansplaining"? If it is, I'm trying to understand when and where I did that to you. I know you had an issue with me calling you "Marn." I'll admit it was petty of me. I responded to your anger with anger of my own. But I don't see how me being a jerk, in that moment, was the same as "mansplaining" -- especially since I would have done the same thing to another male person. You and I were in the midst of a heated exchange, where we were both consumed with antipathy. I didn't just swagger up to you referring to you by a name that I explicitly knew would have offended you.

This isn't about marginalized people making themselves "likable." What I was trying to express was what's going to actually persuade skeptics. As you've already pointed out, there are the people who are lost causes. They're never going to believe anything that you or I say to them. I'm not talking about them.

I'm talking about the people who ARE willing to overcome their biases and examine new thoughts and ideas. You've suggested that they (or most/many of them) will never listen to anything you have to say because you're Black; but that they *might* listen to what I have to say to them because I'm White. That's the privilege and the resource/superpower that it sounds like you wish I'd use more effectively.? I wish I could use it more effectively, too. But talking down to people and condescending them is NOT going to be effective, a majority of the time, when it comes to the people who can be reached. This isn't "mansplaining." It's just human nature and good old-fashioned common sense. Perhaps you are right that I should spend more of my energy trying to reach individuals who fall into this sort of category? But, yes, I'm going to call out people for bad behavior whenever I see it, no matter whether the person is someone with whom I vehemently disagree or someone with whom I have (so far) had a pleasant relationship. This can be done while still opposing and mobilizing against racist laws and other oppressive laws. I don't see what it's so unreasonable to focus on a variety of things.

And please don't use the term "your buddies" with me, when referring to the Far Right. By doing so, you are essentially attributing some imaginary affinity that I apparently have to those very same people who want to prevent me from marrying a husband, who would stab me through the heart for being openly gay, who would have me committed to a mental institute due to the medication I take or the panic attacks I endure or the phobias that haunt me on a daily basis, and who would literally burn me at the stake because I believe in multiple deities. Yes, whenever ANYBODY tries to diminish any of these aspects of my life in an attempt to gain the "upper hand" over me in conversation or in their interactions with me -- THAT is weaponizing my identity against me. THAT is Oppression Olympics.