The term White-splaining is generally defined as when a white person paternalistically tries to explain what should and shouldn't be considered racist, often to a person of color who actually experienced the action or situation at hand.
If you ask Sheletta Brundidge, producer of the Chad Hartman show, that's exactly what happen today when a caller -- a white man - criticized Kamala Harris for calling out Joe Biden during last week's Democratic debate when she described his past oppositon to the mandatiory busing of black students to majority white districts as part of the effort to desegreate schools.
In what became the standout moment of the debate, Harris cited her own personal experience with being bused as a young school girl in Berkeley as she called out Biden's past opposition to practice. Biden countered that he had opposed busing being required by the federal goverment, and not when it was a local decision.
According to the caller, Mark, Biden fought busing in places like Berkeley where segregation had occurred "naturally" and not because of "discriminatory practices." Fact check: in Berkeley, just as in cities across the country, the discriminatory practice known as redlining, when banks did not allow blacks or other non Caucasian whites to buy houses in certain white neighborhoods, was part of what made segregation possible and kept it in place.
Brundidge wasn't having it:
"That's an example of white-splaining. That's what people of color have to deal with a lot. We live something and then someone else wants to come in and tell us exactly how we lived, when they were not there," she said.
Brundidge continued:
"You can't explain to me how busing worked as a child who was bused. I know exactly how busing works and I know why busing happened.
Busing happened because people were segregated, schools were segregated and they were trying to make the playing fields level and fair. So they said those of us who were at poor performing schools who were exceptional students, go to the white schools in the other part of town.
The educational system was not fair to exceptional students or students of color in some communities. And so they took those of us with the highest test scores out and bused us to the schools, while we had children who had comparable scores and we sat on a bus for three or four hours. And my Mama did have to take the day off from work to go talk to a teacher because otherwise she couldn't get there. She had to catch two or three buses. So please don't explain to us how busing works because we lived it."
Listen to the exchange here:
