I read Metzl’s book, and the most eye opening moment for me was his story of an elderly white man, who was very obviously dying, but still didn’t want to support the universal healthcare that would have taken care of his medical needs, because he didn’t want his tax dollars to be used by those lazy black people! I don’t know why that story affected me so much. They have been taught to hate black people so much, (or love whiteness so much), that they’re willing to die for it. Metzl says, later, that man did die.

I knew this was a thing people believed, but no other moment in the book better illustrated his basic point, that white people have been thoroughly conned into harming/killing themselves through racial resentment, and an attachment to having white skin. It just so perfectly illustrates Dubois’ statement on the psychological wages of whiteness.