Thank you, Lakitha, for your comment and adding some concrete details about how white sadism underlies everyday instances of white racism. The white people who left nooses to upset Black people are clearly sadistic and lost, as are those who repeatedly use the n-word, and I wonder if somewhere deep down in their psyche there is some unconscious sorrow about their own dehumanization that functions as the masochistic bedrock out of which these sadistically racist behaviors emerge. I am regularly reminded of something James Baldwin said in The Fire Next Time about how one who debases others debases themselves whenever I try to understand these kinds of cruel and unusual behaviors. It's as though performing sadism is a twisted coping response to deeper feelings of dislocation within the self... there is not much discourse about these kinds of things (yet), but I will continue speaking out about them with the hope of engaging white people more deeply about their relationships to race-related issues.

I also agree with you that these kinds of white people cannot be reasoned or engaged with, and I think this is especially true for Black people--Black people cannot get through to these kinds of white people because of how thoroughly they detest and mistrust Blackness. I do, however, think it is possible for other white people to connect with these kinds of white folks by having honest discussions about their relationships to power, pain, pleasure, for I think that these horrific instances sadistic racism toward Black people are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the sadomasochism that upholds whiteness. It seems to me like sadomasochism underlies the problematics of whiteness more broadly, with conservative white racism being more sadistic as you've outlined, and liberal white racism being more masochistic as evidenced by self-flagellation and wallowing in white guilt and shame (for example). I think tapping into deeper underlying issues such as these could affect some changes in white relationships to racism because racism is like a symptom that assuages a deeper realm of pervasive and unexamined distress.

I realize this kind of work is part of my responsibility as a white person because if I am interested in antiracism, then I need to work on freeing my own people from their torment, since we are the ones who mistreat people of color out of refusal to address within-white-community trauma and dislocation. I am inspired by your comment to finally get to writing about the pleasure of racism, which I think is how white communities initially learn to justify racism within themselves. I meanwhile stand with you in solidarity as I listen to and learn from what you and other Black people share about your lived experiences and insights about whiteness.