Thursday, August 21, 2014
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Chapter 10: Arabs
Chapter 10
Arabs
Driving from
New York into Pennsylvania on Interstate 90 we stopped at the first
rest-stop to stretch our legs, get a
snack, and let the dog, Dipstick, do his
thing. The plaza was well lit and quite
modern. In fact the entire plaza was
bathed in light, front and back. The back stretched out a good 50 yards to a
fence. Beyond the fence was acres of
hedge-rows, that could have been corn rows, but it was much too dark to tell
for certain. Nevertheless, thinking that
it would be best to take Dippy for his stroll in the back of the plaza, he and
I headed for the back and could clearly look into the rest stop itself which
was a wall of glass window running the full length of the plaza. Inside I saw a
little old man waving wildly at me, and pounding on the glass. He was obviously trying to get my attention.
Dippy and I looked at him, and then looked at each other and began to head back
the way we had come and the man was following us inside to the door. As we came
to the end of the building, he emerged from the building wildly gesturing to us
completely out of breath saying, “don’t go out there”. I asked him “what’s the
problem”?
And still out of breath he looked at me and said, “It’s
dangerous back there…bad things happen”.
I looked out at the area which was completely lit up and said, “What
kind of things?” He looked at me like I was crazy, and said,” Arabs!”. At this point, I wish I’d had a picture of my
face as I was trying to absorb what he was saying. My mind is racing as I’m trying to process what
I heard. “Arabs!!???” I said.
Arabs!!?”. He then said, “It’s dark out
there”. I looked at him, and then, at
the dog who was looking at me as if he was nuts, and I said, “Well, which is
it, Arabs or the darkness?” He then
threw his hands up in the air with complete exasperation as if I was the crazy
one here and said, “it’s dangerous back there.
I stood there in total amazement at what this guy was all
worked up over. I looked out beyond the
fence at the hedge-rows which stretched out for acres into the darkness and
thought, “this guy has visions of terrorists running through his head”, and
they’re all gathering in a cornfield in Pennsylvania… and he thinks I’m going
to take my dog out beyond the fence and into the hedge-rows in total darkness
where I’ll disappear forever or get captured …by Arabs no less. I had no idea that Arabs had a predisposition
to hanging out in dark hedge-rows off the interstate in Pennsylvania just
waiting for unsuspecting tourists who are walking a dog and decide to climb
over a fence...with the dog, and then wander through acres of darkness. I mean…is that something that’s part of Arab
culture? Do they just sit there and wait, as if anybody is going to actually
say to themselves…I think I’ll climb over a fence with my dog and simply take a
stroll into acres of dark hedge-rows.
Maybe I’ll meet some Arabs. I mean, it’s midnight and I’m just making a
pit stop here, but on second thought, maybe I’ll just jump a fence and explore
acres of dark fields in Bumfuck, Pennsylvania. I’m trying to put together in my
head why Al Qaeda, who I have to assume this guy is referring to (aren’t all
Arabs members of Al Qaeda?), would have any interest in launching a terrorist
attack from some cornfield in Pennsylvania off the interstate. I finally said, “What the fuck are you
talking about man? Why would I even consider taking my dog out beyond the fence
that I have to climb over at midnight into some dark hedge-rows or cornfield or
whatever it is? Does that sound sensible to you? Is that something that you
would do? “Hey honey, go wait in the car. Me and the dog are going to wander
through some cornfield for a while. If we don’t come back it’s because the
Arabs got us”. My dog needs to take a crap and we’re walking right outside this
window and you’re freaking out about Arabs or the dark, or maybe both.” Finally a woman co-worker told the guy, “let
him go and walk his dog”. “Go ahead sir.” “Never mind.”
ARAB’s???; In a cornfield in Pennsylvania? I wonder who he’s voting for?
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Chapter 9: Dog Whistle Politics
Chapter 9
Dog Whistle Politics
On Sunday,
Jan.13, 2013, during an appearance on Meet The Press, Former Secretary of
State, General Colin Powell condemned the GOP’s “dark vein of intolerance” and
the party’s repeated use of racial code words to oppose President Obama and
rally white conservative voters.
Without mentioning names, Powell singled out former Mitt
Romney surrogate and New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu for calling Obama “lazy”
and Sarah Palin, who, Powell charged, used slavery-era terms to describe Obama:
POWELL: There’s also a dark — a dark vein of intolerance
in some parts of the party. What do I mean by that? I mean by that that they
still sort of look down on minorities. How can I evidence that?
When I see a former governor say that the President is
“shuckin’ and jivin’,” that’s a racial era slave term. When I see another
former governor after the president’s first debate where he didn’t do very
well, says that the president was lazy. He didn’t say he was slow. He was
tired. He didn’t do well. He said he was lazy. Now, it may not mean anything to
most Americans, but to those of us who are African Americans, the second word
is shiftless and then there’s a third word that goes along with that. The
birther, the whole birther movement. Why do senior Republican leaders tolerate this
kind of discussion within the party?
Powell added that the Republican Party is “having an
identity problem,” noting that its significant shift to the right has produced
“two losing presidential campaigns.” “I think what the Republican Party needs
to do now is a very hard look at itself and understand that the country is
changed,” he said. “If the Republican Party does not change along with that
demographic, they a going to be in trouble.”
Powell also called on Republicans to focus on a more
equitable and progressive economic policies that help middle and lower income
Americans, as well as immigration reform. “Everybody wants to talk about who is
going to be the candidate,” Powell said. “You better think first about what’s
the party actually going to represent.”
Dog-whistle
politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean
one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more
specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. The phrase is only ever used as a
pejorative, because of the inherently deceptive nature of the practice and
because the dog-whistle messages are frequently themselves distasteful, for
example by empathizing with racist attitudes. The Dog-whistle is targeted to
white people.
Commonly-cited examples of dog-whistle politics include
civil rights-era use of the phrase "forced busing," used to enable a
person to imply opposition to racial integration without them needing to say so
explicitly; the state of Georgia's adoption, in 1956, of a flag visually
similar to the Confederate battle flag, itself understood by many to be a
dog-whistle for racism; the phrase "Southern strategy," used by the
Republican Party in the 1960s to describe plans to gain influence in the South
by appealing to people's racism; Ronald Reagan, on the campaign trail in 1980,
saying in Mississippi "I believe in states' rights" (a sentence the
New Statesman later described as "perhaps the archetypal dog-whistle
statement"), described as implying Reagan believed that states should be
allowed, if they want, to retain racial segregation; Reagan's use of the term
"welfare queens," said to be designed to rouse racial resentment
among white working-class voters against minorities; a 2008 TV ad for
Republican presidential candidate John McCain called "The One," which
observers said dog-whistled to evangelical Christians who believed Obama might
be the Antichrist; a Tea Party spokeswoman saying President Obama "doesn't
love America like we do," thought to be an allusion to Obama's race and to
the birth certificate controversy, and Republicans frequently emphasizing
Obama's middle name for the same reason; an aide to 2012 Republican presidential nominee
Mitt Romney saying Romney would be a better President than Obama because Romney
understood the "shared Anglo-Saxon heritage" of the United States and
the United Kingdom; former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and
2012 Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, and others, calling Obama
"the food stamps president" said to be a way of exploiting
stereotypes among racially resentful white voters who see food stamps as
unearned giveaways to minorities.
One group of alleged code words in the United States is
claimed to appeal to racism of the intended audience. The phrase "states'
rights", although literally referring to powers of individual state
governments in the United States, was described by David Greenberg in Slate as
"code words" for institutionalized segregation and racism. In 1981,
former Republican Party strategist Lee Atwater when giving an anonymous
interview discussing the GOP's Southern Strategy (see also Lee Atwater on the
Southern Strategy) said:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger,
nigger." By 1968, you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you.
Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that
stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting
taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things
and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And
subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying
that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away
with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously
sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract
than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than
"Nigger, nigger.”
The Dog-Whistles were becoming louder. We were
going to be hearing a lot of lies, and a lot of quasi-racist
dog-whistling about how Obama doesn't feel the same way about America as
"we" do. But it would get much
worse. As the campaign for the 2012 election got underway the “dog whistle”
became a bull horn.
While visiting England during the Olympics, one of Mitt
Romney’s "gaffes" had a
decidedly darker undertone, when an unnamed aide was reported by the Telegraph
to have commented that Romney would be a better President than Obama because
only he understood the "shared Anglo-Saxon heritage" that Britain and
America have.
This sort of statement is known in politics as a "dog
whistle". To most people, it looks innocuous, if a bit weird, but to its
target audience – in this case, racists – it reads as a perfectly clear statement
that Romney is better than Obama because he is white.
Not that this is anything new in the Republican party.
Consider Romney's "gaffe" just number 5 in the Top Five Racist
Republican Dog-Whistles of all time:
4. Barack Hussein Obama
Quick pop quiz: What's Barack Obama's middle name? Even if
you haven't read it from the line above, it seems pretty likely that you know
it's Hussein. Now, do you know John McCain's? (It's Sidney) What about Mitt
Romney's? (Trick question. Mitt is his middle name, and his real first name is
Willard. But even he forgets that sometimes)
There is a reason you know the former's but not the last
two. It's because reminding everyone that Barack Obama has, not just a scary
foreign-sounding name, but a scary, foreign and Islamic sounding name which is
the same as that nasty dictator plays really well with a Republican audience.
To his credit, John McCain never got on board with that
angle of attack, even going so far as to apologize for a radio commentator who
did. But that doesn't mean the Republican base has forgotten their President's
middle name.
3. Georgia's 1956 state flag
Less a dog-whistle, more a klaxon, this one. In 1956, the
state legislature of Georgia voted to adopt this as their flag: which is
awkwardly similar to the Confederate battle flag. You know, the one people
marched under as they went to war to defend their right to keep people in
slavery? That one. Now, Mississippi also has a flag which contains the
confederate one, but at least theirs was adopted in the 19th century. Georgia,
on the other hand, voted for theirs in 1956, and then proceeded to keep it
until 2001. And even when they replaced it, the new one still had the
confederate flag on it, albeit much smaller. It was only in 2003 that they
successfully de-racisted.
Even then, it still didn't stop being flown in the skies
of Georgia – it just flew in less of them. The city of Trenton, Georgia
(population 1,942) promptly adopted it as their official flag, and still use it
today. Not cool, Georgia.
2. Ronald Reagan and "States' Rights"
On the campaign trail in 1980, Ronald Reagan gave an
infamous speech in Mississippi, where he told assembled supporters that:
“I believe in
states' rights.... I believe we have distorted the balance of our government
today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution
to that federal establishment.”
It is perhaps the archetypal dog-whistle statement. To
most people, it sounds like a statement on
constitutional law. Yet to the residents of Nashoba
County, where the speech was held, it is a clear call-back to what many still
viewed as an illegitimate federal imposition: the civil rights agenda.
Desegregation was fought bitterly throughout the South,
and even drove the government to institute martial law in some areas.
Even worse, the Nashoba County Fair was very close to the
town of Philidelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights activists were shot
and killed in 1964.
In that context, saying "I believe in states'
rights" sounds an awful lot like saying that Reagan believed that the
decision as to whether or not to desegregate should be handed back to the
states – and if they decided against it, they should be allowed to. As New York
Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote in 2007:
“Everybody watching
the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and
blacks, Democrats and Republicans — they all knew. The news media knew. The
race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew.”
He was tapping out the code. It was understood that when
politicians started chirping about “states’ rights” to white people in places
like Neshoba County they were saying that when it comes down to you and the
blacks, we’re with you.
1. Where's the birth certificate?
The number one racist dog-whistle has to be the relentless
accusations that Barack Obama wasn't born in the US. Unlike the others, it's
one that has a point beyond propaganda – the "birthers" hope beyond
reason that they'll be able to prove he is of foreign birth, and thus render
him ineligible for the Presidency – but it serves that aim admirably as well.
The Guardian's Michael Tomasky sums up the thinking of the
people who spread the myth:
“They likely know no
one who voted for Barack Obama, so all the information they received in 2008
that they trusted – not from the media, but from friends and co-workers – led
them to search for explanations fair and foul. Acorn and the journalists helped
them feel a little better, but they didn't solve the basic problem: that the
man occupied the office.”
And so, the birther story. Perfect. Explained everything.
A conspiracy of immense proportions,
concocted all the way back in 1961, had to be the only
explanation for how this black man got to the White House. And if you think
race isn't what this is about at its core, ask yourself if there would even be
a birther conspiracy if Barack Obama were white and named Bart Oberstar. If you
think there would be, you are delusional.
Even releasing his actual birth certificate didn't stop
the crazies, but it did at least get everyone else to recognize them as such,
until, at the White House Press Correspondent's Dinner last year, he could
safely mock them.
Chapter 7: Racism Justified
Chapter 7
Racism Justified
As an adult, I
saw racism revealed over and over again. I found a common thread in political
views running through every racist that I encountered. All of them held
conservative views. Conservatism is
always a reaction to a challenge to an existing order becoming self-conscious and reflective when other ways
of life and thought appear on the
scene, against which it is compelled to
take up arms in an ideological struggle.
Situationally, conservatism is defined as the ideology
arising out of a distinct but recurring type of historical situation in which a
fundamental challenge is directed at established institutions and in which the
supporters of those institutions employ the conservative ideology in their
defense. Thus, conservatism is that system of ideas employed to justify any
established social order, no matter where or when it exists, against any
fundamental challenge to its nature or being, no matter from what quarter.
Conservatism in this sense is possible in the United States today only if there
is a basic challenge to existing American institutions which impels their
defenders to articulate conservative values.
The Civil Rights movement was a direct challenge to the
existing institutions of the time, and
conservatism as an ideology is thus a reaction to a system
under challenge, a defense of the status – quo in a period of intense
ideological and social conflict.
The very notion of a race of people that was; at our beginnings as a country, only
considered to be 3/5’s of a human being,
now having equal footing with those that actually believed in this idea,
is a direct challenge to a long held
social concept. It denied the idea of white supremacy as legitimate.
It’s surprising how many people still cling to this idea, and will go to
extreme lengths to perpetuate it.
The idea that a person that could have been your slave at
one time, could today be your boss, or even President of the United States, is
more than some people can deal with on an emotional level. White supremacy as an institution is
renounced, discredited, and dismantled, and that is a major blow to an existing
order, and conservatism is always a reaction to a challenge to an existing
order. These are people that desperately need somebody to look down to in order
to validate their own self-worth. “Sure, life is tough. But at least I’m
White.” They can no longer rely on a policy that used to be institutionally
enforceable. When that is removed by law, hostility is the result; hostility for those that have been
emancipated by law and elevated to equal status, and hostility for the law
itself including those that proposed it and passed it.
Thus, hatred for African-Americans and for the Liberal’s
and liberal policies that endorse their equal status is fully embraced by the
conservative.
Letting go of the
past is difficult to do. An entire race of people becomes an easy scapegoat for
one’s own failures. Hate is passed on from one generation to the next. Parents
teach their children to hate.
The cure for hate is education, so every attempt to keep
schools segregated was an important factor. Every attempt to de-segregate
schools was resisted. Integrated schools are a way of leveling the playing
field and a sign of equality and equality is a challenge to the social fabric.
The more narrow the view point, the more ignorant the person becomes and the easier it is to promote fear and fear
promotes hate. Fear always promotes
hate.
The conservative mind embraces a narrow point of
view. It doesn’t like being challenged. It resists new information. A liberal mind by definition is open to
change, but change always threatens the existing order, so the liberal is not
to be trusted. He is feared, and hated because he challenges the existing
order.
Another glaring problem is that the conservative knows
there is no rational justification for his racism. He knows that it’s wrong,
intellectually, but he’s imprisoned by an ideology without a basis, and this
ideology appeals to his “Gut” and not his brain. As Charles Pierce wrote, “The Gut is the roiling repository of dark
and ancient fears. It knows what it knows because it knows how it feels”.
Richard Hofstadter points to this when he says, “Intellect is pitted against
feeling”, he writes, “on the ground that it is somehow inconsistent with warm
emotion. It is pitted against character, because it is widely believed that
intellect stands for cleverness, which transmutes easily into the sly or the
diabolical”. The Conservatives entire
set of values is wrapped in a theory of rationality that was handed to him by
somebody else with a nice big bow. His way of life is now threatened by a truth
that contradicts his beliefs. To admit that it was flawed and without any
basis, is to admit that, foundationally, everything he believed in is flawed
and that means that he could be wrong about something. And that also means that there is no
justification for the pain and suffering that his ideology has inflicted on
others. An entire war was fought and over 600,000 lives were lost in order to
continue a way of life that was baseless. Rather than admit that his beliefs
were in error, he clings to the ideology of hate and directs that hate toward the object that is the very cause of the hate: The
Black Man. The Black Man is a constant reminder that his ideology is flawed, a reminder that his
hatred is baseless. Holding on to an ideology with no basis is irrational.
Rather than dump this irrational way of thinking, he
embraces irrationality as a way of life. He becomes a justificationist, and
looks for anything that will justify his flawed ideology. He looks for passages
in the Bible as a justification for slavery and therefore a justification for
his beliefs. He finds a refuge in the
Bible and religion, (conservatives a very religious bunch) and this becomes the
foundation that he “feels” he can stand
on. But he fails to recognize that that the Bible cannot be its own basis.
That’s circular reasoning. A criteria
cannot be its own criteria. If we claim a basis gives us truth, we then are
making the implicit claim that truth requires bases. But then it is plainly
obvious our own basis lacks a basis, as it cannot be its own basis. The Bible
might justify slavery, but what justifies the Bible? Well…it’s the inspired
word of God. According to whom? According to the Bible. That’s circular reasoning. That’s a logical fallacy. Clinging to a
logical fallacy, when you know it’s a logical fallacy is irrational. Conservatives insist on a foundationalist way of
thinking, and the basis, the foundation
of this idea all rests on something claiming itself as its own foundation.
So…what is the foundation for the foundation, or the basis for the basis? They
don’t like being pressed on this because that requires defending a stated position based on something, and that leads to
an infinite regress vs. their dogma. Trying to justify a basis leads to more
justification for yet another basis and that leads into a black hole of one
justification after another. There is no exit.
Conservatives oppose the “liberal agenda”. But what is that “agenda”? Liberalism
challenges the status-quo. Conservatism opposes any challenge to the
status-quo. And there you have it. But what is the justification for the
status-quo, especially one that keeps an entire race of people suppressed
because of an ideology without a basis?
African-Americans are fully aware of this attitude coming
from conservatives, which is why so few align themselves to this ideology.
Conservatives talk about trying to reach out to the African-American community,
but fail to understand that nobody wants to hang with people that hate
you. Blacks understand the source of
this hatred, and are not likely to embrace it. Until conservatism renounces
racism and purges racists from the Republican Party, they’ll never reach the
African-American in any significant numbers.
As pointed out by Professor Robert C. Smith, “African
American thought has always been mainly a system-challenging, dissident
thought. However, until the 1950s and
1960s this thought had not been linked to a powerful mass movement. And the
mere articulation of a dissident ideology does not produce conservatism until
the ideology is embraced by significant social groups. Once it appeared that
the black movement presented “ a clear and present danger” to the existing
order, a self-conscious conservative movement would necessarily emerge, and it
would also necessarily be for the most part a racist movement”. It was in the 1950’s that the Conservative
Movement had its beginnings as a backlash to the challenges presented by
African American thought.
In my previous book, Political Logic, I pointed to Russell
Kirk and his book The Conservative Mind.
“In his lecture on “The Origins of the Modern American
Conservative Movement” given to the
Heritage Foundation in 2003, Dr. Lee Edwards cited Russell
Kirk, author of The Conservative Mind as providing the central idea upon which American
conservatism is essentially based, calling it ordered liberty”.
Kirk described six basic “canons” or principles of conservatism:
1.A divine intent, as well as personal conscience, rules
society;
2.Traditional life is filled with variety and mystery
while most radical systems are characterized by a narrowing uniformity;
3.Civilized society requires orders and classes;
4.Property and freedom are inseparably connected;
5.Man must control his will and his appetite, knowing that
he is governed more by emotion than by reason; and
6.Society must alter slowly.
Edwards states that “the work established convincingly
that there was a tradition of American
conservatism that had existed since the Founding of the
Republic. With one book, Russell Kirk made conservatism intellectually
acceptable in America. Indeed, he gave the conservative movement its name.
Lest we minimize the writings of Kirk, we should point out
that one of his biggest supporters was “Mr.Conservative”, President Ronald Reagan. Reagan
said this of Kirk:
“As the prophet of
American conservatism, Russell Kirk has taught, nurtured, and inspired a
generation. From . .
. Piety Hill, he reached deep into the roots of American values, writing and
editing central
works of political philosophy. His intellectual contribution has been a
profound act of patriotism. I
look forward to the future with anticipation that his work will continue to exert a profound
influence in the defense of our values and our cherished civilization.”
—Ronald Reagan, 1981
For several years he was a Distinguished Scholar of the
Heritage Foundation. In 1989, President
Reagan conferred on him the Presidential Citizens Medal.
In 1991, he was awarded the Salvatori
Prize for historical writing. Dr, Kirks conservative
credentials are established. He is a conservative. He is qualified to speak on the meaning of
conservatism.
This prompted me to examine a few of Kirks ideas which he
put forth as his 10 principles of
conservatism, in addition to his 6 “canons”. Kirk begins
with his first principle as being that “the
conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order”.
He states, “Twenty-five centuries ago, Plato taught this
doctrine, but even the educated nowadays find it difficult to understand” . The problem of
order has been a principal concern of conservatives ever since conservative became a term of politics.
Putting it mildly, Plato’s view was that we are ineradicably social, and that
the individual person was not, and could not, be self-sufficient. In fact,
Plato offered up humans like so many animals that could do nothing for
themselves unless they had constant and detailed direction from those who were
to be their leaders:
“... And even in the smallest manner ... [one] should
stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals ...
only if he has been told to do so. In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of
acting independently ... There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself,
till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really
and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same
hands.” (The Republic.)
In his chapter on southern conservatism, Kirk writes “that
while human slavery is bad ground for
conservatives to make a stand upon, yet the wild demands
and expectations of the abolitionists were quite as slippery a foundation for
political decency” Describing “Negroes” as “the menace of debased, ignorant and
abysmally poor folk” he argued they “must tend to produce in the minds of the
dominant people an anxiety to preserve every detail of the present structure,
and an ultra-vigilant suspicion of innovation”.
Ok…so this is the guy that influenced Ronald Reagan. His views were also more or less adapted by
William F. Buckley, National Review, and other conservatives after Brown v
Board of Education.
Professor Robert Smith of the University of San Francisco
writes; “Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s Buckley and National Review
opposed the civil rights movement. In 1957, Buckley wrote an editorial entitled
“Why the South Must Prevail”. He wrote; “National Review believes that the
South’s premises are correct. If the majority wills what is socially atavistic,
and then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened. It is
more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by
civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.
Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of minority, in which case
it may give way, and the society will regress; sometimes the numerical minority
cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the
prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence”.
This sentence stands out to me: “ It is more important for
any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized
standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority”. It appears
that Mr. Buckley had Kenya in mind with
this comment. “The question, as far as
the White community is concerned , is whether the claims of civilization
supersede those of universal suffrage.” Actually, the question becomes, how
civilized is a society that enforces racist White Supremacy? Is Mr. Buckley defining “civilized standards”
for all of us, including those living under the suppression of a racist
overlord? I seriously doubt that anybody living under Jim Crow thought they
were living under civilized standards. Being denied the most basic human rights
including the right to vote, to an education, to being on a street after
sundown, and facing the prospects of being
lynched if you defied the norms
of this kind of community hardly paints a picture of a civilized society to these
eyes.
This led me to Ronald Reagan. In 1980, Ronald Reagan began
his campaign, not with a speech on supply side economics. He began it with a
speech supporting “states rights” just outside Philadelphia, Mississippi at the
Neshoba County Fair, the very community where three civil rights workers were
murdered in 1964. This was a deliberate appeal to white racists that he was on
their side and was part of a Republican strategy going back to the 1960’s to
build a conservative majority on the basis of racism.
This is not a way to attract blacks to the conservative
movement. But that was never the
intention. The conservative isn’t looking to appeal to Blacks. They’re looking
to suppress them.
I found this an outrageous move on the part of Ronald
Reagan. Of all the locations in the United States to launch a campaign…he picks
this one? What did he think that would say to the African American community?
It’s pretty clear whose votes he was courting.
According to Smith; “The South is and always has been the
most conservative part of America,
conservative in an almost militant promotion of Lockean
principles and institutions, and the only part of the country that claimed some
kind of Burkean aristocratic conservatism. The South has also always been the
most racist part of the country. This is
probably the most direct connection between racism and conservatism in America;
despite all the denials of southern intellectuals and politicians, past and
present, the South’s militant conservatism was rooted fundamentally in its
hyperracism”.
“The schizophrenia that is part of “southern thought”, is
that while it embraced John Locke for whites, it denied Locke to blacks. But at
the same time, many of the South’s leading thinkers rejected Locke because
slavery could not be squared with his idea of inalienable natural rights. It
was one thing to deny Africans civil rights as northern whites did, but to deny
them liberty and their property in their labor was more difficult, leading to a
full-bore embrace of a bastardized Burkean Aristocracy”.
“Southern conservatism is an integral part of American
conservatism. And if one looks at it, you’ll find racism at its core. Its
militant laissez-faire capitalism, it’s emphasis on the soil, limited
government, states rights, concurrent majorities, tradition, and all the rest
are little more than reactions to modernity and to anti-racist movements.”
Chapter 6: White Supremacy. As American as the Constitution
Chapter 6
White Supremacy: As American as the
Constitution.
“The problem with any ideology is that it gives you the answer before you’ve looked at any of the
evidence. You’ve got to mold the evidence to give you the answer that you’ve already decided you have to have”. – Bill Clinton
White Supremacy and racism is foundational to America.
It’s codified in our constitution.
Article I Sec. 2.(basing a state’s representation in the House
on its Free population and 3/5 of all other persons)
Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned
among the several states which may be included within this union, according to
their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole
number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and
excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
Article I Sec. 9.
(Barring congress from abolishing the slave trade before 1808)
The migration or importation of such persons as any of the
states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the
Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or
duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each
person.
Article IV Sec. 2.
(providing for the return of runaway slaves)
A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or
other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall
on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be
delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.
No person held to service or labor in one state, under the
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
By design, the United States was created as a White, male
dominated society. Without a doubt, not all of our founders were of this mind,
however, there were enough to block any attempt to force it to live up to its
stated claim that “All men are created equal”. Clearly, some were more equal
than others. If all the states were
going to take part in this new venture, then concessions would have to be made
to bring others into the fold. Many of our founders were in fact, slave owners.
Washington and Jefferson were two of the more notable in this regard. It would take almost another 100 years and a
civil war to change that. Lincoln managed to do it, and he was hated in the
south for his position. When he was elected, the southern states seceded from
the union even before he took office.
The view in the South was that the Federal government had no right to
tell them how to run their economy and slavery was essential to it.
The articles of secession coming from Mississippi are very
clear.
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which
Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of
Mississippi from the Federal Union.
“In the momentous step which our State has taken of
dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a
part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have
induced our course. “
“Our position is thoroughly identified with the
institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor
supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important
portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate
verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but
the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have
become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce
and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at
the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but
submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose
principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.”
In an article by James W. Loewen, published in the
Washington Post, Mr. Loewen presented a few facts which he titled “Five myths
about why the South seceded”.
1. The South seceded over states’ rights.
Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no
state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed
states’ rights — that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery.
On Dec. 24, 1860, delegates at South Carolina’s secession
convention adopted a “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and
Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.” It noted “an
increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the
institution of slavery” and protested that Northern states had failed to
“fulfill their constitutional obligations” by interfering with the return of
fugitive slaves to bondage. Slavery, not states’ rights, birthed the Civil War.
South Carolina was further upset that New York no longer
allowed “slavery transit.” In the past, if Charleston gentry wanted to spend
August in the Hamptons, they could bring their cook along. No longer — and
South Carolina’s delegates were outraged. In addition, they objected that New
England states let black men vote and tolerated abolitionist societies.
According to South Carolina, states should not have the right to let their
citizens assemble and speak freely when what they said threatened slavery.
Other seceding states echoed South Carolina. “Our position
is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest
material interest of the world,” proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession
declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. “Its labor supplies the product which
constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of
the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and The South’s
opposition to states’ rights is not surprising. Until the Civil War, Southern
presidents and lawmakers had dominated the federal government. The people in
power in Washington always oppose states’ rights. Doing so preserves their own.
2. Secession was about tariffs and taxes.
During the nadir of post-civil-war race relations — the
terrible years after 1890 when town after town across the North became
all-white “sundown towns” and state after state across the South prevented
African Americans from voting — “anything but slavery” explanations of the
Civil War gained traction. To this day Confederate sympathizers successfully
float this false claim, along with their preferred name for the conflict: the
War Between the States. At the infamous Secession Ball in South Carolina,
hosted in December by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, “the main reasons for
secession were portrayed as high tariffs and Northern states using Southern tax
money to build their own infrastructure,” The Washington Post reported.
These explanations are flatly wrong. High tariffs had
prompted the Nullification Controversy in 1831-33, when, after South Carolina
demanded the right to nullify federal laws or secede in protest, President
Andrew Jackson threatened force. No state joined the movement, and South
Carolina backed down. Tariffs were not an issue in 1860, and Southern states
said nothing about them. Why would they?
Southerners had written the tariff of 1857, under which
the nation was functioning. Its rates were lower than at any point since 1816.
3. Most white Southerners didn’t own slaves,
so they wouldn’t secede for slavery.
Indeed, most white Southern families had no slaves. Less
than half of white Mississippi households owned one or more slaves, for
example, and that proportion was smaller still in whiter states such as
Virginia and Tennessee. It is also true that, in areas with few slaves, most
white Southerners did not support secession. West Virginia seceded from
Virginia to stay with the Union, and Confederate troops had to occupy parts of
eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama to hold them in line.
However, two ideological factors caused most Southern
whites, including those who were not slave-owners, to defend slavery. First,
Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to
join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large
slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many
low-income people supported the Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in their bid for the
2012 presidency.
Second and more important, belief in white supremacy
provided a rationale for slavery. As the French political theorist Montesquieu
observed wryly in 1748: “It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures
[enslaved Africans] to be men; because allowing them to be men, a suspicion
would follow that we ourselves are not Christians.” Given this belief, most
white Southerners — and many Northerners, too — could not envision life in
black-majority states such as South Carolina and Mississippi unless blacks were
in chains. Georgia Supreme Court Justice Henry Benning, trying to persuade the
Virginia Legislature to leave the Union, predicted race war if slavery was not
protected.
“The consequence will be that our men will be all exterminated
or expelled to wander as vagabonds over a hostile earth, and as for our women,
their fate will be too horrible to contemplate even in fancy.” Thus, secession
would maintain not only slavery but the prevailing ideology of white supremacy
as well.
4. Abraham Lincoln went to war to end slavery.
Since the Civil War did end slavery, many Americans think
abolition was the Union’s goal. But the North initially went to war to hold the
nation together. Abolition came later.
On Aug. 22, 1862, President Lincoln wrote a letter to the
New York Tribune that included the following passage: “If I could save the
Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by
freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some
and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the
colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I
forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”
However, Lincoln’s own anti-slavery sentiment was widely
known at the time. In the same letter, he went on: “I have here stated my
purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of
my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.” A month
later, Lincoln combined official duty and private wish in his preliminary
Emancipation Proclamation.
White Northerners’ fear of freed slaves moving north then
caused Republicans to lose the Midwest in the congressional elections of
November 1862.
Gradually, as Union soldiers found help from black
civilians in the South and black recruits impressed white units with their
bravery, many soldiers — and those they wrote home to — became abolitionists.
By 1864, when Maryland voted to end slavery, soldiers’ and sailors’ votes made
the difference.
5. The South couldn’t have made it long as a
slave society.
Slavery was hardly on its last legs in 1860. That year,
the South produced almost 75 percent of all U.S. exports. Slaves were worth
more than all the manufacturing companies and railroads in the nation. No elite
class in history has ever given up such an immense interest voluntarily.
Moreover, Confederates eyed territorial expansion into Mexico and Cuba. Short
of war, who would have stopped them — or forced them to abandon slavery?
To claim that slavery would have ended of its own accord
by the mid-20th century is impossible to disprove but difficult to accept. In
1860, slavery was growing more entrenched in the South. Unpaid labor makes for
big profits, and the Southern elite was growing ever richer. Freeing slaves was
becoming more and more difficult for their owners, as was the position of free
blacks in the United States, North as well as South. For the foreseeable
future, slavery looked secure. Perhaps a civil war was required to end it.
As we commemorate the sesquicentennial of that war, let us
take pride this time — as we did not during the centennial — that secession on
slavery’s behalf failed.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Chapter 5; Hitching a ride on the Cultural Revolution
Chapter 5
Hitching a ride on the Cultural Revolution
After high
school, I briefly attended Southern Illinois University. To this day, I have no
idea why. I had no interest in anything the school had to offer at that time.
By this time, I was immersed in music and I left after one semester to pursue
music back in Chicago. After a year of knocking around with a local band, I
moved to the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. My parents were now
living there as my father was now working for the State Department. I was 20
years old, and I was there in one of the most extraordinary times of my life.
It was 1968 and the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing along with an
anti-war movement regarding Viet Nam. There were drugs everywhere and readily
available for those interested in “dropping out” of conventional thinking.
Racial animosity was disappearing among people my age, and harmony
prevailed. Then things erupted.
On February 4, 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. delivers a
sermon at his Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta which will come to be seen as
prophetic. His speech contains what amounts to his own eulogy. After his death,
he says, "I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King
Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that
day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody... that I tried to love
and serve humanity,. Yes, if you want to, say that I was a drum major for
peace... for righteousness."
On April 4, Martin Luther King Jr. spends the day at the
Lorraine Motel in Memphis working and meeting with local leaders on plans for
his Poor People's March on Washington to take place late in the month. At 6pm,
as he greets the car and friends in the courtyard, King is shot with one round
from a 30.06 rifle. He will be declared dead just an hour later at St. Joseph's
hospital. After an international man-hunt James Earl Ray will be arrested on
June 27 in England, and convicted of the murder. Ray died in prison in 1998.
Robert Kennedy, hearing of the murder just before he is to
give a speech in Indianapolis, IN, delivers a powerful extemporaneous eulogy in
which he pleads with the audience "to tame the savageness of man and make
gentle the life of this world."
The King assassination sparks rioting in Baltimore,
Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, Washington, D.C., and many
others. Across the country 46 deaths will be blamed on the riots.
On June 4/5, on the night of the California Primary Robert
Kennedy addresses a large crowd of
supporters at the Ambassador Hotel in San Francisco. He
has won victories in California and South Dakota and is confident that his
campaign will go on to unite the many factions stressing the country. As he
leaves the stage, at 12:13AM on the morning of the fifth, Kennedy is shot by
Sirhan Sirhan, a 24 year old Jordanian living in Los Angeles. The motive for
the shooting is apparently anger at several pro-Isreali speeches Kennedy had
made during the campaign. The forty-two year old Kennedy dies in the early
morning of June sixth.
On August 26, Mayor Richard Daley opens the Democratic
National Convention in Chicago. While the convention moves haltingly toward
nominating Hubert Humphrey for president, the city's police attempt to enforce
an 11 o'clock curfew. On that Monday night demonstrations are widespread, but
generally peaceful. The next two days, however, bring increasing tension and
violence to the situation.
August 28 By most accounts, on Wednesday evening Chicago
police take action against crowds of demonstrators without provocation. The
police beat some marchers unconscious and send at least 100 to emergency rooms
while arresting 175.
Everything appeared to be out of control at this time.
1968 had seen the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F.
Kennedy. Then came 1969, which author Rob Kirkpatrick calls "a year of
extremes." It was a tumultuous time
when it seemed as if history were being made almost every day:
•For the first time, gays fought back against the New York
City police as they raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich
Village on June 28.
•Camelot lost its luster when Ted Kennedy drove off a
bridge at Chappaquiddick on July 18. His young female passenger drowned.
•Neil Armstrong walked on the moon July 20, the first man
to do so.
•Charles Manson's followers killed actress Sharon Tate and
four others in Los Angeles on Aug. 8.
•Woodstock, the now-mythical music festival in upstate New
York, began Aug. 15.
•Lt. William Calley was charged on Sept. 5 for his role in
the 1968 My Lai Massacre, in which American soldiers slaughtered more than 500
Vietnamese civilians.
•In an effort to bolster his standing amid protests
against the Vietnam War, President Nixon delivered his "silent
majority" speech on Nov. 3. Nixon was also employing something called “the
Southern Strategy” which was designed to attract those that were dissatisfied
with the Democratic Party which was now embracing Civil Rights as the
foundation of their platform. If you opposed Civil Rights, then the Republican
Party was for you.
Fortunately for me, my father was offered an assignment
overseas with the State Dept. and asked if I wanted to move to the Philippines
with them. This would be an opportunity
to live outside the country and reflect a bit on what I was looking for…which
turned out to be myself. What I saw in the Philippines stunned me. I saw
extremes of poverty and wealth. There was no middle class. These were the years
of Ferdinand Marcos. They were years of brutal dictatorship. Of course the
United States viewed the Marcos regime as a friend. We always seemed to be friends of brutality.
I left the Philippines after a year, and moved to San
Francisco. It was quite different. Discrimination seemed to be absent. Black,
white, Hispanic, gay, straight…everyone worked with everyone. During this time
it was still safe to hitch-hike and I took advantage of the opportunity. I was
first hitching rides around the city, and into Marin County. Then a friend and
I decided to hitch to Chicago. I had no idea what to expect. I’d never
attempted anything on that scale before. With hardly a dime in my pocket, and a
sandwich to eat, we stuck out our thumbs and headed east. We would part in
Chicago and I would continue on to the east coast. My parents had returned to
the states and I thought I’d make it there for their anniversary. It took a
week, but I made it to Falls Church VA in time much to their surprise. Of
course along the way I had a gun pointed at me in Nevada and was told to get a
haircut. After a short visit I took a Grayhound back to San Francisco. I now
felt I was experienced enough to try it again when the opportunity presented
itself which it did about 3 months later. This time, I left San Jose and headed
north through the Redwood Forest, to Portland, then
Seattle and then up to Canada. Once there I got a great ride from a man who
stopped and got me breakfast. We then proceeded to Revelstoke BC. I thanked him
for the ride and headed to the youth hostel in town. There were many young travelers and they told
me it was rough getting a ride from there. Some people had been there for a
week. But…there was another way. A freight train came right through town a
block from the Hostel and it headed east. I could always hop the freight if I
wanted to leave.
Sure enough, within
about an hour I heard the train coming into town. I grabbed my things and
headed to the tracks where the train would roll through. It was moving too
fast, but it was very long and began to slow down enough for me to run
along-side it. It slowed even more and I could almost walk at the same speed. I
found an open car and climbed aboard,
and hid up in the front of the car. The train slowed to a stop and I could hear
some men walking up the track. They never checked the car and I was safe and
ready for the next leg of this strange adventure.
After what seemed like about a half-hour, I could hear the
sound of the cars being yanked in succession and the sound was getting closer.
Finally the car I was in jerked into motion and we were moving. As the train built its speed I ventured
toward the back of the car and peered out to see what I could see. As I looked
out I was astonished to see myself in the midst of the Canadian Rockies. The
train was off the beaten path of highways and I could see waterfalls coming
right out of a mountain. I couldn’t see either the front or the back of the
train. It was very long. I watched the stars and the moon and the incredible
mountains that only the engineers would see. It was a magic carpet ride for sure.
It was getting colder and I retreated back into the car to
keep warm and fell asleep. I woke up when I sensed the train was slowing down
and it felt much colder and this was in the late summer. I went to the back of the
car and peered out again, and I thought I was in the Alps. Huge snow- capped
mountains everywhere and the train was slowing down. I was in Banff National
Park and about to enter the small town of Banff. The train slowed enough as it
entered the town, and I hopped off. I would continue on from here via my
thumb. I cleaned up at a public restroom
and went into a café for something to eat. There I met three girls headed to St
Paul. They offered me a ride and I was on my way to the states. From St. Paul I
found a ride to Chicago where I had relatives. I spent the day with them and
had a great steak dinner. Strip steaks that my uncle Barbequed. One of the best
meals I can remember eating. My cousin
gave me a ride into Indiana and we spotted a driver with Pennsylvania plates
and asked him for a ride to PA. I switched cars and headed to Pennsylvania. I
got off in Somerset and from there another ride to Washington DC. Again, the trip took a week and I look back
on it as one of the great adventures of my life. I was 22 years old.
I had grown up
seeing bigotry and racism as a kid. I had travelled to the other side of the
world and saw poverty and more bigotry. I’d lived in California and although my
immediate environment seemed free of this ugliness, it was still there in
abundance lurking just outside of my safe zone. I’d hitch-hiked across North
America twice, and hopped a freight train taking me through some of the most
beautiful sights that nature has to offer.
All of this had shaped me in some way that I still wasn’t completely
certain of. And although I was changing,
and growing as a person, I was still existing in a hostile environment that fed
off of prejudice, bigotry and hate. I
found that those that I knew were still immersed in this ideological prison
that served as a convenient comfort zone for their ignorance. They were older,
and certainly had different experiences than I had, and yet…they were still
consumed by a narrow minded belief system that stunted their growth and
perpetuated a divisive ideology. Instead
of opening their minds to what people had in common, their minds appeared
closed to those that they determined were different and therefore a threat. Ideologies are like that. They never admit
new information. How can you grow, if you think you know, all there is to know?
The old familiar “dog-whistles” were there, including the
scapegoating of others in order to mollify their own inadequacies. The more things had changed, the more they
stayed the same.
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