Anyone who might ever be tempted to minimize the extent and severity of racism in contemporary America should feel free to answer me the following:Why has Barack Obama's candidacy spurred so many racist emails, many with threats of physical violence, murder, etc., that servers and news networks are disabling reader and viewer comments about Obama?
Why have there been so many death threats that Obama uniquely merits Secret Service protection?
Why does Rush Limbaugh keep his job after saying things about Obama on par with the worst Imus said about anyone?
I won't vote for Obama, since I don't vote for Democrats or Republicans...and yeah, I try not to "overdetermine" "identity politics" and all that jazz, but I have seen enough garbage on message boards and in political chat rooms, enough openly racist shit about any and every political subject, that I am long past the illusion that there aren't, in our midst, straight-up white supremacist nazis. Potential stormtroopers (along with a whole lot of people willing to look the other way) for use by demagogues as politics in America continues to run its course. And not just a few of them. People who hate other races, plain and simple, and lots of 'em. He is in danger. What should we do about that?
(Sheez, I have a hard enough time figuring out why anyone from Wyoming, one of the northernmost states, would have a confederate flag on their truck...)
It's not enough just to say "well, I'm not a racist," anymore than, upon seeing a person getting assaulted next to you on the street, it would be enough to say "well, I'm not assaulting anybody."
What is to be done about those among us who tactictly or actively encourage, justify, excuse or execute violence against racial minorities? What are you personally going to do? What would you suggest others do?
4 comments:
I'm upset that Barack took Rush's remarks as jokes from an entertainer. What a weasel response.
Hi Matt. Thank you for visiting and for your comment on my blog. I just realized you run two quite interesting blogs, I will be back.
About your post and in particular on racism issues, I think that people mostly have already big problems to actually realize and face their own cultural racist traces, on their own behavior and that is why it becomes so difficult to have a positive attitude against others'.. Well, at least that is what I've seen from my experience here in Brazil, in a society which apparently 'experiences' racism in a different way.. but maybe not so different if we'd take a better and closer look.
joice
Joice, I have linked to your aesthetically and politically pleasing blog. Don't bother reading my other blog; it was just for a class I was teaching.
matt
Thank you for your kind words, Matt. And of course I linked this blog also. I realized that 'the legal communication' is a class-teaching-blog; anyway I've found some interesting discussions there and thought it would be ok to follow it as a mere observer, or sort of..
Post a Comment