First off, let me be 100%
clear. I know, it’s not up for question
or debate, that Trump’s “Muslim ban” is racist, Islamaphobic, xenophobic,
fascist, and illegal. PERIOD! It is nothing more than his thinly-veiled
attempt to make America lily-white again, just like his custom-made, 100% cotton,
picked by American slaves, 400 thread count, percale, lightly starched Klan
robes. Non-Christian Trump is, first and
foremost, aligned with the sole goal of removing, oppressing, and even exterminating
if he can, ALL people of color within these borders to restore it to the great
racist, evil bastion it once was.
I want America to be more
tolerant, I want America to be more diplomatic, I would love for my America to
be the true melting pot that it was supposedly created to be. I will forever embrace diversity. I will fight, resist, and protest any and
every effort by this deranged lunatic in chief to make AmeriKKKa more racist
again. When the time comes, I will
register as Muslim as an act of conscientious dissent against tyranny and the
efforts to go back in time to segregation, Jim Crow, slavery, and the mass
genocide of “others” that this country is so damn proud of.
All that being said, I do find it
a bit odd that moderate/progressive/liberal white Americans are more horrified
by the thought of Muslims being banned from the country than they are the thought
of white cops murdering Black people in cold blood. For
two years, we’ve seen the videotaped evidence of innocent Black men, women, and
CHILDREN slaughtered in the streets like animals time and time again and the
most moderate/liberal whites could muster up was some luke-warm enthusiasm. While a few picked up signs and donned BLM
t-shirts, more often than not, they deflected, defended, and denied that there could
be the slightest possibility that systemic racism was at the core of the
hundreds of police killings of African American citizens who were born in this
country.
But I’ll be damned if white
people haven’t found their raison d’etre now.
They are shutting down airports and highways, they are boycotting
companies, they are united in their #NoBan #NoWall fight. I just have to ask where was all this empathy
and compassion and activism for Black Lives?
I want all those white people who are ready to register as Muslim in
defiance of Grand Wizard Trump to register as Black for a day. I want
all those white people to see our lives as worthy to fight for too.
I’m not at all angry at white
people for their enthusiastic defense of the principles that made this country
the land of the free. Their indignation
is righteous for sure. I just wish it
extended to the Black citizens who lived here as well. I just wish they didn’t feel so inclined to
dismiss the plight of their Black American brothers and sisters so easily.
1 comment:
This is such a thoughtful, intelligent commentary. Maybe I can add some perspective where white folk are concerned. First, allow me a political point. In case you believe "moderate/progressive/liberal white Americans" constitute a contiguous group, they do not. They did in the past, before Bernie Sanders nudged us out of our slumber. I'm pretty sure that has changed permanently.
I am a white man that is politically left, or better, Progressive for meaningful legislation. The post-9/11 changes, including this new policy that allows police to execute black men, needs progressive action; not Democratic, appease "conservatives", never-ending classist economy bills that want to change things over decades. This is not to get any Progressives off the hook for the lack of support for BLM, but only to make the point we Progressives represent something different and we do not like what Democrats represent. Democrats, or "moderates" if you wish, are conservatives dressed in lib-suits. Okay, so set that to the side.
The BLM cause has a couple of major differences from the Muslim Ban.
BLM. I've noticed a lot of white people that are really having problems understanding the new racism in America. I think most whites believed that racism was almost gone. As it turns out, there was more racist feeling that we thought, apparently just keeping quiet. There's a lot of surprise and shock. There's a lot of disagreement. There's a lot of ambivalence and cognitive dissonance. There's a lot of denial and misplaced shame. The shame is key, and please, I'm not trying to start an argument when I say it's misplaced. Often I think it is.
I see a lot of white people that have a knee-jerk, emotional reaction to the subject. Defensiveness. I'm talking about white people who are not openly racist, but any mention of white rule and racism is taken as a personal insult. To face the truth is to admit that the white race is genetically evil. They feel, in a confused and ill-defined way, that admitting a legacy of institutional racism is admitting personal responsibility. It is logic-free; desperate/anguished. This wash of visceral, confused affect starts to give way to excuse making and scapegoating. "But cops shoot white people too"; "But the dead cops in Dallas..."; "They're the ones being racist - we don't have a miss white America!", etc etc ad infinitum. It makes no sense at all, but this is the truth. As long as they're emotionally affected with suspicion that their character is being judged, trying to explain to them that BLM is a reaction to a real problem is futile. One may as well attempt to balance a ball on the crown of a house by throwing it up there from the ground; it's going to roll off one side or the other. I've been in quite a few arguments about it. I don't know how to resolve it, but I know that it's real.
The new fascist president probably has more to do with the different reactions to BLM and Ban. Trump had no involvement in the ugliness that led up to the creation of BLM. Everybody except the furthest right half of the "conservatives" loath Trump and everything he stands for. They (we) even in our dumbed-down state, can see that Donald Trump is a goddamned fascist that values nothing but personal praise and wealth. The hate for our new Dear Leader is what moved them to action on the Ban. Dear Pussy Grabbing Child Molester designed that illegal, half-wit law. BLM hasn't benefited from being associated with Dear Criminal's Nazi legislative efforts. And that's too bad because I too would like to see more enthusiasm for BLM. To help BLM's effort would help white people too. But white people are generally dumb and it seems that being dumb is currently in vogue.
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