Thursday, April 20, 2006
Racial Violence
Is it just me, or is racism on the rise in this country?
I guess I absorbed a bit too much Sesame Street and 'Why can't we all just get along' when I was a kid. Sure I heard some racist jokes and insinuations from family and friends, but a good, liberal, catholic education and a media steeped in political correctness overruled that. I'm introspective enough to realize that as a human being all never be completely free of prejudice - our brains have limited processing power, and some decisions have to be made without time for careful consideration. I am proud, however, to be a member of what may be the first generation in our species to embrace the notion that the color of a person's skin don't mean shit.
This is a novel notion in our world of Ideas. One has only to read the Old Testament to see how a nomadic culture treated outsiders, how conquered rivals were exterminated rather than assimilated. As the author John Norman has said, 'the word for stranger is also the word for enemy.' Compound this xenophobia with the contempt and violence inherit in the class structures that ruled (and for the most part still does) all major civilizations for the last few thousand years. That's a lot of generations raised to only feel empathy and care about human beings who look very similar to them, and possess the same social status, and chances are a fair amount of the same genes.
In our country, I think the real kernal of evil that sprouted into racism was the combination of duty and self-esteem that combined in what I call the 'overseer' phenomenon. Most of this country was a slave economy for a few hundred years, and the 'fathers' who ran a plantation could only beat and torture so many men, women, and children (always best to get to them young), personally. Thus a class of whites found employment as 'overseers.' You could think of them as the birth of 'white trash.' They didn't have the huge mansions and pretentious social graces, they lived in the time's equivelent of a trailer park, and probably had some issues with providing food and other resources to their family. They were paid to brutalize.
These overseers were also victims of the class war, largely denied property ownership by the misfortune of birth and a consolidation of wealth. Yet they were also turned against the slaves (which from a perspective of history we might see as their allies in oppression.)
Too often when a man has to watch his family edure hardships which he is incapable of ameliorating, his sense of worth as a provider and a father suffers. He envys the master of the plantation, yet understands on too many levels that he will never been in that position. Enduring such gnawing lack of self-worth is difficult; for a man who whips and tortures to death other men for a living, this self-esteem problem is solved by further dehumanizing his victims. 'At least I'm white,' becomes a part of their self-esteem, a thought which is reinforced to push out the painful thoughts about a daughter dying from the flu, or living in a shack with a dirt floor.
These thoughts bother me, but I think they are legitimate.
Thus the 'Redemption' and the anti-Civil Rights Movement were driven by a form of racism that cannot stand to see other races on the same footing as themselves, for this is not just a change to society, but a deterioration of the mental constructs they use to support their own sense of self-worth.
The vast majority of human beings have had to endure an existence where they have been unable to accomplish anything of value in their lives before they died. From the peasants, to the serfs, to the slaves, to the sundry lower classes that have just barely scraped by; ones's greatest accomplishment would have been procreation. Our culture glorifies possession and accomplishment, if your skin color is sold to you as an accomplishment, as a source of pride - too many of our fellow sentient beings have too little to be proud of.
For reasons I do not completely understand, far right governments tend to bring these racist Ideals up to the forefront. Many bloggers rip into political correctness, but one cannot deny that it was at least an attempt to push racism back further from the mainstream of our society. Now we have discussions on 'illegal aliens' that are but thinly veiled racist propaganda. Fox News, according to some memos, has a standing policy to air any program that makes rev. Jesse Jackson look foolish. The GOP has been using the most advanced computer models possible to redistrict the South so that black democrats have locked in seats, and white southern dems lose out - to rebrand themselves in the South as a white man's party.
And the economy's getting worse every day. Real wages for the working class have dropped every year for the last five years. Financial concerns just lead into a bit more of the 'fuck em, I got to worry about myself' mentality, translated into evag as, 'Gawd helps those who help themselves.' A loss of social status and privledges always triggers some of the worse behavior in people, grr
So we see the glaring racial disparities highlighted by Katrina, both before and now in the policies after. We have that rape case involving that lacross team, and several recent acquittals of white police officers for truly savage beatings by all white juries. The violent Right, the types that get swastikas tatooed on thier foreheads, have attempted to carry out at least 60 terrorist attacks in this country since they bombed Oklahoma City in '95. We don't hear much about them in the corporate press, but I'd say some wack job trying to buy C-4 and Sarin gas is a problem that needs to be dealt with - regardless of his wearing a turban or Nazi armband.
I guess I absorbed a bit too much Sesame Street and 'Why can't we all just get along' when I was a kid. Sure I heard some racist jokes and insinuations from family and friends, but a good, liberal, catholic education and a media steeped in political correctness overruled that. I'm introspective enough to realize that as a human being all never be completely free of prejudice - our brains have limited processing power, and some decisions have to be made without time for careful consideration. I am proud, however, to be a member of what may be the first generation in our species to embrace the notion that the color of a person's skin don't mean shit.
This is a novel notion in our world of Ideas. One has only to read the Old Testament to see how a nomadic culture treated outsiders, how conquered rivals were exterminated rather than assimilated. As the author John Norman has said, 'the word for stranger is also the word for enemy.' Compound this xenophobia with the contempt and violence inherit in the class structures that ruled (and for the most part still does) all major civilizations for the last few thousand years. That's a lot of generations raised to only feel empathy and care about human beings who look very similar to them, and possess the same social status, and chances are a fair amount of the same genes.
In our country, I think the real kernal of evil that sprouted into racism was the combination of duty and self-esteem that combined in what I call the 'overseer' phenomenon. Most of this country was a slave economy for a few hundred years, and the 'fathers' who ran a plantation could only beat and torture so many men, women, and children (always best to get to them young), personally. Thus a class of whites found employment as 'overseers.' You could think of them as the birth of 'white trash.' They didn't have the huge mansions and pretentious social graces, they lived in the time's equivelent of a trailer park, and probably had some issues with providing food and other resources to their family. They were paid to brutalize.
These overseers were also victims of the class war, largely denied property ownership by the misfortune of birth and a consolidation of wealth. Yet they were also turned against the slaves (which from a perspective of history we might see as their allies in oppression.)
Too often when a man has to watch his family edure hardships which he is incapable of ameliorating, his sense of worth as a provider and a father suffers. He envys the master of the plantation, yet understands on too many levels that he will never been in that position. Enduring such gnawing lack of self-worth is difficult; for a man who whips and tortures to death other men for a living, this self-esteem problem is solved by further dehumanizing his victims. 'At least I'm white,' becomes a part of their self-esteem, a thought which is reinforced to push out the painful thoughts about a daughter dying from the flu, or living in a shack with a dirt floor.
These thoughts bother me, but I think they are legitimate.
Thus the 'Redemption' and the anti-Civil Rights Movement were driven by a form of racism that cannot stand to see other races on the same footing as themselves, for this is not just a change to society, but a deterioration of the mental constructs they use to support their own sense of self-worth.
The vast majority of human beings have had to endure an existence where they have been unable to accomplish anything of value in their lives before they died. From the peasants, to the serfs, to the slaves, to the sundry lower classes that have just barely scraped by; ones's greatest accomplishment would have been procreation. Our culture glorifies possession and accomplishment, if your skin color is sold to you as an accomplishment, as a source of pride - too many of our fellow sentient beings have too little to be proud of.
For reasons I do not completely understand, far right governments tend to bring these racist Ideals up to the forefront. Many bloggers rip into political correctness, but one cannot deny that it was at least an attempt to push racism back further from the mainstream of our society. Now we have discussions on 'illegal aliens' that are but thinly veiled racist propaganda. Fox News, according to some memos, has a standing policy to air any program that makes rev. Jesse Jackson look foolish. The GOP has been using the most advanced computer models possible to redistrict the South so that black democrats have locked in seats, and white southern dems lose out - to rebrand themselves in the South as a white man's party.
And the economy's getting worse every day. Real wages for the working class have dropped every year for the last five years. Financial concerns just lead into a bit more of the 'fuck em, I got to worry about myself' mentality, translated into evag as, 'Gawd helps those who help themselves.' A loss of social status and privledges always triggers some of the worse behavior in people, grr
So we see the glaring racial disparities highlighted by Katrina, both before and now in the policies after. We have that rape case involving that lacross team, and several recent acquittals of white police officers for truly savage beatings by all white juries. The violent Right, the types that get swastikas tatooed on thier foreheads, have attempted to carry out at least 60 terrorist attacks in this country since they bombed Oklahoma City in '95. We don't hear much about them in the corporate press, but I'd say some wack job trying to buy C-4 and Sarin gas is a problem that needs to be dealt with - regardless of his wearing a turban or Nazi armband.
Comments:
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i always agree with leo...in case i cant comment..just put a ditto under leo's name and say jackie said me too....
i also seem to agree with you too...hmmm. is this some sort of plot....?
i also seem to agree with you too...hmmm. is this some sort of plot....?
So the right doesn't like Jesse Jackson becasue of his skin color not becasue of what he says. And people don't want illegal aliens not becasue are economy is buckling and business are using cheap illegal labor but because the right is racist.
Well it all makes sense now, anytime you don't like what conservatives are doing you can just simply slap the racist label on them and be done with it. In fact some liberals go one step worse and embrace racisim themselves. No I mean it, ask aynone about Powell or Rice and hear the deragotaroy comment about being a traitor to their race or even the more degenerate term "House N*****" I mean if a black, indian, jewish, asian is a republican, they must be a hidden racist too right?
And no, I wanst expicitley reffering to you. A lot of the racism is made up. Hate cards that are passed out when real debate and discussion ends. Suppor illegal aliens but can't think of a coherent argument? Must be racism.
And yes, anybody commiting terrorism turbin or swastika should be dealt with swiftly and harshly.
Well it all makes sense now, anytime you don't like what conservatives are doing you can just simply slap the racist label on them and be done with it. In fact some liberals go one step worse and embrace racisim themselves. No I mean it, ask aynone about Powell or Rice and hear the deragotaroy comment about being a traitor to their race or even the more degenerate term "House N*****" I mean if a black, indian, jewish, asian is a republican, they must be a hidden racist too right?
And no, I wanst expicitley reffering to you. A lot of the racism is made up. Hate cards that are passed out when real debate and discussion ends. Suppor illegal aliens but can't think of a coherent argument? Must be racism.
And yes, anybody commiting terrorism turbin or swastika should be dealt with swiftly and harshly.
# posted by 
: Saturday, April 22, 2006 11:49:00 PM
: Saturday, April 22, 2006 11:49:00 PM
Here I can only respond to the anonymous comment with the hard to support response that one must delve deeper into the issue to 'prove' or 'disprove' racism.
Personally, I use the term 'House Slave' vs. the other, but one has to admit that such a niche has existed for exploited minorities for a long time. The Black Revolutionary Movement has been around for a long time, and their stated goals/views are easy to identify. Conservatives like Alan Keyes or Ms. Rice (who had an oil tanker named after her) are the antithesis of them almost point for point.
Even a neophyte in the world of propaganda must understand how useful it would be to have someone who looks like the group you are oppressing deliver the message. Sell out your race for personal gain; take a fucking number. . .
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Personally, I use the term 'House Slave' vs. the other, but one has to admit that such a niche has existed for exploited minorities for a long time. The Black Revolutionary Movement has been around for a long time, and their stated goals/views are easy to identify. Conservatives like Alan Keyes or Ms. Rice (who had an oil tanker named after her) are the antithesis of them almost point for point.
Even a neophyte in the world of propaganda must understand how useful it would be to have someone who looks like the group you are oppressing deliver the message. Sell out your race for personal gain; take a fucking number. . .
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