A Post I Don’t Want To Write
Like Jimmy Carter, and Fallenmonk, I grew up in the South. I saw the “White” and “Colored” signs on drinking fountains, rest rooms, etc. and I learned the things that weren’t said, and what they meant.
As Fallenmonk noted, when Saxby Chambliss tells Obama to show humility “don’t be so uppity, boy” comes through loud and clear.
When Rep. “Joe” Wilson yelled out “You lie!”, I understood the rest, he didn’t have to say it. The fact that he yelled it over a provision concerning undocumented immigrants should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that he’s a through and through member of the Sons of the Confederacy who wants the flag of the Army of Tennessee flying from every public building to remind people “of their place”.
The whole immigration issue is overtly racist. You don’t hear any calls to build a wall/fence between North Dakota and Canada, hell, most of that border isn’t even marked.
DCap notes that the White House is trying to ignore the situation. They seem to think that if you ignore the signs, the birthers, the whackos, they will all, eventually come to an agreement in the best interests of the country. This has the same level of reality as the Republicans bargaining in good faith to produce bi-partisan legislation.
After LBJ got the Civil Rights laws passed, I had high hopes that during my lifetime I would see an end to racism. It is a whole lot better than it was, but it is nowhere near over. When times get tough the haters come out of the woodwork. A lot of people want someone to blame, and the haters are happy to oblige, as they specialize in scapegoats.
9 comments
I remember attending one Florida school where there were white sections of the playground and black sections. Coming from New England surrounded by Dartmouth College students and professors from every continent, I didn’t think there would be any problem going to play on both sides. I was physically reminded that it wouldn’t be tolerated.
.-= last blog ..Berkeley Foodie Idealism meets Big Box Store =-.
Racism is a damn difficult thing to get rid of, particularly because it can be so devilishly manipulated and updated for a new age with just the faintest hint of suggestion behind it.
.-= last blog ..Quote of the Week =-.
It still goes on in some places, Jill, although the claim is that students are doing it voluntarily, and it isn’t school policy. The same thing happens in the cafeterias.
Things are a lot better because it isn’t promoted by the powers that be, CK, and it isn’t socially acceptable anymore, but the stupid will always be with us. The worrying thing is that some many are coming out into the open with their hatred, and even carrying signs like the early days of desegregation. I remember the marches and murders as news, CK, not history. It was a very dangerous and nasty time. Understanding the “dog whistles” was a survival skill, not an academic subject.
I understand and sympathize, and share your anger. Sadly, I’ve seen racism everywhere I’ve traveled, and even here. I truly don’t understand it, and don’t want to. But I don’t know how we can change it without understanding. To me, it seems to be mostly based on ignorance, fear and a strong will to control others (and even just plain evil in some cases). India is a real hotbed of racism on a cultural level, for example. Though, as in the USA and here, there are some places where it isn’t tolerated at all.
Have to agree with Comrade Kevin.
Oh well… back to work. 🙂
The real problem is that here there is a history of violence to go along with the racism. It’s one thing when the racism results in bar fights between guys who families came from Italy and those who came from Spain over who gets to claim Columbus, or other such silliness, and the murders and bombings over desegregation.
We have vigilantes wandering around near the US-Mexican border, and when you throw in the drug gangs and law enforcement you have a recipe for a lot of dead people, many of them innocent bystanders going about their business.
Of course, the Indians can understand that kind of problem, because there are ethnic killings all the time in India.
Until we deal honestly with the problem and the haters that keep it going, it’s another roadblock to the process of recovery.
There are real, substantial problems, as far as I’m concerned, with what Obama and Congress seem to be headed for in health care reform, but who wants to get involved and risk looking like you are offering aid and comfort to the crazies?
Indeed that’s a difficult topic, and a well-written post, Bryan. I grew up with everything you describe, and I have a childhood incident to add:
I was perhaps seven, with my mother in a grocery store on the boundary of white and black neighborhoods, when I grew thirsty. Mom lifted me up to the nearest water fountain, which happened to be labeled “Colored.” A store manager spotted us and rushed over in a veritable panic, pointing frantically to the sign and speaking with great concern to my mother. Mom, bless her, said to him, “It’s the same water,” and let me continue drinking. Then again, my family was atypical.
The whole business of racism in America, contrary to my fondest hopes in the mid-Sixties, is not over, and it’s not over because of people like Wilson and Beck and the whole nasty crew on the other side of the aisle, who are busy resurrecting the worst racial fears of the less socially aware among us. It’s not even clear to me yet whether having a Black president will actually improve the situation or make the GOPers redouble their efforts to plant the worst motivations in people’s brains.
Recently, Spencer Ackerman (I think) remarked on the treatment of Obama as “three-fifths of a president,” and it occurred to me to wonder if anyone in the GOP base even caught the reference. Either way, the phrase sticks in my mind. To my chagrin, this is not over yet.
If you read the local letters to the editor you get flashbacks from those days. The phrasing is identical. People have this weird concept that in the old days you could spot the haters because they used “the N-word”. They don’t understand that “Colored” was the socially acceptable term. The N-word would get you a smack if you were a child as only “trash” used it.
The results were blatant, but the language was anything but. You had better have learned what was really being said or you could find a burning cross on your front yard, or, even your living room.
The Obama campaign played the race card during the primary, and I called them on it when I so sites going along with their stupidity. Attacking people like Harold Ickes was just ignorant. Their problem is that they called wolf too often, and now are afraid to deal with the real “wolf” when it appeared in DC.
One thing I learned about middle schoolers during my teaching days was that just letting things slide never worked. You had to step in swiftly the moment some kid started misbehaving and school him, make him look like a fool to his peers, a zero rather than a hero, and enforce some consequences immediately.
You can’t just waffle around about how well, little Johnny is a good kid who’s just misbehaving. You have to come down like the hand of God and leave him shaking and wondering what exactly just happened to him. LBJ knew how to do this. Obama, on the other hand… you put Obama into a middle-school classroom, and they’d have him resigning his teaching job in tears by the end of the first week.
He wants to mediate, not lead. He doesn’t seem to have any real goals.
Oh, yeah, I remember student teaching in college. They gave me about 30 seconds before the first attacks started, and it was a small town school in rural New York. You either set the tone immediately or your life becomes a living hell.
The only people Obama feels comfortable criticizing are liberals. He can’t bring himself to deal with the opposition. It won’t be much longer until all he has is opposition.