America’s dirty little secret
Posted by Paul Wilden in Political Commentary |
Racism is alive and well in this country. It used to be that America’s racists didn’t try to hide there racism, showing at least a modicum of integrity by being honest about there feelings, but as I pointed out a few days ago, this is no longer the case. This fact is perfectly demonstrated by this little gem (h/t, Glenn Greenwald). As I previously mentioned, today’s racist, by acknowledging that some blacks are acceptable to them, don’t believe that statements like this one, reflect anything but the most despicable example of race hatred,
I don’t hate black people. I can’t pretend to be color-blind because absolutely nothing in my culture will allow me to be. I admire Thomas Sowell, Duke Ellington, Roberto Clemente, Muhammed Ali, Alexandre Dumas, Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Count Basie, Tiger Woods, and Bill Cosby. There are many others but that’s a sampling of the famous folks whose courage, genius, character, and achievements I would be proud if I could get anywhere in the vicinity of. The bald truth of the matter is that they’re better than I am, and it doesn’t arouse a flicker of racial feeling in me to acknowledge it. They have enriched and elevated my own experience of life. (emphasis added)
Should they enrich and elevate they’re own lives however, is apparently not acceptable. And it’s this salient point that is always missed by the racists because their judgment is always clouded by their own personal life experiences without a thought to the reality of those they judge.
On the other hand, I am sick to death of black people as a group. The truth. That is part of the conversation Obama is asking for, isn’t it? I live in an eastern state almost exactly on the fabled Mason-Dixon line. Every day I see young black males wearing tee shirts down to their knees — and jeans belted just above their knees. I’m an old guy. I want to smack them. All of them. They are egregious stereotypes. It’s impossible not to think the unthinkable N-Word when they roll up beside you at a stoplight in their trashed old Hondas with 19-inch spinner wheels and rap recordings that shake the foundations of the buildings. It’s like a broadcast dare: Go ahead! Call me a nigger! And then I’ll cap your ass.
Here’s the dirty secret all of us know and no one will admit to. There ARE niggers. Black people know it. White people know it. And only black people are allowed to notice and pronounce the truth of it. (emphasis added)
This is virtually indistinguishable from the example I gave, “I’m not a racist, there’s good ones and then there’s the niggers.” Notice how the examples of the blacks he admires, with the exception of the ultra conservative, and completely unthreatening, Thomas Sowell, are all entertainers and sport figures. Notice the conspicuous lack of black leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., a figure almost universally admired and yet completely unmentioned by OldPunk.
What is particularly important here is that OldPunk’s views are not in the least bit extreme. He falls far short of the robe wearing, cross-burners and the heel-clicking neo-Nazis. At least these mouth-breathing Neanderthals admit that they are racists. But the OldPunk’s among us actually believe theirs is a rational and decidedly non-racist view point,
Here’s the biggest thing we “racists” notice. Every single immigrant group that ever came to America — including the Chinese who came as railroad slaves — has risen out of poverty and want to prosperity and respect. The Irish, the Italians, the Polish, the Jews, the Koreans, the Vietnamese. Every group but you. And you’re the only group we fought a war to free.
Note the use of quotations around the word racists, OldPunk clearly doesn’t believe that he’s a racist and yet, in the very same paragraph, he completely proves the opposite. How can this statement be construed as anything but racist? He is unequivocally stating that blacks as a group are inferior to each and every other ethnic group he has listed (and of course, to whites as well). Even if his accusations were actually true, they would still be unquestionably racist. From Merriam-Webster online dictionary,
Main Entry: rac·ism
Pronunciation: \ˈrā-ˌsi-zəm also -ˌshi-\
Function: noun
Date: 19331 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race 2 : racial prejudice or discrimination
I’ll leave it to the social scientists to explain the socio-economic roots of the kinds of behavior that OldPunk rails against, how the effects of hundreds of years of slavery, oppression and poverty are still being felt today, people of his ilk will never understand that. But if you are capable of reading a dictionary and have even the slightest level of integrity, the OldPunks of this world should at least be able to admit they are in fact, racist.
–Paul Wilden
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March 24th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Unfortunately most of the world is still racist, whether they will admit it openly or not. I think many just have different levels of acceptance and that helps them sleep better at night, while hiding the racism that exists beneath the surface of the skin of most.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Well put. I don’t know which frustrates me more, the racism or the denial. If I was a minority, the answer to that would probably be clear, but from my perspective, the denial would be almost comical if it weren’t so deplorabe.