I watched enough of the Republican Convention to be blinded by the glaring whiteness of it all. The majority of the speakers were old, white, and male. This perplexed me because I had been led to believe the GOP was trying to prove its diversity. Didn't the 2000 and 2004 conventions make it a point of displaying their 4% minority delegates and speakers to prove they're down with the people? Oh, wait...they're running against a black candidate now. I get it. So basically their posters should read:
VOTE MCCAIN
NO BLACK AGENDA HERE!
NO BLACK AGENDA HERE!
Thinking about how well this is working is making me, well, angry.
Over at alternet, Tim Wise breaks down quite easily what white privilege means in this campaign. These are points we all have seen, but to view them through this lens makes everything sickeningly clearer for me. We still live in a racist society. I have always known that. Now, apparently, the Republicans aren't afraid to exploit it for whatever means necessary.
An example:
White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.And:
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.Read. Enjoy. Be sick with me.
3 comments:
Funny, musicwench and I touched on this in response to her last post.
Any one who says there isn't racism in America is blind. Obama is scary for a lot of white America, because, even though it is not goverment imposed, there is still a lot of segregation in this country. So the only images that some white people get of black people are the stereotypes they see in the media -- now that's not to say stereotypes aren't born out of some truth, but the problem is that truth for one person becomes a generalization for a whole group of people.
Just yesterday one of my co-workers (in speaking of our local government here) said somethig along the lines of "if they stopped electing ghetto people." I'm assuming she was refering to Doug Wilder who was the first elected mayor and is African American. Now she lives in white suberbia and has no idea what the real ghetto is like -- i don't even and i grew up in what one of my friends refered to as "the mid-ghetto" because we're inbetween down town and midtown.
I could go on forever about this but lunch is about over.
ok, so this is one area I can let all the anger and rage inside of me flow freely. Do you know how TIRED I am of people who think Obama is secretly muslim? and once he comes into power he's going to blow up the white out (please...make logic out of this one simple idiocy, and I will personally bake you cookies and hand deliver them...wherever you are). you know what...let me say it clearly right here I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT WHAT RELIGION OUR PRESIDENT IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And neither should anyone else!! Look beyond the man's background and skin color and look at his values.
Ok...I need to step back...not because I'm afraid to rant, but because this is NOT my blog...
*oooommmm*....
Thank you so much for the link to the Tom Wise article. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to live in conservativeland right now. The one upside is a lot of those who were crowing over Palin when she was first nominated have shut the hell up after her interview with Charlie Gibson and the news leaking out about Troopergate and how the Republicans are trying to suppress it.
I can tell you first hand that racism is alive and well in America.
First there was the woman who called the newspaper a few weeks ago to complain that the photo we ran of an interracial couple (black man, white woman) was bad because it promoted interracial marriage and that was something she thought was just wrong.
Then, last week I was standing in line at the supermarket and a man one person in front of me was telling the cashier that there was no way he was voting for Obama because 'those people' will ruin the White House.
Someone wrote a letter to the editor about why they couldn't vote for Obama. The reason? Because they didn't want the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton having one of 'their people' in the White House. Never mind that they seem to resent Obama. Guess all black people stick together no matter what, eh? That was the assumption.
It is very upsetting and very frustrating.
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