Max Boot writes that it's time for white people in the United States to get a grip. They're not victims. The evidence to support his assertion is overwhelming:
Whites are still much better off than blacks. The poverty rate among African Americans is 21.8 percent; among whites, 8.8 percent. The median wealth of black households is $17,409; among whites, $171,000. The homeownership rate for blacks is 41.2 percent; among whites, 71.1 percent. There is also manifold evidence of continuing discrimination against African Americans. It’s hard to imagine a white man being choked to death by police, as Eric Garner was in New York, for illegally selling cigarettes. Or two white men being evicted by police from a Starbucks for asking to use the bathroom without ordering anything, as two black men were in Philadelphia.
But American whites, like their president, pay no attention to facts:
These facts do not, however, compute with whites who are convinced that they’re the real victims. Notwithstanding his occasional, insincere denunciations of racism, President Archie Bunker is the channeler and champion of white grievances. In 1989, right after calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five (five minority teenagers who were later exonerated of rape), Trump told an interviewer: “A well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market. … If I were starting off today I would love to be a well-educated black because I really believe they do have an actual advantage today.” (Of course, if Trump were actually “a well-educated black” and became president, he’d have some poorly educated racist demanding to see his birth certificate.)
So Trump continues to fan the flames:
He tells women of color to “go back” to where they come from and uses dehumanizing language (“infested,” “breeding”) to describe minorities, even while claiming, preposterously, “I am the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.”
And he assumes that white supremacy is the way of the world:
Trump must imagine that white supremacy is the natural order of things and that any attempt to deliver justice for minorities who have been discriminated against for centuries is an indicator of anti-white prejudice. The most extreme form of this outlook can be found among white supremacists such as the gunman who allegedly slaughtered 22 people in El Paso on Saturday. The suspect claimed to be acting in response “to the Hispanic invasion of Texas” — a state that was part of Mexico before being invaded by Anglos. Even many whites who aren’t driven to violence display a version of this victimhood mind-set. They view accusations of racism as a far bigger problem than racism itself, and blame “social justice warriors” rather than white racists for inflaming racial tensions.
White supremacists are not going away. They've always been there. But, unless Americans of all backgrounds show Trump the door, the bigots -- like Donald Trump himself -- will be in your face, twenty four hours a day.
Image: The New Yorker
2 comments:
It was Max Boot/Bill Kristol Republicans who let the extremist camel into the GOP tent at the outset. They figured they could control the Tea Party/White Supremacist herd as they always had. They mortally over-estimated their own prowess and under-estimated the rise of an extreme rightwing faction in the Congressional caucus that could hold a knife to their throats. Senators and congressmen who weren't sufficiently rightwing knew they would be taken down in the next primary and, in most cases, removed.
The party of Lincoln is gone. Even the party of Reagan is gone. David Gergen, who worked in the Nixon White House, said he had to leave the Republican party when he realized it had drifted so far to the fringe right that even Reagan would never be accepted to run for the presidency. Racist, misogynist, xenophobic America, White Trash America is the order of the day. Decent Americans can still send them packing but they won't go without a good thrashing and the appetite for that sort of confrontation is nowhere to be seen.
Bob Dole has claimed that people like Reagan, Nixon and himself would never be accepted in today's Republican Party, Mound. It's a trenchent comment on what has become the Trumpublican Party.
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