Racism in Politics and Society

 Friday Author: Seth Kaplan

Occupy Democrats posted a remarkable video on Facebook Wednesday, entitled, “Trump Fans Admit They’re Angry They Can’t Say Racist Things

This video answers the question many people ask:  Why persons formerly considered to be rational, sentient beings find Donald Trump to be someone they can support for the office of President of the United States. The answer is:  Because he is just like them (except richer).

More on Racism in America

Occupy Democrats posted a remarkable video on Facebook Wednesday, entitled, “Trump Fans Admit They're Angry They Can't Say Racist Things” But wait, there is more on racism in politics and society. These folks use Mr. Trump as a surrogate, someone who somehow can say, and get away with saying, words and opinions these supporters are afraid to speak.

They become the platform upon which Mr.Trump stands to exploit his unique positions as (a) a Presidential candidate who (b) the media fawn upon because his antics are deemed newsworthy, partly because (c) he is a billionaire with a juicy history.

Now THIS is Reality Television!

The chance to be on television blinded them to the ways in which such an appearance could be used by a political operative or campaign with less-than-pure intentions. For example, being star-struck often clouds thinking. Those filming the session must have thought they had struck gold when a middle-aged white woman grouses that she “can’t call a spade a spade” in her daily communications with her fellow Americans. You can’t script or make up this stuff.

What Does It All Mean?

Speaking for myself, I’ve known for decades that racism, anti-Semitism, and general hatred of those unlike the haters existed in our country. You don’t need a sharp fingernail to scrape away the thin veneer of civilization and tolerance with which most Americans cloak themselves. How did I learn of these attitudes?

I was lucky during my years of fundraising to speak with people across the country about some of the most pressing issues of the day. In addition, I also began following The Southern Poverty Law Center. For example, I spoke with a woman in Fast forward to the current presidential race. One Republican candidate (it is always a Republican) answers his own question about whether he would bar all Muslims from entering the United States by saying, “You bet your ass I would!”Madison, WI, a big university city. I had always assumed that the presence of a university conferred an enlightened, ecumenical attitude among the indigenous populace.

She schooled me to understand that, if people of color went trick-or-treating on Halloween, the gangs in Madison would set upon them. I also spoke with a woman in Raleigh, NC, who told me that you could be a judge, school principal, minister, football coach, doctor, but, if you were Black, you were still a second-class citizen.

In another conversation, I asked a former client of mine who was originally from New Hampshire what it was like to live in the Raleigh area. “I live in a great town, have a beautiful house, and nice neighbors. But, if I drive twenty minutes into a more rural area, it is totally Klan country. Burning crosses on lawns, the full Cleveland sheet-and-hood ensemble, all of it.”

What Are We, Barbarians?

This video answers the question many people ask: Why persons formerly considered to be rational, sentient beings find Donald Trump to be someone they can support for the office of President of the United States. The answer is: Because he is just like them (except richer).The ultimate proof, of course, is this sizable group of people that aired their dirty attitudes on a video that may already have gone viral. If only they could say what they really felt about their fellow man and woman, they would feel so much—better? Honest? Closer to Mr. Trump? Who knows?

They have been out of touch with their hearts and souls for so long that acting in any other way may no longer be possible for them. After watching the video a few times, I wrote the following thoughts to let them know how I felt about what they revealed. Then, I took a long shower:

“Fine. I will admit that I, too, am a racist. I hate stupid people, especially the ones with southern accents in TV ads and government. But you folk in this video are a special kind of stupid: You admit to your prejudices on television–the medium with sound AND pictures–and, as happens so often these days, the Internet–you know, the one that goes to billions of people. That is more than millions.

 

“Setting aside insights into your psychological makeup—fear, insecurity, feelings of inferiority—that prejudice often reveals, you will have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do to friends, family, co-workers, and strangers who may approach you on the street, in airports, hotels, and pretty much anywhere you go. Yes, that’s right, actions have consequences. Maybe worst of all, each morning, you have to look in the bathroom mirror and ask yourself the question: ‘Did I actually say that’?”

2 thoughts on “Racism in Politics and Society

  1. And for a far more eloquent, and well-written, understanding of Trump’s popularity, here:

    http://www.city-journal.org/2016/eon0122fs.html

    Quote:

    Somehow, even as they have spent the last 30 years insisting on the fundamental differences between people, multiculturalists are surprised at the rise of a white nationalism that feeds into the support for Donald Trump. Trump replays the extremism of Obama. Trump and Obama have been drawn into a see-saw dynamic in which each plays off the excesses of the other. Trump speaks to the frustration and anger of people whose wages have stagnated as government bureaucracy has grown dramatically more intrusive. Trump is a peculiar spokesman for that honor-driven egalitarianism that Walter Russell Mead describes as “Jacksonian America.” “Our ruling class,” writes Angelo Codevilla, “has created ‘protected classes’ of Americans defined by race, sex, age, disability, origin, religion, and now homosexuality, (and perhaps Islam) whose members have privileges that outsiders do not. By so doing, they have shattered the principle of equality—the bedrock of the rule of law. Ruling class insiders use these officious classifications to harass their socio-political opponents.” Worse yet, Obama’s reaction to the San Bernardino terror attack has been largely to bemoan supposed Islamophobia—no evidence required.

    End quote

    Trump, and to some extent Cruz as well, is a gut-level antipathy to those who purport to be our intellectual and moral superiors who constantly hector “the common man” about their need to submit, be “nudged” to behave “rightly”, and so on.

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