The Hate That Dare Not Speak Its Name
WE KNEW THAT THERE WOULD BE a faction of people so wed to their own racist thought patterns they would be incapable of dealing with the fact that a non-white person was president of the US. I guess I thought they’d be a bit more honest about it.
WE KNEW THAT THERE WOULD BE a faction of people so wed to their own racist thought patterns they would be incapable of dealing with the fact that a non-white person was president of the US.
Unnecessary Nuance Alert: I’m not, of course, talking about those with complaints about Obama in general. I have my own. (And I have to say, just as troubling as those who refuse to see anything negative about Obama or his actions are those who leap all over your junk when you don’t immediately condemn him on every issue, so let’s just try to have a conversation here).
I’m talking about the freakshow. The Palin Crew, the pitchfork bunch. The ones who are enamored of words that imply an ENEMY is WITHIN.
What gets me is that I thought the racists would be honest. I really did! I thought they’d simply be able to say “A black man has no business being president/in power/in White House/on front of bus.” But I guess just as a little knowledge is dangerous, a little bit of self-awareness can be dangerous, too. Steve Martin in one of his early albums used to ask the audience (I had the record as a child but I’m paraphrasing) “Who here took Philosophy in college? [pause] …you can always tell the Philosophy Majors because their hands are … [makes a wavering halfway motion] You remember just enough to f*** your head up for the rest of your life!” And maybe that humor resting on an understanding of intellectual rhetoric directly relates to Marimba Ani’s piece that details the dishonesty inherent in Euro-American culture. As well as what Mai’a said about continuing oppressive behaviors while using better language for it.
Years ago, these people would have felt confident simply voicing their support of a (backward) idea. In certain pockets of the US (and I’ve lived in one or two) people talk this way all the time. But they get out in public, or maybe even to themselves, and they know it doesn’t look good or sound good…they understand they will appear ugly or be thought of that way (or is it even thought out so much?) and so they find new “N” words. Like Muslim. And Socialist. And Fascist. And Marxist. It all means the same thing. It means their world has been turned upside down, and their mind can’t make the leap to mirror it. We expected this. But I hadn’t counted on their own simple cowardice in speaking their feelings. I sort of wonder how dangerous they can get while still not even really understanding what is bothering their own cramped up mind.
I am also impressed by FOX TV. (I just…can’t call it “News” anymore, won’t.) Because let’s be clear: they are fomenting violence. I can’t and won’t make it any simpler or more complex than that. The owners and stockholders of FOX Television are pouring millions and millions of dollars into a mechanism that may as well be a giant finger on a tripwire.
I am personally…amazed that 1) they would dare do this. 2) I would live to see a major television station do this and get away with it. It’s all so blunt. The rich (white) people bugling out to the poor (white) people to come to arms to save their elite empire. 3) I guess I never imagined if that type of class/race war scenario did play out so blatantly that those poor would respond to the call.
Interesting times, indeed.
UPDATE Sunday Apr 19, 2009 10:00am: Dave Neiwert, who has spent many years studying right wing freakazoids, writes on this.
Tags: awareness, Change, FOX, honesty, inciting violence, Language, mobs, Racism
Posted in Africa, Class War, Cultura, Hate Groups, Media, Palabras, Putos, Que Viva las Mujeres, Strikes, Marches, Parades, and Protests, White Supremacy
Obama as a bogeyman.
The:
Islamofacistpinkocommieabortionistradicalblackliberatantichrist
Phew! Just like Bush was all that they ever wanted ,because you can pour whatever you want into an empty suit, so is Obama everything you want to hate because you can throw whatever you want hoping it sticks.
Mind you his decision not to prosecute torturers
and murderers is bad enough, as is pursuit of
neoliberal economic policies. But you won’t hear
these teabaggers complain about that. Those things they like, until the DHS sends down a vague from above that swings the security apparatus spotlight their way.
Then they are all “Roo Roo!”
I sort of wonder how dangerous they can get while still not even really understanding what is bothering their own cramped up mind.
that’s exactly what makes people dangerous.
excellent point.
It seems like it started back with the 2nd KKK. They started doing this whole “we’re not AGAINST such and such we’re just FOR such and such”.
Of course go to a meeting and you find out…
This tactic seems to have worked pretty well for them, as they’re still using it in so many different conservative movements…
To be honest, I think they even believe their own bullshit at this point, they don’t even know how to be honest about what they really think anymore.
yeah…they probalby dont even know why they are running around shrieking and talking about fascists, they are just all wound up and bush didnt bring the nirvana machine round the front after all and now there’s nothing but rags, pain and scraps and some damn handsome mooslim runnin the world, sheeesh. you’d pity em if they weren’t so scary.
I agree that most of the Fox News tea bagger types simply have this inchoate racist rage, and they are merely expressing this rage by engaging in faux-grassroots activism (e.g., tea bagging) and throwing around words and phrases (socialist, Marxist, etc) the meanings of which I suspect the majority of them cannot even articulate. I also love how they denounce Obama’s “massive deficit spending” with all the fervor of Jonathon Edward’s “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God”, yet they were silent while BushCo did the same thing. The irony is that the “deficit spending” (i.e, the “stimulus package”) Obama is doing is an effort to perform triage from the economic wounds inflicted during the Bush era of unprecedented deficit spending (regardless of what one thinks about the viability or quality of said effort).
I wish I could say I was surprised that poor whites have been so easily manipulated by the white plutocracy via Fox Tv et al, but I too have lived in parts of this country where poor whites overtly express their racism and would be willing to accept at face value a post on Free Republic that Obama raped 50 white virgin evangelical pre-teens white reciting the Koran and watching hardcore gay porn. When you combine white racism w/ Thomas Frank’s propositions in _What’s the Matter with Kansas_ the present situation is unfortunately all too predictable.
And for the record…I am not necessarily going to be *automatically* against every single thing Obama actually does. But I have learned that there is often a world of difference between what he appears to claim he is going to do, what he ends up doing, and how his PR machine distorts what was actually done. So, when he seems to be suggesting his support for the implementation of a policy I could support, I take a “wait and see” approach. So far, IMO his words have been mostly hype and I am skeptical (no, make that cynical) whenever he states an intention to support x or oppose y. If and when he follows through with something with which I’d agree (e.g., real immigration reform), I certainly wouldn’t automatically be against it. But I won’t praise him for his stated “intentions” on certain matters….I’ll reserve my praise for his actions if they in fact take place.
Great post as usual. Take care!
EM
That sounds fair enough to me, Elián. I, too, take a wait and see approach. Mostly because I think the practical application of strategy in DC is not exactly played out the way I understand or would want. (Al Giordano’s The Field is a good blog to stay appraised of how things are working very often in this regard and I highly suggest the blog to all who want to keep on top of Obama administration moves/etc).
I think anyone who reads my blog knows I am no “Obamanite” or whatever such silly name is being used now. I do think he is a great man and a great thinker. However you want to interpret those words! I also see him as bound by a system. And the wave of corporate funding that is going into resisting him, as it is, is impressive.
Nor will I give credit for his “intentions” should they not bear fruit. And you better believe I am watching him closely now on a few issues. And I am doing what I can in terms of blogging and organizing and will do more if necessary, in order to steer things toward my desired result. That’s on us, I think.
But he is held pretty close by a system of oppressions and rotten systems and it won’t be easy for him to break out of that on his own anyway. Even if he wanted to. And frankly, this is not about him for me. He is a brilliant man, done. Over with. But he’s a role, a job. Not a teen idol to me. At this point it’s about what he does for our nation, and how we plug in and try to affect things in our lives and around us. In concert.
Finally, I hope you don’t feel I was singling you out. I was not. No issue I write about is ever symbolized or brought to the surface of my mind by one person. I welcome your voice. I ask commenters to try and keep the passions from making them into an elbow-jabbing, yelling maniacs because that’s my province here.
And at least in this blog, you’ve not been otherwise. So keep on. 