The Melting Pot, Chapter 2009

HOLOCAUSTIC SHOOTERS, Teabagger protestors, Anti-immigrant hate groups, Hate crimes rising, Birthers, Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck…these poor souls are having a very hard time facing reality. The nation’s cultural demographics are changing to better match much of the world. And specifically…the POTUS is black.

These types, as much as some part of them might desire, cannot give vent to what truly troubles their mind, so they twist up their thoughts and use mouthsounds like “Fascist” and “Socialist” and phrases like “that’s not a Birth Certificate, it’s a Certificate of Live Birth,” or as Liz Cheney recently drizzled “People are worried that he doesn’t seem to want to defend the country” and so on.

To break the hatecode, reference the key set out by Lee Atwater in his famous quote on the “Southern Strategy”:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “N*gger, n*gger, n*gger.” By 1968 you can’t say “n*gger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now that you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is that blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And that’s how those types talk about it now, too. And these same types of minds are going about harming very specific portions of the population in the same ways.

And the reaction this springs from? This fear that everything is upended and civilization is threatened by this strange unknowable “perversion” of time-honored power structures? It’s purely cultural in nature, of course. Otherwise, what is really changing so much? President Obama is a a political centrist. And a corporatist, essentially. And a hawk!! I mean, many important things aren’t changing a bit.

But even the President saying in a press conference what is simple fact—that blacks and latinos are arrested and incarcerated at disproportionate rates, and harassed for being brown™—terrifies some people! Granted, the people most disturbed by this are a rather gross lot and (if ya don’t mind my saying so) a lot of them will die before toooo long. (Sometimes for change you simply need for old, stodgy, crazy minds to fade off the earth to give room for new thinking!) Especially if they keep loading up on Viagra and taking trips to the Dominican Republic in search of… ?

But meanwhile, for the President to even dance close to a truth that brings us toward discussing institutionalized racism…well. You get scaredycats talkin’ like this:

“We’re finding out that this guy’s got a chip on his shoulder. He’s angry at this country. He’s not proud of it. […] Let’s face it, President Obama’s black, and I think he’s got a chip on his shoulder. I think there are elements in this country he doesn’t like and he never has liked. And he’s using the power of the presidency to remake the country.”

—Rush Limbaugh (via thinkprogress)

RUSH LIMPLY:

Of course you’re not being honest, Mister Limp-paw. Just making jowl-sounds. This is just a clever way of tapping into the whole “WHO IS HE REALLLLY???” thing. You know. Furrener, Other, Manchurian, etc etc ad nauseum. Yawn.

“Chip on the Shoulder” is of course “Uppity.” It’s the whole “I don’t like your tone, boy” thing. It’s the whole “why aren’t you acting obsequious and below me???” It’s the shifting paradigm of power and the ailing, arrogant, radio host is stamping his feet because The Most Powerful Man in the Free World (funny how absent that phrase has been lately, eh?) is of a phenotype that Rush prefers to think of as inferior. Not very complicated.

As far as the rest of the quote, well, I’m guessing that any person who runs for president sort of sees things about the world they don’t like and desires to change them. This, ah, might actually a prerequisite for becoming President, eh? But again. Some people, when they raise their voice are being “confident,” and others will be perceived as “threatening.” Depends on your sex, your phenotype, and your class. Rush is underlining traits that never bothered him in Bush, and not even in Clinton! Nobody ever said that Bill Clinton was trying to remake the nation!! That would have been like complaining that speaking people are using their mouths to send sounds into the world…and that’s bad.

But again, Rush is not using language to communicate truth. He is simply stoking racial prejudice. He is shouting in code to his listeners: BLACK MAN HAS POWER OVER YOUR LIFE. THE BLACK MAN IS CONFIDENT. THE BLACK MAN HAS POWER OVER YOU. IT’S EVEN POSSIBLE HIS PENIS IS LARGER THAN YOURS!

Rush is a lowlife with a chip on his shoulder trying to use the power of his pulpit to remake the country that he cannot accept as-is. He is just jealous that Obama’s pulpit is bigger than his. (And without pharmacological aids, either!)

[sudden daydream of obama leaning back in his chair, puffing up on a fat cigar and laughing at rush's agitation heartily...'ha ha ha! chip on the shoulder? i'll open up a can of chips on your ass, rush! and once you have one stack, you won't go back!]

Okay, reluctantly turning away from Mister Limply’s victim mentality, we can now address

LOU DOBBS:

Ah, Lou Dobbs the Birther.

For those who don’t know, “Birthers” are the Internet crazies who think the US is so haphazard you can become President without being vetted for citizenship status. Or to be more honest, they are racists who are sublimating their distrust and revulsion at seeing a black man in the White House into a ridiculous question about the validity of Obama’s birth certificate.

Lately, Lou Dobbs has taken on the cause. It seems his bosses at CNN aren’t taking to it to kindly, telling him now that it’s a “dead story.” And other places, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, are making statements of their own: Lou Dobbs should be fired.

We have a bit of a special relationship here at UMX with Lou Dobbs, as you can tell by reading the tagline on the header above (unless you are not reading the actual blog). He’s a clown. He’s a bigot, and he tries to use the power of popular outrage to remake the world the way he wants it to be. He has a chip on his shoulder. No. Wait, that’s a huge flake of skin. Nevermind. MAKEUP??!

Lou is baffled at the atypically strong pushback because he is used to doing what he does, and is a tiny bit behind the nation’s true zeitgeist due to his living in a bubble of his preferred reality, as well as under 1/8 inch of pancake TV makeup. This has kept his thinking process moist and primordial and it has yet to really sink in (nor for Rush) that Obama is both BLACK and PRESIDENT. So the things they are used to saying and doing are, in relation to the new terrain, now completely new actions with an entire new resonance. And thus, garner new reaction. As we can see playing out.

Others, too, are struggling with the reality that the nation did not just elect someone who appears black, but who has a bit of the non-white experience in him. In otherwords, sometimes he is gonna “think black,” if I may presume a tiny bit.

Others, like the Cambridge cops.

CAMBRIDGE PO-PO

Obama commented on the Skip Gates arrest. You know about the Skip Gates arrest? Dude (Harvard dude, that is) was bringing his luggage into his house from his porch (oh, Famous Black Academic Harvard dude, I should mention) and a neighbor called the 5-0 on him. (Which is probably the weirdest part to me.)

Friends of Gates said he was already in his home when police arrived. He showed his driver’s license and Harvard identification card, but was handcuffed and taken into police custody for several hours last Thursday, they said.

The police report said Gates was arrested after he yelled at the investigating officer repeatedly inside the residence then followed the officer outside, where Gates continued to upbraid him. “It was at that time that I informed Professor Gates that he was under arrest,” the officer wrote in the report.

Gates, 58, declined to comment today when reached by phone.

The arrest of such a prominent scholar under what some described as dubious circumstances shook some members of the black Harvard community.

He was arrested in his own house! Well, the cops asked him to step outside first. (It’s like a vampire thing, they have to be invited in by either you or a judge or the imagined sense that they “smell something.”) Then they cuffed him and took him to the station to do all those humiliating things they do to you in a booking. Search you, strip you, print you, (sometimes) x-ray you, treat you like meat and so on. So you can imagine the well-respected law professor was pretty pissed off about that. People not experienced with this process will meet the shock that comes when you realize the law allows for anyone to be controlled and caged and deprived of rights you personally might feel are inalienable. It’s upsetting. It’s especially upsetting when all you were looking to do was leave the encounter with some dignity, which is usually one of the first things a cop takes from you. That is, you know that when you have to be quiet and pretend you don’t mind being disrespected or bullied to avoid getting shot or tazed, then you have given up your dignity. (The spreading of the cheeks for a cops flashlight search for possible drugs? You’re across the bridge from Dignity at that point!)

Well, commenting on the issue, Obama spoke to the press, who reportedly “audibly gasped” as a whole (this cracks me up) when POTUS spoke up in defense of his friend and fellow-black man, and mentioned the harassment Blacks (“as well as Latinos”) face often, at the hands of the police (and we might add Asian Americans, Indians, other non-whites). I won’t get into how much I imagine was strategy (an eloquent gifted speaker using “stupidly” in such a charged situation surprised me right away and I wondered if it were a way to back off a “hastily uttered” statement later), but the pushback from many corners was tangible and vociferous, either way.

That right there is the part I want to weave into this narrative.

The police are outraged that Obama would dare factor in race. (When some—including myself—would like to see the idea extrapolated to all the situations where it applies.) That Barack Obama would suggest—by casually citing facts usually ignored in polite society—that race came into play at all in the treatment of Henry “Skip” Gates. The stunned police demand an apology or recantation just as the Birthers and Lou Dobbs demand he produce a Birth Certificate to their liking and approval.

You know. It’s not about the words “the police acted stupidly” and it’s not about, per se, the idea that Obama”brought race into it.” That’s not really what’s under the outrage. Just as the Birthers’ demands are not really about the piece of paper they claim to thirst for (and thus can never be sated, which makes Lou Dobbs’ exploiting their complaints dangerous and unethical and plain stupid.)

It’s about shifting the power back into the paradigm these people rely upon like an emphysema patient relies on an oxygen tank; it’s about DEMANDING something (like “keep your eyes on the floor” or  ”watch your attitude” or “get your hands up”) and having the black/brown/yellow/red man respond, listen, nod, agree, obey. This will soothe their outraged sense of hierarchy. Nevermind that fact that Obama irritates some members of the black community with his statements about personal responsibility (the MSM loves that “Tell the blacks to stop loafin off” junk, but hearing about racial profiling…not so much!)

These people—all in their own ways—are struggling greatly with the reality that is gradually being revealed for this nation. Because the illusion of white supremacy blankets mainstream culture in many invisible ways. Some of the most entrenched are institutional, it’s true. But many are in the dim storage rooms of our own minds; the stacks and lists and shapes of inventory where we assign importance and worth and acceptable roles and thus behavior to other people and types of people.

These outraged stances by Rush, Lou, Birthers, the GOP, the cops…they aren’t just strategy to throw us off the rails or distract us. They are real reactions. (Though the cable news networks may milk them because they titillate.) As much as the dominant culture arranges its media messaging to obscure the standard of Witeness as the invisible Normal, it’s not so invisible when the reference points shift. For these people mentioned above (and sadly, many more), to upend the hierarchies written in blood and for hundreds of years is like them waking to find that MC Escher has redecorated their homes overnight. They can’t find the back door and are worried any moment that their bed will turn into a car and sink to the top of the ocean.

-

It’s important for our society to start recognizing publicly these dynamics. But in the name of clarity, these essays on Whiteness are not an attack on just any person who happens to be fair-skinned or European. This is about a view, and about behavior. And I come to this place to do it, as I have been for over three years.

But I think Elon James’ recent writing on this made a good point. (The entire post is a great read):

So here I am. I’m Blacking it up even NOW. I have the appearance of a angry, fist-pumping, screaming, militant Negro. Please note: I am NOT an angry, fist-pumping, screaming, militant Negro. I’m not sitting here with my big afro thinking about how I’m going to take down the White man. I am an Average Black Person. I would much rather play my Xbox 360 and watch reruns of Scrubs (yes, I said it). I would much rather argue why Batman can, in fact, take down ANYBODY. I don’t want to rant and rail against the system and the perceptions of Blacks: I’m FORCED to. Why? Because I’m not deaf, dumb, and blind. If I had those three ailments perhaps I wouldn’t be able to tell how NOT post-racial America actually is.

I, too, would rather not talk about white supremacy, would rather not upset people and have to be ready for the lashback; would rather not have to deal with the hate mail that comes from online lurkers, not deal with the sting left by old friends who have walked away from me because they don’t understand this aspect of mine that feels so hurtful to them. (Stop identifying with a destructive mindset, taking it personally, and join me in the anti-racism fight!) I don’t want to rant and rail either. I, myself, love playing video games! I laugh at Scrubs! Hell, my white half even loves mayonaise and tries to buy hard rock electric guitar-heavy albums when the rest of me is busy dancing to Control Machete. You know. I just want to enjoy my days! And like Elon mentioned in another part of his essay, I have had plenty of moments over the years where I thought Okay, enough. You’ve made the points clear, and you’ve learned what you needed to. Time to start the foto-blog on body-art and leave UMX behind.

And then…on your way to the store, or a search engine, or across the radio dial, you’re hit with the wakeup again. That there remain a lot of people in power who just want people like me, and like some of my family and friends, kept in a certain place. And the fact that I hid from my Latinidad for years is directly due to the pain I felt from media messaging like the kind these lowlives are still sending forth, every day, without remorse.

So for now, this is where I’ll be. Doing what I do.

Oh, and PS: buen trabajo, Señor Presidente. Keep on with—ahem—ya bad self.