What is a racist?
For many today, especially those born after 1970, a racist is basically anyone obnoxious, anyone you don't like.
That song from "Avenue Q"rang true for the baby boomers, but their children had never seen the type of racism boomer parents had taught them to abjure.
During the 60's college students, among others, endlessly discussed racism, from the George Wallace, in-your-face-proud-of-it racism, which was so obviously venomous it was easy to reject, to the more genteel and hypocritical sort, the suburban upper class racism of people who marched in Civil Rights marches but did not want their white daughters dating Black boys, to the you-don't-even-realize-how-racist-you-are stuff, which Blacks or white self righteous types threw in the face of their parents: Oh, you're against reparations--that's SO racist.
Then there was Archie Bunker, from Queens, NY, at whom we laughed because he was so real, so unlike the other caricatures on TV and in the movies who we all saw as cartoon characters. Archie, everyone knew, existed out there.
That show aired in the 1970's, after the tumult of the 60's, after the big Civil Rights Act sunk the legal basis for institutionalized racism, but today's youth have never seen more than youtube clips or single episodes.
Archie is perfectly capable of making exceptions of certain Black people. He knows his Black neighbor, cunningly named George "Jefferson" and while you cannot say he likes the man, Bunker accepts the fact they are neighbors and they have to co exist and at times he actually accepts a point and gains a certain respect for Jefferson's intelligence. In fact, George Jefferson, the son of share croppers, is an energetic entrepreneur, who is making more money than Bunker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHy6QCQW6Nw
Trump is an Archie Bunker. He will embrace Black people on stage and use them, and claim to be their friends in one pitch, and then he turns around in the next breath and says we need more immigrants from Norway, not from those "shit hole" countries, which are Hispanic or Black.
And the fact is, for Trump, it's not really that these undesirable immigrants are Brown or Black; the thing he loathes about people from "shit hole" countries is they are poor. They are dirty and violent and an "infestation" of vermin. It's pretty much the same image all those blue blooded Brahmins of the 1920's peddled: Those horrible people were just so DIRTY.
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| Clean White vs Dirty Brown |
The worst crime for Trump is not being Black or Hispanic; it's being poor, and not just poor, but destitute.
Destitute, wretched, powerless--Trump recoils from all that.
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| Once it was the Italians and the Slavs |
He really is the classic school yard bully. You remember that kid: He never picked on a strong Black kid or a tough Hispanic or a big Jew--he went after a timid, flaccid white kid with glasses, a nerd. He'd beat up that kid.
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| Once it was the Chinese |
It doesn't take four years in psychiatric residency to figure out what that Trump bully type is assailing. His fear of being seen to be as helpless or weak or "such a loser" as that wretch is so glaring.
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| Once it was the Irish: NINA |
And the crowds who cheer him on share that same antipathy for the same reason. These are the losers, who want to pound on the nerd to make themselves feel better.
When you belittle Trump, and his basket of deplorables, you stoke those fears.
Mad Dog,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link to All in the Family, I haven't seen more than a minute clip in forty years. It really was well written and acted. At first glance one would think the characters are rooted in the 70's, however if Trump's election proved nothing else, it demonstrated not only is he Archie Bunker-there are millions of others out there as well. Sadly, Bunker is no extinct dinosaur.
The other night I watched an episode of PBS's Frontline called "Poor Kids" which gave me a greater appreciation of why some in our midst might have voted for Trump merely to stick it to a society that has stuck it to them. The show profiled the lives of six kids in various US locations, suffering through the cruelty of a poverty stricken childhood. It's almost obscene to contrast the lives of these kids with the lives of our own children.
The filming took place in 2012 and 2017, so it was clear their misery continued regardless of which political party was in charge. As The Who sang in the song "Won't get Fooled Again"... "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"...
Maud
M,
ReplyDeleteYup, I think alienation is the key.
Sure saw a lot of that in rural PA this past week--lots of rebel flags.
Like that line from "Rebel Without a Cause:"
"What are you rebelling against?
"What've you got?"