2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Online And In Person, Bernie Sanders’ White Supporters Advance A Black Lives Matter Conspiracy [View all]reconciledinunison
(2 posts)i believe i have only ever posted on this site once and that was about occupy, though i've read the site since 2000. it was the only place where anyone was talking about, or was even allowed to talk about, what happened in the 2000 election (and largely still is the only place).
it takes a lot for me to break my rule of not posting in online forums, but i've had enough.
blm didn't start a discussion about latent racism in progressives, which is the only form of racism that progressives and liberals in this country can be accused of.
blm called called progressives white supremacists. calling someone a white supremacist is equivalent to calling them a n1gg3r. they come from the same world. and it is beyond the pale.
white supremacy is the idea that black people shouldn't even exist in this country. it is burning crosses and lynchings. it is the KKK and concentration camps. calling a progressive a white supremacist is the same as calling them ignorant racist white trash crackers. and if you get in someone's face and hurl the worst insult that can be hurled against them, you forfeit the right to bitch and moan and whine and judge if their response is neither decorous nor respectful. if you get in someone's face, you ought to expect them to get right back in yours--few people have the self restraint of a ghandi, or an MLK, and even a cornel west.
and your false shock and outrage that some may have the temerity to question the motives and legitimacy of such blatant and divisive race-bating, esp. when it has been disproportionately directed at the most progressive demographic and the staunchest allies in the effort to secure and ensure civil rights for all (which has not been true of the african american community that has been, on the whole, a foe of civil rights for the LGBT community), is in itself suspect. at the very least, one wonders about your motives, and has ample reason to doubt them that if you align yourself with the opponent of the champion of those individuals in one of the most important contests in the world.
couple this with the fact that this "supporters are racists" narrative (which has replaced "bernie sanders is racist," as that was demonstrably false and made those who insisted upon it look like the poster-children of the dunning-krueger effect, as wells as just plan old jackasses) keeps being dredged up every time sanders scores another victory, holds another record breaking rally, rises yet again in the poles, and shocks conventional wisdom once more--and the fact that o'malley and his supporters have been given a pass, even though the man has spent his entire political career unapologetically reinstituting jim crow in baltimore, just because he was quick to issue a statement that can only be viewed as disingenuous platitudes and pandering-- you have no legitimate grounds on which to smear those who can't help but conclude, "there's certainly smoke, it's looking suspiciously like a fire." that isn't white privilege or racism, and it certainly isn't white supremacy. it isn't even "ugly." it's just classic inductive reasoning from people who have seen false flags, provocateurs, saboteurs, and fraud used to destroy progressive gains and weaken and divide progressives again and again and again. skin color does not confer immunity to bad motives, nor does acting under the aegis of a laudable goal.
the fact that the administrators and moderators of this site have allowed the tacit and sometimes overt support of the "white supremacist" smear, the use of the "white privilege" as dog whistle, and the insinuation that the supporters of bernie sanders are racists who are committed to keeping blacks down, is disappointing. i expected more.
we are all, every single one of us in this country, racists, because we live in a culture that identifies and classifies people based on biological race. a concept that has been scientifically disproven (the difference between the "races" is less than the differences between any two individuals within a supposed "race" .
but i have not know of a single progressive who has not been bitterly aware of white privilege at least since the days when billie holliday was singing about strange fruit. i have not know a single progressive who has not been bitterly aware of the police brutality directed towards african americans at least since the hey days of jim crowe. i have not known a single progressive who has not been bitterly aware of the two tiers of justice in this country since the days of the chain gangs. and i have not known a single progressive who has not know been bitterly aware of the economic boot this country has kept on the necks of african americans for the last 400 years.
slavery was an economic system. and racism was created as means of coping with the cognitive dissonance of people whose moral culture told them what they were doing to make a buck was abhorrent. our present is a direct result of our past. economics is everything.
so if you want to spit in our faces and continue to smear our reputations and question our motives, you go right ahead, all i have to say to you is: ring-ring, hello pot? this kettle. you're black.
shame on you. j'accuse.