Dear White People Who Can't Figure Out if What You Did Is Racist Or Not

Dear white people who can’t figure out if what you did is racist or not, 

Stop waiting for black people to explain why some of your actions are racist. You already know they are racist when you do your best to claim such behaviors aren’t who you are, or you pretend they never happened. I say this, because of the debacle Governor Ralph Northam of the Virginia Commonwealth caused for himself.

In case you haven’t heard, the extreme right went on a hunt to discredit Northam. They uncovered a photograph in his 1984 medical school yearbook that showed one student in blackface and the other in a KKK robe and hood. They were after Northam because of a bill he was trying to get passed concerning late term abortions. It appears the extreme right will go to any lengths to ensure women, even if their lives depend on it, cannot have access to safe and affordable abortions. Their love of fetuses outpaces their love of people by eons. They’ve even killed for the cause.

I don’t understand their position, because if they made sure women had access to affordable birth control and reproductive healthcare, as they did under the ACA until the right dismantled it, the number of abortions would shrink to almost zero, and the procedure would only be used as a last resort, say in the case of rape (no, a baby conceived by rape is not a gift from God; It is the result of a violent physical attack.) or the mother’s health risk. But the extreme right doesn’t care, because embryos and fetuses mean more to their cause than people. If even one of them told the truth, they would tell you that what it really means is that they would fulfill their belief that women should be oppressed and submissive to men, and they should not be allowed to make decisions about their bodies.  I know this because of the number of men who claimed support of pro-life legislation, but were also caught telling their mistresses to get abortions so the men would not be found out and would not have to support a child they didn’t think was worth their support. In their case, the baby was certainly not a gift from God; It was the inconvenient result of caving to lust.

So they went digging to discredit Northam. Apparently they didn’t have to dig too deeply, because there was the photo in his medical yearbook, and another interesting tidbit in another yearbook: one of his nicknames was “Coonman.”

Many Democrats and liberals called for Northam’s resignation, along with the hypocritical right. It doesn’t matter who went digging, it matters that the incendiary photo existed at all. And it doesn’t matter what a stellar civil rights record he has. We live in different times. There was a time white men fought for civil rights, but were perfectly fine leaving systemic racism in place. They wanted to continue being the power brokers, decision makers, and leaders. There was no room at the table for anyone who looked different or thought differently from them. Those days are over. The 2008 election broke the glass ceiling for people of color, and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s run as the Democratic candidate in the 2016 election broke the glass ceiling for women. Not that there hasn’t been backlash. There has been a strong and sustained backlash. Trump is the face of that backlash. Nevertheless, we persisted in the 2018 election with the greatest turnover of Congressional seats in the history of our country and the most diverse Congress ever.

Northam, so far, refused to resign. On February 1, 2019, he issued an apology for appearing in the photograph. On February 2, 2019, he claimed he wasn’t in the photo and someone had put it on his page without his knowledge. He also admitted he had engaged in putting on blackface once for a Michael Jackson dance contest—he even said he only put on a little shoe polish since, if one had never done it before, one might not know how difficult it is to remove later. He even went so far as to consider giving a demonstration of his dance skills, but one can hear his wife caution that it is “inappropriate circumstances.”

It’s beyond inappropriate. In 1984, the year the yearbook was published, every single American would have known, with the exception of avowed white supremacists, that blackface is offensive and the KKK is a terrorist organization. Engaging in such behavior, particularly when one hopes to serve individuals as their doctor and, later, as their government representative, is egregious.

Some pundits are calling for statements from Obama and the Virginia Deputy Governor, Justin Fairfield, who would step into the governor’s position should Northam step down. No, they don’t have to weigh in. They will only be criticized, and, white people, you don’t need them to tell you what Northam did was racist and that he should step down. We know he should be held accountable. The only one who appears not to know is Northam himself.

Except, let me make a larger statement to the extreme right: You can’t call foul on liberals and not disavow Steve King (Iowa) who is a blatant white supremacist and trump who has an equally egregious record on race relations dating back to the 1970s when he wouldn’t rent to people of color. Remember, he also pushed the birther conspiracy and kept it going long after that horse was beaten to death. They should both step down, too. And you? You must start legislating equality.

So, let’s be accountable. The extreme right needs to stop doing whatever is necessary, including cheating at the polls, suppressing the vote, conspiring with a foreign adversary, and discrediting their colleagues on the other side of the aisle, to get their ideologically discriminatory beliefs into the mainstream. There is a reason there is separation of church and state. Do what you want in your churches, as long as you are not abusing people through conversion therapy or sexually abusing parishioners or doing anything else vile under the guise of God’s will, including believing that God favors white people over all others and that gives you permission to discriminate and hate anyone who doesn’t look like you. And stop looking for dirt to discredit Fairfield, too. Your methods are obvious and disingenuous.
Note: after I published this it came to light that the allegations against Fairfield may have come from Northam's camp. It has not been confirmed, but if true, this shows Northam's utter disregard for people of color as he is willing to crush another's career to save his own. This story is getting deep.
Note 2: An second allegation, this time of rape, against Fairfield. Fairfield is demanding an investigation, but it appears he must step down, too, even while third in line has his own black face story. The Commonwealth of Virginia is in trouble.

Northam, resign. White men have to stop expecting second, third and fourth chances when they mess up. Women and people of color still have to fight like hell just for one chance. Just because you are liberal and believe you are supporting righteous legislation for equality, doesn’t give you a buy. In fact, it holds you to a higher standard. Do the right thing, or risk discrediting the Democratic Party, because of your own self-interest. If we, the party of all people, can’t do the right thing, why would we expect the GOP to do it?

The rest of us will continue to fight for the right of all people to be equal under the law and in society, and we will let you know when we witness racist behavior and also unethical politics to support extreme ideology. We’ve proven these last several years that swimming in the muck of humanity makes us terrible people. That is why we must hold everyone to a higher standard.  Governor Northam, be the first to prove why taking the high road is the right road to take.

Angry White People

No one wants to talk about race or racism these days, and yet everyone does. Sometimes it is subtle, as when someone uses coded language, like how the country is changing. Other times, it is blatant like the birther movement against President Obama or when David Duke came out in support of Trump. He told his followers that not voting for Trump “is basically treason to your heritage.”

Duke claims he did not endorse Trump, and Trump claims he doesn’t know who David Duke is. For those who don’t know, Duke was the grand wizard of the KKK and later a one-term Louisiana state representative.

All the white supremacist groups are supporting Trump including the League of the South, the organization I had a brush with and wrote about in my post “Reconstructing the South.”

Watch this video of neo-confederates protesting ethnic cleansing of… wait for it… white Americans. Listen to how the protestors place their hopes on Trump to bring their issues to the national stage. White supremacists love Trump.

Trump, famous for his brashness, mega-ego, and risky business deals, is working on closing his next big deal: being elected the leader of the free world.

He sidestepped questions about supremacist support, because their support is another step toward that end.

He also quoted Mussolini in a tweet: “Better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” When questioned by MSNBC commentator Chuck Todd, about whether he wanted to be associated with a fascist, Trump responded, “No, I want to be associated with interesting quotes and people.”

When Mussolini and Duke are those people, one has to wonder how low he will go, but just look to his supporters to find the answer.

They are tired of being politically correct, and they dream of deporting immigrants, excluding people of color and Muslims, legislating women’s reproductive rights, keeping gay couples from marrying, and living in a country of only white Christians.

In the meantime Trump initially refused to disavow David Duke and his supremacist ideas. The GOP establishment is livid. A few have spoken publicly about voting for Hillary Clinton if Trump becomes their candidate. Yet they used racism as a political recruiting tool since Nixon. But this blatant show, this naked truth, is too much to bear.

Violence is another of Trump’s tools to rile his base. In a rally in South Carolina Time Magazine photographer Chris Morris was choked and slammed onto a table by a secret service agent for stepping outside the media pen. There are very strict rules concerning the media at Trump campaign events, because Trump wants to control media access to his base and rally attendees. It isn’t the first time someone was attacked at a rally and one can be certain it won’t be the last.

Violence is something else his base craves. They have attacked Black Lives Matter protesters and Muslims who attended rallies. Their fervor is palpable.

This past weekend we saw the film Race about Jesse Owens and the four gold medals he won at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. I love seeing movies like this one that document our history, our true history, but they always leave me teary and depressed. The promise of reaping a rewarding career based on being a national hero never seems to materialize for athletes of color who rose to athletic prominence before the Civil Rights movement.

President Roosevelt never invited Owens to the White House after the Olympics and the dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City to honor his feat of winning four Olympic gold medals was diminished because he was not allowed to enter the hotel through the front door. He and his wife had to ride the service elevator.

So anything that Nazi Germany believed about Aryan supremacy was mirrored at home, and was perhaps even worse, because in Germany Owens and his black teammate Mack Robinson (Jackie Robinson’s older brother), who won a silver medal, were allowed to room at the Olympic living quarters with the other athletes.

Sadly, Jesse Owens struggled to make a living after becoming a national hero. The film said Ohio State, his alma mater, gave him a job as a janitor after he graduated. That is not a fact repeated on his Wikipedia page, but in this case, I tend to believe the film because his daughters were consulted on the making of it.

Did Ohio State believe they were doing right by offering him a menial job on the campus his athletic feats brought to the world stage?

When I hear Donald Trump denying any knowledge of who David Duke is (he finally disavowed him), I feel anger and sadness, because our country has changed so little since 1936. Civil Rights never reached the true spirit of the law. Systemic racism still exists because a large portion of America has amnesia, denial of, or fervor for the different experiences of race in our country – the white experience and the experience of people of color.

I hoped Trump’s numbers would drop when he skirted the David Duke association in interviews and acted as if he did not hear the words “KKK” and “Ku Klux Klan” in a phone interview this past Sunday. His numbers remain strong. In fact they have risen nationally.

Even more people now believe he speaks to their fears and concerns.

The GOP establishment is freaking out. How to stop him? But they created him.  They resuscitated Jim Crow and now they are paying the price. They should lose this election, soundly, for tapping into hatred against President Obama; for feeding the growth of the Tea Party; for speaking out against immigrants and Muslims and women and LGBT individuals; for pushing for deregulation and corporate welfare. They turned against humanity and this is the result: irrational anger, hatred, violence, racism, and discrimination.

I’m disgusted with the lowbrow attacks the GOP candidates are waging against one another using middle school sexual innuendo and name calling. But what do they have left when their base is angry, white, ignorant, and hateful?

Until we take responsibility and hold our country accountable for its history and the legacy it has left us, nothing will change and the hatred and discrimination targeted at minorities will grow wildly and dangerously as it did in Nazi Germany so many years ago.

What will angry white Americans think after they elect Donald Trump (or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio) and he enacts everything he has threatened: building the wall, shutting down legal immigration of Muslims, letting even more guns into society? Will they still believe he is the answer to all their ills? Or will they regret electing the one person willing to act on their hatred and anger?

Jesse Owens, 1936 Olympics