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A few days ago, I did a parody of our old “friend” the Blaze and the awful, sick, stupid people who read and comment there.
It was about Morgan Freeman’s contention, (one held by many of us) that a significant portion of the TeaNutz® are in fact serious racists.
Specifically I referred to this comment:
- Why is it that blacks are only for blacks? Who would have ever thought that Morgan Freedman was a racist? When will we begin to shun black racism and make it a bad thing? Its time. Morgan I will never watch your movies again for the simply reason that you cannot see beyond your skin color.
And my response was this:
- Um, do you see anything racist in what you just said? Blacks are only for blacks? And while you are at it, try looking up the world racism, and you might discover that there is no such thing as black “racism”
Now one of our frequent readers Blisterina questioned me about that remark, and quite rightly referred me to the dictionary with this response:
It is not defined by whether the racist is of the majority or the minority. I agree that the extreme right is riddled with racism, but a blanket statement that a person of “minority” cannot be a racist is wrong.
I did look up several different dictionary definitions, and she is accurate in her claim.
However, is this the last word?
I would argue it is not.
First a bit of background. When I was in my last year of law school, I started working at the Legal Aid and Defender Association of Detroit. It was run as a non-profit, and by an extraordinary African-American attorney by the name of Myzell Sowell. The chief deputy was George W. Crockett III, whose father had been a brilliant African-American attorney, then judge, and ultimately US Congressman.
More than half of our support staff was black. Half the attorneys were black. In the evening, after the close of the work day, the office functioned as a way station for all manner of liberal whites and blacks. Judges, high-ranking police persons, politicians, and just ordinary people had reason to gather and have a few, and talk about a rather wide range of topics.
Coming from a deeply white environment, I got a fast and intense education. I was teased in loving gentleness by these men and women, who slowly showed me how a side of life that was utterly unknown to me.
One of the things I learned was that racism was a term that could not apply to African-Americans by definition. The reason was simple: Racism was more than a simple dictionary definition:
The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
No, to African-Americans, racism has everything to do with power. It is not that you hate because of some characteristic that you believe makes you superior, but rather than you have the power to impact in a negative way, the very lives of those you hate.
It means that you, as member of a majority, can pass laws that inhibit those whom you deem inferior from enjoying the same rights and privileges as you do. To put it in a nutshell, it means that you can tell X that they can’t drink out of “your” drinking fountain. They can’t vote in “your” elections. They can’t live in “your” neighborhood.
Minorities do not have the power to impose such restrictions on whites quite simply, and therefore the word is not applicable to them.
Now, to a degree, I am playing a game of semantics. For I would perfectly well agree that Black folks, like Latinos and Asians, and Native Peoples, are all most capable of bigotry and prejudice in any form and of mistreating individually and collectively others who are “not like them.”
So why the fuss?
Quite simply this.
White racists have always and are now especially engaging in a game of “reversies”.
This really ramped up during the Reagan years when there was a full-out assault on affirmative action. It was “unfair”, it related to a “time long gone.” Everyone now had an “equal opportunity”, and finally and insidiously, it became enshrined in the new white hijacking of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s, call that “we will be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin.”
This has reached a crescendo in recent years with the TeaNutz®. Their natural racism, long hidden by increasing social pressure, has been unleashed in their constant and never-ending attack on any African-American who “plays the race card.” They are aided, abetted, and frankly invited to this position by the likes of Fox Noise, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and a host of others who real goal is to keep control in the hands of the monied elites, who are, really really white in case you haven’t noticed.
Going to Blaze and reading comments you will learn that every single black person who dares to suggest that racism is still an issue in America, is nothing but a no-good racist. This allows them to unload in ugly invective against Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Van Johnson, and ANY other African-American whom they see as attempting to further the lives and well-being of black folks.
They will not use the term African-American, claiming that it is “un-American.” They declare their lack of racism by telling you how much they admire MLK, all the while claiming that he would be against universal health care, against Obama, and that he was a “conservative”. (I guess they forgot he was marching with sanitation workers right before his assassination–gasp unions!)
They shout their support for Herman Cain, Allen West and Alan Keyes as proof that they are not hateful. That is the extent of their “black” list of “good” Negroes. And of course, we know, as we have always known, that there are Black folk who are willing to be the paraded marionette in return for crumbs of attention.
There have always been those willing to be complicit in the destruction of their own, for money, some brief safety, or as some means of being not who they are. This is true without regard to “race”, ethnicity, religious persuasion, or any other artificial grouping that can be conjured up.
This is why I reject the notion that it’s only a word, and technically it is applicable to everyone who harbors such beliefs that some folks in innately better than others because of traits that are inborn. The right seems always to control the words. Well not this time, at least not where I am concerned.
There are a couple of pretty good articles that I found that probably explains this a whole lot better than I have. Please check ’em out.
Hating Whitey: The Myth of Black Racism Can Black People be Racist by Definition? Can Black People be Racist?Please weigh in on this. I am giving you my opinion. What’s yours?
Existential Ennui 