With this election, I just really do not get people. I do not get how people can not see the racism from Trump? The sexism? How much he hates everyday Americans in how he refuses to pay for services renderer? How he has put so many small businesses out of business? The small businesses that are the backbone of this country? How he disrespects Veterans? How do they not see that he is a major part of the problems in this country with his conning and lies?
There is so many issues with him, but the issue that keeps coming to mind is his racism. The dog whistles he does for the racist and white supremacy groups.
I do not know if people are just that racist, ignorant or knowingly blind?
I had shared a meme on facebook showing a black man being chained to a tree. The meme stated that the picture was from 75yrs ago. I stated that I wasn’t sure if it was, but that you do not tell African-Americans to get over slavery and jim crow when you do not tell people of the Jewish faith to get over the Holocaust.
One of the comments I got was that people are still alive from the Holocaust and the excuse that it was Africans that sold other Africans into the slavery.
My responses from the thread (edited for grammar corrections and actual paragraphs since replies on FB doesn’t allow that):
People are still alive that saw the lynching and seen their family torn out of their beds by men in hoods. One guy I work with never meet his 7 uncles because they were lynched.
The excuse about Africans selling them into slavery is that, an excuse That does NOT make what the US did the right or the fact that the system is still set up to support white supremacy. That is the reality of our laws that are in the blood of our history.
You know how the law came about not allowing intermarriage between black slaves and white indentured servants? Because the child carry the status of mother and they didn’t want to call a “white” child a slave. And because indentured servants (which wasn’t much better then slavery) were natural allies of the black slaves. The slave/indentured masters couldn’t have that.
So by treating one worst then the animal and bringing up a person that is in the same boat but is white and you tell them that they are better because they are white. You start a system of white supremacy.
White and black children, identical in everything but color are treated differently in school. That is how more children of color get stuck in the school-to-prison pipeline. They have done studies where the exact same resume is turned in and the “white” sounding name gets called and the “black/latino” name does not. Those are the facts and the reality of our society.
And you wonder why people of color are pissed off? My husband was pulled over while driving while black. Because they saw his best friend who was black, as soon as they saw that my husband was white, they made excuses that they thought he was someone else. Yeah, they thought they were going to get 2 black navy men and instead got a white one thrown in the mix.
I remember my best friend in 7 & 8th grade, who was black, tell me stories of living in a small town in Texas. And how her family members got beaten for just “crossing” the tracks to the white side of town. I didn’t even know that happened when I was in 7th grade.
Things haven’t changed as much, it isn’t gone, it is just under ground. With scum like Trump using “dog whistles” too all the racists that know exactly what they meant. The birther movement….that was all about race plain and simple…..can’t have a black man get to “uppity” must tear him down and delegitimize him.
**Then they brought up riots and burning of neighborhoods.
My responses:
Not acknowledging that our system is set up to keep the racism going is what keeps it going.
Hopelessness, poverty and anger is what creates the circumstances that neighborhoods burn…it has nothing to do with color…riots have happened in white neighborhoods during the depressions.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/riots-during-the-great-depression.html
Current white/upperclass culture doesn’t want to acknowledge that. As long as they don’t have to see the despair and deal with the “unhappy angry negro” they are content to sweep it under the rug. It freaks them out to see people upset the race/class status quo.
Current white/upperclass culture don’t want to acknowledge that they are part of the problem and with their ignorance are not much better then the slave masters.
At least the slave masters were upfront about their racism. The hidden racism is the most dangerous.
The only good thing that Trump as done has brought the racists upfront so they can’t hide and you can call them for what they are…..bigots and racists.
I think most of the reason why our system is still so racist is because of ignorance and not wanting to deal with the reality that non whites face.
When I asked a black staffer years ago at the women’s shelter about how she was doing in Lafayette and she said that she didn’t see many people that were actually racist, but were ignorant in how they were acting racist or how the system was racist.
They are afraid of acknowledging that they have racists parts to themselves. What is sad, is no matter what, we are ALL racist….society teaches us that in even when we know better.
It is when you don’t acknowledge that part of you, don’t exam where you learned it and don’t do anything to change it….that is what keeps the racist system going.
*This article sums it a lot about our society : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christy-degallerie/its-time-to-call-out-nice-racists-white-fragility_b_11939196.html?
**I really just do not get how they do not see it. It is like 3 monkeys, one covering their eyes, another their ears and another their mouth. They do not want to see the truth in front of them.