Racism isn't confined to one party. But only the GOP stokes white resentment

[catbyte]

By Max Boot

May 27, 2020 at 2:23 p.m. EDT

I have a highly accomplished friend whose talented son applied to multiple universities this year. The one region where he did not apply was the South, because my friend was afraid of what would happen to an African American down there.

Her concern is entirely understandable. This month a video became public showing how Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was gunned down by two white men while, his family said, he was simply out for a jog in Brunswick, Ga., in February. The two white men claimed that Arbery fit the description of a burglary suspect, even though no break-ins had been reported nearby. Arbery’s fatal mistake, it seems, was jogging while black. My friend is worried that if her son went to college in the South, he could suffer a similar fate — and I don’t blame her.

But it’s not as if the bacillus of racism is confined to one region; in President Trump’s America, it is as pervasive as the coronavirus. Look at what happened in Minneapolis on Monday. Police stopped an African American man, George Floyd, on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill. We don’t know all that transpired, but an Internet video showed an officer with his knee on Floyd’s neck. Floyd gasped as he said that he couldn’t breathe, but the officer refused to move, and Floyd died.

snip

As veteran Republican operative Stuart Stevens writes in his important forthcoming book, “It Was All a Lie,” race “has defined the modern Republican party” ever since Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy. Most Trump supporters, to be sure, don’t use the “n word” or publicly defend white supremacy. But many Republicans (75 percent in a 2019 poll) are convinced that whites are victims of discrimination, and many sneer at anyone who calls out white racism or white privilege with epithets such as “woke,” “politically correct” and “social justice warrior.”

snip

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/27/racism-isnt-confined-one-party-only-gop-stokes-white-resentment/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can't wait for the day when we are no longer in the Bizarro World where Max Boot makes sense. Arrgh!

[Brainfodder]

1. I have some qualms with all the poor folk program destruction going on, ALSO?

This includes non-stop attacking Planned Parenthood, which does not just do abortions FFS!

[MagickMuffin]

2. There are still some racist in the Democratic Party

I know as I encountered several when I called to GOTV in 07-08. I had people tell me they would not vote for a N______!

I felt sad to experience this kind of racism in our party, but they are here until they die I guess.

[catbyte]

4. Sadly, that's true, but we don't institutionalize white resentment like they do.

It seems like every plank in their platform is some grievance or another. It's Festivus all year round for the gop.

[MagickMuffin]

6. It was heart breaking to say the least

Especially considering Barack Obama's vision for trying unite our country.

“There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America,” he said, before adding:

The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?

At least he tried. But alas he got cocked blocked by the opposition.

[The Magistrate]

3. I Know, Ma'am

He's cold right, and that is just not natural....

[Caliman73]

5. Definitely!

I have said this before, especially with regards to the Civil War. Slavery was an institution that both North and South benefited from although the North Abolished the practice long before the South was forced to do so. Racism and White Supremacy however were fairly well represented throughout the country. Racism is an American problem not just a Southern problem or a Conservative problem, or a White problem.

Here is the difference (as stated in the article). Conservatives tend to see the world in a hierarchy, with rich White, Protestant, men at the top and Black and Brown people at the bottom. In that hierarchy, mistreatment of Black people, Brown people, women, and degenerates (LGBTQ people) is justified. They foment racial hatred and sexism to attract people to the middle tiers of the hierarchy whom they can use as muscle, so long as they can oppress some other group. It is conservatives (at one point they were Southern Democrats, but now they are the Republican Party) who count on racial animosity and sexism, and religious bigotry to unite an shrinking coalition of people. Conservative laws only really benefit people at the top of the hierarchy, but if there is enough fear and anger created to keep people activated, they won't notice or they can be convinced that those oppressed groups are at fault for any failings of the system.

Liberals can certainly be affected by the individual strains of bigotry and racism learned from their families; and societal or institutional racism that has been part of American society since its inception, but liberalism is typically about growth, openness to new ideas and diverse viewpoints and so as one embraces liberalism their ideas are challenged. We change and adapt to new information. That is liberalism.

Conservatism doesn't have that growth and change mechanism built into their ideology because they are trying to preserve a status quo that stretches back centuries.