The ‘Real Racists’ Have Always Worn Suits

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/179304/real-racists-have-always-worn-suits



***SNIP

I understand the impulse in wanting to find some way to convey that what we’re dealing with currently is a system of racism that is less overt than it once was. Saying things like “we’ve gone from white hoods to business suits” is one way to seem to speak to contemporary racism’s less vocal, yet still insidious nature. But it does a disservice to the public understanding of racism, and in the process undercuts the mission of drawing attention to contemporary racism’s severity.

It wasn’t the KKK that wrote the slave codes. It wasn’t the armed vigilantes who conceived of convict leasing, postemancipation. It wasn’t hooded men who purposefully left black people out of New Deal legislation. Redlining wasn’t conceived at a Klan meeting in rural Georgia. It wasn’t “the real racists” who bulldozed black communities in order to build America’s highway system. The Grand Wizard didn’t run COINTELPRO in order to dismantle the Black Panthers. The men who raped black women hired to clean their homes and care for their children didn’t hide their faces.

The ones in the hoods did commit violent acts of racist terrorism that shouldn’t be overlooked, but they weren’t alone. Everyday citizens participated in and attended lynchings as if they were state fairs, bringing their children and leaving with souvenirs. These spectacles, if not outright endorsed, were silently sanctioned by elected officials and respected members of the community.

It’s easy to focus on the most vicious and dramatic forms of racist violence faced by past generations as the site of “real” racism. If we do, we can also point out the perpetrators of that violence and rightly condemn them for their actions. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that those individuals alone didn’t write America’s racial codes. It’s much harder to talk about how that violence was only reinforcing the system of political, economic and cultural racism that made America possible. That history indicts far more people, both past and present.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Racism is always about power differentials, and would not exist

if it didn't serve the interests of the powerful.

Racism has been used in many ways. When trade unions didn't admit black workers, the factory owners used black labor to bust the unions.

White people in poverty in the south could take some comfort in the fact that black people had it even worse.

Race has always been a useful marker for keeping the common people divided against each other.

Kids aren't naturally racist. They have to be taught.

[butterfly77]

2. Exactly...

Here is a post from Alan Grayson in DU politics that explains Ryan and his plans perfectly for everyone...http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251360005

[mylye2222]

3. I do second you.

Every where racism is a powerfull tool for high level interests.

It can serve; to reigh endlessly for the powelful riches by dividing us. It can also serve to make citizen accespt abusing security laws.

In France racism sentiments are currently being preded around and reinforced in order to provoke social tensions, and therefore making us accest the current endles-taxing policies, ordered by our corporations. And it is is used to make us turn our eyes away from real issues like poverty, unemployement, housing crisis and so.....

[WillyT]

4. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[jwirr]

5. Curious. I have never read Ayn Rand - was she as racist as her followers?