The vids in the two previous posts (below) are instructive, as are the 'comments' attending them on the film-maker's page, as regards the emotional tenor of Etihw Elpeop's opinions about Obama. It's pretty stomach-turning stuff. One thing is certain: These are NOT people who are persuaded by or much interested in, or even seemingly aware of, "nuance." They are unreachable by means of intellection. They believe themselves 'victims,' and they see McC(umst)ain/Sara-cooter as blunt instruments of their vengeance.Unfortunately, albeit inevitably, Obama seems to have inherited all the racial animus felt by Whites 40 years ago by these people's parents when Rev. King challenged their self-satisfied self-images, showing them--the virtual whole majority culture--to be criminally racist. Obama's doing the same thing, but all the more dangerously, because he's mebbe gonna be president. Not just "president," THEIR "president."
See, Etihw Elpeop aren't completely ignorant of their histories as oppressors, only mainly, congenitally in denial about it. Etihw Elpeop mostly know enough to realize that if they'd been treated the ways that Etihw Elpeop have mostly treated Black and Brown People here for the last 450 years, Etihw Elpeop would be fuuking furious, uncontrollably outraged, murderously discontented, and only waiting for a chance to get even.
And they mainly can't understand how a Black Person (an avatar of ALL those people the Whites have 'mistreated' (putting it mildly) ALL that time) won't undertake to exact vengeance in precisely the ways THEY'D do it if they, the Etihw Elpeop, had such grievances and were in the position to do so.
Which is also one of the reasons why Etihw Elpeop expend so much energy in imagining grievances against not-white people. Ever notice, even Black Fundies don't think themselves as persecuted by non-Xians, in the same ways that White Xians do?
It comes down to this: Etihw Elpeop see themselves owed the chance to 'get even' with the formerly marginalized (mainly Brown) People whom Etihw Elpeop blame for their own inability to take advantage of being Etihw Elpeop in a White-racist culture. Did you notice how those vid-people bit back their replies, spat out short, cursory answers? They can't say what they think anymore without social opprobrium falling on them, and they know it.. They see in McC(umst)ain and the Sara-cooter a way to say undeniably, but sub-vocally, what they feel themselves illicitly forbidden from saying aloud. Mc/Palin '08 is the bludgeon they've been looking for with which to reassert their 'entitlement' to superiority.
"Our" side was scrupulous about accepting the 'process,' and NOT going to the streets over Bush v. Gore. These folks will have no such scruples about cancelling Obama's ticket and forcing a legitimacy crisis, with guns, ropes, and dawgs (along with the complicity of the 'law').
It's gotta be galling to be only a middling 'successful' Etihw Elpeop--to say nothing of being an objective failure--in a culture and a society which still bestows innumerable and mostly invisible advantages on people lucky enough to be born 'White.'
1 comment:
I must repectfully disagree with inference that white people are all racist. I'm white and a conservative. I have an inter-racial marriage and have experienced racism first hand. We will have one day have a non-white person/woman for president but hopefully not Barrack Obama. His lack of experience (as indicated by even his running mate) and his personal beliefs. I ain't no religious zealot but I can not reconcile that fact Barrack continued to go to church that said the inflamitory things that were said by his Revend Wright for 16 years. To compound this issue he exposed his children to the hate speech that was said in a house of God. I know given the main stream medias bias, if John McCain's preacher said the same things that were said by Rev. Wright his political career would have been over berfore it started. There are other examples but I just save some time. I would hope that we could aggree that race relations have gotten better and not worst. We seem to forget to quickly the sacrifices of the Civil war where hundreds of thousands of Americans died fighting for many reasons and one of the more important ones to end slavery. I sometimes wonder how different things would be today if the Federal troops that occupied the South after the war were not removed some 10/12odd years later. At the time of their pull out their was a very tight presidential race where a republican won the electoral college vote and the democrat one the popular vote. To avoid major issues the southern democrats aggreed to accept the northern republican as president as long as the troops where removed. B/c during the occupation there where black government officials and more. After, came the Jim Crow laws and we know the rest of the sad story. I'm bit long in the tooth but I close with following, AMERICANS FIRST, that is what we are!
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