Why "Racist/Racism" Doesn't Work

Let's talk about grammar for a moment.
Yeah, yeah, I know that's not what the title of this post suggests is about to happen, but we're going to do it anyway.

When we talk about what a word means, we can do it in one of two ways: the denotation or the connotation. The denotation is the specific, literal meaning of a word while the connotation, generally speaking, is how people use the word. A good example of this, actually, is the word "literally;" at least it was before some dictionaries changed the denotation of the word. Not to get pedantic, the denotation of "literally" is the literal, specific meaning of something, without exaggeration. The connotation of "literally" is the exact opposite, the figurative or exaggerated meaning of something. You can see the confusion that this kind of thing could cause if one person is using the word one way and someone else is taking it the other way.

So let's talk about racism...
Racism has a specific denotation which includes both a person's hatred of some other racial group and the belief that one racial group is superior to some other (or all) racial group. Racism can be one or both of these things.

However, the connotation of racism, meaning how most people use it, is the hatred of some other racial group. And this is where we run into problems and why white supremacists are "winning" the racism battle.

It's clear that Trump (#fakepresident) has run and is running on a white supremacist platform and that he has surrounded himself with white supremacists, some of them more explicit than others about their white supremacy (Stephen Miller, Asshole Supreme). It's also clear that Trump's "base" support this white supremacist platform, some of them more explicitly than others. It's so very clear that all of this is racism and that all of these people are racists. After all, it's right there in the definition of racism, the belief that one race is better or superior to some other (or others) race.

But that's not hatred.

So when you call out a Trump supporter for their racism, what they hear is

You hate black people.

or, maybe,

You hate Mexicans.

They hear "hate" and, of course, they get upset by that. What they're thinking is, "I don't hate anybody." Well, except, now,  the person calling them a racist.

All of which might explain the animosity between Conservatives and Liberals.

And, no, I'm not saying that Conservatives didn't start all of this shit, because they certainly did. That's not even an opinion. You can trace all of the current political turmoil back to Newt Gingrich (and, man, if my parents named me "Newt," I might be full of the same kind of vileness as him) and, before him, the rise of the new fundamentalism in the US, which took on a new life in the late 60s and through the 70s as a reaction both to the Civil Rights movement and hippies and their "free love."

But it doesn't really matter who started it, because someone has to be the adult in the room, and the Conservatives are not that. They are more like toddlers throwing a tantrum, and they hate being called racists. It just makes them more petulant and foot stomping.

Before you ask, no, I don't have any good ideas on how to deal with this issue on a global level. Or even, really, a personal level, other than having real conversations with Trump supporters about what it is they believe and what they are voting for and trying to explain that believing "white people are just better" is racism. Of course, the problem there is that most of them haven't verbalized their belief like that in their own heads; they just know that the system, as it has been, the system that supports white people at the expense of brown and black people, is the system they want. The "white people are better" system. So I don't know...

It's all very complicated. Except that it's really not. It's a bunch of people who can't see those Magic Eye pictures claiming that it's not real just because they can't happen to see them. Or don't have the patience to learn how (you know, refuse to be educated).

What I know is that approaching Trump supporters as racists isn't working. It hasn't been working, and it's not going to start working; it doesn't matter if it's true. At this point, because there's not really a lot of time left before what could be the most important election in US American history, the best thing to do as a liberal or a Democrat or just someone who opposes Trump (#fakepresident) is to show up and vote. Or, you know, mail it in. Just make sure you vote. This is not a time for thinking that your one vote won't make a difference. Every vote counts, and it needs to be overwhelming. VOTE!

This Is America

This Is America

Racists (and also Paul Ryan)

R is for racists and lyin' Paul Ryan.
Turns out he's like Robin the Brave.

Racism, Not Just Hate Flavored

We do a lot of food exploration at my house. I mean, we experiment with cooking a lot in our house. For many reasons.

Like, the Indian restaurant we really loved closed, and we don't think any of the others in the area really come close.

Or my wife doesn't like pizza from restaurants, so we need to figure out our own pizza at home.

Or, gee, enchiladas are really hit-or-miss, maybe I should figure out how to make them so that we don't have the problem of bad enchiladas (which is what I did during January, and, now, we can't go buy better enchiladas than what I make at home).

Sometimes, when we're doing these food projects, we discover that there really is no one way to make something. That's true of everything, actually, but it's more true of somethings than others. I mean, pizza, despite the different toppings and thickness of the crust, is still basically pizza. It's bread and sauce and cheese at its heart; everything else is just window dressing.

But tagine... Tagine is not like that at all.

A couple of years ago, we decided to explore Moroccan food, and we started with tagine, because that seemed to be a pretty standard Moroccan dish. With Indian food, you start with curry; with Moroccan, you start with tagine. What I learned very quickly is that there is no one thing that is tagine. It was kind of mind boggling.

I mean, sure pizzas can be very different from one another but, if you see a pizza, you're going to know it's a pizza. Going through recipes for tagine, though, if I hadn't known I was looking at tagine recipes, I might not have been able to tell that two different dishes were both the same thing.

Except for the chicken. Tagine tends to have chicken.

And that's kind of how racism is. It doesn't all look the same, sometimes to the extent that you can't tell that what you're looking at is racism. Even in yourself.

We tend to think of racism as hate or, at least, an extreme dislike of a certain set of people, like, "I hate black people," or, "I hate Muslims," or, well, I'm sure you can figure it out. This is the burning crosses in people's yards or the dragging them from their homes and lynching them or the crowding them into ovens and gassing them kind of racism. But it's also the kind of hate that prompts torch-wielding mobs (even tiki torches) to march through towns and college campuses proclaiming how great they are. It's all very obvious and in your face, and, generally, we, culturally speaking, are quick to condemn it.

But racism is frequently more subtle than that and extends to the people who say things like, "I don't have any problem with black people, but..." We're so used to dealing with racism from the standpoint of hatred that we forget that it can include people who don't hold any particular dislike for another group of people but who just feel that their group of people is intrinsically better than some other group of people.

In fact, they may even like that other group of people and feel... fondness... for them. It's like this:

Some people really love kids. Little kids. They think they're great and want to play with them and do things with them and take them exploring and teach them and all of those kinds of things. They want to assist them in becoming adults because, right now, kids aren't as good as adults. But, maybe, one day, they will be. You know, assuming someone takes them in hand and guides their paths and helps them to become all they can be.

Sometimes, that's what racism looks like. "These other people aren't as good as us, but we can take them under our wing and teach them all about our ways and our religion and, maybe, one day, they can become all that they can be. But, until then, they need to be know their places as the inferior, the loved inferior but still inferior, and learn how to be better. The kind of racism of Robert E. Lee when he said god gave the Africans to the white man so that the white man could help them learn to become better people. [Yes, I'm paraphrasing.]

I think we often forget that racism can extend into being benevolent overlords. It's all for their own good, you know.

It's important to remember this stuff when people like Trump (#fakepresident) and Sessions claim to not be racist. I believe that it's possible that they don't feel racist because they don't feel whatever level of hate it is they believe is necessary to be a racist, but racism is not just hate flavored. It has a lot of flavors and a lot of ingredients. Sometimes, you can have two kinds of racism standing side by side and only recognize one of them, the one full of hate, and forget all about the one full of only white supremacy (and Anglo-American heritage).

Racism isn't about how you or anyone feels, not just about that, anyway. It's also about how you act, what you do and what you say. If you say racist things and do racist things, it doesn't matter how you feel. At that point, it's all about ducks: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

In other words, just because you're not a hate-flavored racist, if you're promoting white supremacy in any form, you're being racist. Which is why, in the end, if you are a Trump (#fakepresident) or Trump (#fakepresident) administration apologist, you're a racist.

I don't care how you feel.

The Comfort of Lies

Remember The Matrix? Great film, right? Well, it is as long as you pretend the two followups don't exist. Once you embrace the entire trilogy as one story, it kinda sucks. Okay, more than kinda. But, you know, it's okay to pretend; it's only a movie.

But let's explore that idea a little more.
And, you know, if you haven't seen The Matrix... Well, you'll just have to try and keep up, because I'm not explaining the movie in this post.

As you know, Neo has to make a choice, the choice between Reality and the fabricated world of the Matrix. One is real; one is a lie. The choice is symbolized by the two pills pictured above, the red pill or the blue pill. Of course, we all know which choice Neo is going to make, because the movie would be over if he were to choose to stay in the Matrix. Besides, it's the choice we all tell ourselves that we would make. Of course we would choose to forsake the lie!

But, man, Reality really sucks. (Much like the reality of the subsequent two films.)

Which brings us to Cypher. Cypher, having lived in the real world for quite a while, decides he doesn't like it. He decides he would rather live in a comfortable lie than continue to struggle through Reality. Remember, Reality sucks.

So Cypher cuts a deal with the machines and betrays his friends so that he can re-enter the lie, the Matrix.

The general reaction from the audience at the time was one of bafflement. How could he choose to go back into the Matrix knowing it was a lie? How could he?! But, you know, he tells us all the reasons as he's making the deal. He misses the... comfort... of it. The taste of food (rather than protein mush), the feel of the sun and the wind (rather than the blotted out sky), the ease of living as opposed to the constant life-threatening struggle that was Reality.

And, man, I empathize. Reality sucks, especially this current reality where we (in the United States) live on the teetering edge of authoritarianism and fascism. I get why so many people are choosing to believe the lies Trump pushes. It gives them comfort. It's their blue pill. If they can just believe in Trump enough, they can pretend he's not a racist douche bag and, if he's not a racist douche bag, then they, also, are not racist douche bags. And no one wants to be a racist douche bag. I mean, heck, even the white supremacist Nazi assholes try to pretend that they're not racist douche bags; that's why they go with all the "white pride" shit instead. But they're only fooling themselves.

To be fair, it's not like those on the Left aren't sucking on their own blue pills by continually talking about how we've forgotten the "white working class." This, also, is an appeal to racism and white supremacy. "C'mon white people, we're on your side." Seriously, no one forgot the white working class. In all seriousness, the white working class is doing just fine. The white working class, no matter how they feel about it, is still doing better than people of color. Any color. We need to stop talking about the "white working class" and how they feel left behind or whatever bullshit they want to call their racism. All they're really saying is, "We're worried our superior position is in jeopardy." And everyone else is trying to make them feel better about it while people of color are still getting the shit end of the stick.

Let me give you a practical example of the systemic racism in the system:
As I'm writing this, hurricane Irma is losing power, but the damage has already been done. There are about 45 known deaths to the storm and much of Florida is without power at the moment. Of course, just prior to Irma was Harvey. Harvey is responsible for 70 deaths and major flooding in Texas. These two storms caused huge amounts of destruction and have dominated the news for weeks.

However, in the midst of this, Mexico suffered the worst earthquake its had in a century, leaving around 100 dead. The media barely mentioned it and isn't talking about it anymore. And the news hasn't even mentioned that 2017 has been a harsh year for monsoons (hurricanes) in south Asia. The worst year in decades. So far, there have been almost 1300 confirmed deaths due to these storms and over 40 million people affected, including the destruction of more than 700,000 homes and a massive loss of crops due to flooding which is likely to cause food shortages. But, hey, they're not white, so, you know, big deal.

Right?

Look, I'm not diminishing what's happened to people in Houston and in Florida and in the Caribbean. What has happened has been horrible, but it doesn't make it less horrible to remember that other people are suffering, too. Except that, for some people, it does make it less horrible, because, to them, having bought into the Lie, they believe it's Us against Them, anything that happens to Them is okay because they deserve it. Or, maybe, not quite deserve it, but they don't deserve the special protection that white people ought to have from these kinds of events so, somehow, when it happens to white people, it's more tragic. Like when the Greeks only wrote tragedies about nobility because it wasn't tragedy if it happened to the common man.

But we're all common men.

The Lie is that we're not. The Lie is that it's Us (whites) against them (people of any other skin color).

Let me put it another way, to paraphrase Yoda:

My ally is the Truth, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, binds. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Truth flow around you. Here, between you, me, the brown person, and the black, yes, even between all others and the white.

The Truth, what Reality really is, is the we are all us.

We are all us.

(And I didn't even mention the blue pill of climate change denial.)

The New Civil War (ongoing): Charlottesville

I know a lot of you out there think I'm going overboard with talking about a civil war, another civil war. Not just talking about it but writing about it as well (that story starts here: "Day One") but, while that story is fiction, the idea that there is a new civil war coming is not.

It's already here.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that in the future, historians are going to look back and say that the Second Civil War began in Charlottesville, VA. In many ways, it's the first confrontation, the first confrontation where the Nazis came in with intent to kill. And I don't just mean the terrorist incident with the car.

If you haven't watched this video, you need to.

Just to be clear, none of what I'm saying is because of that video. The video is just research that backs up what I was already saying.

Look, I am not advocating for a war. The thought of that scares the shit out of me, because there won't be any battle lines this time, not physical ones. There will be no armies that meet and clash in the way it happened in first civil war or in WWI or WWII. This will be a war fought in the streets of our cities all across America, often between regular people. It will be a war of terrorists attacks being performed by Nazis and those on the Alt-right. There will be no safe zones.

Can it be stopped?

I don't know.

The consensus, currently, among historians and military people who study this kind of thing (including civil wars currently being fought in other countries) say we're at about a 35% chance of a full civil war, but one of the leading minds on the subject (I forget his name and am not going to go back and look it up again now) puts us at a 65% chance of a full civil war.

One thing is clear, we can't stop it with Trump #fakepresident in office, and we probably can't stop it with anyone from the GOP in office. In fact, as I'm writing this, Bannon has just  been given the boot by Trump and Breitbart is going to war with the #fakepresident over it. I don't even know if that's figurative or not.

What I know is this:
Right-wing nutjobs have been arming themselves for decades. A huge number of the Nazis at the "rally" in Charlottesville were armed to the teeth. That guy in the Vice video was pulling out weapons as if he were Gimli in Jackson's rendition of LotR. They are prepared for violence and they want violence.

The Nazi faction in America is still growing, still getting stronger, and they want an ethnic cleansing. They want an America for white people. At some point, unless they are put down first, there's going to be a concerted effort on their part to attack minority groups with the goal of killing them.

The Left needs to be prepared and, right now, I don't think that we are. We somehow think this is all going to blow over or that real violence, really real violence, isn't going to happen, not here, not in America. Well, it's already started and it's just going to get worse. I mean, hell, various white supremacist groups are going on and on about how glad they are that they made the first kill and how she deserved it. And she was white! Wait till they start on the people they really want to go after.

If you're going to go to a protest, you need to take precautions. Minimally, I think that involves buying some Kevlar or some kind of body armor and probably wearing a helmet. Yes, I'm being serious. The white supremacists are armed and armored! You need to protect yourselves.

The time for trying to be in the middle is over. This is not going to pass without people taking a stand against it. It's time for those of us who believe in justice and liberty for all people to stand up for it. It's time for those of us who believe in what the nation was founded on to stand up and fight for it.

Most of all, it's time to deliver a message to the GOP that they need to get off of the fence. It's time for them to quit using their mealy mouths to condemn Trump #fakepresident while doing nothing about it and trying to work with him to further their own hate agendas. Either stand with Trump #fakepresident or stand against him. And, if they're going to stand with him, they need the message that they will go down with him.

What I know is this:
If you want to stop this war before it really gets going, it requires strong action now. Strong action NOW. Not more talk. Action. For some of you, that action is talk; it's speaking up. Now. It's time for the first civil war to end, for racial injustice to end, for white supremacy to end.

The Voice of Freedom

There's been a lot of talk in the last six months or so about the lack of leadership in the Democratic party, which is true. When Obama left office, he also stepped away from any and, seemingly, all roles of leadership. And that's too bad, because he's the closest thing to a unifying leader the Democrats have right now. But, honestly, it's not a lack of leadership that's the problem.

It's the lack of a voice.

And I don't mean the lack of a voice for the Democratic party; I mean the lack of a voice for Freedom. The Voice of Freedom, right now, is silent.

Which is not to say that there are not rumblings from it, but, so far, since the rise of Trump, no one has picked it up and shouted it with a unifying Voice as key individuals have done in the past:

Abraham Lincoln
Mahatma Gandhi
Winston Churchill
Martin Luther King, Jr.
even Ronald Reagan with his stance against communism in the 80s

Sometimes, that voice is sung, as it was in the late 60s by people like
Bob Dylan
Peter, Paul & Mary
Simon and Garfunkel

Or in the 80s by
U2
The Alarm


Today, the Voice of Freedom is silent and needs to be picked up as a unifying cry against the Voice of Fear that Trump continues to spew out of his horrible maw in the same way that Hitler did.

See, the Voice of Fear is loud and has provided a rallying point for Conservatives (because studies show that Conservatives are more prone to fear and have a much greater fear of change (and, let's face it, the times they are a changin')), and they have responded to that call with a vengeance. A vengeance which includes white supremacists feeling like they have been empowered to murder and terrorize and that that is somehow patriotism (to use the words of a white supremacist terrorist).

Not to go all Star Wars on you, but the Voice of Fear is the Dark Side. It's not more powerful, but it is quicker, easier, more seductive. People like quick and easy and don't like or want to put in the work for Equality and Freedom.

And, just to be clear, the Voice of Freedom is also the Voice of Equality, because real Freedom, true Freedom, cannot exist without equality. The equality of all people to have the same access to healthcare. The equality of all people to have the same access to education. The equality of all people to have the same access to opportunity. The Voice of Freedom, the Voice of Equality, is the Voice of the People.

The Voice of Fear is the voice of slavemasters, those who want you to put up and shut up and just do as you're told. It's time to throw off Fear.

"We want to play for you now a gospel song. A gospel song with a restless spirit."
It's time to pick back up the Voice of Freedom, the Voice of Equality, and sing it and sing it loud.

Truth, Justice, and the "American Way"

No, this is not a post about Superman. Except, maybe it is a little bit. Or a lot.

"Truth, justice, and the American way," as a phrase, has been around for long enough at this point that people don't realize it originated with Superman. They may know it's been associated with Superman but most people think it's its own thing, not what amounts to a marketing phrase for the 50's Adventures of Superman, the Superman show I watched in syndication when I was a kid.

I'm not sure if there was an idea tying truth and justice to America prior to Superman (and I'm not doing the research on that, right now, to try and figure it out),but Superman, since his inception, has been tied to truth and justice. From the early days of the comic book to his days on the radio and, then, in the earlier TV series, Superman always stated that he was here to fight for truth and justice. That's all, just truth and justice. Those, to me, seem like things worth fighting for. I'm not so sure about the "American way."

See, the "American way" was something tossed in during the 50s in the midst of the Red Scare and McCarthy-ism and was less about America than it was about White America: Leave It To Beaver, white picket fences, and Father Knows Best. Probably some Andy Griffith, too. TV in the 50s was all about the "American way," and it's hard for me to dissociate that idea from those TV shows because they epitomize so much of the idea of the "American way."

And I'm not going to try and say that there's nothing attractive about those shows and the, for lack of a better word, ideal they put on display. But it was all a fantasy. Real life America was never like Father Knows Best or Mayberry. Real life America has never been all White all the time in nice little subdivisions with white picket fences. And it's never been about women who wear their heels and pearls in the kitchen while making dinner all day. All of this isn't even a White fantasy; it's a White Male fantasy about how everyone else lives to serve them in their own individual little kingdoms.

It's kind of sick.

It's possible I wouldn't have a problem with the whole "truth, justice, and the American way" thing if truth and justice were a part of it, had ever been a part of it. But the "American way," as it applies here, has always been about white male supremacy. It's why Steve Bannon holds the 50s up as his ideal era of what we need to get back to. The White Male was supreme, and everyone else knew their places.

As for truth and justice? We seem to have culturally abandoned those ideas of late. We've abandoned truth in favor of opinion and, even, outright lies. You can see the evidence of that in the man who was elected president, a man with absolutely no relationship with truth whatsoever. His lackeys display the same break from reality with their "alternative facts" and misrepresentation of historical accuracy. Sorry folks, history is not an opinion. Things happened. Saying they didn't or trying to recast those events in some other light doesn't make them not have happened.

And we've abandoned justice in favor of racial prejudice and allowing the rich more and more power and money. "We" have allowed the Republicans to wave religious dogma at Conservatives to keep them in power so that they can continually enable corporations the ability to take advantage of people, poison their water, and keep them in debt. That Jeff Sessions and Neil Gorsuch are where they are serve as proof that we have shoved justice down the stairs and broken her scales. We have become the money lenders in the Temple, and have elected the worst of them as president.

This seems to be the "American Way": no truth, no justice, just the dream of white picket fences in white neighbors with white schools.

Superman isn't coming. It's time to abandon this "American Way" nonsense as the fable it always was. It's time to stand for truth and justice. Truth and Justice! Which means demanding, all of us, that we have politicians who are knowledgeable, smart, and believe in facts, not money. It means demanding a change to the system so that the system doesn't check our skin color before it decides who gets a fair shake. It's time.

An Unacceptable Time

(With no apologies to Madeleine L'Engle. It was a crappy book.)

We are living in an unacceptable time. We are living in an unacceptable time full of people acting in unacceptable ways. I'm not talking about Trump, either, or at least not just Trump; he's just one rich asshole who thinks way too highly of himself. No, I'm talking about the people who put Trump where he is, all of whom in one way or another think way too highly of themselves, too (which is what white privilege (especially male white privilege) is all about), and are hoping that by validating Trump he will return the favor and validate them.
(Suckers!)

Of course, it's Republican powermongers who created Trump and put him where he is. You only have to look at North Carolina to see that. North Carolina has become the microcosm that a significant part of the United States is on its way to becoming, which is not a democracy according to the EIP (Electoral Integrity Project), an international organization that evaluates the electoral processes of countries (and states) around the world. North Carolina scored the lowest score of any place ever evaluated in the entire world (a 7/100) on its districting practices. [And, overall, North Carolina isn't even the lowest scoring State on their scale. This is scary stuff to be happening in America, the place where this kind of authoritarianism was never supposed to be able to happen.]

Here's kind of what all of this is like:

Imagine a classroom. In the classroom are 20 young children, let's say six years old. They are sitting in a circle. One boy, a white boy, has a pile of cookies in front of him, 80 of them. Some of you are thinking that that boy should share some of his cookies, but hold on! There are some more cookies.

There's another white boy sitting next to the cookie hoarder; he has 10 cookies. He's looking at the guy with 80 cookies and being resentful of the fact that he only has 10 cookies.

But here's the real problem. There are only 10 cookies left to be shared out among 18 more children. Then, two more kids get two cookies each. Four kids get one cookie each. Two kids get half a cookie a piece, and... 10 kids get to share the last cookie.

Now, in any sane classroom, the teacher would make the boy with 80 cookies share some of his cookies, but, when the teacher makes that suggestion, the boy begins throwing a tantrum. And not just any tantrum, a raging tantrum during which he exclaims over and over about how those are his cookies and how he deserves his cookies because he is better than everyone else in the room, the rest of the students, other than the boy sitting next to him with the 10 cookies, being non-white children. So the teacher turns to little Joey, the boy with 10 cookies, and asks him if he, at least, will share. Joey sits grudgingly, watching Donald throw his tantrum and being resentful that Donald is getting to keep his 80 cookies just because he's pitching a fit, but he allows that he will share one of his cookies, which gets divided up without any of the pieces ever making it around to the 10 children all sharing the one cookie.

So the teacher brings in another round of cookies to try to even things up, but Donald is a greedy, selfish, piggish little boy, and he immediately takes another 80 cookies while the teacher is trying to keep control of the rest of the room. Joey takes another 10 but, then, once they are seated, Donald steals two of Joey's cookies from him and eats them while Joey watches. This time, as the rest of the cookies are divided out in the same manner as the first time, Joey refuses to share. Why should he? Donald just stole two of his cookies and is in the midst of another violent tantrum about how he is better than everyone else and doesn't have to share and no one can make him.

And this is how it continues. Donald always getting the bulk of the cookies and, actually, growing angry that he isn't getting all of the cookies each time cookies are delivered. Each time, he also manages to steal a couple or few of Joey's cookies.

Joey grows increasingly resentful over how many cookies that Donald has and becomes resentful at the other children in the circle for getting cookies that he wants. He has found that he, no matter what he tries, cannot manage to get any of Donald's cookies from him but, sometimes, he is able to steal cookies from other children in the circle. It doesn't matter to him that he has more cookies than everyone else; he only cares that he doesn't have as many cookies as Donald. Everyone looks with longing at Donald's pile of cookies and wants desperately for someone to step in and make him share.

But no one does.

Joey, thinking that Donald must have some trick for getting the most cookies other than being a bully and just being first in line every time, has an idea: He decides that, maybe, if they put Donald in charge of the cookies, then he will share.

Does anyone else see the problem with this logic?

And, of course, in a classroom, any sane teacher would actually make Donald share. And Joey. No matter the tantrum. That is the acceptable solution: sharing.

But we are in an unacceptable time where we have elected Donald to be in charge of all of the cookies, and, if he wouldn't share before -- in fact, when he wouldn't share before and also went about trying to steal cookies that belonged to other people -- why would anyone think he would share now? No, now he has the power to block other people from getting cookies so that he can have even more for himself.

And, by the way, I didn't make up these numbers. I've roughly based the cookie distribution on global wealth distribution. Donald represents the 1%, and Joey represents the rest of Western white society. The problem is that, as a society, we have just decided to, rather than work to make the 1% share their cookies, work to keep people of other colors out of the cookie line all together. It's unacceptable. Completely. If for no other reason than that Joey still has way more cookies than everyone else and can, actually, afford to share. He (we) just doesn't want to because why should he when no one is making Donald?

So, yeah, screw what is right and good, because it's all about greed and gluttony. It doesn't matter to Joey (us) that he (we) actually has more cookies than he needs or can eat; it only matters that he doesn't have as many as Donald and, until he does, fuck the world. Because, really, that's what a vote for Trump translates into: Fuck the world.

This is not a time to support Trump and his cronies and their desire to consolidate power (and cookies) to the wealthy white power structure. This the time to stand up to their unacceptable ways and make them share. Yes, like any spoiled brat of a child, they are going to throw a violent tantrum, but it's time for us to stand up and be the adults. The real adults who stand for equality for all children, not just the white ones.

I Am the Middle Ground

Someone told me the other day, "You need to come to a middle a ground," in relation to my recent political posts and thoughts. I need to come to a middle ground. Hmm...
Actually, I've been told similar things by a lot of Trump supporters, that I am not being tolerant of them and their positions. To that, I say that it is not actually okay to be tolerant of other people's intolerance, that's equivalent to saying that it's okay for the guy down the street to beat his children because it's none of your business what goes on in his house. However, that's not exactly legally true, as you might be accountable if you know there is child abuse going on and didn't do anything about it. Basically, though, this:
Being tolerant of other people's racism is not being tolerant of alternate worldviews; it's participating in racism. In other words, it doesn't make you tolerant, it makes you racist.

Just like not reporting known child abuse can make you accountable for that crime even though you had nothing physically to do with it.
Funny how that works, isn't it? (Yes, for the impaired of you out there, that's sarcasm.)

As for me needing to find a middle ground, let's look at that:

Our nation was founded on the stated belief that "all men are created equal." That was our stated Declaration and reason for our Revolution. So that creates for us a Middle Ground that looks something like this:

(L=liberal, C=conservative)

Of course, that's not how we actually started out. It was a good ideal, but our nation started with a "small" problem that the Founding Fathers were unable to deal with. As such, the wheel looked like this:

It took about 80 years for the social liberals in the government to turn the wheel. And a war. That led us to this:

That lasted through the 1960s, when social liberals, again, managed to turn the wheel to something like the first image:

Of course, that didn't happen without a lot of... turbulence..., to put it lightly. And social conservatives have been pushing back against it ever since. In fact, they have been pushing back against everything that social liberals have done going back to FDR. Newt Gingrich sort of led the charge in the 80s, but it really picked up in the 90s as a response to Bill Clinton's Presidency. What we have, now, is something that looks more like this:

Now, this is where the racism comes in with Trump and those who voted for him. If Trump and his cohorts (people like Steve Bannon) get their way, they will turn the wheel back to the pre-60s wheel with the C at the top. It's already going that way with laws being passed in some states (like North Carolina) which disenfranchise African Americans. Trump supporters, whether they "feel" racist or not, are actively participating in putting in place people who want to enact policies to bring this about:

So... It doesn't matter how you feel about yourself and whether you feel like you're racist or not -- even people like Steve Bannon, David Duke, and Richard Spencer claim not to be racist -- it matters what actions you take. Supporting Trump means you support a racist agenda, an agenda which promotes white supremacy, and that puts you in the racist camp, or Team Racism. And I wouldn't put it past Bannon and friends to want to flip the dial back upside down all together.

The point, though, is this:

In a world where we consider slavery to be wrong and equality to be right, 

this world:

Then I am the middle ground. The problem is that those on the Right, conservatives and fundamentalists of whatever sorts, have pushed their bar so far to the right...

(and in a world where white cops can routinely shoot unarmed black men and not suffer any consequences for it, we are certainly far, far into the Racial Inequality section of the Social Justice Wheel)

They have pushed it so far to the right that I now seem to be standing on the far left. To them. Because I haven't moved. I'm still standing in the same place where I believe in equality for all men. All people.

People, this is where we make our stand, a stand for equality. A stand for "all men are created equal." If we allow the Trumps and Bannons and Farages to spin the wheel back around so that the Conservatives are in ascendance, it will likely take decades to move it back to a place where equality for all is again a goal. We can't let that happen.

This is a time for standing up for what is right, not look to meet conservatives somewhere in the middle, because in the middle is already too far from equality. A Trump presidency is wrong, not because he's a Republican (he's not), but because he and his ilk represent and perpetuate an evil on the world, and we can't step aside and let that happen in the name of "finding the middle ground."

We are the middle ground, and we need to claim it and hold fast to it. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

__________

Additional Note:

You may have noticed that there is nothing on the liberal side of my Social Justice Wheel:

That's because we've never been there, so I'm not really sure what's over there. I think conservatives have the irrational fear that it's some form of socialism or communism (even though they really have no idea what those terms actually mean), the ultimate evil to many, many conservatives. [I got called a communist recently on FB for posting a quote from Abraham Lincoln about racial equality.] However, if I had to guess, I would guess it would be something like this:

Clearly, we are nowhere near to approaching that! And it may be the thing that social conservatives fear the most. I mean, if we let women be equal to men, we might have to admit that they sometimes ought to be in charge.

You Might Just Be Stupid (or Burn It All Down)

In the last few weeks, I've heard a lot of Trump supporters attempting to defend their vote for Trump and explain how it is that they did not cast a vote for racism (and sexism). Some of these have been declarations online (whether they were blog posts, articles, editorials); some have been actual conversations I've had with people. After listening to some very blatantly racist things being said (the least of which was repeatedly referring to President Obama as "Osama") followed by the statement "I don't see how that's racist," I've come to the conclusion that racism may not have been the only reason people voted for Trump... but I'm not sure the alternative is better.

Let's look at the three reasons (or kinds of people) people voted for Trump:

1. Overt racism: You can't deny that Trump's campaign didn't promote and encourage racism. All of the racist termites crawled out of the woodwork during Trump's run for the Presidency, and, now that he's won, they don't plan on crawling back in. Participation in White Supremacy groups is spiking upwards as are race-based and hate crimes. These people feel like this is their time, their time to "make America great again" by putting minorities back in their place.  Just to point out, these people, also, do not claim to be racist, not even someone like David Duke, former leader of the KKK, CLAIMS to be racist. People don't label themselves "racist" just like they don't label themselves "asshole," no matter how apparent it is to everyone else.

2. Inherent racism: This is where most of Trump supporters lie, and they don't call themselves racists because they don't fall into the first category, though, as I said, even the people in the first category don't call themselves racist, so it's rather a moot point, but it is why people are so upset about suddenly being on Team Racism. If I woke up on Team Racism one day, I would be upset, too. Of course, I would also immediately do everything I could to get off of Team Racism, which none of these people seem to be doing. Rather, they are defending their stance of being on Team Racism by saying, "Yes, I want to play on Team Racism, but I am not a racist." Sorry, it just doesn't work that way.

Which is not to say that I don't understand the logic. No, really, I get it. Trump said he would give you A, B, and C, all things category two desperately want, but he said he was going to give you those things by being racist and misogynistic to the point of persecuting certain peoples and, yet, you said, "Okay, I'm willing to leave with that." That, my friend, is RACIST. This is the equivalent of me offering you a piece of the best chocolate cake ever BUT, every time you take a bite, I'm going to punch a black person in the face. You think to yourself, "Well, I would never do that, never punch a black person in the face so that I can have cake, but I'm not going to do it, and I really want that cake...," so you tell me to go ahead and let you have the cake and you don't really want me to punch the black person but you're willing to allow it so that you can have cake. Of course, the black person doesn't have cake or even enough normal, healthy food to eat (which you do), so it's adding injury to insult as you agree to allow him to be punched in the face so that you can have cake.

IT'S RACISM. Because the message there is that you having cake is worth more than the well being of these other people, and it's worth more BECAUSE YOU'RE WHITE.
But, still, you're not racist.
Right.

Of course, the joke is on you, because Trump isn't going to give you any cake. He and his rich buddies are going to eat all the cake while also punching black people and brown people and gay people... well, anyone who isn't white and male... in the face.

Let me give you a real, concrete example of this kind of thing (and you can read the whole story here and here (actually, that's just a part of the story, but it's the most essential part)):

When I was in my early 20s, the church I grew up in was finding itself in financial difficulty due to the aging out of the congregation and the church's inability to draw in a younger crowd. This inability to draw in a younger crowd was directly related to its unwillingness to allow people of color into its congregation of old white people. My church, itself, wasn't a young church; it was somewhere around 80 years old. Many of the elderly members of the congregation had spent their entire lives being members of that church.

Now, you would think (or, at least, I would think), that when you had built something up over that length of time, you would want it to continue on. You would want it continue to grow and persevere through hardship. However, when the aging white congregation came to the point of conflict over whether the church should continue by being welcoming to (mostly black) persons of color in the neighborhood or whether they should just destroy it all and go somewhere else, they chose to destroy it all and go somewhere else. I call this the "burn it all down" option.

It reminds me of that episode of The Jeffersons when George gives CPR to a white guy and saves his life only to have the white man tell him that he would rather have died than be saved by a black man.

The vote for Trump was a "burn it all down" vote. It's the vote that says, "I would rather destroy the USA than share it equally with people of color and women and people of non-normative orientations." It's the vote that says, "White people, specifically men, should be on top, and I'm willing to sacrifice everyone else to see that that happens."

So, yes, a vote for Trump was a vote to join Team Racism.

However, there is a third category:

3. Blatant stupidity: Sorry, I don't know any other way to say that. Initially, I didn't think anyone was THAT stupid, but I've talked to a few people who are completely convinced that Trump just says things because he has no "tact," but he doesn't really mean the horrible things he says. Basically, he's just thinking out loud but he would never really do any of the things he says he will. Which, you know, boggles the mind on how you could then believe he would do any of the "good" things he says, but that's some mental manipulation that I can't quite wrap my head around. The short of all this being that maybe there are some people who legitimately believe that Trump is not a racist asshole and just says stupid shit. I suppose those people could have voted for Trump for reasons that don't include inherent racism BUT that makes them blatantly stupid, people who bought into the lies of a conman. And, you know, even smart people get conned sometimes, but Trump isn't even very good at it, so anyone of fairly normal intelligence should have seen the con for what it was: Trump getting to have his cake and eat it, too, and getting to have your cake and eat that, too.

[Frequently, these people also cannot understand how the racists things they say can be considered racist. Sometimes, this is willful or ignorance (or just denial) but, maybe, some of these people really don't understand, cannot understand, how offensive their language is. This plays into the stupidity.]

So, you know, if you're one of those people out there claiming, "I'm not racist!" feel free to lump yourself into category three. I won't argue with you about it.