T-shirt available at E-Bay for $19.95 by Reid Fitzsimons
The word “racism” is used in our current culture with impressive frequency, and often with frightening consequences. From a societal standpoint, it is tantamount to being called a “witch” during a time when Western governments were largely theocracies, and such accusations could lead to severe punishments with no real opportunity for defense against the undefined charge. Similar to those dark times, when those in control were not concerned with the betterment of the people under their rule, but interested only in maintaining their elite status, vague accusations were (and are) an effective means to obtain and wield power, a way to intimidate opposition into silence and compliance. At the present time, despite the ubiquitous (and even cultish) nature of the charges of “racism,” it is largely used generically, and often by very immature people, much more like a 4-year-old calling someone a “doo doo head” while having a tantrum than a reasoned adult. The premise of this article is to actually consider what “racism” means, if indeed it was exclaimed with any thought at all. For Part 1 of this article, click here: https://conservativeproletariat.com/?p=631
“They are all like that” racism: At one time I was well acquainted with a person, a former physician, who was living as a ex-patriot in Honduras (My wife and I have spent a number of years there running a small charity project). Often over the duration of our association, he would declare, “ALL Hondurans are VILE!” Not some, not many, not most, not just a handful, but ALL! There was, obviously, no basis for this other than his deranged feelings. In a way his worldview was fascinating, as if generic and immutable attributes could be applied to large numbers of people linked by whatever- race, nationality, ethnicity, religious traditions- with no allowance for individual variation.
In the US at the moment there are declarations made by racialists that ALL white people are racists- it is genetic, generic, and immutable. Like the concept of Original Sin in Christian theology, there is a stain among (white) people simply for being born, but unlike Christianity it applies only to one class of human, there is no option of redemption or forgiveness, and the intent is to see an entire race of people grovel in perpetuity. The irony here- that this in fact is racism in its most primitive form- should be obvious, and it probably is, but for some it is used as a means to power. Another irony is that the person mentioned above took great pride in the belief that he alone was the only white person who wasn’t a racist.
Accusing others of Racism in our present political and social climate is an efficient means for a person to find validation and meaning in their lives, at least for the kind of person that needs a bad “Them” so they can be part of the good “Us.” This is not unlike ill-balanced religious zealots who need others to serve as sinners so they can view themselves, in contrast, as Saints. Of course, as with so many things of this nature, word meanings are vague and often remain poorly defined.
In reality, racism is a concept that resists simplistic definitions, but rather it is better explained by category and example, which this article endeavors to do. First, an introductory warning: to anyone reading this who is emotionally and culturally fragile- prepare your fainting couch, because in a few instances the “N-word” is going to be spelled out fully.
Those who are inclined to hurl out the insult of “Racist” typical do so mindlessly, and they largely mean nothing more than anyone who disagrees with them, but if they were able to attach to it some significance, these are some possibilities:
True vile and hate-filled racism: In prior times, up into the 1960’s perhaps, truly vile racism was often public and even proud, but, where it exists today, it’s more of an hidden internet phenomenon among a handful of losers: the mostly mythical “white supremacists.” It is, fortunately, the least common form of racism, despite what social justice activists yearn to believe.
In my 62 years I have encountered this type racism twice. The first was in the late 1970s in Mississippi, where a complete jerk from a privileged family, who somehow became a lawyer, talked to me about “blacktopping the road-” intentionally running over black people. He also talked about the joys of “coon hunting” at night. As far as I know he was (fortunately) a despicable coward and never lived his fantasies.
The second encounter I had was in South Alabama soon after my wife and I moved there in 2008. I went to introduce myself to our new and elderly neighbor, and was asking him about lawn mowers when he spontaneously declared, “I don’t care much for niggers.” He went on to talk about the good old days when “niggers knew their place” and one time they got uppity and had to be driven from (presumably by the local KKK) a town in the area. We came to learn he had been a lifelong angry drunk who, ironically, had a hypoxic brain event soon after, and ended up being cared for by black caregivers.
Biased racism: this is a form of racism that has existed in my lifetime and was somewhat common- an inculcated a belief among certain whites that blacks were, simply, inferior. A perfect example of this type was as follows: I knew a person who owned (in the government backed loan sense of the word) a large amount of farmland in Mississippi, and he had a habit of hiring people as his farm managers right out of central casting for thieving rednecks.
Once, just after the latest manager absconded with pockets full of loot, I asked him if he might consider hiring Archie as the manager. Archie was a black man who had long been a dependable employee and knew farming front and back. He, the land owner, replied succinctly that Archie could not be considered because, “He’s a nigger.” He did not say this with any animosity and indeed he treated Archie and all his black farmhands well. It was simply a belief that a black person couldn’t function as a manager. In his defense, sometime later a woman with an agricultural related college degree applied to be the farm manager. I asked him why he didn’t hire her and his response was a predictable, “Because she’s a woman.”
Observational and descriptive racism: When I lived in East Africa many years ago it was common for kids to run about excitedly as I passed by shouting “Mzungu,” which essentially means “White Person” in Swahili. They were certainly not racist, simply observing that they saw a relatively rare white guy. Unfortunately, invoking a description of race, for example saying in a rural mostly white small town, “I saw a black guy crossing the street,” might be construed by easily offended “social justice” activists as racist.
Progressive politicians, feeling anointed and obligated to somehow shield black Americans from reality, have decreed that using race in describing a suspected criminal, for example, is prohibited. Hence, in some cities it is disallowed to say, “The suspect is a young black male of average size.”
Unfamiliar racism: There was an old widow neighbor (recently deceased) who my wife and I helped quite a bit- we live in a mostly white rural area and she simply hadn’t been around black people much. I was telling her that we were going to bring over from Kenya a black man to attend college in the US, that he was going to spend some time with us, and that she would enjoy meeting him. She said, “I don’t know, I’ve never had a black person in my house before,” a statement that could easily elicit a charge of racism from sensitive activist. Once he arrived she was very welcoming, was quickly and thoroughly charmed by him, and even gave him a hug when he left for school. This man is from a very dark-skinned tribe, and she observed, “He’s the darkest black person I ever saw!”
Note: This was sent to Sen Toomey following his announcement that he has sided with the Democrats in supporting the impeachment/Senate trial of Donald Trump, no longer in office.
Sen. Toomey:
Almost 20 years ago my (future) wife and I decided to depart from our comfortable small town, middle-class lives and venture into the world of volunteer charity work. This first led us to Guatemala, then East Africa, and finally back to Central America. In Kenya, in 2002 and 2003, I was the medical director (PA) of a very remote clinic, this being during the time of the AIDS crisis. I suspect you couldn’t begin to imagine the misery, suffering, and death I encountered on a daily basis: malaria and AIDS especially, but also diseases as far reaching as typhoid, cholera, and even rabies. There were too many failures, never enough successes, lots of gut-wrenching sadness, and even occasional joy. My wife had the courage to travel by herself and join me at this clinic, and I recall with timeless admiration when a young woman had just given birth with resultant vaginal tearing, and my wife held in one hand the patient’s hand, and in the other a flashlight so I could see to do the surgical repair. In looking at a summary of your biography, I suspect we saw more of this reality of the world in a day then you’ve seen in your lifetime.
In the mid-2000’s we decided to develop a kid’s oriented project in Honduras, which we opened in a small, rural village in 20007. This included educational and reading experiences, a feeding program (typically we served 100’s of meals a week), wholesome recreation and sports- basically a place where impoverished children could feel safe and be kids. Once we were told of a 2 ½ year-old girl who weighed 11 pounds, was hairless, and covered with scars. We took her to an “expert,” a local physician, and were told she was beyond salvage. Nevertheless, we provided her with intensive nutrition and other measures, and today she is a healthy teenager. In this type of work there are frequently unexpected and significant challenges.
I received a call the other night from someone I didn’t recognize who wanted to ask me two quick questions. It ended up he was a campaign worker for a candidate in PA’s 12th congressional district, Lee Griffin, running for the seat currently held by Fred Keller. Once I was oriented to the purpose of the call I asked if his guy was a Democrat, and eventually, after some equivocation, the answer was yes. I explained that I cannot find it in myself to vote for anyone who aligns themselves with the hatred and racism of the Democrats, a party of, by, and for “Black Lives Matter,” which itself is an organization that primarily caters to privileged white and black leftists and manipulates and exploits black Americans for personal and political power and profit- quintessential racism. The caller, who was very polite, said that his guy Griffin wasn’t a racist because he had an inter-racial marriage. The call ended amicably. Admitting to my own embarrassment that I should have known who Lee Griffin was, I decided to take a look at his campaign website, leegriffinforcongress.com, which to me has the feel of zealous religiosity rather than a political tone.
There was a time when the Democrat party was in fact a political party, and in my lifetime they defined themselves as the party of the workingman, as compared to the Republicans being the party of the wealthy. Whether this was true or not is debatable, but nevertheless the Democrats were a political enterprise, and ran the gamut of union workers, law and order types, and the occasional wacko (like any party), but no one questioned their basic allegiance to the idea and fact of the US: George McGovern was pretty far out there in 1972 but he was a decorated and courageous WW2 bomber pilot.
Note: USAA (United Services Automobile Association) is a membership based insurance company begun in the 1920s by a group of Army officers. Over the decades they grew considerably and branched out into financial services. Some type of military association is required to be a member and they have developed a deserved reputation for integrity and service. I’ve been a member for 37 years, and I (along with my wife) use them for our car and house insurance and many of our banking needs. One great plus of USAA is that it has been operated by serious and competent adults who never gave in to societal and political fads and pressures, until now. Below is a letter to Wayne Peacock, the newly installed CEO of USAA and the first who has never served in the military, in response to a position statement he released fully aligning USAA with the woke social justice activism (that statement can be found at the bottom of the page).
Greetings Mr. Peacock:
I had thought to myself with satisfaction that USAA was one of the exceptional companies that had the strength of character and sobriety to not succumb to the coercion and disingenuousness of the popular culture of the moment. That is, until I found your letter of supplicating mea culpa apologetics when I signed on to my USAA account.
I cannot recall in my lifetime a situation in which there has been unanimous agreement on a value- in this case revulsion at the brutal murder of George Floyd- that was so quickly exploited so as to create division and foster hatred and even violence. The underlying premise, that black lives matter (BLM), is fine as far as it goes, because everyone’s life matters, regardless of race, ethnicity, etc. What we know is that the political and cultural movement known as BLM in fact embraces racism by selectively applying worth to black Americans on a commodity basis, and finding marketable value only when the manner of death can be used for profit: if a black American is one of the handful killed by a white cop, for example, there is titillation; if a black American is one of approximately 6,500 killed by intra-racial violence every year there is something between silence and embarrassment: the former must be exploited, the latter ignored.
The apparent head of the United Methodist Church "Imagine No Racism" project, Mark Webb, who holds the title of "Bishop."
A very good and caring friend recently mentioned she had attended a seminar entitled Imagine No Racism, sponsored by the United Methodist Church in the Buffalo, NY area. I checked it out on-line and what I discovered was no surprise. For example, there is a list of desired qualities of prospective “team” members: Do you have a passion for racial justice and equity? Are you open to change and willing to grow in your knowledge and awareness of racial injustice and white privilege? Do you have some knowledge already of racism and/or white privilege? There is a mention that “Racism is a disease that infects the hearts, minds, souls and bodies of individuals, churches and communities. Our Social Principles state, ‘Racism is the combination of the power to dominate by one race over other races and a value system that assumes that the dominant race is innately superior to others.’” All utterly predictable non-sense, of course. Below is an e-mail I sent this person, which was well received by her.
Note the person referred to as “Nelson (name changed)” is a
gentleman from Kenya who I first knew when he was a teenager when I was a
volunteer medical director of a clinic in his remote village in the early
2000s. In Dec. 2018 my wife and I were able to bring him to the US on a
non-immigrant visa to attend college; he has subsequently earned a 4.0 GPA!
Hi_______:
I’m intrigued by the seminar you mentioned, “Imagine No
Racism;” I went to the website for it. I think you know I can be pretty
scathing when it comes to religious and societal matters, and this has both!
Perhaps you could share the following story at your next session.
You haven’t met him but I think you know who Nelson is. In
2017 I traveled with him and my son throughout very (VERY) remote eastern
Uganda. When Nelson returned to Kenya he entered what is called the Land of the
Luos (any major tribal area may be referred to as the “Land of…”). Nelson is in
fact a Luo but his skin, while a very dark brown, is not the actual black that
is typical of the Luos. This was at the time of some tribal conflict, so once
he was back in Kenya he kept his mouth shut (Nelson likes adventure and new
experiences!) and heard some guys talking about what they should do to him.
They assumed he was a Kikuyu or other rival tribe and even considered killing
him. At this point he spoke up, in his native Luo language, and said he was as
Luo as they were, with an implication they should have been ashamed of
themselves, and he continued his travels unmolested. Is that racism- injuring
and even killing people not because they are black, but because they are not as
black as some others?
I find myself making comments on articles at FoxNews.com, a seemingly benign if not necessarily wholesome activity. Sometimes, or perhaps most of the time, the level of discourse is little above insults and name-calling, but who knows what is real or trolling, whatever that actually means. My comments undoubtedly raise the level of conversation and provide cutting and sophisticated insight (trying to be humorous here), and generally receive a moderate number of “likes,” the standard by which we judge our existences. Also I often receive replies ranging from thoughtful to pure invective. Recently (Dec. 21st) I found myself in a prolonged discussion with someone using the screen name Julieplsekbrown responding to a comment I made regarding 20-year Democrat Rep. Luis Guitierrez from Chicago. Guitierrez, who supposedly once stated, “I have only one loyalty and that's to the immigrant community,” was in the news for a 6-minute harangue of the Secretary of Homeland Security, following which he departed the hearing room without listening to her response.
My wife and I moved from NY to South Alabama in 2008,primarily for reasons related to operating our small charity project in Honduras. During our almost four years there (about half in Alabama, half in Honduras) I encountered one true died in the wool racist, a relic of about 80 who happened to be our neighbor. Chatting with him for the first time by the mailbox about lawnmowers he spontaneously declared, “I don’t care much for Afro-Americans (actually he used another word).” He continued for a bit, talking about the good times when Afro-Americans (actually he used another word) ‘knew their place,” and so on. To paraphrase Crocodile Dundee: Now That’s a Racist! My wife, who had never met a real racist,wasn’t there at the time so later I introduced her, forewarned. The old guy didn’t disappoint- it was like going to some museum of bigotry and watching a real time exhibition.
Of course that was 2008, a quaint time before countless millions were declared to be racists by progressive fiat. What exactly happened in the past 10 years to make so many millions of previously benign Americans become vile hate-filled bigots? First we need to understand what it means to be a racist in the progressive, post-modern sense, and we can do this metaphorically. Say an overtired kid has a tantrum when he’s told it’s bedtime and, as part of his personal resistance movement, yells to his mother that that she is a“poopy.” Dad also tells him it’s bedtime but, seeing a little humor, asks him exactly what is a poopy. The kid, crying more vigorously now, yells,“You are a poopy too,” but off to bed he goes off and is quickly asleep.
Obviously in this scenario the little tyke couldn’t be expected to explain himself rationally; he was fully controlled by the emotion of the moment. A “poopy” was simply the creation of an immature mind directed at someone who didn’t give him immediate gratification. Fortunately his parents didn’t have to worry that their lives would be damaged by a silly and nonsensical accusation from an upset child. It would be a worrisome world indeed if immature and self-centered beings could hurl insults and accusations they couldn’t actually define and truly injure people with them.
A couple of ideas here should be self-evident. First, if words don’t have agreed upon meanings or those meanings are constantly in flux, then language ceases to be a means of communication. Second, the term “racist” is not particularly difficult to define or understand, at least for a grown-up whose intellect is consistent with their chronological age. However, for people whose age indicates adulthood but emotional functioning is more like our cranky little guy above,then a “racist” simply means a “poopy,” which doesn’t really mean anything at all.
One might ask how did we devolve into this linguistic and emotional chaos? The answer to this is multi-faceted but certainly the absurd wealth we possess plays a major part. Never before have so many people been so totally removed from the requirements of sustenance: kids having to getup and feed the chickens or milk the cows before school, as recent as my generation, is as far away as another universe. Our wealth is such that an endless abundance of food, technology,entertainment, etc is simply “there,” and when something is redundantly ubiquitous one needn’t consider its source.
Picture, for example, our socialist antifa hero who, after an evening of smashing car windows, peels off his sweaty but stylish balaclava and takes a well-deserved Starbucks break, enjoying a $5 Serious Strawberry Frappuccino. With satisfaction of as job well done he uses his I-Phone 10 to log-on to the news and hears kudos from the college president and local progressive mayor for standing up for tolerance-another conservative speaker has been run out of town! Never once does he contemplate the enormous and complex transportation and logistical chain that brought together the components of his tasty beverage and the innovation, built on the back of decades and centuries of prior innovation, that allows for his phone, let alone the auto glass he bravely destroyed. If someone suggested it all happened because of capitalism and hard work, he’d simply yell, “you are like Hitler” and storm off.
While excessive wealth and its associated elitism is perhaps a foundational basis for the proliferation outrage, hate, and name calling,there are other significant factors as well. Broken families underlie much of our societal dysfunction but this applies largely to the non-elite, keeping in mind that feminist dogma has long rejected the necessity of fathers; feminism is an elitist phenomenon and those that can afford the nannies and parent substitutes can get by just fine.
I propose it’s the intact progressive minded families and the supporting institutions (i.e.schools and universities, celebritydom of all stripes) that have shifted the paradigm from setting limits for kids, meaningful discipline, and a sense of respect to child- centered, self-esteem driven self-absorption. Here is a blatant example- I once witnessed (for real) a boy of perhaps10 hit another child of 12 or so in the chest with a branch. The mother’s response was, “What a good boy,you could have hit him in head but you only hit him in the chest.” The mother’s overriding concern was that her child “like” her and, of course, once a parent abrogates their obligation to be a parent as compared to a friend, the chances of the kid growing up to be a respectful and successful adult greatly diminish.
When wealth is so great it ceases being primarily a means of reasonable comfort and security and becomes frivolous, and frivolity is inconsistent with a deeper or more meaningful significance to life. In this void we find guilt and indolence, a sense that there must be something more, but to find this would take actual effort, perhaps at the unacceptable expense of our material comfort. Hence we have found a work-around: Yes,there unfairness, inequality, and suffering in the world and at some level I would like to help, but doing something actually useful would take me out of my comfort zone, and perhaps cost me money, time and effort. Therefore I can assuage my own inadequacies by feeling, or at least feigning, outrage, and by projecting it at people who don’t possess the enormous compassion and empathy I know is within me. I am a wonderful and righteous person, and you are a racist, Nazi, bigot, homophobe, transgenderphobe, Islamophobe, misogynist, or Fascist. By hating you I am absolved of my guilt, now off to the wine-tasting fund raiser for Planned Parenthood, where I know everyone will be wonderful, just like me!
Calling people “racists” is so common these days that it has become meaningless, which is actually a problem because there are true racists who can cause misery for others, but the reality of their malicious beliefs becomes diluted- putting someone who doesn’t embrace illegal immigration at the same level as a Cross-burning Klan member may be satisfying on a transitory basis but at the same time it diminishes the vileness of the Klan.Whatever the reason(s) progressive leftists cannot control their self-righteous anger and angst, the recipients of their vitriol,which presently includes conservatives, Republicans, believing Christians,white males, and white females who aren’t progressive leftists (and, curiously,sometimes non-white people who reject progressivism), can take solace in the knowledge that the social justice activists, whether college students, “antifa”morons, or wealthy Ivy League professors, are simply calling you a “poopy,”which has no significance beyond the emotions of an overtired child. Unfortunately, while the four year-old kid will wake up happy and refreshed, the “woke” activist will wake up angry and offended, ready to hurl insults at people who don’t agree with them on all matters of life, politics, culture, and philosophy.
On Nov. 18, 2016 a black youth, 15 year-old Javon Wilson, was shot to death in his home in Chicago. The suspects/culprits were inside the house when apparently an argument over a pair of shoes ensued, and 17 year-old Dijae T. Banks (a female) handed a pistol to 16 year-old Tariq M. Harris (a male) who then shot Wilson. News accounts summed up his short life with a depressing “he liked basketball and rap music.”
His death was not particularly out of the ordinary, sadly. In the progressive world we’ve created, life, per se, is not of inherent or specific value, lest we sound like Pro-Life nut jobs talking about the “sanctity of life.” This especially holds true with black people, where there exists no innate value, but rather the meaning and matter of life is largely determined by the manner of death, with a few exceptions such as black sports and music figures, celebrities in general, and inaptly described civil rights leaders. Had young Javon Wilson been shot by the police his life would had found great significance and been marked by ecstatic outrage, marches, riots, and perhaps other murders. Typically, however, a black person murdered by another black person rates at best a candle light vigil, a makeshift monument of teddy bears, and a few pro-forma words from a local politician of how we have to stop the violence.
From 1982 to 1986 I worked as a Physician Assistant (PA) at a Federal Prison (FCI Ray Brook in New York). This, of course, was in the early days of AIDS and there was heightened concern of exposure to blood. One day, along with one or two other PAs, I was in the little pharmacy and one of us knocked over a bottle of Betadyne, a common surgical antiseptic with a rusty brown color. The pharmacist, who was not with us at the time of the spill, returned and was quite vocal that we had been “throwing blood around the pharmacy.” We assured him everything was okay, it wasn’t blood but Betadyne. His response to this was emblematic of certain human reactions in the face of the unexpected: “It might as well be blood!” he declared. To be fair, the pharmacist was a decent guy who had a little problem with his temper, but in many ways his denial of facts in favor of his angst of the moment has proven to be prescient of a behavior that is now largely ruling our society.
