Obama is not the cause of poor race relations in our country.
I know that white people, even some of the woke ones, don't like to talk about slavery. Whenever it comes up it invokes that notion of justified white guilt and the perceived encouragement of black agitators to stir the cauldron of it. The thing that everyone has to realize is this: African-American's didn't forge that pot.
"Neither did I!", comes the cry from the decidedly pale peanut gallery. And you are absolutely right. Acknowledging the problems in our society caused by slavery is not the same thing as taking the blame for slavery. Understanding systemic racism is the first step to removing it from American culture and healing these old wounds.
The majority of white Americans are not racist and acknowledge that slavery was a very, very bad thing. They understand that no one should be treated in that way and that the people that engaged in it were flawed. The remaining minority is as diverse as that majority. Factory workers, bartenders, "Executive" assistants, cops, firemen, and members of our armed forces. Judges, teachers, and district attorneys?
Most definitely.
They believe as strongly in their racism as I in denouncing it. They are driven, courageous, and meticulous while working to advance their cause. Though racism is considered an ignorant position we should not dismiss them as imbeciles. Never ever underestimate your opponent. Personally, in life and online, I face every threat head on as if it's the one that will end me. If it doesn't then I win and if it does than I'm right and I win.
Sidebar - I am a petty enough man that, were I killed by a psychotic racist stalker, I would release a final blog post about how I was right. Not that I want to be (un)living Proof, RIP, but I do like the idea of posthumously winning one thousand arguments.
Tombstone idea - Here lies Heysoos. He died for our wins.
I wonder how much of this rant will end up on the cutting room floor. This part, for example, is probably gone.
Back to the main point. The racists that make systemic racism possible. The racists consist of three main groups that I'll name;
The vocal, the yokel, and the focal.
The vocal are your propaganda merchants. Your infowars, your prisonplanet, the hated "andieiamwhoiam". These are your "shout from the rooftops" that blacks are savages racists. Their goal is to push any and all negative press that they can about minorities. Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Natives, Muslims, of course, and anyone that's different. Any defense of a minority will produce unsourced graphs and hate speech. "Blacks are savages as evidenced by this graph you can't really read that I got from /pol/!". The problem with a lot of these people is that
they don't actually even care if their claims are accurate. They know that none of their followers is checking. This allows them to grow more powerful and spread their slimy untruths to a wider audience. Admittedly, there isn't much you can do. You read their claim, Google it, post the actual data, make a factual argument, and they'll either start to yell nigger at you, block you, or their followers attack you while they disappear from the confrontation and sit liking the comments. Still, you win and, with a little luck, those that witness this will be emboldened to speak against their ilk in the future.
The yokels are especially susceptible. I don't mean this as a derogatory term, "yokel". The yokels are usually good people. Salt of the earth and all that. They are not, however, especially well educated. I'm not an elitist, far from it, but certain parts of the education process are important. Conducting proper research, for example, is a learned skill. Understanding the difference between a good source and a bad - and knowing how to check. Recognizing bias and opinion within an article or post, dismissing the fluff, and getting the actual meat of a story. These are things that you learn through proper education and while uneducated America is not dumb or stupid it lacks the skills necessary to educate itself. Fake news is a problem because people can't and/or don't do any research. Most don't even read passed the headline. That's a problem.
The focals just want to be the center of it all.
"Look at me! Nigger nigger nigger! I'm edgy and hip. White power and all this. Do I fit in yet?". Kids looking for an identity and creating one on the internet. They're outrageous. Some of them are even funny! The danger here is that, because it's a joke, it is at best ignored and at worst rewarded. Rewarding the focal with attention causes him to swell and sweat. He becomes a size larger as he basks in the adulating light of the internet Gods. He posts more. He gains followers. He spreads the hate. All while bringing it to the mainstream with comedy and increasing tensions between all races.
"
That's fucking racist as fuck!" I think to myself as I read tweets and comments. But the slurs aren't what bothers me. What bothers me is when I see that some school teacher from Vermont liked it when someone told me to go back to Africa.
"It's just a joke! Get thicker skin! You think everything is racist!" Says Alice, the totally not racist housewife from Texas that just wants to Make America Great Again.
The local is just someone that is racist because they love in a bubble. Exile from society. self imposed, or otherwise, coupled with a hatred for minorities that they learned as younger humans. A black guy bullied them in high school, a gang of wild ass street niggas best them up for being in the wrong place, or maybe they grew up in that wrong place and were persecuted by blacks that were in that area a majority. This type of racism can easily gain mainstream acceptance with non racist but racist sympathetic white America.
"You'd hate them too if you grew up in [rough inner city]!".
"Well shit!", says the non racist racist sympathizer,
"Maybe I would. That's a rough place. Poor guy.".
Their racist views have gained acceptance. Surely, this is confirmation that they are right about everything. Smart people on the interwebs say so. Simply by not challenging their racism you are spreading more hate.
And here is were I get to my point after so much rambling. All three of these groups overlap with the majority because the majority allows racism to exist.
Slavery was only made possible by the racist dehumanization of minorities. What starts off as a session of internet trolling might very well turn into another Dylan Roof. Hate is a contagious intoxicant and there is no more dangerous human than one that is drunk on hate.
The dehumanizing of minorities has only increased during Obama's presidency because Americans as a group refuse to talk about real racial issues like systemic racism. Systemic racism exists because, although the majority of whites are not racist, that majority allows and encourages it with their apathy. People are then allowed to walk through their lives being racist assholes with a measure of security.
Real world examples.
Chip slips and says something about those damn niggers at the water cooler. No one is going to HR. I mean, come on, right?! Yeah, he's a racist fuck but he grew up in Chicago. He can't help it. Later on that day, Frank will deny a loan to an African American couple with excellent credit because he doesn't trust black people.
Eddie is just so damn sick of these black folk. "Criminals, all of them!" He tells his wife at night. She nods glumly as he regurgitates faulty statistics he read on Twitter and sermonizes about the black man's genetic predisposition to crime. The next day, he grins as an African American man stands before him in his courtroom. "Well,", He thinks, "he definitely did it.".
Loraine confides in her co-worker that she really hates minorities and every single day her hatred of them grows. "They're fucking animals!", she seethes. Her new coworker shrugs and sips his coffee. "I don't really want to get into this.", He thinks. Three days later, Loraine hops out of her squad car and guns down an eight year old Latino boy holding a toy truck.
It's not about being politically correct. It's about having integrity. When you know that something is wrong you should speak up and speak out. If you don't then you are just as guilty as those that perpetrate the crime. More so, perhaps, because you knew from the very beginning that it was wrong and you let it go on anyway.
It starts with words but it doesn't always end there.
Sometimes, the words end up
killing people.
Happy MLK day, y'all.
