The Epidemic of Racism

We’ve seen this same segment of the population before that is currently spewing hatred at the town hall meetings on health care.

They were the same ones foaming at the mouth about the government at tea bag parties.

The same ones screaming “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” in reference to Obama at the McCain/Palin rallies.

They were the same ones hysterical about illegal immigration.

They were the same ones angrily protesting against the Civil Rights bill.

They were the same ones spitting on black children being integrated into schools in the south.

“They” are the older generation of poorly educated, ignorant, insecure, spiteful racists that are the blind pawns of the GOP/corporate alliance.

In an era where a majority of Americans have elected a black man as president, it’s hard for many to accept that a far too big minority of white people in this nation remain intimidated, scared and hateful of anyone who isn’t white.

The MSM is having a nervous breakdown over this, trying to sustain the bullshit facade that these are legitimately concerned citizens while also noting the racial overtones of their complaints (sure, these folks are really furious over the potential deficits the nation could incur from a public health plan…it’s just a coincidence that they also think that the swine flu turns you into a pig).

This is not to say that there aren’t people who are legitimately scared of change who aren’t racists but the proliferation of Nazi references and symbols, the lynching in effigies, the frequent display of the Confederate flag, the birthers claiming Obama is a dangerous foreigner and the naked racial hysteria about “what is happening to this country” makes the situation quite clear.

The Majority of Americans are trying to continue into the future and a minority is trying to hang on by their nails to the racial oppression and superiority of the past because that, aside from their guns and their bibles, is all they have left to cling to.

And the validation that racism has received from Republican politicians is bordering on if not crossing the line of inciting violence.

Texas Governor Rick Perry responded to a black man becoming president by announcing he would consider seceding from the U.S.. Sarah Palin claimed Obama wanted to institute Death Panels in his health plan (despite the fact that the health care legislation is being designed by Congress). Then there are all the Republican Congresspeople agreeing with the birthers.

We are obliviously fighting what could be the remaining battles of the Civil War. The sad lesson from that tragic war and the invisible continuation of it to this day is that people can’t be reasoned out of insecurity, fear, resentment, hatred and especially…racism.

The main age demographic of these racists is 50’s-80’s, the good thing is that they are dying out but not fast enough to make this problem go away anytime soon. If only Obama would re-consider those Death Panels…damn!

So how to deal with them. It would be playing into their game to confront them angrily as many of us might wish, to attack them hostilely as the racist cancer they are in our society. They want emotions to get heated, to be a furious “us vs. them” so they can further rile up and rally their fellow racists against “the enemy”. Obama, the majority of Americans and the United States being the enemy, that is…since all of us are failing to cooperate with their wish to go back to the days of separate drinking fountains.

I think the way to beat these bastards is not to play the hostility game. We do need to openly recognize and expose them for their racism as much as possible, ridicule them, dismiss them and marginalize them but not in a heated way. We just keep that up until most of them just die off (if it wasn’t for this health care reform stuff, they’d go down that conveyor belt a lot quicker!). Unless we want more terrorist-styled violence  than they are already predisposed to commit, we can’t play into the modern civil war they want so badly.

We have to remember that we (meaning the well adjusted) are the ones with the representatives in power. We need to press them to follow our will instead of the crazies and the corporations and we can have the future we need.

The only silver lining in this is that as time continues to pass, within the next 10 years, white people will become a minority in this country.

Then what will these people do, burn crosses on their own lawns?