My partner (who is white) received the following e-mail from a longtime family friend living in Texas.
This was written by a female friend and says it all: I am up, still in disbelief after going to sleep early. I woke up as the acceptance speech was being made and was not really that surprised. It was clear to me from the beginning of the night what was ahead. I will rethink watching so much Fox News now because it gives me a false sense of living in a country that still has a value system. What I have decided is that I am still trying to live in the America that existed when I was a girl, where the majority of Amercans (sic) were hard working, white Americans and descendants of the Greatest Generation. We have always had minorities but they also originally came to America looking for opportunity for which they were willing to work hard to achieve. There was still an Amercan (sic) dream and the first President I can remember told us to "ask not what your country can do for you, but what YOU can do for your country." I didn’t really understand that statement fully till the last four years, but it is very clear to me now. The other and most important thing is, we were a Nation who not only included all races, but could still include God...that is no longer the case. Bill O'Reilly said it best last night. White Americans are now the minority because of the birth decline among us. After all, can anyone really afford to have more than two children when you are middle class and the economic burden is on your shoulders with no help from the government that you dont (sic) have to pay back....we get nothing for free and were not raised to expect such...Yes my children had a few govt school loans (a very small amount) and every dime had to be paid back. To go on further with what Bill O'Reilly said, the white Americans have declined, the minority population has risen and we now have a majority of people who ask "what can the country do for me?". They want more stuff and they want it given to them. This is still America but it has changed and after this election I believe we turned a corner and will never go back. If the majority of the population could not see it after these 4 years, this Nation has shown that we are now are a Nation with a majority of takers. The free fall began 4 years ago and buckle your seat belts because we are doing nothing but picking up speed now. I am a minority in Amerca (sic) and my voice is no longer heard.
Well, my word! How could this colored girl have lived fifty-six years in America and never notice that white people were a downtrodden minority? Well, maybe, because they AREN'T!
This e-mail is so full of utter bullshit it, I could fertilize my garden with it for a century.
All the usual myths are in place: only white people are hardworking (no doubt Texas' slaves were sitting on their large and shapely buttocks sipping mint juleps while the white folks picked the cotton), nonwhites are all shiftless, baby-making, hand-out seeking, America destroying a-holes, God is dead because a black man ascended to the White House, all the really bad stuff started when...you guessed it, a black man was elected to the White House, the Social Security collecting "Greatest Generation" (how I hate that moniker) would rather take an awl to the eye than accept charity, America has lost its value system because "gasp" people are demanding a living wage, safer working conditions, affordable healthcare, a robust safety net, equal rights, and a stop to the plundering of the working class by Wall Street and its cohorts, the TBTF banks.
Still, this poor dear feels her call for a return to the 1950's has been drowned in a veritable sea of sweaty, dark people who wrested the reins of power from whites through sheer fecundity. Oh, wait, that hasn't happened! Whites still control all the levers of economic power and governmental policy making. They constitute roughly 70% of the total population. Phew! Her nightmare is over, for now.
Well, she did get one thing right: Fox News gave her a false sense, that is, if she ever had any to begin with.
Perhaps, she should consider doing something radically different with her time besides penning racist screeds to her friends. A trip to the library would be a good start. Check out the history section on Native Americans, slavery, FDR, Thomas Jefferson, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for starters.
And, by the way, would you REALLY vote for John F Kennedy, the man you were so fond of quoting, if he were running for president today?
Not in a Texas minute. Thought so.