This is a comment that readers seemed to like from another diary, so I posted it here.
It was in answer to why racism has become more blatant fifty years after we were supposed to be a more enlightened society.
It was made. For decades since Republicans lost in 1964 has their entire campaign been to go into white, mostly southern areas and tell people that minorities are "stealing your money through welfare or "other" government programs...it's why you pay taxes".
What did the left wing do to confront this over the decades? Nothing.
Did the left's leadership denounce the GOP as out-and-out racists years ago as some of us tried to and tell America LOUDLY that more white people have always taken more in welfare than minorities or that Republican states always end up taking more in Federal money than Democratic states? Nope. That would be above them to answer such crude political wedge issues.
The left never did understand that if you never learn to understand and speak your opponent’s language, you will never recruit the independent or the fence-sitters; those waiting for a good reason to jump ship in their disappointment with the other side.
What did Democratic voters, white and black, do in the voting booth to squash this ugly political race-baiting seed before it grew into today's blatant hatred? Nothing.
In fact, our side played the same game. We never called out the blatant homophobia and misogyny in the black community, always making it seem that only white people can be bigots. We never call out the race-baiters on our side like Al Sharpton who never seem to march when people like Matthew Shephard are tied to a tree and left to freeze to death for being gay. Don’t think the other side doesn’t notice the double standard.
We never said “ALL lives matter”…Instead, we turned a legitimate anger over police brutality against everyone into a racial issue affecting 13% of the population. It didn’t matter that 250 white people are killed EACH YEAR along with 100 black people that never receive more than a summary judgment called “justified”.
So in our effort to motivate the black vote for the mid-terms, we alienated the 80 percent and only motivated the GOP voter. We talk about “white privilege” while “wealth privilege” is eating ALL of us alive.
It’s the contemporary history of the left and a foolish losing strategy. How do we now call out the GOP twenty years too late without sounding hypocritical? Juan Williams just said it best, “the left has lost it’s moral grounding on black issues by turning them into a “special interest”. ML King said, “when one is oppressed, ALL are oppressed”. He understood how to get one third of his marchers to be white.
We let Reagan win twice. The first Bush win once. GW Bush win TWICE. We let Congress get taken by Republican conservatives since 1994...twenty years STRAIGHT control when you consider conservative Democrats vote with Republicans.
We allowed those race-baiting GOP Presidents to choose a right-wing Supreme Court who just gutted the Voting Rights Act.
Sure, I blame the right...but the left...white, black...men and women have been entirely irresponsible in not standing up when it counted.
As women are being attacked and being made second class citizens and now have to drive 200 miles in some Republican states just to see a family planning clinic...what is the response of women?
Twenty million women refuse to leave their TV sets to go vote each and EVERY election.
Black people are having their voting rights attacked. What was their response in the 2014 mid-terms. They must have been watching the same TV show as those women, since they never showed up either.
The progressive movement in America never seems to take root the way it did in the 1930’s after twelve years of Republican deregulated “economy” collapsed the banking system (the FIRST time) into the Great Depression.
You’d think the THIRD time the GOP collapsed the banking system (after Reagan’s Savings and Loan debacle…the SECOND time) the left would become the populist WINNING juggernaut it should be. Nope.
Progressives naturally want to protect the least and most vulnerable in society, as that is a principle in what being a progressive means.
It is one of our mottoes..."A society should be judged in how it treats its least".
Yet...the least refuses to care and even take a few minutes to vote. The very people who received healthcare for the first time in their lives gave Congress their largest GOP majority in decades in the mid-term election.
>>> When progressivism was based on economics...it flourished and brought along it's social narrative. <<<
Now, it supports the agenda of 13% of the population of blacks and 10% of women in their 20's who need abortion rights most and 15% of the population of those with no healthcare.
If voting was considered a "return on investment", current progressive issues would be considered the worst investment.
If this continues, enough progressives may just get tired of the oligarchy, plutocracy and zero upward mobility given to us by the right-wing and conservative economic bamboozle called trickle-down to begin to re-evaluate taking on issues that hurt the movement rather than help the movement move forward.
The next question should be, “Wait a second. If we don’t talk about these issues, how do we motivate our coalition at all?”.
We do talk about these issues. We don’t turn them into special interests. As a man, I support a woman’s “choice” because I don’t want anyone telling ME what I can or can not do with MY body.
It’s a privacy issue…a civil rights issue…that pertains to EVERYONE. The minute “gay marriage” became “marriage equality”, things moved positive and fast…in 37 states in fact. Language is the key to persuasion…learn to use it or learn to lose.