This weekend on Alternet, Jonathan L. Walton penned an incredible piece on Racism Rising in the current ugly underbelly of the GOP, "Why Conservatives Are Really Afraid of a Black President". The article sees their racism less as about Obama's Blackness, but more about their Whiteness. Why do they rant and rail against Obama, accusing him of every 'ism their fevered brains could muster? Simple:
The president reminds Glenn Beck, and those who identify with his white neo-nationalism, of the lie of their own professed superiority.
Now I don't profess to have any clue on this subject. I'm a middle aged white woman just trying to understand all the ugly coming from the right. It bothers me. It niggles at me that my own conservative brother is in denial about the true nature of the right who 'protest too much'. I find it difficult to understand the mindset of their racism, and this article brought it into clear focus for me. If I can understand it, well, it's a darn good article and well worth your time.
For these teabaggers, birthers, deathers etc. etc., their idea of what America is supposed to be and look like is White. Their whiteness and superiority is the lens through which they view the world. Minorities should just forget their problems and blend in to the point of being invisible.
Yet Obama's enormous success in life, whether as a highly educated community organizer or as America's commander in chief, exposes the paradox this sort of faux post-racialism presents.
It's a one-sided deal for people of color; as "post-racial" in effect means post-black, post-brown, post-red and post-yellow, while leaving the normative racial framework of whiteness intact. Race is the challenge people of color must confront and, dare I say, "get over."
But a post-racial America does not demand the same of those who identify with, and claim the social construction of, whiteness and perceived privileges and cultural superiority therein.
This is why, it would seem, Obama's body standing behind the American presidential seal has a critical segment of America losing its hold on reality -- a reality, I would argue, few have ever been forced to acknowledge up to this point.
The thought of these people actually not perceiving that their worldview may be warped or false must of course be true. After all, many things go into a person's concepts and constructs of his/her world. To pierce this world construct with criticism at the very time they feel threatened by Obama is fruitless. Of course the accusations of racism fell on dead ears.
More specifically, his very being is a haunting rejoinder to such white Americans of what they are not -- indeed what they have never been. This African American man with an Arabic name has dared to usurp all of the cultural and cognitive tropes that white supremacy has historically claimed for itself. He is calm in the face of their unrestrained emotion. The more illogical they act, the more rational he comes across. And, of course, the more eloquent and erudite he presents himself, the more he provokes the Joe Wilsons of the world to mindlessly blurt out, "You lie!"
In the process, Obama has transformed such opponents into the racial other, an uneducated and uncultured blob of white (and largely Southern) backwardness that is beyond the pale of social redemption or acculturation.
The thought that they are the ones for whom there is no hope of redemption, there will never be a glimmer of truth or empathy is really sad. Thank heavens they are a true minority, if a vocal one right now. These times will be written about for decades to come. The overt outbreak of racism in what's left of the GOP will color the GOP forever.
My point here is simply that the problem of race in America has never been solely or predominantly a minority issue. It is first and foremost, as Carter said, a problem of whiteness.[snip]
I believe this applies to our current president and his most vocal critics. If he is framed as the foreigner, incarnate evil and indoctrinating Nazi, many won't have to acknowledge that he may just be smart, sophisticated and a devout patriot. God forbid.
And if he is, what does that make them?
When I was moved to write a diary on this sensitive subject, my search unearthed a great diary by TeacherKen. This can't be discussed enough, in my opinion. We are witnessing the rancid grease of the GOP rise to the surface and it will make us all stronger and healthier to attempt to understand it. Please, if you have a few minutes for a quick but very worthy read, check out this article.