OK white folks, I am stopping the car.
We are not going any further.
It is time for the adults in our national conversation to lay down the law of truth. Truth seems to be something the white privileged people are incapable of comprehending. If you are just riding along in the car, while everyone is trying to appease your whims, act nice to your inappropriate questions, and entertain you in a style pleasing to you, why would you comprehend?
I grew up on a farm and did farm before being lured away by the siren song of computer technology. In Smithshire we were all white, not all had the same status. I am not from a family of itinerant farm laborers, nor am I from a family where I grew up like a feudal lord. Being from a family of first settlers gave you status. Your religion could define you. If you were a recent arrival from the South with a drawl, then you were placed in the hillbilly category. Why can I assume to lecture White People? I am the whitest man in America. I have an obligation to speak to my own identity. My closest ancestor who was an immigrant came from Sweden (grandmother). I do have mid-nineteenth century German immigrant ancestors (great-great grandparents) and all other ancestors have lived in America since before the Revolution. In fact, several branches I have yet to connect back to a home country on my genealogy searches. I did the DNA thing, according to it, I do not have any Native American ancestors. When I first encountered the term WASP I couldn’t believe it described me. It seemed an elite designation for Easterners, not people like me. I am a part of a long history of farmers. I have yet to discover any ancestor who did not farm at some point in their lives. Our times demand someone speak out to White America. We (White People) are doing a lousy job of being the majority. America has a long way to go on this journey. We all need remediation, if we are going to arrive safely.
Living in our rural back water, I encountered many people whose verbal usage was somewhat cruder than my own. It is why President Trump appeals to them I suppose. (I will let you fill in the blanks.) He would call all those nonwhite countries s---hole countries; I wouldn’t. I might call them failed states hindered by corruption, corporate greed, and imposed borders, who now struggle with a system of ingrained racism leftover from a colonialist past in a modern era of exploitive capitalism. The same dystopian vision the Trumpian GOP would want as a goal for our nation. In the land of the Shire (Smithshire) on more than one occasion I encountered the expression, “he’s really s----ing the nest.” This was said about some Fortunate Son who was not living life as his established farm family would expect. This was an observation made by those on the outside of the privileged circle of our community. They were speaking of a failure of the privileged to appreciate the good thing they had going. The statement also spoke to the struggle that those observing had, as they lived in their stations of life. I always walked both sides of the road, both struggling and privileged. I knew I could also be the target of the local gossip base. I felt uncomfortable with the gossipy type discussions. I tried to stay mute just nod, as an acknowledgment of the truth revealed. Any discussion of someone’s privilege and another’s lack thereof is uncomfortable. It is why so many White People mock the notion of privilege. We fail to recognize the good thing we have going, and we are s----ing the nest.
I understand White People feeling they earned their way. They showed up on time, actually a little early. They worked until the job was done, even if late on a Saturday night. They were volunteers who reached out in their community. They were generous with their time and money. They played by the rules. These white people may say I earned my seat in the car. I worked hard for my money the phrase Donna Summer put to song. Of course, if Donna Summer had bought a house or a small farm near them, they would have been seriously concerned. Working hard for your money isn’t really the thing; it is being like them. All others are viewed with suspicion and fear. I understand work, and I have come to understand being white. White is mostly a myth anyway. In Trump’s MAGA rallies many who rail against the immigrants and feel attacked when White Privilege is the topic are not the WASP defined White People. In the communities of my ancestors many of these people would not be American, as they defined it. They would not be viewed as like them. Nell Irvin Painter in her book the History of White People explores the fluidity of the definition, White People. Our view of white America now includes Jews, Irish and Italian Catholics, those Dutchmen (Germans), Greeks, Slavs, and other Eastern Europeans, various peoples once considered not like us. If we return privilege to the people my ancestors considered White Americans, there are a bunch of you MAGAs who are getting the boot from the Real American club.
America is not made great by Real America. It is made great by people who come to America with a belief that the American dream is real. It is not a zero-sum game of hoarding the past; we advance by reimagining the future and believing Americans can achieve it. The powerful have found it a useful tool to exploit people’s xenophobia, racism, and fear of change. We need to retake our government from the powerful. The powerful are stagnating our nation’s research, economy, and standards of living. We White People need to stop fearing those not white. We must start taking the responsibility to demand informed problem solving. We simply need to recognize that we subconsciously judge people on perception. Therefore, we must give people the opportunity to be judged on their character, their deeds, and their words, not their appearance, dialect, or genealogy. It is simple denialism not to see the truth behind the Black Lives movement. Injustice must be confronted. Our border crisis is not really a crisis. It is an affront to the racists in charge of our government, just look at all those brown people.
We White People can be proud of our accomplishments. We need to stop being proud of the accomplishment of simply being White. We are not losing being a majority white nation from immigration, because we haven’t been a narrowly defined white nation for a very long time. Now Americans of all heritages are becoming family members.
Trump is the most racist president since Andrew Johnson. Reconstruction history is a study of the damage white supremacists have done to this nation. The possibility of healing with the better angels of our nature was ended by hate and fear. We must not allow hate and fear to end our opportunity to build a prosperous society for all people. We must once again lead a nation that can be an aspiration of all humanity. We must lead a renewal of a spiritual humanity that values the life of the planet as it does itself. Without valuing the health of all species, we risk the survival of our own. We cannot allow power to be wielded by the corrupt, greedy, and visionless. By building communities of connection, informing ourselves, and voting the priorities of our welfare, our nation and the world will prosper. We must be an American people not a White people. All of us riding in the car need to do our part. Hey White People, wake up, we didn’t build the road or buy the car. We all need to add our talents to keep it running. America has the vision to lead humanity, but we all need to do our part. You, White Folks, need to behave like decent human beings, show some respect. I do not want to have to stop the car and straighten you out again.
@ShireSteve Forgottonia.org
Forgottonia -- Shire Tales