How Dare He Say, "Cowards!"

03 March 2009

My note from Facebook.

Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 4:04pm

Read this first

I agree with Eric Holder. "Oh he didn't say it in a politic way." That is correct; he said it in a "no bullshit" kind of way. I respect that. And he is right. Time to stop basking in the afterglow of the powerful symbolic nature of Obama's election to the presidency. It's time to go to work.
Some believe that such language might alienate people. Yeah, and I think that's part of the cowardice. How should the people respond? Be fucking courageous. Forget about pointing fingers at who is or who is not a racist. It's a waste of time (i.e. Michael Richards's "I'm not a racist." Yet he incorporated a lynching threat towards 2 black men in the audience into a stand up act. And the audience laughed loudly).

Let's talk about institutional racism in real estate, education, prisons, legislation, etc. Let's stop pretending that Martin Luther King Jr. fixed everything. He would be the first to say he didn't. So would many black radicals who were killed, jailed, and/or exiled from the U.S. Let's stop pretending that race does not influence the language we use. Or that racism does not affect the laws passed through our government.

Let's stop applauding Lincoln and look at him critically. His stance on abolition was VERY complicated. How about we examine Thomas Jefferson's views in the Notes on the State of Virginia and observe how many of his statements in these queries are reflected in government policy, social attitudes, Jim Crow, the antagonism towards (brown) immigrants, and the continued (mal)treatment of American Indians. Let's stop pretending that we don't need Affirmative Action.

Great, we have a black president and black attorney general. We also have a majority of black people, Latino peoples, documented and undocumented immigrants in prisons. Most of the poor consists of the same people. Much of our war efforts (and fears) are towards people of color. American corporations that own factories offshore, these sweatshops that use young women of color to produce many of our products for pitiful wages.

George Carlin had it right, y'all.

And WTF is this term, "post-racial?" Sounds just as bad as "post-feminist" if not worse. And purposely misleading.