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Racism is Politics [1]
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Date: 2025-01-31
My last story here was about recognizing racism broadly. This one must be more to the point, because Tramp has again weaponized racism to take political power.
Racism has always been core to presidential politics
Jefferson supported breeding slaves & protected slavery
Monroe sent US blacks back to African colony seized in 1821
Jackson 1830 trail of tears, fought abolitionist petitions
Polk invaded Mexico & broke his 1848 treaty to allow slavery
Johnson gave land & power back, used black troops v natives
Cleveland used railroads & 1887 Dawes Act to break tribal land
Wilson boosted Klan, re-segregated gov’t, vetoed racial equality
Coolidge signed Asian Exclusion Act of 1924
FDR segregated with his New Deal & put US-Japanese in camps
Reagan reversed rights, paid cocaine allies and jailed blacks
Voters supported all those racist policies
Every racist presidential policy above was supported by racist voters, and many elections were won by racist presidents appealing to racist voters with racist policies. And—feeling justified by having a president on their side—many of those racist supporters committed further terrible racist acts.
And racist voters also supported other racist presidents and their racist policies. If you include slavery defenders, war on Native America, white expansionism, and resistance to civil rights, roughly ½ of US presidents willingly campaigned on and implemented devastating racist policies.
Most presidential races were about racist policies
Slavery, war on Native America, civil rights, white supremacy and immigration have been core issues dividing voters in most presidential campaigns. Sure, the slogans were usually about manifest destiny or America first, but the core conflicts were often whether to support an immoral racist policy fully, partially or not.
The other ½ of presidents also had to compete for the votes of racists, even while some didn’t want to be seen as racist. Some presidents, like LBJ & Nixon, were racist in private, while acting less so in public. Ike resisted desegregation, until forced to act against racism. JFK was initially reluctant to support civil rights openly. Clinton determined it was in his political interest to continue some racist Reagan policies.
The best presidents, like Lincoln & Obama, recognized slavery & racism early in life, opposed it during their careers, spoke eloquently about it, campaigned against it, and tried to get their fellow Americans to fight it. But they too had to campaign for votes of and compromise with racists.
Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away
Even on this site, I have received advice to tone down anti-racism, not to antagonize racists, not to call voters racist, to deprioritize racial justice in favor of economics that are popular among white voters, and to focus only on the most obvious, overt and egregious illegal acts of racism, while excusing all other forms of racial prejudice. Well, that doesn’t work with me, and more importantly, it didn’t work in the last election.
Tramp voters do not want equality. They want to be treated as superior. They voted for his campaign against immigrants from non-white countries, against DEI, against Civil Rights enforcement, against all things Chinese, and against being woke. While many of us may not think that such immoral positions are worthy of debate, the other side is not afraid to campaign on them, successfully.
Racist voters are at fault, so blame them
There is a common view here that we should never blame voters, only leaders. Yet many politicians never get behind a policy until voters demand it.
Some argue that Tramp voters deny they are racist and should be presumed innocent. Perhaps their parents were racist. Maybe their racism is unconscious. Racism is absorbed by observation before 1st grade, so people can be unaware of their racial prejudice.
But if a person refused to listen to the black woman candidate, listened to the racist statements of the other guy, voted for him and now the country has to live with the consequences, then they have given us plenty of evidence that they are functionally racist. If such a voter has any doubt, somebody needs to tell them. Perhaps you can do them that favor, for their own good as well as for others in their life. The victims neither know nor care whether a candidate was rejected due to conscious or unconscious bias.
Some people think racism only refers to criminal acts, even though the most racist acts in history were legal. Racial prejudice is perfectly acceptable, in their minds, as long as it doesn’t result in a crime. This approach allows racists to do everything short of getting caught breaking the law to further a racist agenda. And, again, once the racists elect a sufficiently racist president, laws can be changed to decriminalize race crimes. Such voters are not only racists, but they are wannabe criminals afraid of facing punishment for racist acts.
Silence is cowardice
Some Democrats so have refined the art of polite negotiation and nuance to triangulate the theoretical position of securing incremental benefits with minimal controversy, that I now accuse them of cowardice. Instead of lambasting the other party for enabling the bloodthirsty slaughter of kindergartners and mass murders of worshippers with their assault weapons, we seek common sense safety reforms. Instead of excoriating them for selling out the future of life on earth for fossil fuel dark money, we agree to table that issue while we discuss the more urgent issue of TikTok. And instead of calling them racists, well, anything but that.
“Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never did, and it never will.” — Frederick Douglass
Elections have consequences
Ironically, Fox News hosts regularly call us the real racists and are not shy about accusing us of anti-white racism, whenever we support fairness, so ignoring racism isn’t improving the quality of public discourse. Even when we unilaterally refuse to call their voters racist for supporting a racist president’s racist policies, it does not prevent devastating racist results. Racist presidents like Tramp nominate Justices who roll back Civil Rights enforcement and progress, sign discriminatory legislation, and issue racist executive orders. Those racist policies have real life consequences and real victims. How did ‘toning it down’ help them?
Racism has economic consequences too
There is a view that improving the economy fixes everything. But rural segregation limits economic opportunities. Educational inequality prevents many from having good careers and contributing to the economy. Housing discrimination unfairly affects both property values and public school quality. Medical discrimination enables healthcare crises, killing innocent people, as well as raising costs for all. Racism in hiring and promoting hurts workforce quality and productivity, including suppressing innovation. Racially motivated violence has innocent victims, and it imposes economic burdens too. Fixing the economy is good, but it must focus on fixing racial inequity.
And centuries of racist policies have left huge swaths of the population victims of generational inequality. When a white man today chooses not to hire a descendant of slavery or of Native American removal, they may believe that they are unbiased. But the hiring manager’s family may have both benefited for generations and originally supported stealing the job candidate’s family’s land and labor. Without considering both the long-term effects of that racist history and the centuries of refusal to correct the historic injustices, the hiring manager is perpetuating structural racism.
Less Unfair is Not Progress
Stopping new racist acts—while sorely needed—only prevents adding some more inequality. But it ain’t progress unless the effects of centuries of structural racism are directly counteracted. This is where there’s often a divide between white and black people on the same issue. White folk will point to the end of many forms of discrimination as forward progress or sufficient. Black folk correctly point out that without reversing any past injustices, that’s just reducing the rate of regression. Affirmative action or reparations might be progress, but just stopping some racist acts isn’t progress, when the white-black wealth gap is roughly ten times and compounding daily.
It’s wrong to argue that victims of racial injustice should wait until the economy is improved for everyone else, before their needs become a priority. The all too common view that addressing racism must take a back seat to fulfilling ‘more popular’ economic needs is today’s primary obstacle to fixing racial inequality, not the after effects of 15th century papal bulls. The attitude that racism is already mostly solved is the main bulwark protecting structural racism from being discussed, let alone actually solved.
It would be ineffective to place the economic burden of fixing structural racism on people whose families have failed to generate much wealth despite many having historic advantages. But it would be effective to charge all those who have accumulated significant wealth under our historically unfair system with at least some of the costs required to make it fair. That’s economic progress.
No, I don’t enjoy writing about racism
A few folks have suggested that I have no right to talk about racism, let alone the right to define, describe or prescribe fixes for it. (Let me know who polices the racial barrier to discussing racism, so I can ask who gave Tramp permission).
Some suspect that I’m just trying to draw attention to myself or my zero revenue personal travel blog. No, that’s not it. Tramp weaponized racism to win power. He makes it the central political question each day, because he is racist. That’s why we all have to read about it, think about it, reject it, and actively fight against it.
Thinking about racism depresses me. I don’t enjoy writing about the US War on Native America, Road to Abolition, Equal Education, Black History and American Concentration Camps, but I do. Because they are important, must be discussed more, and must be understood by us, for us to make better decisions now, I do.
Writing about racism is resistance. Calling Tramp a racist is resistance. And calling his supporters racist is resistance. Yes, they will complain. What’s new. No, they won’t like it. But they voted for it, so they deserve it. Maybe addressing a problem head on will work better than dancing around the elephant in the room, trying not to hurt its feelings.
12 steps for combatting racism
While I would never suggest that anyone here suffers from racist thinking (snark), I do believe that many Americans—especially Tramp voters—would benefit from an approach to treating racism that’s similar to the classic treatment of alcoholism. Like alcoholism, racism spreads by observing racists in our lives and on screen especially at an early age. It also is supported by our culture, and there are many who profit by selling it to us. While it fortunately lacks the same chemically addictive property, it can be a deep seated, socially reinforced, psychologically addictive, hidden part of one’s personality that requires repeated, daily effort to overcome fully.
Admit that our racism damages our lives. Believe we need to try harder to be anti-racist. Learn from the history of racism and those who oppose it. Make an unblinking moral inventory of our racism. Honestly admit to our racism and tell another person how we were wrong. Be willing to let others help us fight our racism. Be humble about our progress to be better. Make a list of those we have harmed and be willing to make amends. Make amends, except when that would cause more pain to others. Continue to check ourselves and admit mistakes. Improve our awareness of anti-racism and actively join in it. Tell others about all of this and be anti-racist in all we do.
And that’s not enough
Of course, as overdue as dealing with individual racism is, citizens need to pay attention, make moral judgements, actively support solutions and vote. Purveyors of racism in the media must be denounced until they relent. Racist business decisions must be opposed until reversed. Racist laws must be overturned. Civil Rights laws must be enforced. Meaningful improvements against structural racism must be won. And, obviously, daily racist politics must be fought.
And also of course, there are other isms to be contested equally, such as sexism and homophobia. But you might find that many of the same skills to defeat one are applicable to all.
All that may sound hard, but, if you’ve thought it through yourself thoroughly, having your heart in the right place makes it easier.
So, if you have some progressive view to contribute, write a comment against racism, not on this story, but write something on some other post, preferably about a recent Tramp policy, to demonstrate that you are against racism. Thanks.
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