October 5, 2010--We're Not #1
My brother-in-law sent me a copy of an article that appeared recently in the Village Voice--"White America Has Lost Its Mind." In case you missed it I've linked it below.
It's a little flip in style--after all it was published in the VV--but it contains an essential truth which helps explain otherwise unfathomable political behavior, i.e, some of the excesses of the Tea Party and the people they are supporting. You know the list. From literally crazy Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell in Maryland to out-and-out crooks and bullies such as Carl Paladino, GOP candidate for governor in New York. Both of whom, by the way, appear to have fighting chances to be elected
These out-from-under-the-rock folks make Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich look like sages.
Steven Thrasher, the Voice columnist, has a simple explanation. In a few sentences from him:
We naively thought that by electing Barack Obama we were making a post-racial statement about America, but even before he was inaugurated white people on the extreme right--from Rush Limbaugh to numerous members of Congress--were making not-so-thinly veiled racist cracks about him. From fried chicken stories to his alleged Muslim faith and, worse, African background to pseudo-intellectual but still bigotted articles and books about Obama's "Kenyan cultural consciousness" by the likes of Dinesh D'Souza, with Newt Gingrich, the self-proclaimed Big Idea Man of the conservative movement chirping agreement from the safety of the sidelines.
The good news, as Brownstein notes, is that the generation of yappers who have lost their minds is dying out. People of color in America are producing more children than whites and these children, as well as white youth, do not share these antediluvian views about race.
To white kids, being white is not cool. They do not even understand what all the racial ranting is all about. Their favorite pop culture and sports figures are all African American, as is their preferred president.
But the crazies make the better media story. They mobilize the like-minded, wear funny hats and costumes, and provide chuckles for the elitist rest of us.
The danger of course is that New York may wind up with a pornographer for its governor while Delaware could easily have someone who dabbled in whichcraft representing them in the Senate. And we will not only as a consequence be misreably and mean-spiritedly governed but will also be the laughing stock of the rest of the world. Which, ironically, will tickle most Tea Partiers because they dispise the rest of the world almost as much as they hate Barack Obama.
Speaking of the rest of the world, there is something perhaps more powerful making many white Americans lose their minds--we are no longer clearly Number One.
Our vaunted economy will soon be second to the Chinese, to whom we are already in debt to the tune of trillions. Our army, which until Vietnam never lost a war, not only was humiliated in Southeast Asia but has effectively lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Our athletes are far from Number One anymore--we just yesterday lost the Ryder Cup to the Europeans and our basketball all-star teams no longer automatically win in international competition and there are more Latinos on many Major League baseball teams than Anglos.
We lag in providing medical care to our citizens and half the doctors in our hospitals are non-Americans. Many countries are already surpassing us in the development of new medicines and medical technologies and we are being outstripped in the number of new patents issued annually.
Our schools are slipping to Third-World status--our kids score well down the list in math and science when compared to children in other developed nations; and our colleges and universities, which used to be the envy of the world, are at best second-best when it comes to the numbers of students graduating.
Made In America used to mean something positive, from our cars to our steel to our clothing to our works of art. Now, sadly, what little is still made here is often shoddy and not competitive. Even in popular culture where we used to be unsurpassed we are now lagging. Made In Hollywood, assuming the movie is even made there, no longer guarantees success or that it will provide good entertainment.
I could go on.
If you are wondering why so many people here have lost their minds it's largely because of their perception that we are slipping in status in almost all arenas, including racially. For many of the folks following the likes of Glenn Beck and getting incensed about immigrants, especially those of color, being white in and of itself used to mean something.
Being white was a big part of our being Number One.
That is no longer true. For those who felt disenfranchised and beaten down by the system that was their last refuge--their whiteness--to which they retreated when all else failed.
Now that all else is failing, even whiteness isn't any longer working.
It's a little flip in style--after all it was published in the VV--but it contains an essential truth which helps explain otherwise unfathomable political behavior, i.e, some of the excesses of the Tea Party and the people they are supporting. You know the list. From literally crazy Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell in Maryland to out-and-out crooks and bullies such as Carl Paladino, GOP candidate for governor in New York. Both of whom, by the way, appear to have fighting chances to be elected
These out-from-under-the-rock folks make Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich look like sages.
Steven Thrasher, the Voice columnist, has a simple explanation. In a few sentences from him:
For the first time in their lives, baby boomers are hard up against it economically, and white boy is becoming outnumbered and it's got his bowels chilled with fear.
"In an age of diminished resources, the United States may be heading for an intensifying confrontation between the gray and the brown," writes Ronald Brownstein in his July National Journal article, "The Gray and the Brown: The Generational Mismatch." That's a polite and understated way of saying that older white folks are losing their shit as they're being replaced by young brown and black kids while the economy is in the crapper.
We naively thought that by electing Barack Obama we were making a post-racial statement about America, but even before he was inaugurated white people on the extreme right--from Rush Limbaugh to numerous members of Congress--were making not-so-thinly veiled racist cracks about him. From fried chicken stories to his alleged Muslim faith and, worse, African background to pseudo-intellectual but still bigotted articles and books about Obama's "Kenyan cultural consciousness" by the likes of Dinesh D'Souza, with Newt Gingrich, the self-proclaimed Big Idea Man of the conservative movement chirping agreement from the safety of the sidelines.
The good news, as Brownstein notes, is that the generation of yappers who have lost their minds is dying out. People of color in America are producing more children than whites and these children, as well as white youth, do not share these antediluvian views about race.
To white kids, being white is not cool. They do not even understand what all the racial ranting is all about. Their favorite pop culture and sports figures are all African American, as is their preferred president.
But the crazies make the better media story. They mobilize the like-minded, wear funny hats and costumes, and provide chuckles for the elitist rest of us.
The danger of course is that New York may wind up with a pornographer for its governor while Delaware could easily have someone who dabbled in whichcraft representing them in the Senate. And we will not only as a consequence be misreably and mean-spiritedly governed but will also be the laughing stock of the rest of the world. Which, ironically, will tickle most Tea Partiers because they dispise the rest of the world almost as much as they hate Barack Obama.
Speaking of the rest of the world, there is something perhaps more powerful making many white Americans lose their minds--we are no longer clearly Number One.
Our vaunted economy will soon be second to the Chinese, to whom we are already in debt to the tune of trillions. Our army, which until Vietnam never lost a war, not only was humiliated in Southeast Asia but has effectively lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Our athletes are far from Number One anymore--we just yesterday lost the Ryder Cup to the Europeans and our basketball all-star teams no longer automatically win in international competition and there are more Latinos on many Major League baseball teams than Anglos.
We lag in providing medical care to our citizens and half the doctors in our hospitals are non-Americans. Many countries are already surpassing us in the development of new medicines and medical technologies and we are being outstripped in the number of new patents issued annually.
Our schools are slipping to Third-World status--our kids score well down the list in math and science when compared to children in other developed nations; and our colleges and universities, which used to be the envy of the world, are at best second-best when it comes to the numbers of students graduating.
Made In America used to mean something positive, from our cars to our steel to our clothing to our works of art. Now, sadly, what little is still made here is often shoddy and not competitive. Even in popular culture where we used to be unsurpassed we are now lagging. Made In Hollywood, assuming the movie is even made there, no longer guarantees success or that it will provide good entertainment.
I could go on.
If you are wondering why so many people here have lost their minds it's largely because of their perception that we are slipping in status in almost all arenas, including racially. For many of the folks following the likes of Glenn Beck and getting incensed about immigrants, especially those of color, being white in and of itself used to mean something.
Being white was a big part of our being Number One.
That is no longer true. For those who felt disenfranchised and beaten down by the system that was their last refuge--their whiteness--to which they retreated when all else failed.
Now that all else is failing, even whiteness isn't any longer working.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:03 AM
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