At 03:07 PM 1/14/01, you wrote:
>Stan writes:
>�Racial polarity is starker than it has been in years, but the right wants
>us to shut up about it. By naming it, they say we are creating it...
>stirring up the natives, you see, who were happy just to stay in their
>places before we agitators came along.�
>
>Seth responds:
>I agree that the color line is alive and well in the US. But doesn�t the
>wink and a nod from the Dems/Gore about the color line�s role in the coup of
>the Repugs/Bush II show that we must re-define the �right� to include the US
>white political establishment generally? As Malcom X said (and I
>paraphrase), Don't say the South, the South. If you're south of Canada
>you're in the South.
There's more than a little truth in this. I target the right because they
are the engine, and the Dems, et al, are just boxcars in tow. The right
actively fans the flames of white racism, while the centrists still have to
avoid alienating blacks who form a key constiuency. Its a balancing act by
the dems, but the repubs have already cast aside balance. They are
appealing directly to racism.
Whether we redefine anything or not, I guess, depends on what a
redefinition is about. Right and left strike me as relative notions
anyway, useful only if we agree in advance what they mean. There is a
definite "line" right now coming specifically from R's, that says pointing
out racial disparity is a form of racism, because it is disunifying, blah
blah. It's part of their playbook. That's what I was referring to.
Has the ideology of the South been diffused to the entire nation? In a
sense, but let's not get caught ignoring how that racial ideology itself is
changing, or what is compelling that change. Each time they revise their
"line," they are revising in the face of an ever stronger
counter-ideology... painting themselves into a tighter and tighter corner.
When we take away every arguemtn they have then they are forced back out
into the open with old-fashioned white supremacy, and the conflict comes
out in the open with them.
So we keep backing them up, but we better prepare for the fight when they
come out. And they will. The conditions make it a black and white issue,
and sides will be taken. These developments may not conveneintly wait for
the "left" to do its "unifying." I hope they do, but I'm not optimistic.
The "right" will perceive they have more strength in an open racial
conflict than an open class conflict and if the lines are drawn and the
battles opened... well... I've already taken sides.
"Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar
I have not slept.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma or hideous dream.
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of a man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection"
-Brutus
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