In the days and weeks following Barack Obama's, I remember some people feeling, and even outright suggesting, that racism was done in the United States.
Racism not a problem in America anymore?
Really!?
Now, it should be noted that there were two guys who specifically said this same thing to me. Both of them were older white guys, and so perhaps their take on race problems in the United States is...well, different from what I know. Perhaps for them, once official Jim Crow segregation was outlawed, then racism was, for all intents and purposes, over. Or, perhaps it was when affirmative action was put in place.
Or, decades later, the election of a black man to the highest office in the land.
I suspected - strongly suspected - that this was wishful thinking on their part, or that they wanted to brush an important, yet somehow embarrassing, national problem under the rug, to kind of pretend like it did not exist. Or, failing that, to minimize it's importance.
Very quickly into Obama's term, it became apparent that racism had not simply vanished, had not disappeared with the election of a black man into the highest office, as if this was some kind of magic wand to make a huge and defining problem in America simply disappear. Obama and his family were sometimes compared to monkeys, and there was anger towards him that seemed to be personal, and did not seem to rely solely on differences of opinions on policy, domestic or foreign.
Then, of course, after eight years of Obama, we had the rise of Donald Trump. Here was a man who was quite blatantly racist, who received the endorsement of the KKK and numerous other white supremacist groups. Suddenly, white nationalists were being legitimized, and their arguments and concerns were being aired before live audiences on major networks. And, of course, Trump won, and succeeded Obama in the Oval Office.
Clearly, racism was still a major problem in the United States, and had not simply disappeared. In fact, suddenly, it was very much front and center, dominating headlines and being broadcast to people on the evening news once again. That was the case in Charlottesville, Virginia, when outright Nazis marched. David Duke, former Klansman, spoke out, and said that the white nationalists had high hopes with President Trump. And, of course, Trump himself refused to condemn them for quite some time and claimed that there were good people among the Nazis and white supremacists. Then, after receiving considerable pressure and huge criticism, Trump half-heartedly relented and condemned both sides for the violence and ugly scenes.
A lot of people have felt that Trump has essentially emboldened racists, that his rise has allowed them to feel more comfortable airing their prejudices in public. Indeed, there has been evidence of that almost everywhere, and it seems like it is occurring with alarming frequency.
The most recent major story that I noticed, where some workers in Oklahoma City, the biggest city of a very red state that enthusiastically supported Trump in 2016, were joking around, suggesting that Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was a "nigger day" and suggesting that his assassin should be honored, instead.
A lot has changed in the United States over the course of decades. Yet, it sometimes feels - hell, often feels - like the more things change, the more they star the same.
Here is the article:
Oklahoma city workers busted for joking about repealing MLK ‘n*gger day’ and honoring his assassin instead Tom Boggioni TOM BOGGIONI 09 JAN 2018 AT 11:30
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/oklahoma-city-workers-busted-for-joking-about-repealing-mlk-ngger-day-and-honoring-his-assassin-instead/
No comments:
Post a Comment