The systemic injustice of white supremacy is cracking and crumbling. But we’re throwing our energies into the wrong places, and Mike Sliwa explains how.
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Not everyone who votes for Donald Trump this November will be angry or white. We are fooling ourselves, however, if we don’t think many of them are just that. Those who long for the days of a dominant white culture, whose power is unlimited and whose era is unending, have a candidate that speaks to them in their own language. Fear.
Donald Trump is often praised for speaking his mind. Angry white Americans want a return to a national conversation where they can continue to flex their collective muscle without any consequences or repercussions for their misogynistic, xenophobic and racist rhetoric.
Let me be perfectly clear. The days of white supremacist, systemic domination are not over by a long shot but a decline of a white majority populous is well under way. This doesn’t mean utopia is right around the corner since patriarchy, xenophobia, homophobia, and racism cross all demographics. What this shift does mean is that the systemic injustice, that all of these social diseases carry, is continuing to crack and slowly crumble away. Unfortunately we haven’t the luxury of time. Systems change slowly but continue to wreak havoc all along the way to their unraveling and often reaching a crescendo of madness just before their tumultuous death. This ensures our continued fight and path towards social justice, remains chaotic. Instead of recognizing the reason for this havoc–our long term inability to connect the impact that all injustices have upon one another–we place our time and energy behind a political system that only reinforces the injustice we are trying to eradicate.
Most don’t recognize that though Donald Trump may not have always been a politician, he’s most certainly been political for as long as he’s been on the radar.
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Today we throw our weight behind two candidates, one belonging to and hoisted upon us by the political establishment and another that some mistakenly view as some sort of outsider. Most don’t recognize that though Donald Trump may not have always been a politician, he’s most certainly been political for as long as he’s been on the radar. He’s as much an establishment candidate as Hillary Clinton, it’s just that his approach is crude. Both candidates have no plans, whatsoever, to minimize the immense damage being done by the empire they hope to govern. In fact, both will do everything possible to expand empire and thereby the damage done in so doing. This includes bombing brown folks into oblivion abroad and incarcerating them at home.
Our fear based responses appeal to many Americans on both sides of the aisle. “America first” is who we are. Nation-states have always been about self-interest. Many would argue that it’s only human nature to prioritize self-interest. It seems to me that we have confused self-interest with being self-absorbed. Donald Trump represents this distinction better than anyone in the history of U.S. Presidential elections. It’s no mistake that the ultimate self-absorbed candidate emerges at a time when white dominance is waning. He speaks to the underbelly of a white culture that has never come to terms with its racist past or its continued denial of any racial inequality that remains intact.
We get the candidates that we deserve, is a familiar mantra. In this case, we have a hawk in sheep’s clothing vs. an angry white male who represents a portion of our population who feels their entitlement slipping away. He’s wealthy and that’s attractive to those enamored by the mythical meritocracy of those who sell the American Dream. His language stirs our self-hatred when he screams he’s going to fix our dream. When the truth of the our situation becomes ever more apparent, more like Trump may surface. Unfortunately our alternative is a warmonger with her own systemic baggage. Our reality is too painful to face so we will continue to follow the dream instead. George Carlin said it best before he passed.
“The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
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Photo credit: Getty Images
I agree with 8ball Mike. The leftist want revolution according to THEIR vision and they will settle for nothing less. The left HAS thumbed it’s collective nose at the poor, and went right along with destroying the middle class. They threw the poor just enough to keep them quiet and from rioting. This has been going on since the mid 60s. Why then do we have generations on welfare, both black and white? So they’ve been sticking it to whites as well when they can, so this hardly explains white supremacy behavior. Yes of course there will be basically skin… Read more »
Ruined this country? It was ruined when it became the US. The cost of privilege is poverty. People pursue the former and blame the latter in a system that is running exactly as it is intended to.
Um, Hillary is white.
Yes…so am I. Oh, you’re being clever. Listen to both and then maybe it’ll come to you.
You forgot a couple demographics on your list there: Poor. Working class. For years, decades, the coastal and elitist Left have been looking down their noses at these people. You think they didn’t notice all the “dumb redneck” jokes coming out of Hollywood? That they didn’t notice the way working class men and women were being painted as hapless buffoons at best and angry bigots at worse? You think they didn’t realize that the Left not only doesn’t give a shit about them, but is actively spitting in their faces? (I mean, the Right doesn’t give a shit about them… Read more »
I’ve been trying to tell people this exact thing for a looong time. The authors around here are so caught up in their faulty frameworks of man = bad & white = bad that they’ve completely missed the fact that both the dems and repubs have crapped on poor / working class white people for a looong time. How did they think some poor white guy who can’t get a job any more easily than his poor black neighbor would take this whole narrative around privilege? Trump is the result of people just like Sliwa who invalidate others based on… Read more »
It goes further back than being poor and unemployed. It’s a narrative we are born into…it’s in our bones. Look up systemic then get back to me.
you’re exactly the type of person I’m talking about. You arrogantly assume you have all the answers and nothing to learn from the “other side” You aren’t his teacher, Mike. You don’t get to assign homework.
elitists like you are the reason people vote for Trump.
Arrogant comments receive arrogant responses…besides systemic clearly isn’t understood so pointing it out is a teachable moment. Might make a good t-shit? #BlamingTheEliteIgnoresTheRootOfTheirExistence
Arrogant posts also recieve arrogant responses. Do please continue to enjoy the odor of your own rectal secretions
I don’t think I’ll ever understand white guilt. Sounds like an uncomfortable cross to carry around.
Guilt is a bag of bricks…just put it down.