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.
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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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