Cross posted at Working Man Radio. Please recommend this diary, like the video, and share it with your friends.
The other day, diarist Will Smith wrote an open letter to "white anti-racist activists." Here is the money quote . . . at least for what I want to talk about, today.
However, in my sensitivity about race, I realize that I have been insensitive to those white people who do not partake in and who refuse to adhere to this system of white supremacy. They refuse to be a part of the racist culture that is so pervasive in our society.
Let me first say, to the extent that I qualify as an "anti-racist activist," I appreciate the kind words. But I really must confess to something.
To the extent that I might be an "anti-racist activist," it is not primarily for anyone else's benefit. My activism is about nothing more difficult to understand than my desire to create the kind of country I want to live in. Not only do I dislike the ugliness of bigotry, I realized many years ago, that bigotry is just simply bad for us.
You have only to consider the south before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Before that landmark legislation, the south was nothing short of a third world dung heap. It was a stagnant backwater, ruled by some of the most corrosively violent people in history. The south was by far the poorest region of the nation, and no white person in the south appeared to have the slightest interest in changing that.
It was only after the south ended such absurdities as colored drinking fountains and segregated lunch counters, that capital started flowing to the south. The prosperous new south didn't exist until the Ku Klux Klan was driven, at the point of rifles pointed by the 101st Airborne [among others], back under the rocks they crawled out of.
As a southern white man it is crystal clear for me. I don't want to go back that bad history. I don't want to go back to literacy tests, and armed vigilantes.
I also don't want the economic stagnation of the south to become the economic model for the nation.
Make no mistake, the current strategy of the wealthy elite, is obstruction, and economic stagnation. They have managed to amass more wealth than ever before in history, and bottom up prospereity is a threat to their position. Full employment, rising wages, improved healthcare, all threaten to liberate ordinary Americans -- white, black, hispanic, and native, alike -- from the tyranny of wage slavery and sweatshop capitalism.
This was always what racism, white supremacy and bigotry were all about. It was a deal with the devil offered to working class white to accept a few extra crumbs, and marginal improvement in status in exchange for serving as the bullies and lick spittles of the wealthy. The result was a poorer society . . . even for the allegely privileged whites.
So yes, I oppose racism, white supremacy, and bigotry, but only because I understand how much better off everybody will be, "privileged" whites included, when we finally see the end of it.
As always, the video includes everything you just read . . . and maybe a little bit more.