The right wing, from Tea Partiers to Faux News drones, keeps finding new things to claim we liberals have declared war on. They've touted a War On Christmas (fought, no doubt, with Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifles, which is how our side lost: we all shot our eyes out), a War On Christianity (I think they're confused about which side likes to declare war on Middle Eastern religions) and now, behold: we have The War On White People. And I have to tell you: after this past few weeks, I would enlist in that war in a hot minute. Listen, I even have my own flamethrower. Okay, it's a lighter and a can of hairspray, but it will still set your eyebrows on fire pretty easily. Don't ask me how I know that. Or what happened to my drapes.
For one thing, the fake-ass War On White People would have right and justice on its side—which always guarantees victory, unless the other side has better weapons. (Sorry, Mayans—all Native Americans, actually. And, actually, colonized people everywhere.) Luckily for the factitious War On Whites, we live in the U Ss Of America, where we can't keep guns out of anyone's hands, not idiots nor lunatics nor even clever little raccoons ("Hands up! Give me all your garbage!"), so armaments should not be a problem.
One more reason I'd enlist on the non-white side of this war on whites if it were actually a thing: that side would win. A demographic moment, white people: by 2043, you'll be a minority in the U States Of A. Ever hear of Custer? The Native Americans called him "Son Of the Morning Star" because of his blond hair, and then he killed a bunch of Sioux women and children because he didn't like people talking about his hair and the remaining Sioux, who outnumbered his troops, killed him. (I think the Native-American translator was being polite in rendering the Sioux name for Custer; I suspect it was actually something more like "Murderous Asshole".) He really did have some awesome hair, though.
The most brazen mention of this bullshit War On Whites came a couple of weeks ago when Congressman and flag-model Mo "Les" Brooks (R of course-Ala.) shot his mouth off on Laura Ingraham's radio show about how Democrats had launched this fantastic war on whites in order to…I don't know, capture the votes of people whose votes they'd always already had? (Or maybe just because we hate freedom. I certainly prefer tyranny to freedom, and also Diet Pepsi to Diet Coke. If anyone's taking a survey.) According to the let's say gentleman from Alabama, "every demographic group in America agrees with the rule of law, enforcing and securing our borders." And the Congressman knows this because he is down with the minorities…some of his best friends, you know. If only they and those damned Democrats would stop claiming that, say, racism exists and black men make only 75% of what white men do (hey, we didn't used to pay them anything at all, especially in Alabama; look how far we've come, huh?) and that we might not want to shoot dead thousands of tween refugees on our borders (except for the ones who are Beliebers, of course and as always), why, minorities would flock to the polls to vote for Republicans! If, you know, Republicans didn't keep passing voter ID laws to keep minorities from voting. Whoa, bad luck for the GOP, huh?
(Even Ingraham mildly rebuked Brooks, saying "that characterization is a little out there" and "that phraseology might not be the best choice"; she prefers to call any mention of race "playing the race card". Dude, when even Laura Ingraham thinks you've not only gone astray but have maybe fallen into a well without benefit of a very smart collie to report your mishap, you have ventured into the realm of the seriously cray-cray. That's like a big pile of guano looking you up and down and calling you batshit.)
This past week, of course, whites, in the persons of the police department of Ferguson, MO, a largely-black suburb of St. Louis, reacted with measured calm and aplomb to the protests that ensued after a police officer killed an unarmed and surrendering African-American teenager—in some other alternate universe; in this reality, the police totally lost their heavily-militarized shit and reacted in ways that shocked hardened combat veterans, training automatic weapons loaded with live rounds on the protestors from the tops of armored personnel carriers and raining round after round of tear gas canisters on nonviolent protesters. (Because—and I apologize for the technical detail—screw the right of free assembly.) If there's a war on whites, why, those police officers just had to respond with force, didn't they? War is hell! Especially if you're under the misapprehension that you're not actually in a war, because of how you're actually in the town where you live, right here in one of the good old United Ss of A. Oh, wow, did we forget to mention those two extra words on the end of the motto "To Serve and Protect"? Yeah, sorry; those two words are: "White People".
Now, white people have a long and inglorious history of justifying oppression of African-Americans on the basis of "They's comin' to git us!" As Eugene Robinson points out in the Washington Post, from slavery to Jim Crow laws to lynchings, white racists have justified nightmarish repressive measures by citing their fear of black people taking revenge…for slavery, Jim Crow laws and lynchings. If only we could think of some other, better, way to avoid revenge, like—and I'm just spitballing here—not doing horrible things. (Is your mind blown? Because my mind is blown.) Perhaps you wouldn't need to fear black teenagers quite so much if—again, just some crazy pie-in-the-sky shit here—you didn't shoot them quite so goddamn often. People tend to resent it when you shoot their kids. Hell, parents don't even like it when I smack their screaming kids in a restaurant. (What? The kids like it. It's like a game. A game called "Smackies".) (Also: do not disturb a man about to consume a Rooty-Tooty Fresh 'n' Fruity. Do. Not.) Black people have not declared war on you, caucasians; you have declared war on them. And so far, African-Americans have by and large turned the other cheek.
If you do not want to live in fear, stop defending murderers of children, the George Zimmermans and the Michael Dunns and the Ferguson police force, all the doughy scared racists keeping their courage up behind a gun. When the Ku Klux Klan comes to help you out (as they have offered the police in Ferguson) because they're your new biggest fans, you have to rethink your life-choices and ask yourself: How did I wind up with allies who put pointy white sheets on their dull white heads? That's not even war, that's terrorism. Fall back, General Custer. Fall back.