Charles Blow must have had a crystal ball today. His piece, titled 'The Lowest White Man' was published this morning before some had leaked the deplorable comments that man in the White House made towards Haitians and Africans, all the while espousing a preference for immigrants from Norway:
“...Trump is man-as-message, man-as-messiah. Trump support isn’t philosophical but theological.
Trumpism is a religion founded on patriarchy and white supremacy.
It is the belief that even the least qualified man is a better choice than the most qualified woman and a belief that the most vile, anti-intellectual, scandal-plagued simpleton of a white man is sufficient to follow in the presidential footsteps of the best educated, most eloquent, most affable black man.
As President Lyndon B. Johnson said in the 1960s to a young Bill Moyers: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Trump’s supporters are saying to us, screaming to us, that although he may be the “lowest white man,” he is still better than Barack Obama, the “best colored man.””
It seems to me that the only time some folk ‘get it’ about this institution called racism and white supremacy and white privilege is when a ‘shock and awe’ statement or action is taken in this country.
Yesssss…. we are all so outraged -— now.
But what will it take to understand fully that racism is a thing not in isolation? When will the light bulb moment switch on that even the most innocuous matters/issues are often filtered through the len of color?
Has the time now arrived where we can finally acknowledge that the 2016 election wasn’t about the economics of the so-called ‘working class’ stiffs who can’t get a break, but rather about those stiffs who, steeped in the privilege of always starting 100 yards beyond the starting line in every measure, were really being angry and bitter and resentful that those ‘others’ who started at that same line and often times far behind it has by and large, overcome those obstacles to make better lives for themselves anyway — with some exceeding them?
Can we now acknowledge the fact that there are those who cannot stand anyone other than those who look like them in any position of power over them — lest those ‘others’ who have been historically suppressed and oppressed may do unto the stiffs as have been done unto them?
Do we now see that there are those who are perfectly happy with burning down the house — with them in it, just as long as they have their flawed beliefs reinforced that they are better and deserve better than ‘them’ without ever having to do anything to truly earn it other than — well you know the rest…
Lastly, when will it dawn on the folk who say they are better than this to realize that we are becoming Nazi Germany?
I’m just wondering.