When the bombs dropped on Ralph Northam, we oohed and ahhed at the bright flashes. “Blackface is racist!” we cried in unison…
..without realizing that WE are the ones under attack.
So they accuse Northam and Herring of wearing blackface and how do we react? On cue.
They accuse Fairfax of sexual (whatever it was.) How do we react? On cue.
How did we react when Franken was accused of sexual harrassment? On cue.
Who among us hasn’t told a racist joke in our lives? Did telling that joke make us racist? Did it prove the suspicions of others that we were racist? Did we call out “RACIST!” at the scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation when the Griswold family found itself lost in an inner-city neighborhood filled with black gang stereotypes...or did we laugh?
We are failing to consider our unenlightened selves versus our current selves. How dare we accuse Ralph Northam of racism (or me, for that matter — or you) of being racist 30 years ago when we didn’t even realize that 30 years later we are being held to account for something on the parallel of wearing an old man mask as being anti-old people.
Is a racist act the same as a racist heart?
And are we failing to consider that maybe it isn’t us — maybe it’s them.
Meet our new social media adversary. It’s the one where the Republican Party surrogates are using Russian hackers and social media operatives before it’s considered illegal to attack the small state-level targets. Isn’t a coincidence that all three of the Virginia power structure are being hobbled?
Take out those three and a Republican assumes command of the Commonwealth.
This is the South we’re talking about — the most tenuously held states in the nation from a political balance standpoint. And I will bet anything that every white male in elected office has done something that can and will be exposed as racist or racially insensitive in their lives.
And an entire well-funded industry has been set up to expose it.
What could and should have been a teaching moment turned into righteous indignation from the black and progressive communities, a lynching of sorts, in which we are hanging one of our own in the name of our progressive sensibilites because, well, we must!
Yet the joke is on us. Will we spend the next year and a half chasing our demons as they are passed out by the RW opposition research machine or will be take control of our emotions and sensibilities, recognize what’s real and what’s manufactured, and realize that are not only being manipulated but reacting exactly as they intend?
And it’s sending into the same tizzy we fell into over their attacks in 2016...on cue.
UPDATE:
I’m excusing neither Northam’s nor Fairfax’s acts and reactions.
What I am focusing on is the beginning of a massive campaign by our opponents to selectively identify and exploit our greatest vulnerabilities.
For us to attack Northam for wearing blackface is the same as calling me racist for having told a racist joke in my life. I reject that association.
Is Northam racist TODAY? Am I racist TODAY?
Those are the only questions.
We are under attack TODAY. Some of it is legitimate. All of it is manipulation.
UPDATE 2: Someone suggested that this is a conspiracy theory. For chrissakes people, we already know that Russia attacked our elections and our psyches in 2016! Doing it again with the mastery they’ve already demostrated is hardly conspiracy theory. Heck, Mueller already showed Mercer how to do it without violating federal law. Does anyone really think they’re going to stand pat?