Most of us white folk on the left learned long ago that claiming "I'm not a racist" requires much more than passively refraining from overt racism. We've had to examine our own conditioning. We notice when there are too damn many white people in the room, on the screen or in the government, and we ask why. We know bigots truly believe that people of color are inferior, so reasonable responses from the targets of their contempt don't impress them much. Being part of the solution means we speak up, white on white, when friends or co-workers make racist remarks. We demonstrate that white doesn't have to mean white supremacy.
So why is it that progressive men who would rise in indignation at "beaner" or "nigger" just clam up when the water cooler Beavis and Butthead types snicker about bitches and hos and hotties and sluts and babes and [insert scores of sexist epithets here.]?
That kind of talk may make them uncomfortable, but women (and gays, but don't get me started) don't seen to be worth risking their membership in the Boys' Club. Let a new, eighteen-year-old secretary walk through the room and decent, married, middle aged men lose 75 IQ points, reverting to nudge, nudge, wink, wink adolescence. It might have a sad, comic charm if they were actually smitten by her, but this bonding ritual is men exhibiting manliness to men. She might as well be a blowup doll.
Women may recognize the partner, who's a loving equal at home, turning into a macho blowhard around other men. Suddenly, she's property, an arm ornament, a piece of ass, a dirty joke, or invisible. Those after the party fights in the car on the way home are often started by a woman hurt and furious at being used this way by the man who's supposed to love her.
Why is this display of dominance before other men so important that anyone would sell out wife, mother, daughters, sisters, lovers and friends? I refuse to be complicit in racism for the "privilege" of tea with the Flowers of Southern Womanhood; what's so great about the No Girls Allowed Treehouse that's worth betraying half the human race?
Democrats are supposed to be the party of REAL values, unlike self-serving Republicans mouthing platitudes about freedom and democracy, but who can't be bothered to recognize the huge benefits they derive from whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality and financial security.
We're the party of civil rights. How the hell can we win elections when we don't stand up for what we stand for? When your sister-in-law says, "Those people just breed like rabbits", and you sit mute, every time your neighbor defines the poor as lazy, and you say nothing, whenever your co-worker blames the victim instead of the persecutor, and you let embarrassment silence you, it deals a body blow to the integrity of all Democrats. Our party is home to women, the poor, immigrants, non-Christians, GLBT and people of color. None of us need condescending studies or juvenilizing programs, or special rights. There's nothing wrong with us. We just need the bigots off our backs.
Stand up to the haters, the exploiters and the ignorant. You speak up for me with your constituency, and I'll do the same for you. Not tit for tat, not because it's expedient, but because Democrats walk the walk, and we won't stop "until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."
If we want people excited about the Democratic Party, we have to be much more than the amorphous lesser of two evils. All of us, from our nominees, to our elected leaders, to the last registered voter, have to fight for social justice. We have to live our principles, and we have to do it in public.