( To be as honest as I can be at the moment, in the present environment, I don’t think this essay will be received any better than others on this subject matter because...reasons. But I have to keep trying although this is my last attempt. Basically, I want this on my record. CK)
I’ve been involved with 12-step programs for almost a quarter of a century now. I have these various organizations to thank for a little over 20 years of sobriety.
I don’t like everything that’s said or taught (can’t stand the “God stuff,” personally) but I have learned a lot about...myself and others.
I provide this history to you (against my better judgment) because the provenance of the quote that I am about to use is from one of those texts.
I judged myself by my intentions while the rest of the world judged me by my actions.
I do more fucked up stuff during the course of a day than I really like to admit to. Sometimes it hurts other people. Most of the time I do not want to hurt other people; on other occasions I do. That quote helps to do the right thing for the right reasons...more often than not.
Exit polls from the 2016 presidential election revealed that solid majorities of white people across all age ranges and of both genders voted for the Ku Klux Klan -endorsed Republican candidate for president; a candidate that demonized and stigmatized whole groups of people including women, Muslim Americans, Latino Americans, African Americans, and people with disabilities.
On one side, we have those who say that this was a racist vote, in intention and action, maybe with one or more mitigating factors (the economy, terrorism, etc.).
Others say that only a relatively small percentage of white voters had truly racist motivations and the the mitigating factors (a.k.a. the “intentions”) were the reason that we have a Ku Klux Klan-endorsed presidential election winner.
Furthermore, those who say that the mitigating factors are the primary driver seem to be encouraging those who say that racism is the primary motivating factor to STFU about racism and calling Trump voters racist.
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In my freshman year in high school, I was in a physical science class having a rather casual conversation with a couple of my female classmates. I was heavy into reading classical mythology at the time and I had learned something or another really cool about one of the female gods. Since I was anxious to show off my newfound knowledge, I made some sort of silly statement to my classmate, Gwen, and called her the name of this female goddess as a complement, “Medusa.”
The casual conversation turned sour very quickly and she pretty much read me in front of the entire class...my feelings were hurt, and I was baffled...I meant it as a complement, dammit!
I think that later in the day I explained why I said that and she said “that’s OK, I understand” but I still feel like I owe her an apology to this day…
...even though I did not intend to insult her, she was insulted.
She had no reason to know what my intention was in calling her “Medusa.”
Or...let’s take my voting history.
I knew that Dubya was a doofus, I knew that I didn’t like him, I knew that I wanted to do some sort of protest against Democrats, and I knew that I lived in Illinois, which George W. Bush was not going to win.
The case of the 2000 election and my vote was a case of intention; I knew what I knew about politics and policy and other factors. If I had lived in Florida or Ohio, of course, I would have voted differently...especially knowing how the Bush Administration turned out. I still feel a little guilty about that, actually. That was probably the reason I voted for Hillary Clinton in the GE (Clinton did not get my primary vote).
But I could not see into the future and know specific actions of the Bush Administration: I lacked that information.
There was no lack of information as to what the 2016 Republican nominee would do; mass deportations, a wall between Mexico and the United States, a Muslim ban, stop and frisk policies that have been ruled as racist by the nation’s courts...never mind how he talked about and treated women and people with disabilities
There was no hiding from the fact that these policies drove his rallies into a frenzy
It was well reported that the Ku Klux Klan (and david Duke) endorsed him, the alt-right, neo-Nazi groups, etc.
And over 50% of white people voted for him across all sorts of lines.
And now, an admitted white nationalist has been appointed to be chief strategist for the incoming administration. Muslim American women having their hijabs ripped off, school children being bullied and...you know many of the headlines in that regard.
And...you’re shocked that other people are calling you racist? And some even go further and say that we should not call a majority of American whites racist racist, xenophobic, sexist, or homophobic.
Because that wasn’t the “intention” of the vote for a majority of most whites? Why should I believe you, given the information that you had prior to voting?
You can talk your ass off about your intentions but I can’t read minds and I am under no obligation to believe what you say…obviously, extreme racism was not a dealbreaker for a majority of white voters.
It is ironic that on the far left, there are those that excoriated Hillary Clinton for her role in, say, “killing brown children overseas” or her role in Honduras or something else (anything else, really) yet they decided to “drain the swamp” in such a way that put millions of their fellow American citizens in just as much danger.
But hey, he stopped Obama from passing the TPP, right? Maybe we CAN all get along, right?
Maybe. At some point down the road.
But millions of other fellow Americans being targeted have other, more pressing concerns now.