(no subject)
Hearing about all the racist spewing from the Bieber tween fans and hearing about all sorts of other racist spewing from young people, the idea that subsequent White American generations are becoming less racist has less and less plausibility.
I honestly think White America shot it's diversity and tolerance wad in the 1970s. That was when the Civil Rights movement was like, yesterday. And Whites had to contend with a newly liberated Black population that made it plain and clear that they would NOT be returning to the "good ol' days." I remember looking at the media and its prominent placement of Black entertainers, models and spokespersons. I remember seeing ads and while they were still tokenist, at least they had the Black models front and center amongst the White ones just to make sure you saw they used a Black model. TV shows had Blacks on and not in minstrel roles. The start of the multimediazation of Black cool began with more Whites than ever trying to cop and imitate.
Now even after saying all of that, Whites still elected Nixon twice under his "Moral Majority" platform (basically those Whites mad that their "good ol' days" were now gone and they had to at least give lip service to treating Blacks with respect). Media was still segregated as hell and the portrayals of Blacks still problematic as fuck. There were still societal issues out the yang like COINTELPRO and the need for a Black Panther Party in the first place. And the Civil Rights Movement basically ended with the murder of MLK and giant race riots in several cities all across the U.S.--not just in the mean ol' South. Basically for all the progress that occurred, it was very limited and truncated as hell. As far as a wad goes, it was barely a loogie.
And those same Baby Boomers that claim to be sooooooooooo hip and tolerant, by the end of the decade, had elected Ronald Reagan as President and turned to nurturing their careers instead of diversity and re-segregated many of those spheres they claim to have helped desegregate in the '60s.
Now Whites did try again in the 1990s with diversity and multiculturalism as well as Third Wave feminism that basically said, "Hey, other women do exist in the world besides well-off, White, Western ones." They were mostly young folks in their 20s, the kids or the younger sibs of the Boomers. Then what happened in the 2000s? The same thing that happened with the Boomers in the 80s. Folks got jobs, got married and had kids to support and raise. They then turned inward, concentrating on taking care of their own and didn't worry too much about those Others.
Americans love to believe that as we go on, we're getting better with these issues, and I don't just mean racial ones, as if time itself is what brings social change. PEOPLE bring social change, not time. We could just as easily be living in an agrarian society with plantations and slavery without electricity or our modern conveniences today as we do with our e-this and cyber-that devices and other modern conveniences. That's why it bugs me when folks go "C'mon people! It's 1986/1994/2002/2011!" to denounce what they see as retrograde bigotry. There is nothing at all magical about the year that keeps society moving forward. It's people's commitment to moving forward that accomplishes that.
That's why I no longer feel safe as a Black woman in America. Well, I haven't felt safe since 2000 and the election of George W. Bush. Why? Because it seemed that at least Whites were kinda trying to get better on racial issues. It was halting and often with horrible grace and reluctant as hell, but they did at least try to stumble clumsily forward. And then with Dubya, it was like they said, "Fuck it! We quit. And we didn't want to do none of that shit in the first place anyways!" And even though they're becoming a minority, Whites still rule here. And hell, even if they did become a minority population in America, just look at what a minority of Whites did to Blacks in South Africa. I feel that my rights are now up for grabs.
There is nothing to say that we cannot or will not go back to the bad ol' days. The calendar date has absolutely NOTHING to do with it. There is nothing to say that we can't or won't go back to Jim Crow or decide to retain the two-tiered citizenship visited upon PoC where we occupy the lower rung. It has everything to do with the will of folks to move forward. And that is what scares me. I see Whites not only NOT wanting to move forward, but wanting to turn back the clock. And these are Whites of ALL ages. And like I said, Whites still wield most of the power by far in America. I've always said if Whites as a whole truly wanted racism gone, it would have vanished long ago. Now it seems that they're okay with admitting that the whole equal rights for all deal was a mistake even though they never really truly committed to that in the first place. A few token, surface gestures do not a movement make.
I honestly think White America shot it's diversity and tolerance wad in the 1970s. That was when the Civil Rights movement was like, yesterday. And Whites had to contend with a newly liberated Black population that made it plain and clear that they would NOT be returning to the "good ol' days." I remember looking at the media and its prominent placement of Black entertainers, models and spokespersons. I remember seeing ads and while they were still tokenist, at least they had the Black models front and center amongst the White ones just to make sure you saw they used a Black model. TV shows had Blacks on and not in minstrel roles. The start of the multimediazation of Black cool began with more Whites than ever trying to cop and imitate.
Now even after saying all of that, Whites still elected Nixon twice under his "Moral Majority" platform (basically those Whites mad that their "good ol' days" were now gone and they had to at least give lip service to treating Blacks with respect). Media was still segregated as hell and the portrayals of Blacks still problematic as fuck. There were still societal issues out the yang like COINTELPRO and the need for a Black Panther Party in the first place. And the Civil Rights Movement basically ended with the murder of MLK and giant race riots in several cities all across the U.S.--not just in the mean ol' South. Basically for all the progress that occurred, it was very limited and truncated as hell. As far as a wad goes, it was barely a loogie.
And those same Baby Boomers that claim to be sooooooooooo hip and tolerant, by the end of the decade, had elected Ronald Reagan as President and turned to nurturing their careers instead of diversity and re-segregated many of those spheres they claim to have helped desegregate in the '60s.
Now Whites did try again in the 1990s with diversity and multiculturalism as well as Third Wave feminism that basically said, "Hey, other women do exist in the world besides well-off, White, Western ones." They were mostly young folks in their 20s, the kids or the younger sibs of the Boomers. Then what happened in the 2000s? The same thing that happened with the Boomers in the 80s. Folks got jobs, got married and had kids to support and raise. They then turned inward, concentrating on taking care of their own and didn't worry too much about those Others.
Americans love to believe that as we go on, we're getting better with these issues, and I don't just mean racial ones, as if time itself is what brings social change. PEOPLE bring social change, not time. We could just as easily be living in an agrarian society with plantations and slavery without electricity or our modern conveniences today as we do with our e-this and cyber-that devices and other modern conveniences. That's why it bugs me when folks go "C'mon people! It's 1986/1994/2002/2011!" to denounce what they see as retrograde bigotry. There is nothing at all magical about the year that keeps society moving forward. It's people's commitment to moving forward that accomplishes that.
That's why I no longer feel safe as a Black woman in America. Well, I haven't felt safe since 2000 and the election of George W. Bush. Why? Because it seemed that at least Whites were kinda trying to get better on racial issues. It was halting and often with horrible grace and reluctant as hell, but they did at least try to stumble clumsily forward. And then with Dubya, it was like they said, "Fuck it! We quit. And we didn't want to do none of that shit in the first place anyways!" And even though they're becoming a minority, Whites still rule here. And hell, even if they did become a minority population in America, just look at what a minority of Whites did to Blacks in South Africa. I feel that my rights are now up for grabs.
There is nothing to say that we cannot or will not go back to the bad ol' days. The calendar date has absolutely NOTHING to do with it. There is nothing to say that we can't or won't go back to Jim Crow or decide to retain the two-tiered citizenship visited upon PoC where we occupy the lower rung. It has everything to do with the will of folks to move forward. And that is what scares me. I see Whites not only NOT wanting to move forward, but wanting to turn back the clock. And these are Whites of ALL ages. And like I said, Whites still wield most of the power by far in America. I've always said if Whites as a whole truly wanted racism gone, it would have vanished long ago. Now it seems that they're okay with admitting that the whole equal rights for all deal was a mistake even though they never really truly committed to that in the first place. A few token, surface gestures do not a movement make.