WHO HAS REALLY BEEN BAMBOOZLED ABOUT RACE?

                               

Just this past month I wrote about how the conservatives insist on ignoring the obvious- that white police killing of unarmed black folks is racially motivated.  One month later, conservatives are at it again, claiming they don’t know why a racist shot up an all black church.  This denial is more than just irksome.  It is a major impediment to achieving any kind of progress in race relations in this country.   It is also one of several reasons why we may never have a genuine discussion of race in this country.  It’s like trying to conduct peace talks with an invading warlord who insists there are no hostilities even as the battles take place right outside the window in plain sight and earshot.  A real discussion requires some sort of shared reality, honesty and a genuine desire to get at the truth.

Another key impediment to any discussion of race lies in the fact that any discussion has to be anchored in a certain amount of emotional detachment.  Name calling and insults do little to further any discussions.  Yet race is an inherently emotional subject, striking at the very core of people in general, and African Americans in particular.  Given the history of slavery, lynchings, and race riots perpetrated against blacks (just to name a few) it is difficult enough to talk about it even with clear headed and sympathetic whites.  It’s impossible to discuss it with people like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly.  Now I’m wishing there was something that could come after “impossible” in the difficulty range, because if discourse with O’Reilly or Hannity is impossible, then how do we categorize discourse with the negroes at Fox News who deny that racism exists?    The irony here is that these negroes who are commenting on the slaughter at the Emmanuel AME church, founded by Denmark Vesey, are the spiritual/psychological descendants of the negroes who turned in Vesey in the first place!  I don’t believe a real conversation, with any real increased understanding is possible with these people participating.

The culture of racism that the Fox news folks have dedicated themselves to ignoring ( while helping to perpetuate it) is but one aspect of a fundamental, self perpetuating  culture of fear, anger, ignorance and denial that is based on absolutely nothing, yet precludes  learning from history or anything else that could lead to the growth and maturation of the species. I don’t know if they are angry because of their fear which comes from their ignorance which is fueled by their denial or if they are in denial because of their fear which is caused by their anger which is fueled by their ignorance. (Too many permutations to list them all).   But I do know that these people ran out and bought all kinds of guns when Obama was elected, because they were afraid he would take their guns.  No one came after their guns.  Still they failed to learn from the experience.  They were afraid of the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) because people like Chuck Norris  and Ben Carson told them it would be the end of their freedom  (Does health insurance deprive one of the freedom from medical intervention when one becomes ill?)  Ronald Reagan scared them with warnings that Medicare would end their freedom.  It did not, but they failed to learn from that experience.  They were manipulated by the George W. Bush Administration’s terror alerts that kept going up as he neared reelection.  Once the election was over, the terror alarms went down and somehow they failed to notice.  They also failed to learn from the experience.   Back in the 1960’s unscrupulous realtors told them Hordes Of Negroes were coming to invade their neighborhoods and drive down the value of their property.  SCARED TO DEATH BY THE ADVENT OF THE Hordes Of Negroes, they sold their homes for quarters on the dollar and the Hordes Of Negroes never materialized. Once again, they failed to learn from the experience.   Now Donald Trump, of Birther fame, limited intellect and unlimited ego, says he wants to build a wall across the border with Mexico AND that he will make Mexico pay for it.  He recently polled in second in the primary in New Hampshire.  Still they have not learned from their experience.

This is the same culture that allows Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to blame the mess they created in Iraq and the Middle East on Barak Obama, even when we have them on tape contradicting themselves!!!.  Indeed we may have found the true horsemen of the Apocalypse: Fear, Anger, Ignorance and Denial.   We may also have discovered that portion of society that has truly and willingly been Had. Hoodwinked.  Bamboozled.