Under the White Sheet of Bigotry

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“White men don’t get to decide what racism is,” D.L Hughley said To Chris Cuomo on CNN.

They were so bad at judging it every time it happened. They were bad at judging it during slavery. They were bad at judging it during Jim Crow. White people don’t get to play this game. You don’t get to decide what the rules are here.”

Only certain people get to decide which people get to decide, only certain people get to vote, only certain people have rights.  Where have you heard this before?   It’s better bigotry than it is comedy, although the prospect of Americans having to carry a certificate of ancestry before voting or expressing an opinion has a bit of wry humor about it since that’s just what Europeans had to do under the Third Reich.

I italicized the word they because that’s where the deceit lurks and the humor goes to die. It’s a common yet crude technique in manipulators and liars and prejudice practitioners of all kinds to resort to generalities and specifics interchangeably.

If you want to describe a man fairly, you refer to the man, not to people you associate him with for your own purposes. You do the opposite when you intend not to be fair. You call him “typical” It’s the basic tool of the racist to point to a person and talk about “the black man”  “The Jew” “The Muslim” and yes, “the white man.”  It’s what bigots do: point to an insignificant or invented individual and apply the taint to millions. “All Mexicans are this or that because I heard a story about one of them.”  There’s shame in this practice, no matter how much anger you feel.

Hitler spoke of “The Jew” when he meant millions of individuals because it’s easier to defame a group, real or imagined and then transfer the smear to an individual. Is there really they when you’re talking about a huge and disparate group? Not any more than there would be if I responded to Hughley in such a hugely unfair way.

He represents himself alone and has no particular and inherited right to represent or speak for anyone else.  That’s because one’s rights do not depend on one’s ancestry or appearance or age or gender or religion or national origin or wealth and shame on you for putting on the white sheet of bigotry.

Frankly, I dream of an America where people are judged by the content of their character than by the color of their skin or the texture of their hair or where some percentage of their ancestors came from.

In Case You Missed It: Bigotry is Bigotry, Guilt Is Not Inherited

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Glenn Geist

Glenn Geist lives in South Florida and wastes most of his time boating, writing, complaining and talking on the radio
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Admin
5 years ago

It’s regional, although I expect there are a certain number of people who harbor some form of racism no matter where they live. When I lived in S. Georgia it was everywhere, but not so much in Ohio, although you do hear of it from time to time. Regardless, we’ve come a long way since German shepherds straining against their leashes and fire hoses designed to control the “contrary black man” although they didn’t use that particular word.

Mark Willis
5 years ago

Change takes time, and the US, and most of the civilized world for that matter, has come a long way over the last 100 years, and we’ve a long way to go if Trump doesn’t kill us all first.

Glenn R. Geist
Reply to  Mark Willis
5 years ago

Well yes, it does and probably will be forever before anyone will agree on whether enough has been done or should be done or will be done. Someday someone will denounce our best ideas and call us primitive.

jess
5 years ago

“…Frankly, I dream of an America where people are judged by the content of their character than by the color of their skin or the texture of their hair or where some percentage of their ancestors came from…”

That’s the dream of a lot of people Glenn, that is not happening any time very soon.

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