Comic Bill Burr, who is white, has a routine about his uncomfortable moments when you know the white guy nursing his drink at the end of the bar is about to use the N-word[NSFW]. Barr is younger than me but close enough to my age that feeling uncomfortable about a racial epithet was a sign of personal acknowledgment and growth. The words, let me say this, often; they are the precursor before an insult. I have seen change. Black basketball players are not exclusively athletic, while their white counterparts have court smarts. As if it were a back-handed compliment about black athletes, the word articulate has gone by the wayside. Taken a little out of context, but who can forget the infamous Wolf Blitzer lament of the victims of Hurricane Katrina being sorrowfully described as “so poor, so black….” Almost as if being black carried with it a natural disadvantage. President Biden, who I think most feel is a fair man, fell into the abyss of stereotyping, describing candidate Barack Obama, “I mean, you’ve got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a story-book, man,”Biden said. When the statement returned to haunt Mr. Biden, who had declared himself in 2007, he apologized.
Former Rep. Steve King (R-IA) was booted out of Republican leadership after he said, among other things, for every valedictorian Dreamer who has been brought to the United States by their family, “there’s another 100 out there who, they weigh 130 pounds, and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.” His words were on the heels of dismissive statements about white supremacists, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” he asked a reporter.
Enter Donald Trump
Mr. Trump entered the race with a proven history of discriminatory housing cases and calling for the execution of men of color, even after their innocence was proven. Democrats still, at least publicly, shudder when faced with blatant discrimination. However, when Mr. Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower with Melania in tow, not even Freddy Krueger could bring a quiver. Monday, a sitting member of Congress tweeted out the idea of a second Civil War. Marjorie Taylor Greene called for a ‘national divorce’ of red and blue states.
It is easy to label what Rep. Greene says as either deplorable, racist, anti-Semitic, or just plain ignorant. The problem with ignoring her is that she is being rewarded. She is one of the GOP’s leading fundraisers and now sits on the Homeland Security Committee. The absurdity of someone sitting on the Homeland Security Committee advocating what amounts to a repeat of the Civil War would be funny if she were the drunken lady at the end of the bar. If that were not enough, she also suggested that anyone who moves from a blue state to a red state cannot vote until after a “cooling-off period.” It may be harsh to call Ms. Greene ignorant; after all, she suggested a little over a week ago that we shoot down the Chinese balloon because it may have been loaded with a virus or radioactive material. What could go wrong?
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