Race

    I wish I could somehow communicate what I know about racism.  The discussion in public forums seems to fall so far short of reality that I really fear that Americans are blind to something they really need so see.

    I grew up in a very racist home with a very racist family and a racist culture.  No one who has not seen it close up, actually from the inside, can really appreciate how toxic it can be.

    My mother was a virulent racist.  She hated black people with an amazing intensity, just because they were black.  Mom was an intense and angry person generally and capable of holding frightening prejudices about just about anyone, but people of color held a special place in her pantheon of evils.  She knew to an absolute certainty that every black person was completely worthless and wanted only to bring down their superiors, white people.  She would not trust or accept a person who was not white in any role.  She would rather die than consult a black doctor and would keep an agonizing toothache in preference to treatment by a black dentist or dental assistant.   I grew up with a person who would and did cheerfully contemplate genocide and would have been happy to participate in it.

    My father was also firmly convinced that white people were superior to any other race and that black people were stupid, lazy and untrustworthy.  He was in most respects very much a left wing socialist, but the benefits of his world would never be extended to black people.  In his case he was actually in a position to do something about it and he did.  He was a labor organizer and a union official and considered it an important part of his job in labor to keep "the trades" all white.  All of his comrades seemed to agree wholeheartedly. 

    Everyone in the extended family seemed to hate black people and all of the people in my parents' social circle.  It was an article of faith and part of what made them a community. 

    It was pretty obvious that all of the intense emotion was rooted in fear.  These were people who profoundly believed that their place in the world and their security was dependent on racial privilege.  Their community, economic status, personal safety and everything of value to them was at stake.  Racial cohesion and the oppression of other races were the support structure of their entire lives. 

    I'm not speaking of these people with hatred or contempt, they were my family and loved ones.  I am just realistic about what I saw and heard.   I'm 65 years old and that stuff is far from my most important memory, though it may be the most tragic part of my heritage.

    When a black man was elected President I could see what was going to happen as clearly as if it was written out for me.  For me the Tea Party movement was like coming home.  (Not something I would ever want to do.)  I know exactly who these people are and what they mean by their code words and frantic fears.  I know why they are eager to "believe" all manner of ridiculous things about the black President - a muslim, a socialist, a terrorist sympathizer, foreign born, trying to destroy America and take revenge on whites for all that hatred and oppression.  They don't really believe this nonsense.  It is a code for what they really do believe, that he is black and world is upside down. 

    Sane people don't seem really to believe how poisonous and compelling racial hatred and fears are for a certain subset of the population.  People raised in a sane world where their family and loved ones talked and behaved in a half way sane fashion are just not able to see this terrible reality.  By the way it is terrible for all of us.  For the people who face this insane hatred because of their race.  For anyone who is trying to make reasonably sane public policy.  For people who are trying to live decent lives in a decent world and most of all for the poor deluded fools who feel that their lives and everything they care about are going to be crushed by a tide of racial inferiors moving into greater and greater positions of power.  This crap is a real test of democracy and I am very unhappy about the tepid response to the challenge.  These people are more than ready to destroy everything which makes America a place of hope and decency out of insane panic.  Their whole approach to public life is infantile.  Where are the adults?