Biting The Hand That Feeds?

There is a history of white men in this country allowing their racism to be manipulated by other white men, to the extent of voting against theirs and their families's political, economic, and social interests; thus, contributing to their subordinate position in society.

For instance, in the first half of the nineteenth century (indeed, throughout the century), white men were told and believed that they were superior to white women and all other women. This racist thinking and belief was manipulated by white politicians who convinced other white men to oppose women having the right to vote.

In a family where there was a father and two sons, and a mother and three daughters, that family in this racist context had only three votes. But if the women had been able to vote the family would have had seven votes. This additional political power would have made it possible for this family and others similarly situated to have augmented their political power against society's dominant elements, and to advance their lives in the country.

In the South, in the first half of the nineteenth century, the racism of middle and lower class white men was manipulated effectively, preventing them from joining with Black slaves and nonslave Blacks to end slavery, and thus, an institution that slaveholders used not only to enslave Blaks but to suppress many Whites.

But the slaveholders convinced middle and lower class white men that being white and feeling superior to Blacks was more important than anything else, and also held out to them the possibility that they might become slaveholders, too, and their wives mistresses of slave plantations. One of the baleful things this pernicious behavior produced in the South in the course of its history was generations of poor and uneducated Black and white people, with the latter being called by upper class and better off middle class white people, "poor Whites, or much more scathingly, "white trash."

In more recent times, Ronald Reagan and other Republicans manipulated the racism of middle and lower class white men to gain their vote, and then promoted fiscal and economic policies in Washington that increased the wealth of the richest people in the country, and widened the gap between the rich and the poor.

This was also done by the President and Republicans in Congress (aided by southern white Democrats) cutting social programs, which benefitted middle and lower class white people (as well as Blacks and others in the country and, indeed, with the cutting being aimed at hurting Blacks the most, as a way of accomodating the interests of southern white allies who did not want government aid for Blacks).

But cutting social programs does not mean cutting government spending. The programs are cut, and the funds that would have gone to them, are shifted upwards, to the rich, to big business and industrial corporations, to military spending, and to other "worthy" projects.

Ronald Reagan and other Republicans also showed that they were no friends of labor unions and the labor movement. Indeed, Reagan himself was very anti-labor and unions, and he and his administrations did their best fully to suppress and discredit unions in the country--the economic and political weapons of white and other hard working people. But such people were placed in jeopardy and hardship owing to so many among them voting for people who moved against their unions, themselves, and their families.

Will this kind of contradictory and self-suppressive history continue, or will there be a break with it? There are those Whites today who are Republicans and Democrats who say they will not vote for Senator Barack Obama as President because he's Black. That, of course, is not the reason.

To put it this way is to make the Senator's race the problem, and not the racism of the white people holding this view. This is blaming the victim and not the racist believer, and letting the latter off the hook and escaping critique.

Racists are not born, they are made. There is nothing in the genetic or biological make-up of white people (or any people) to make them racists. Those who are have been taught, one way or another, to be racists. What they have learned can be unlearned, as difficult as it might be.

It is clearly absurd to believe that Senator Obama's skin color, hair texture, lip or leg construction--some of his racial features--determine his ability to think, what his values are, the quality of his political skills, or his leadership capabilities. But this is what people are absurdly saying when they say that the Senator's race is the problem.

Many among them are saying that Senator Obama does not share their values. But he believes in and advocates American values. Are these not their values, also? They would readily say they are, and thus, when they say that Senator Obama does not share their values, they are really saying, prompted by their racism, that he should not think of himself as an American and hold American values, and that he should be penalyzed for seeking to do these things.

This is the kind of fanciful and irrational thinking that the Republican Party, and its 527 cohorts, are counting on millions of white people doing, that will make them amenable to their racist manipulation and fear tactics, and also their ability to make them sacrificial lambs.

But will such white men and women allow themselves to be manipulated and used as in the past, or will they resist and reject the efforts, and decide to align themselves with the non-racist future in which the country is heading?

If they choose not to resist or reject, and to be willing political tools again, here are some questions for them to consider:

1) If President Obama's health insurance program gets passed into law will they reject its benefits, because a Black President provided them?

2) Will they say to their children that they can't accept the $4,000 a year subsidy that a Black President offers them for their college education?

3) Will they reject an annual increase in the minimum wage, adjusted to the inflation rate, because a Black President provided the increase? Would this be true particularly of blue collar women who would greatly benefit from an annually higher minimum wage?

4) Will those seniors making less than $50,000 a year reject not having to pay an income tax on that money, because a Black President offered them that opportunity?

5) Will those on the verge of losing their homes reject a Black President's program to help finance their mortgages so they can keep their homes?

6) Will they reject the middle class tax cut that a Black President has provided them, or a stimulus check to aid them, as well as the economy?

7) Will those who want the protection and preservation of Roe v. Wade object to a Black President putting someone on the high judicial bench to do these things?

8) Will they say to their sons and daughters who have returned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that they should not accept the health care benefits and medical treatments, or other kinds of veteran benefits that a Black President has provided them?

9) Will they reject a new green job or an infrastructure construction or repair job, or technical training for new kinds of jobs, that a Black President has provided?

10) Will they reject benefits from the social security system that a Black President has kept solvent and responsive to their needs, and has kept from being privatized that would put their retirement and old age security at great risk?

11) Will those workers who want to unionize refuse the help of a President who would enable them to do so?

12) Will those in small towns and rural areas in great need of medical care refuse services from doctors, nurses, and medical facilities that a Black President made available to them?

This kind of questioning could go on and on. And beyond it there are two additional questions to be asked. If people can accept government financial and social program aid from a Black President, couldn't they have also voted for him to put him in office, so he could do the things that benefitted them?

Or would they feel that it was just and proper not to vote for a Black President, accept the benefits he offered, and also just and proper to bite his hand as he extended it to them to help them?

Can this kind of thinking, and this kind of behavior, be done in good conscience and with a feeling of living up to the ideals and sense of right and fairness in America? Can it be done by saying that Senator Obama does not share their values or their hopes and aspirations?