Some times the hypocrisy is just too fucking much. Hillary Clinton the biggest affirmative action baby of them all can run around on the backs of blacks and whine, through Ferraro, that because Barack is black he is getting the “wow” bounce. Between Monkey T-Shirts in Cobb county and vandalism in Indiana and the heartfelt sentiments of West Virginia and Kentucky:

“A lot of white folks in Kentucky aren’t going to vote for a black man. I thought about it. I think he would put too many minorities in positions over the white race. That’s my opinion. After 1964, you saw what the South did.” He meant that it went Republican. “Now what caused that? Race. There’s a lot of white people that just wouldn’t vote for a colored person. Especially older people. They know what happened in the sixties.” Link

Most folk don’t realize that white women earn more than black men, and minority women. So much for solidarity.

“the overwhelming majority of those who are the chief beneficiaries of affirmative action are white women.” Link

This election has brought out how racist the country still is. How racist, to its core, feminism is (I don’t include black feminism or womanism). For that I’m grateful. Slowly but surely the logic of lynching is returning to the public discourse, gaining a following, clothing itself in new garb. Rationalizing itself in the rhetoric of civility. Just remember, at the heart of nearly every lynching is a white woman. So while you get indignant and outraged, remember that.

Addenda

Am I blaming white women for lynching? Aside from specfic cases, absolutely not. However, to deny that , in reality or symbolically, on the other side of that dark, hulking, smoldering, piece of slaughtered flesh hanging from the may pole is a woman. To deny that lynching is the politics of the body and domination is farce. To pretend that this drama was played out over any other image or rationale than white supremacy is lunacy. And to pretend that the ultimate symbol and myth surrounding this event was not a white woman is just cowardice. That is why it bothers us. That ugly little truth that we push into the closet as we whisper like a mantra “I am not Racist!”

Lynching is a systematic form of terror that supports and under girds an economy and a culture. That culture is based on codes, laws, written often, by men. Rooted however, in the condition of one’s status in this “American Society.” The idea of American equality is a myth. America is built on the idea that providence (read GOD) will reward hard work with prosperity. We shorten it to the concept of merit. However, this has never been the case. And is not the case to day. You see all things being equal America is a land of equal opportunity where hard work is met with reward, and the ability to rise up, to make progress, to evolve is limited only by one’s “god given” ability. American laws are “just and impartial;” we are “a nation of laws not of men.” None of these things are true. Not a single damn one. Never has been but, someday may be.

Now, ask yourself, what the hell happens if all things aren’t equal? This incredibly efficient machine, this perfect equilibrium that removes all resistance to advancement save perseverance, talent, providence and will, that levels all other vicissitudes of life – how powerful a mechanism that must be. I mean think about the “promise of America.”

Hey you over there! Tired, Hungry, You! Come over here, and if you have talent and grind and a little luck you can be more here than you are there.

That is a hell of proposition.

It’s a proposition I believe.

I mean think about it. How powerful, efficient, and effective a system of government and economy must be in order to remove all the burdens to advancement save, talent, hard, work and luck. That is a hell of a machine. A very powerful machine. Capable of phenomenal feats. I think America is that.

However, while I believe in the efficiency of the machine, its efficiency has nothing to do with the initial conditions in which it is operating.

But herein lies the rub: The American system of political economy is incredibly efficient and powerful. Therefore, it does a marvelous job at perpetuating its initial conditions. We live in a country with the highest incarceration rate in the world. Roughly half of which are for non-violent drug offences. Blacks and Hispanics make up more than half of all people in Jail. And yet private companies make a profit from the incarceration drug arrests and immigration violations.

Lynching was a system of terror that supported the plantation agriculture in the south and industrial production in the north. The agents of this system of terror had names like Ku Klux Klan, Pinkerton, Wells Fargo, Federal Bureau of Investigation, or just Police. Today the names remain the same, and so do the targets – the rank and file of Americans. (Hillary is not rank and file and Barack can’t personally lend his campaign 10 million. But, I digress).

Where African Americans were concerned this system of suppression, oppression – terror, had a tried and true formula. Instead of drug offences, like they use today, they used the rape laws held over from the slave codes. This is why blacks were required to step down off sidewalks, look down (it was against the law to look directly at a white person – reckless eyeballing
they called it), address every white person as sir or mam no matter their age.

The pattern goes like this: a charge of rape, sexual misconduct or threat is charged against a black man, either by a white woman or in the name of a white woman. The rumor spreads, the indignation grows, the fear of a black beast grows and … we find said black male swinging charred and dismembered from a poplar tree. The variations are endless. But they all pretty much begin the same: “That nigger raped a white woman.”

That is the Logic of lynching. Yeah, I know makes you squirm don’t it. Barack had a mother; has a wife, and two daughters … but sure he is misogynist. May be. But really, is sweetie the best evidence?

I mean Barry really has a gift for projection. I decided to just shut the fuck up and watch him work. His wake is devastating. It’s like 28 weeks later. He is protected on high by the prince of darkness himself. Some might call him Elite. No one has mentioned a whisper about drugs or sex … It’s like deja vu all over again. Another glitch in the matrix.

Segregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructive environment totally unknown to most white Americans. What white Americans have never fully understood but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it. To continue present policies is to make permanent the division of our country into two societies; one, largely Negro and poor, located in the central cities; the other, predominantly white and affluent, located in the suburbs and in outlying areas. The first choice, continuance of present policies, has ominous consequences for our society. The share of the nation’s resources now allocated to programs for the disadvantaged is insufficient to arrest the deterioration of life in central city ghettos. Under such conditions, a rising proportion of Negroes may come to see in the deprivation and segregation they experience, a justification for violent protest, or for extending support to now isolated extremists who advocate civil disruption. Large-scale and continuing violence could result, followed by white retaliation, and, ultimately, the separation of the two communities in a garrison state. Even if violence does not occur, the consequences are unacceptable. Development of a racially integrated society, extraordinarily difficult today, will be virtually impossible when the present black ghetto population of 12.5 million has grown to almost 21 million. Link

Right now we are in one of those moments when white America can’t stand to hear the truth about itself. The fact that America is a brutal culture based on self deception, exploitation and hatred is hard for some to swallow. The fact Pat Buchanan can articulate insanity like this:

America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream. Link

Seriously, I won’t spend a lot of time on this bull but, the cotton, timber, oil, steel, textiles, ships, corn, cattle, gold, tobacco, sugar and rice that made America the global power it is today was processed and harvested by a pool of free or nearly free labor extracted predominantly from the lives of Africans in America. Pat Buchanan should get down on his knees and thank god that there were Africans here to support his transition into whiteness. He ought to thank god that we didn’t learn our Christianity from the likes of him. Otherwise we might be prone to lynching.

We need to sit down and examine what the hell we are doing in the world and to each other. White folk need to wake up from the illusion that they are somehow favored by god, that their nation is virtuous, just, and good. We need to take an honest look at how we live our lives and come to grips with the fact that the American way of life is not built on merit, god’s grace, justice, or even the rule of law. It is built on exploitation, rape, pillage, genocide and terror. Above all, it is built on selfish greed. Voting for Barack or Hillary is not going to change the fact that American culture is unsustainable. It has nothing to do with Black folk and everything to do with how the Irish, Italian, Scots, etc, became white.