anti-racism

Supporting the Right of Palestinians Not to Be Murdered is Not Anti-Semitic, And We Must Confront the Rise in Anti-Semitism

~ Randy Blazak ~ 2 Comments

April 27, 2024

Free the Israeli hostages. Hamas is a terrorists organization. Israel has a right to exist. Also, no Jewish college student should be made to feel unsafe because they are Jewish, including at my alma mater, Emory University. I wanted to get that out of the way before someone on Fox News accuses me of anti-Semitism. As someone who has dedicated his entire adult life to studying and combatting neo-Nazism, I think I have a pretty good feel for what anti-Semitism is and there is an alarming lot of it, but the de facto defending of the right of Palestinians to live is not anti-Semitism. But I’m not Jewish, so I might be missing things that don’t look anti-Semitic but feel anti-Semitic.

I’m writing this on the fifth anniversary of the Poway synagogue shooting. On April 27, 2019, a 19-year-old white supremacist walked into the Chabad of Poway synagogue in San Diego and opened fire, with an AR-15 rifle, on the last day of Passover. He killed one woman and injured three others, including the rabbi. Before the shooting, he posted a manifesto on 8chan that claimed Jews “meticulously planned genocide of the European race.” Because he was inspired by the Christchurch mosque shootings that had resulted in 51 deaths in New Zealand a month earlier, the killer had attempted to burn down a mosque in Escondido before his deadly shooting spree in Poway.

Last week, I sat in on an ADL webinar that shared that anti-Semitic incidents in 2023 increased 140 percent over those reported in 2022, spiking after the Hamas attack in Israel. If I’ve learned one thing in the 30+ years I’ve done this work, it’s that racists and neo-Nazis are opportunists. When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 767 civilians (including 36 children), they saw a massive opportunity. So how do I speak about the over 38,000 Palestinian civilians (including nearly 16,000 children) killed by Israel in their war on Hamas without being pulled into the black hole of anti-Semitism?

It’s sickeningly clear that the far right is coming at this issue from both sides. On one side, it has injected anti-Semitic tropes and conspiracy theories into a part of the pro-Palestinian movement. (We can debate how big or small that part is.) They’ve also utilized the claim of “anti-Semitism” to shut down sincere protests to defend the human rights of Palestinians, that can include the accusation that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza (which was alleged by the United Nations last month).

I feel the need to point out four basic assertions:

Thing 1: A firm critique of the policies of the government of Israel is not anti-Semitism. Being critical of the misogynistic policies of the Taliban in Afghanistan does not make one Islamophobic. There are countless Jews, both inside and outside of Israel, who oppose the wholesale slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and reject the actions of Bibi Netanyahu. Are those Jews anti-Semitic?

Thing 2: The core tenant of anti-Semitism is that Jewish people, as a group, have some secret control of the world (banks, the media, government, hip hop, etc.) that shapes global events. It is completely possible to see Israel’s military campaign as an action of a sovereign nation and not an operation of a “global cabal” of “evil Jews.”

Thing 3: The heartbreaking spike in anti-Semitic incidents and crimes has been paralleled by an equally heartbreaking spike in anti-Muslim incidents and crimes, including the murder of Wadea al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Palestinian boy in Illinois who was stabbed 26 times by his landlord who had been listening to conservative radio following the October 7 attack.

Thing 4: The vast majority of the deaths caused by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been civilians, including women and children, who are not members of Hamas, and have not resulted in the liberation of Israeli hostages. Additionally, the created famine and destruction of schools, hospitals, and infrastructure in Gaza has not resulted in the freeing of Israeli hostages.

Having said all that, we cannot deny anti-Semitism has been witnessed in pro-Palestine protests in two ways.

First is the idea that a free Palestine requires the elimination of the state of Israel. There are many, including myself and President Biden, who believe a “two state solution” is the most rational way out of this mess. But those who chant, “From the river to sea, Palestine will be free!” do not see Israel existing in that vision. (Although, I’m willing to bet a lot of the college students chanting that have no idea were the Jordan River is. Americans are pretty stupid when it comes to geography.) You know who also wants the destruction of Israel? Hamas and neo-Nazis.

The second issue is how Jews in general (including Jewish Americans) are scapegoated for policies of the government of Israel. While there are significant numbers of American Jews who are in the streets and college quads protesting for the human rights of Palestinians, that any Jewish person be made to feel unsafe or targeted for the policies of government over 6000 miles away is the definition of irrational. But Jews have long have been the target of irrational scapegoating, including by one well known anti-Semite, Adolf Hitler.

I remember what it feels like to be young and righteous. When I was an undergraduate at Emory, our issue was apartheid in South Africa. Like the students there now, we set up a shantytown on the quad and called for the university to divest from the country. Emory was built on Coca-Cola money and Coke had plenty of operations in South Africa. (In 1986, Coca-Cola pulled out of South Africa. You’re welcome.) Is the movement to divest from Israeli “apartheid” the same situation? As an undergrad in 2024, I might see the similarities. I also might get caught up in the chants and rallies the blur the lines between anti-Netanyahu-ism and anti-Zionism. But utilizing police to crush the protests doesn’t help protestors (including well-meaning college students) to better understand the complexities of this issue. I’ll tell you this, when the cops came for us in the 1980s, it further radicalized my position as I dug my heels in for the long fight. These protests seem the perfect opportunity to widen the conversation, centering both Jewish and Palestinian voices. (Note: Not all Gaza residents are Muslim. There is a small Christian population there. And probably a few Goths.) Police crackdowns silence the discussion.

This could be a lengthy tome about the need to find a “middle ground” in this crisis. That talk does not serve the children of Gaza, who face the same certainty of death from Israeli rockets that the children of Ukraine face from Russian rockets. Those kids don’t know about Hamas or Israel’s tortured history in a hostile landscape. That call for compromise would also not soothe the families of the 133 Israeli hostages still being held in some God-forsaken hellhole. That is not the intent.

The intent is highlight how the very powerful charge of anti-Semitism has been weaponized to shut down calls for a cease fire, calls to stop the slaughter, calls to choose policies that don’t result in human carnage. Some Americans are afraid to oppose the war out of fear of being labeled anti-Jewish. As I said when this thing started last fall, it is possible to be both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel. The deep emotional nature of this conflict obscures what should be ethical clarity. I will leave it to the psychoanalysts to determine if Jewish trauma is now being levied on Palestine. I will leave it to the philosophers to determine if genocide is a defense against genocide. (And if “genocide” is even an accurate term.) I just want to hold space where we are allowed to express our outrage and sadness for what we continue to do to each other. Stop the killing.

The Moral Arc: Did MLK Get This One Wrong?

~ Randy Blazak ~ Leave a comment

January 15, 2024

In this world of soundbites, memes, and famous quotes as commodities, there are few people that are more misquoted or quoted out of context than Martin Luther King, Jr., who we celebrate today. I could make a full-time job out of correcting white people who quote one line in Dr. King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream Speech” to absolve themselves of the accusation of racism or cast the Black Live Matter movement of undermining King’s “dream.”

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

They don’t know anything about the speech or why he gave it, other than that line. “Well, I was raised to be colorblind, so we’re good.” A. No, you weren’t, and B. No, you’re not. King was very clear in the context of THAT speech (You don’t have to read anything else!), that that dream cannot be realized UNTIL we dismantle the systemic racism that disadvantages people of color. You don’t get your “colorblind” desert if you have not first fixed the problem of racism. And, white people, we have not fixed the problem of racism. In 2021, MLK’s daughter, Bernice King, tweeted, “Please stop using out of context quotes from my father to excuse not working to eradicate racism. His ‘content of their character’ quote lies within a full speech, ‘I Have A Dream,’ in which he talks about ending racist police brutality and economic injustice.”

There’s another oft repeated line from King that bears revisiting in the contemporary context.

MLK’s last Sunday sermon was on March 31, 1968 at the National Cathedral in Washington DC, where he famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” He was there to preach about American poverty and the Vietnam War. That day he also said, “This day we are spending five hundred thousand dollars to kill every Vietcong soldier. Every time we kill one we spend about five hundred thousand dollars while we spend only fifty-three dollars a year for every person characterized as poverty-stricken in the so-called poverty program, which is not even a good skirmish against poverty.” But it’s the “moral arc” line you will see on social media today.

I always took great comfort in his moral arc quote. It made me feel that I was on the right side of history. That we might lose a battle here and there but the larger victory of social justice would be attained. “We shall overcome, someday.” Someday. That must have been motivating to civil rights activists in 1968, who had experienced their fare share of setbacks. President Obama loved the line so much he had it sown into a rug in the Oval Office.

But the problem is that there is a false comfort in the historical determinism of that line. That the defeat of the forces of inequity is an inevitability. It WILL happen. Now it should be pointed out that for Dr. King, a Christian minister, “justice,” was likely defined more theologically than sociologically. The “moral arc” line was borrowed from 19th century clergyman Theodore Parker. But for the rest of us, it meant that, sooner or later, racism would be vanquished and we could live in Star Trek-world, were things like racism, poverty, and homophobia would be sad relics of ancient centuries.

More I study history, the more I think that is a dangerous idea. Just ask Plato what happened to his vision for a just society. (Quick answer – Romans.)

I like to start all my sociology classes with a discussion of the Enlightenment. In the 1700’s, when we finally began to pull ourselves out of the centuries-long “dark ages,” when the anti-science “church” burned people at the stake, and the landed gentry ripped people’s bodies apart with such regularity, they created some serious intergenerational white people trauma. This “age of reason” gave us our modern sciences and the democratic experiment that is the United States of America. The values of rationality and empiricism guide us to this day, whether it is expanding voting access or sending probes to Uranus.

But will this enlightenment last forever?

Scholars generally mark the intellectual explosion that occurred after the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715 as the start of the Enlightenment. But are we still in the Age of Reason? There was much discussion in the early 2000s, after the 9/11 attack by religious fanatics and George W. Bush’s war on climate science, that the Enlightenment was over. A new dark age was upon us. The rise of anti-intellectual and anti-Democratic aspiring authoritarians like Donald Trump would point us in that direction. The nihilism of the MAGA movement could not be more counter to the basic principles of the Enlightenment.

Students of history can easily point out the fallacy of MLK’s “moral arc” claim. History is more like a pendulum than an arc. Two steps forward, one step back. The science (and ethics)-based future we get in Star Trek may be promised, but it is not guaranteed. (And MLK was a Star Trek fan.)The future might look a lot more like Road Warrior. It’s completely reasonable to say that when my daughter is my age, the United States of America might not even exist. There are no DEI programs in the MAGA dystopia.

In the face of a rapidly accelerating climate crisis, an expanding gap between the wealthy and the rest of us, and populist authoritarians, like Trump, who know how to politically instrumentalize our fears, our utopian fantasies of the future, where we live in King’s envisioned “beautiful symphony of brotherhood,” could go off the rails in a flash. The barbarians are at the gate and they have red caps and fully automatic weapons.

The title of Dr. King’s speech that Sunday was, “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.” At the end of that speech, he proclaimed, “If we will but do it, we will bring about a new day of justice and brotherhood and peace.” The faith can’t be in the “moral arc.” Instead it must be in our dedication to redouble our work. Those who want to make America Jim Crow again are marching. Their voices are getting louder every day. I’m betting Martin would urge us to remain awake and put our shoulders to the wheel before the arc of the universe swings us into another dark age.

Jacksonville is America and America is Sick: Can We Cure White Supremacist Violence?

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

August 29, 2023

You hate to say it’s textbook, but Saturday’s mass shooting in Jacksonville, Florida, that killed three innocent African-American people at a Dollar General store, fits a now familiar pattern. A young white man, living at home, with swastikas drawn on legally purchased guns, travels to an area associated with a minority community with the specific intent to kill non-white people. Terrorism experts, like Tim Clancy, refer to his method as a template.

The shooter, Ryan Palmeter, 21, penned lengthy a racist manifesto, alerting the authorities (and his parents) to his murderous intentions, and scrawled racist messages in white on his weapons. This is now the template, seen in Christchurch, New Zealand (2019, 51 killed), El Paso, Texas (2019, 23 killed), Buffalo, New York (2022, 10 killed), and other racist attacks. Brenton Tarrant, the New Zealand gunman, has become a role model for disaffected white males in America who see “their” country being “stolen” by the “woke mob” and their only recourse is mass violence.

But is it?

Much of will be made that this attack happened in Florida, a state framed by policies hostile to civil rights, critical race theory, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) efforts, black history, and a particular practice of disproportionately incarcerating its black population. African-Americans make up 14 percent of Florida’s population but 48 percent of its prison population. (African-Americans represent 12 percent of the U.S. population and about a third of the prison population.) Black Floridians are five times more likely to be locked up than white Floridians but offending is relatively equal across races. Florida is not a good place to be black.

On May 20, 2023 the NAACP issued a rare “travel advisory” for black people thinking of visiting the Sunshine State: “Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.” 

But the assertions made about the imbedded nature of racism in Florida could be made in every state in this country, included here in the “woke” (whatever that means) Pacific Northwest. This happened in Florida but it could just have easily happened here in Oregon. As someone who is wrestling with a family a member with cancer, I recognize that denial is the first obstacle in solving deeply systemic problems. My brother is in denial that his Stage 4 rectal cancer is in multiple parts of his body and will likely be the cause of his death. Similarly, America in denial that white supremacy has metastasized and is present throughout our society.

It’s 2023 and America has a serious white supremacy problem. In 1992, during the Rodney King riots, a white student raised his hand to tell me, “Racism ended in the sixties. Black people are just complaining now.” I responded, “What day? What day racism end? Shouldn’t we mark such an important day with a holiday, or at least a  comparative plate that says, ‘The Day Racism Ended and Black People Just Started Complaining’?” He had no response because racism never ended. It evolved.

Diagnosis 

So dealing with the denial allows us to get to the diagnosis; America has a white supremacy problem in 2023 and it’s not just the criminal justice system. Like a cancer run wild, it is in every aspect of our society. Every system in this county, from schools to health care, is infected with white supremacist norms. There is still a “death gap” between black and white life expectancies in America. The extra 4 years that whites get has nothing to do with gun violence and everything to do with access to health care. But it’s also in all of us. The most progressive liberal Barbie-loving, Bud Light-drinking American, white, black, or otherwise, internalizes white supremacist ideas. I’ve seen it in my young daughter and in myself. Racism is a cancer.

The good news is many of us are treating it. We’re reading, learning, and talking, and acknowledging our mistakes, and building our resistance with healthy doses of antiracist ideologies. We’re exercising our antiracist muscles in hopes of exorcising the racist demons inside us. But a whole bunch of people aren’t. And they are ripe for body crushing tumors.

The treatment

I don’t know if there will ever be a cure for cancer. It’s a slippery thing. There are a bunch of treatments, including surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. My brother is in chemo but he thinks buying pills advertised on InfoWars will save him. Who knows? He might be right. Racism is much the same. We know education and interaction with different populations can serve as a good inoculation, like sticking to a solid Mediterranean diet (olives!), but it’s not perfect. Greeks die of cancer and white people in diverse Florida get infected with Stage 4 racism.

So, like investments, you want to diversify your treatment options (to mix metaphors). My brother can stick with chemo and put his hopes in turmeric. When treating (not curing) racism we need a number of options for different stages of sickness.

So let’s come back to Jacksonville. We should not go any farther in this discussion without acknowledging the incredible trauma that the August 26 attack inflicted on black people across the country. To be black in America is to be constantly reminded that there are people who want to kill you for being black in America. I am writing this in a bar in Northeast Portland and I happened to open my laptop next to a young African-American man who noticed me writing.

Him: What are you working on?

Me: I’m writing a piece about what happened in Jacksonville on Saturday.

Him: They will never stop killing us just for existing.

I didn’t have to tell him what happened in Jacksonville. He’s black. He knew. And he didn’t say “They will never stop trying to kill us,” because we white people are killing them, and not just in discount stores.

So doctors who view black pain differently than white pain (and recent research shows they do), might need a different treatment plan than neo-Nazis who draw swastikas on their AR-15s.

Could Ryan Palmeter have been treated?

Ryan Palmeter, the Jacksonville shooter, is dead. His racism killed him, along with three innocent people who he took out on the way. He initially wanted his killing field to be the halls of Edward Waters University, a historically black college, but he was turned away at the gate. He is not here to answer for his crime. He has ceased to exist. But we are left wondering what could have been done to prevent this wounding of America.

According to the FBI, 80 percent of terrorist plots that are thwarted are stopped because someone close to terrorist came forward. They contacted law enforcement with concerns or talked the potential terrorist into turning themselves in. That’s a lot of carnage that didn’t happen because someone acted. Palmeter lived with his parents and in the days to come we might learn why his parents did not intervene. (Palmeter had come to the attention of authorities in the past.) But what if others had done so?

We will likely get a glimpse of Palmeter’s manifesto, what Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters called a “diary of a madmen.” And we will learn that Palmeter had been building to this attack over a long period of time. He didn’t suddenly become angry at blacks on Friday and go on a killing spree on Saturday. There will be a long trail of red flags that pointed to his escalation towards terrorism. Obviously, he had been studying previous attacks, including Christchurch, Buffalo, and others. What if someone had seen this young man’s obsession with violent racism and stepped in to divert his path to death?

All of us are credible messengers to someone. There is at least one person on this planet who cares about what we have to say. What if some of those people in Ryan Palmeter’s circle had said, “Dude, what’s going on? I’m worried you’re going down some black hole that you’re not going to come out of.” And if had replied, “Well, black people blah, blah, blah….” And then his credible messengers could have said, “Are you 100% sure that’s true? Where did you learn that? And if it is 100% true, what’s the most effective way to do something about it? It’s probably not violence. Let’s look at other options.”

Violence has become an unacceptable norm in this country. It’s too easy to utilize gun violence as a form of expression. “I’m angry at the world, so I want the world to suffer.” But we’re all angry about something. I’m angry that CenturyLink charged me for three months of wifi after I had their router unplugged. I could go shoot up a CenturyLink kiosk at the mall or I could try to be better about keeping track of my bills. Grievances can be incredibly emotional but we have choices about what to do about them. Sometimes we need a little help figuring that out, especially if we are young men with access to high powered weapons.

Treating Stage 4 racism

In my line of work I encounter a lot of angry white men. They have been told that all of their problems are because of “them.” And the scapegoating comes from the hills to the ivory halls. They haven’t learned that for every problem they’ve got, people of color have 99. They think “their” country is being stolen. But it’s never been their country. It’s only ever been our country. If we can empower the credible messengers among us to have those hard conversations, things may sink in with those angry people. That includes some kid who has been hanging out on fringe websites, like 4chan, and drafting his manifesto. “Yeah, I never thought of it that way. Killing people is probably a stupid idea.”

We’re not going to “cure” every racist mass murderer, like the one who put Jacksonville in the news on Saturday, but there is a chance that this treatment changes the culture, making it more resistant to racism, like getting Americans to eat more Mediterranean food. And that these intervening conversations may help to de-escalate situations that might otherwise add to America’s long national nightmare of hate crime. For those who suffer from the trauma of our past inaction, it’s worth the effort.

How to Be Less White

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

April 6, 2023

White supremacy is a real thing. Let me be more specific, white supremacy in 2023 is a very real thing. And it’s not just Klansmen and whoever pays the “Blacks for Trump” guy to stand behind the GOP’s favorite felon at every rally. It’s in all of us who have grown up in a society that brainwashes us to believe “white” is the standard to judge all other races by. If you think Jesus Christ was a white dude, you are a victim of internalized white supremacy. And White Jesus has done more damage than any Klan rally ever could.

I shouldn’t have to convince you of the damage all this white supremacy has done on people of color. From the Mexican-American woman who is considered “fiery” Latina to the black man bleeding in the middle of the street because police assumed he had a gun, and a trillion other examples of micro-aggressions, discrimination, bias crimes, and hate groups dreaming of genocide, I shouldn’t have to convince you. But if you are a white person who thinks racism magically vanished in the 1960s and all this is liberal fantasy, just read any account by a person of color. (I have been reminded that it is not black people’s job to educate white people about reality.) And don’t you dare say, “I was raised to be colorblind,” because you weren’t.

This isn’t about how white supremacy hurts BIPOC folks. It’s about how white supremacy hurts white folks.

As a feminist scholar, much of my work centers around how patriarchy hurts men. Yes, we benefit greatly from it, but it also squeezes us into a small box called “masculinity,” where you better not “cry like a girl,” and solving a problem “like men” means beating the shit out of each other. There’s a reason women live, on average, seven years longer than men. Whether it’s young men popping wheelies in crotch rockets on the interstate or older men not going to the doctor to have that lump looked at, men’s internalized sexism presents them infinite stupid ways to die. We are afraid to be vulnerable and it is killing us in droves.

Similarly, white supremacy puts us white people in a bland box. The monster of American assimilation screams at non-WASPs to do their damndest to look, think, act, pray, and eat as WASPy as possible. But his “melting pot” con also burns people of European origin. It tells them to give up their ethnic identity and morph into this imaginary, but powerful, thing called “white people.” How many times have you heard a white person describe themselves as an ethnic “mutt”? Whites gain entry into an elite county club but the price is their beautiful culture.

The category of white people is a relatively recent invention. There were no white people before the late 17th century. There were European people but there were no white people because there are no people who are the color white. (Ghosts not withstanding.) White people were invented to distinguish themselves from “black” Africans (who are also not the color black) to rationalize the dehumanization of Africans for the purpose of chattel slavery. The invention assured that even the most impoverished white person would perpetually hold power over the masses of earthlings now defined as “non-white.”

So how can we help “white” people escape the yoke of slave master?

There are three parts to this strategy. The first two must be undertaken before the third can even be considered as an option. The first is the need to acknowledge the expansive privilege that goes along with being considered white. Not only are you white folks more likely to get the job and less likely to be profiled by the police, you’re more likely to not have to think about the issue of race. Ever. This extends to the shade bias of colorism. Barack Obama has had it a lot easier than Jesse Jackson. My bi-racial daughter presents as “white,” and will escape much of the hell her Mexican cousins would endure in the same settings.

Second is the importance of taking an active anti-racist life position. Don’t tell me, “I’m not a racist.” That’s crap. Internalized white supremacy makes us all racist to a degree. I am a life-long anti-racist educator. I would never say I’m not racist. The question is, what are you doing to fight the evil of racism? And if you are “white,” what are you doing to dismantle your privilege? If you are a liberal white person and you think listening to Beyoncé and putting a Black Lives Matter sign in your yard is enough, you are part of the problem. Roll up your damn sleeves and get to work, even if is just unpacking your own internalized white supremacy.

OK, here’s the payoff that will make your white lives matter. Stop thinking of yourself as a white person and reclaim your ethnicity!

Even if you are “mutt,” you have an ethnic identity somewhere in your family line. And ethnicity, unlike race, is culture and food and music and history and celebration. My last name, Blazak, is an Americanized Slavic name. My great grandfather came to America in 1891 from Prague (at the time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) and the assimilation started. My mother’s family were English immigrants in the 1770s. According to genetic test 23 and Me, I’m a quarter Czech and a whole bunch of other stuff (including 1% middle eastern!). So I chose Slavic as my primary cultural identity.

Rediscovering my Slavic roots has been liberating, from diving into the rich history of Czechoslovakian literature to helping my daughter make Polish pierogis each Christmas, there is so much to uncover. The de-assimilation includes learning about my family’s buried Catholic history and the heroism of my Slavic cousins in tearing down the Iron Curtain. I first travelled to Prague in 1991 and immediately felt a part of the land of the Velvet Revolution. My connection to that people was a major factor in my decision to head to Ukraine last spring to help people who physically looked like many family members. I learned, while I was there, that there is a small Polish town on the Ukraine border called Błażek, the likely starting place of my great grandfather’s clan. I don’t have to suffer from ethnic envy. I have an ethnicity and it’s wonderful. (Now if I could just perfect the polka.)

White people get a small version of this every St. Patrick’s Day, when they struggle to identify some lone Irish chromosome in their DNA. “My great grandmother’s wet nurse was from Killarney! Give me a beer!” On March 17th each year, white people briefly discover they are “ethnic.” What if we did that everyday?

There’s a good chance that if you are in the white people club, you have more than one ethic history in your family tree. That’s even better. Spend some time shopping from the menu and pick the one that most speaks to you. (Helpful hint: Pick the one with the best food and the fewest slave traders.) “White pride” is racist A.F., but “French pride” is cool as shit! Start finding restaurants, festivals and events that cater to your new ethnicity. You will see me every August at Portland’s Polish Festival drinking pilsners with my fellow Slavs, gorging on plates of latkes.

So stop being white. You have so much to gain by being your chosen ethnicity. And if you are adopted, even better! Just choose a random ethnicity out of a hat! (I might suggest Czech as a good option.) Stop with the self-defeating “mutt” business that forgoes your rich ethnic history for the power mad invention of whiteness.

Racists often ask me, “Why do you hate white people?” Obviously, I don’t. I hate whiteness and what that social construction has levied on the world. Europeans and European-Americans have done many amazing things. The invention of the bidet, for example. White people, as a category, have propped up centuries of violent oppression. That’s not a club I want to be a part of.

So help me destroy it.

“Colorblind” White People and MLK’s “I Have a Dream” Speech

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

January 16, 2023

I’m not old enough to remember how badly white people hated Martin Luther King, Jr. during his lifetime. How they protested, en masse, his calls for racial integration and an end to Jim Crow. How they called him a communist and a terrorists. How they jailed him and threatened the life of he and his family on a daily basis. I was four years old that day in April when a white person put a bullet in his face on a Memphis hotel balcony. I only learned about that later in my white-authored schoolbooks.

But I am old enough to remember how white people fought tooth and nail to stop Dr. King’s a birthday being made a federal holiday. I was 19 when Ronald Reagan, who spent much of his presidency undoing the civil rights legislation that King fought for, bit his tongue and signed the holiday into law (after 90 white congressmen and 22 white senators voted against it). In my Georgia town, white people began calling the holiday, “Martin Luther Coon Day.”

So I’m leery of how so many white people now embrace Dr. King while ignoring his core messages. As a kid from a southern Klan town, I’m the last person to say that white people’s hearts cannot be changed. I’ve seen the most vicious racists transform into the most dedicated anti-racist activists. And I’ve seen that more than once. But if feels like every MLK Day we get the sanitized version of the black radical who white America despised.

The perfect example is the focus on one passage in King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech that you will hear repeated on Fox News every January.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Taken out of context this sentence to gets white people off the hook. “Hey, I’ll just judge black people by the content of their character and we can be done with this whole race thing.” This lame assertion denies some very important facts.

  1. Doctor King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, as well as pretty much everything he said, makes the exact opposite case. He was saying we will never get to the colorblind world UNTIL we deal with the engrained problems of structural and cultural racism. “White America must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society,” King later wrote. He had a dream of how things could be but we weren’t there in 1963 and we’re still not there in 2023. We have to do the work first. And the work is hard and the push back against the work is mighty. It’s just not from powerful white nationalists like Donald Trump. The pushback is felt in every white person that has ever said, “I’m not a racist, but…”
  2. “I was raised not to see color” is a lie. We live in a white supremacist society that sees white as “good” and “normal” and sees black as “bad” and “other.” We internalize these message throughout our entire lives. All of us internalize white supremacy. Numerous studies have shown that black kindergartners have already learned to value whiteness over blackness. Even if you are not a rabid Klansman, we know these messages about race are baked into your subconscious as implicit bias. Even the most woke-ass liberal notices the black guy standing by their car. Research shows again and again that implicit bias is a factor in why black and brown kids are disciplined more by teachers and why people of color are more likely to be shot by police. So when a white person says they are “colorblind,” they might think they are but they most definitely are not. We are trained to see color from the get-go.
  3. Black and brown people do not have the privilege of being colorblind. Seeing color is a matter of survival. If I’m an African-American man and I walk into a bank full of white people, I may have to adjust my behavior, appearance, and demeanor so the white people a) don’t think I’m there to rob the place, and b) maybe give me the same service that white people get. I had a black student who always wore a suit and tie to class everyday and when I commented on his dapper style he said, “I just got tired of everyone assuming I was here on an athletic scholarship.”
  4. The content of one’s character is most certainly shaped one’s environment and upbringing. If I’m facing the daily sledgehammer of racism and oppression, that’s gonna play a role in my character. Dr. Joy DeGruy, author of the seminal text, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, refers to the “ever present anger” black people experience because of the constant othering. If you are going to judge someone by their character, you better understand the forces that helped create it.

In Martin King’s famous “I Have Dream” speech, in a section rarely quoted by contemporary white people, he says:

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.

Last year there were over a thousand people killed by the police. African-Americans, who make up roughly 12 percent of the population represented 27 percent of those who were killed. George Floyd and every black police victim that has followed speak to the unspeakable horrors that persist. So why should those clamoring for basic human rights be satisfied?

Simplified history-telling has often portrayed white people as facing a perilous question sixty years ago; Either go with the kinder assimilationist rhetoric of Reverend King or face the revolutionary rage of Minister Malcolm X. King or X was a false choice. Underlying MLK’s rainbow vision was a fairly radical call for a power shift in America. The “I Have a Dream” line, “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood,” was as much about the tables in the backrooms of congress and corporations as it was the tables in diners. Toward the end of his life, King’s message was much more explicitly class-based and anti-war (which must’ve made J.Edgar Hoover’s blood boil).

The white cherry-picking of MLK sentences from long, complex speeches and essays and the casting him as a “good negro” (in contrast to all the “bad” ones) erases the core message of King’s life. Yeah, there as been a little progress, but we ain’t there yet. We still have to explain to white people why black lives matter, because the facts on the table show they still don’t. Until there is fundamental structural change and black people, and other marginalized folks, have the EXACT same access to economic, political, and cultural power, we can dream about it, but we ain’t there yet.

So share the dream. It’s a good one. But action is required. That’s what Martin asked of us.

Foreshadowing Fascism: The Spike in Anti-Semitism is Bigger than Trump and Kanye

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

December 7, 2022

Every December 7th, we remember the 1941 attack on Japan by imperialist Japan. December 7th, 1941 is also the date that Hitler made his “Nacht und Nebel” (Night and Fog) decree, the order that instructed the Gestapo to round up all the enemies of Nazism in the lands controlled by Berlin, and send them to concentration camps. Sadly, many of those who supported Hitler’s anti-Semitic vision were political activists in the United States. That included aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, spokesperson of the America First Committee, founded in 1940. Four days after Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on the United States, declaring that Franklin Roosevelt was a spawn of the “eternal Jew.”

It’s important to remember that the Holocaust didn’t begin with gas chambers. It began with anti-Semitic hate speech. The fact that former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump gleefully dines with anti-Semites like Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, tells Proud Boys to stand by, refers to the neo-Nazis of Charlottesville as “fine people,” and has routinely retweeted disinformation from white supremacist accounts should exclude him from any political credibility whatsoever. Instead, it places him in the center of right-wing politics that has always had its right foot in the mud of anti-Semitism. Blaming the Jews isn’t back. It never went away. It’s now just got a media platform so expansive it would make Father Coughlin drool on his frock.

First, let’s dispense with a crucial piece of bullcrap. Saying, “I can’t be anti-Semitic, I support Israel!” is like saying, “I can’t be racist, I support the Lakers!” Support for Israel is not the same as support for Jewish people (including Jews who are critical of the state of Israel). Evangelicals see Jews as “unsaved people,” who are just getting the Holy Land ready for the return of Jesus. MAGA support for Israel is inherently anti-Semitic. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the MAGA subculture has plenty of neo-Nazis, like Nick Fuentes, it its ranks.

This isn’t about Trump and “Ye.” There has been a dramatic increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes and incidents over the last few years. The ADL reported that 2021 was the highest year on record for anti-Semitic incidents and 2022 looks like it could end up worse. Oregon has already logged 257 bias crimes and incidents with Jewish victims this year. Just last month, New York City saw a 125% increase in hate attacks targeting Jews over the previous November. Trump and Kanye just make it more acceptable for those people to come out of the shadows.

While the Jewish people have a long history of oppression, the Adolph Hitler/Kanye West version of anti-Semitism has a fairly recent starting point. The 1789 French Revolution not only brought the promise of democracy to Europe, and the end of the divine right of kings, it emancipated French Jews, making them full French citizens. So when the defenders of church and monarchy needed a convenient scapegoat to blame the revolutionary chaos on, the “anti-Christian” Jews were an easy target. Aside from the fact that European Jews had a fairly good reason to not be fans of the Catholic Church, Jewish participation in the French Revolution was fairly minimal. And yet a new myth was born; the pro-democracy/anti-church rule movements around the globe were the work of secret cabal of Jewish rabbis. The puppet masters; controllers of banks, media outlet, competing political parties, and all things liberal.

This new belief that Jews “control the world” spread like wildfire as the old empires began to crumble. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the bizarre conspiracy theory was codified in a supposedly real (but fully fabricated) document, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was used to blame the Russian Revolution on Jews and used by Henry Ford to blame unionization efforts on the “international Jew” (the title of a series of booklets Ford wrote in the 1920s). The conspiracy theory became equally popular among jihadists and Neo-Nazis into the twenty-first century. We are almost a quarter of the way through the century and Trump acolyte Kanye West’s proclamation that “I like Hitler” on disgraced conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ show barely sparks a response from the Learned Elders of the Republican Party. That should make the world say, collectively, we’ve seen this movie before.

Volumes have been written on how the authoritarian tendencies of Donald Trump map on to other nations’ slide into fascist rule. American democracy is not guaranteed and Trump’s recent claim that the U.S. Constitution should be “terminated” is straight-up Germany 1933. All we need is an economic collapse to send the “stable middle” into a panicked blame-game and a charismatic figure to convince them that all their problems are because of George Soros/drag queens/woke bankers/deep state agents and we’ve got pogroms in the streets of America; the Proud Boys and their ilk, who have been on “standby,” leading the charge to “make America great again.”

This might seem like a lot of hysteria but let me conclude with two thoughts. Every single Jewish person has a deep personal connection to the violence of anti-Semitism. Every news story about a synagogue covered in swastika graffiti, or about Jewish people attacked just walking down the street, or another “crazy” claim about Jews by an popstar who has 16 million followers on Instagram is a reminder of the long history in the belief that the complete annihilation of the Jewish people is a good thing that is both dreamed about and acted upon. The trauma of living in that world must be immense and yet the Jewish people continue to contribute to a world that imagines destroying them.

Finally, as I’ve written, earlier this year, I spent a snowy April day at the Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps in Poland. After walking though the gates that still read, “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work sets you free), I suffered my first panic attack, realizing that it was all very real. A population, motivated by fear, was willing to commit mass genocide. Children, like my daughter, were ripped from their parents arms and thrown into the fire pits of Birkenau. Why? Because they were “dirty Jews.” I stood on that spot and wept. Because, unlike what certain guests at Mar-a-Lago believe, the Holocaust happened. And, like certain guests at Mar-a-Lago hope, it could happen again.

We must stand together against this insanity or it will be our children who will be thrown into the fire pits.

Represent! Why We Need a Black Woman on the Supreme Court

~ Randy Blazak ~ 1 Comment

January 30, 2022

There’s a classic experiment in the 1940s that unmasked the true depth of racism in America. Two psychologists, Kenneth and Mamie Clark, gave black children in New York City four baby dolls, two with dark skin and two with light skin. Then the researchers asked the kids to pick the “good” dolls and the “bad” dolls. The black children generally saw the white dolls as good and black dolls as bad. The experiment was later used to convince the Supreme Court to hear the Brown vs. Board of Education case in 1951.

The black doll experiment has been repeated numerous times, well into the 21st century, and still results in gut-wrenching displays of the internalized white supremacy in black children. (Just watch a few on YouTube.) The demonstration has an added value as our attention returns to the Supreme Court and the issue of race, and the coming vacancy of Justice Stephen Breyer. President Biden has said he would nominate a black women to the bench. That means something to the little black girls in Harlem that picked the white doll.

Racism takes many forms. We easily associate it with cross-burning Klansmen and “Whites Only” signs from the Jim Crow days. But it can be a slight as a clutched purse when a black man steps on an elevator, or as insidious as predatory lending from banks who prey on black and brown people. We see it in the causal commentary about “Mexican immigrants” and the bloody tally as hate crimes rise.

But it is also present in absence. For every black boy who has never seen a male teacher who looked like him, or for every Asian girl who as never seen an Asian woman in the media portrayed as anything other than “exotic,” representation is a game changer. We white people never notice this because, quite literally, there are people who look like this in every filed we can imagine. A white fish doesn’t know it’s in water until you take it out of the damn water.

That gets coded as “white is normal,” and every other race is the exception. You don’t have to say, “white person.”  You can just say “person,” because their whiteness is assumed (as is their maleness). In the nearly 233 years of the U.S. Supreme Court, it’s pretty much been a nonstop sea of white people. That changed in 1967, when President Johnson swore in Thurgood Marshall, who was on the bench until 1991, when he was succeeded by Clarence Thomas and his Pepsi can. Thomas, hasn’t exactly been a civil rights lion, not even offering an opinion until the 2003 Virginia v. Black cross-burning case.

But race is not gender and blackness is not femaleness. Representation is an intersectional matter. Just like there are no actual afro-Caribbeans in Lin-Manuel’s film, In the Heights, (a musical about an afro-Caribbean neighborhood in New York), there have been no black women on the high court. While you might find plenty of black female judges in local courtrooms, 80% of federal judges are white and black women magistrates make up a tiny sliver of the remaining 20%. The addition of a black woman would not only be meaningful to those little black girls (and the thousands of black female attorneys), but it would make a difference to the non-black people, too.

The subtle prejudice of absence is in the lack of affirmation. People thought blacks could never be faster than whites, until Jesse Owens was. People thought a black man could never win the presidency, until Barak Obama did. People thought that a black person could never become a billionaire, until BET founder Robert L. Johnson made it. The Supreme Court is the brain trust of our democracy. The absence of black women sends a subtle message about they capabilities.

The white supremacists over at Fox News are already having a field day, playing the “reverse racism” card to their elderly white audience. The rhetoric goes like this; If Biden picks a black woman for the court, he’s screwing a capable white man out of a job. I wonder how many capable black women have been screwed out that job so a white person and/or a man could be hired. But the white snowflakes are apoplectic over the thought that a black women might have an informed opinion on constitutional matters more rooted in reality than something they heard spewed by Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Ted Cruz or any of the other white men who, in the words of James Brown, are talking loud and saying nothing.

As we head into Black History Month we can underestimate the power of firsts. The first black airline pilot (Marlon Green, 1964). The first black pole vaulter to medal at the Olympics (LoJo Johnson, 2000). The first black woman in space (Mae Jamison, 1992). Second and thirds are equally important. Like the court was made up of all white men from 1789 to 1967, there may be a future court where all nine justices are black women. Until then, whoever President Biden picks, will be a reminder to those little black girls to pick the doll that looks like them.

How to not be an anti-racist asshole: Mindfulness and Racial Progress

~ Randy Blazak ~ 3 Comments

December 21, 2021

There are a lot of well-meaning people who’s well-meaning actions just make things worse. I’ve  certainly been one of those people. Portland is filled with self-proclaimed anti-racists who believe that by smashing windows and setting trashcans on fire, they are somehow making black lives matter. Have they bothered even asking any of these black lives if this is a good strategy? The people of color that I’ve talked to see is it as purely white performance. Now working on policies that help people of color buy homes and operate local businesses, that helps. A lot.

My challenge to anti-racist activists, of which I am one, is to take a break from chasing down neo-Nazis and Proud Boys, and take a look in the mirror. Until we start on the long process to undo our own internalized white supremacy, we will be blind to the racial trauma we cause while we’re chanting “Black lives matter!” There is a simple sociological formula that goes like this:

Racist socialization

Internalized white supremacy

Implicit bias

Micro-aggression

= Trauma

In 2021, still, we all learn various versions of “white is normal and better” lessons. That seeps into our subconscious where it lives as implicit bias and then emerges as micro-aggresions (a clutched purse, an off-handed comment, a joke that shouldn’t have been told). And that small thing lands as another wounding message to people of color that they are still not full members in this society. And the endless barrage of those “micro-assaults” become cumulative trauma. And that’s why BIPOC folks were in the streets in 2020, because enough was enough.

As I’ve written in this blog, 2021 has provided a great opportunity to move inwards from the barricades as Delta, and now Omicron, send us back into our shelters. Mindfulness and meditation give us strategies to interrupt our hard-learned tendencies to act in racist ways, even while we lecture others against their racism. I had a great week training with the Center for Equity and Inclusion here and Portland and consumed Mindful of Race by Ruth King. Both had huge impacts on how I move through the world as a white person.

King, a Buddhist woman of color, offers useful strategies to manage those situations that can cause racial distress. It could be finding yourself in an uncomfortable conversation with a Trump-loving uncle who wants to make America white again, or, on the other side, those white fragility moments when a person of color is taking apart your liberalness as just a vacant act of wokeness. One of her mindfulness strategies, that goes by the acronym “RAIN,” has been helpful for me in not only navigating my racial interactions, but also being more present in my relationship with my wife. It works like this:

The “R” stands for recognize. A big part mindfulness is paying attention to our emotional states as things to be observed. When you have an uncomfortable feeling, where is it? Is it a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach or an angry tension in the middle of your forehead. Recognize it. “There’s that feeling. Hello again. I see you there.”

A is for allow. Buddhists teach us that everything is temporary, especially our emotions. Instead of letting them control us, let them float past, like a cloud. Accepting impermanence (“anitya” in Sanskrit) allows us to not, as U2 once perfectly sang, get stuck in a moment that we can’t get out of. So in those racially tense moments, we can see it and then remind ourselves that they will be in the rearview mirror shortly, so hold off on any emotionally driven impulses (including micro-aggressions).

I is for Investigate. Mindfulness teaches us to be curious about our thoughts. Where did this discomfort come from? Could it be projection, or due to a lack of true reflection? Could it be rooted in mis-learned lessons from our childhood? Maybe it’s those implicit biases we all hold.

And finally, the “N” is for nurture. What do you need right now to pass through this moment without adding to the racial harm? And what do others need to address their harm? It could be developing a strategy to address a problematic policy or person, or it could be a hug and a short walk around the block to calm down.

At the root of King’s teaching is kindness. Kindness to ourselves and to those traumatized by racism, and, yes, kindness to those who perpetrate racism in the world. They, like us and as us, are products of this racist society and capable of becoming forces for racial healing themselves. The Buddhist principles of racial mindfulness might be a tough sell to a black clad 20-year-old who thinks vandalizing a police station somehow helps black people, but that 20-year-old has the capacity for personal transformation and the ability to participate in stopping the harm so there can be true racial healing.

The Black Strawman: In Defense of Critical Race Theory

~ Randy Blazak ~ 2 Comments

June 18, 2021

Note: Sometimes, “idiot” is the only word that applies.

There’s been a lot of right-wing nuts, Trumpists, and QAnon moms freaking out lately about something called Critical Race Theory. Ask these troglodytes what CRT actually is and you’ll get some hastily prepared bullet points from conservative tools, like Candace Owens; “It’s Marxist re-education!” “It’s anti-white racism!” “It’s teaching our children to hate America!” “It’s Barak Obama’s secret plot for a Muslim takeover of America, financed by Chinese communists!” States like Oklahoma and Florida (not known as bastions of anti-racism and/or intelligence) have tried to outlaw CRT from classrooms, causing concerns about the civil liberties of teachers. As we mark Juneteenth, let us stand against the anti-education hordes. (CRT-foe Owens bashed Juneteenth yesterday, tweeting “I’ll be celebrating July 4th and July 4th only. I’m American.”)

As an educator who actually teaches Critical Race Theory, it’s a bit sad seeing the hysteria that seems way too much like last season’s hysteria about Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss. I see a lot of inflamed idiots who know absolutely nothing about CRT convinced that some evil cabal is going to destroy “their” country. It’s tiring. If there’s one thing worse than feeling the country has fallen into idiocracy, it’s that it’s fallen into a racist idiocracy.

First of all, Critical Race Theory has been around since the 1970s. All that it is is a set of assumptions, backed up by a massive amounts of data, that the damage done by racism is not by garden variety white supremacists, like Klansmen, Nazi skinheads, and Tucker Carlson. It’s done by institutions that carry the white supremacists ideology that this country was founded on. (Google “Three-fifths Compromise,” cracker!) These institutions include, but are not limited to government, the police, courts, housing, healthcare, education, and the media. That’s it. You’d think that fragile white people would love that. “You’re not racist, the system is!”

But Lordy are these white people (and their well-paid enablers, like Owens) fragile. They believe that telling the truth about race relations in America is unpatriotic. These people don’t want Americans to learn that the ideology of slavery was central to this nation’s founding. These people don’t want Americans to learn about the 120,000 Japanese immigrants, most American citizens, placed in concentration camps by the Roosevelt Administration after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. These people don’t want Americans to know about the forced assimilation of indigenous persons. These people don’t want Americans to know why the average white American lives seven years longer than the average African American. Ignorance is bliss.

The reality is that those that support Critical Race Theory are more true to the promise of America than these woke-ophobics” spazzing out at school board meetings. Law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term, recently said, 

“Critical race theory is not anti- patriotic. In fact it is more patriotic than those who are opposed to it because we believe in the 13th and the 14th and the 15th amendment. We believe in the promises of equality, and we know we can’t get there if we can’t confront and talk honestly about inequality.”

The reality is that the legacy of slavery is with us in 2021. It is present in the wealth gap between whites and blacks. It is present in the data from traffic stops to the death penalty. And it is with us in every African-American whose last name is Smith, Jackson, or Washington. It’s not just the mouth breather in a Trump hat, waving a Confederate battle flag, it’s also there in unequal hiring practices, redlining, and the lack of doctors in poor urban areas. That’s why we celebrate Juneteenth. 1865 was not the end of racism in America, it was the beginning of healing. But it’s hard to heal when there is another Jim Crow-fashioned attack coming at us. Just ask black voters in Georgia in 2021.

So what’s behind the kooky white-wing backlash against CRT by moronic reactionaries who don’t even know what it is? It’s more of the same thinly disguised racism. Just like the idiots 60 years ago who were burning rock and roll records because it was “jungle music,” there is a fear among white supremacists in acknowledging the impact and manifestation of racism in America. In 1966, the Ku Klux Klan and radio stations organized “Beatle bonfires” across the South. (And don’t make me make you watch Footloose.) White fear of black bodies has been used to justify everything from slavery to racially objectifying porn. Greater than the fear of black bodies is the fear black truth. That reality holds up a mirror to white faces and fragile whites know they aren’t gonna like what they will see. So smash the mirror.

Therefore it’s not surprising that the anti-CRT mob chants, “CRT is racism!” That’s called projection. It comes from the same place the myths of the black rapist came from – from white men who were raping slave women.

But teachers are smart. They know the old – “Columbus discovered America – Pioneers tamed the west – Lincoln freed the slaves” myths require context. Their classroom is less white these days, so instead of teaching a curriculum that serves to empower white students and marginalize everyone else, teachers will address systemic racism, whether it’s been banned by they racist lawmakers or not.

I know I will. 

Happy Juneteenth, Candace. Let me tell you how free people like you were in 1776. And the white kids will be alright.

Cancelling White Fragility: Can Progressives Get an Assist from Madison Avenue?

~ Randy Blazak ~ 3 Comments

May 13, 2021

You gotta admit, “Make America Great Again” was a brilliant slogan. Besides doubling as a handy acronym (MAGA!), it was a “politically correct” way of masking the deep racism of Trump supporters who wanted to make America Jim Crow America again. Since Trump left office, Trump supporters in 47 states have introduced or passed voter suppression laws. (Shout out to my ass backwards home state, Georgia!) MAGA fit on hats, t-shirts, and hashtags and immediately conveyed where the supporter stood on transgender bathrooms, racial equity, and the 2020 election. Who came up with this perfect (if fascistic) slogan?

Speaking of “political correctness,” there’s a perfect example of how the left has a language problem. All political correctness is is an attempt to be mindful of the way words and practices marginalize and hurt people in our community. If African-Americans what to be referred to as people of color instead of “colored people,” show them the basic respect of doing it without whining. Those folks have been through some shit! But truth be told, nobody wants to be “corrected.” Ugh. And bothered about getting the he/she thing wrong? A recent study found that nearly 42% of non-binary and transgender youth attempted suicide. By just using a person’s preferred pronoun, you might save a life. Suck it up, snowflake! But there is a cottage industry dedicated to bitching about political correctness as if it was some grand conspiracy to suppress your first amendment right to be an asshole. Your constitutional right to be an asshole remains sacred and defended by both the Supreme Court and the liberal ACLU.

The progressive movement is full of terms, phrases, and slogans that get at the depth of inequity in our society and are intended to start conversations and affect change to transform America into a nation where there truly is liberty and justice for all. But these turns of phrase also trigger right wing trolls and news networks. Over 4 million people watch white supremacist Tucker Carlson each night. If something bothers him, it becomes an instant internet meme spread far and wide by the “proud” boys that want to make America 1950 again. Some of these slogans (and the responses by people who don’t take the time to understand them) include:

Black Lives Matter (“All lives matter!” – Or as my father tried to tell me, “Black Lives Matter means white lives don’t matter.” And yes, he’s a Trumpie.)

Defund the Police (“These anarchists just want criminals to run free!”)

Toxic Masculinity (“Masculinity built this nation!”)

Implicit Bias (“Don’t tell me I’m biased, I have a black cousin!”)

White Privilege (“I’m not privileged. I lived in a car!”)

Micro-aggression (“It’s MICRO! Get over it, libtard! Jeez, you can’t even make a joke anymore.)

And let’s not forget Hillary Clinton’s 2016 “basket of deplorables” line that became adopted by the not-too-bright Trump base as a badge of honor. If Clinton had tried to be less cutesy and just said, “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the cesspool of bigots,” you probably wouldn’t have seen an army of white people with “I’m a bigot!” T-shirts at Trump rallies. (Wait, I may have to rethink that.)

Sometimes the left’s slogans seem as if they were penned by right-wing agent provocateurs. Case in point, ACAB – “All Cops Are Bastards.” Now I understand that provocative slogan is meant to highlight the tendency in the policing world to prevent officers from addressing the systemic racism that has left countless George Floyd’s dead in the streets. (Police unions, I’m looking at you.) But I personally know many police officers, including BIPOC police officers, who desperately want to infuse policing with social justice values. Let’s not forget that several police officers testified for the prosecution in the trial of George Floyd’s uniformed killer. Are all black cops bastards? Are are all women cops bastards? The average woman who sees a cop carting off the man who assaulted her probably doesn’t spray paint ACAB on local businesses.

Anecdote: In 1987, my roommate and I called 911 in Atlanta. Yuppie ninjas had kicked in our apartment door and we’re going to attack us with num-chucks. Our call the the police scared them off but I had to turn off the music we were blasting before the cops arrived; NWA’s “Fuck the Police.” True story.

Perhaps the best example of this is the term, white fragility, which derives from Robin DiAngleo’s 2018 book, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. The book is simply about the defensiveness that white people express when you alert them to the reality of racism. They say silly things, like “I was raised to be colorblind” (You weren’t) and “I can’t be racist, I voted for Obama! (You can). The innovative text is required reading in my Diversity class and has sparked insightful discussions among both white and non-white students. It was a best seller among people who read books and rose back to the top of the charts during the churning summer of 2020.

However, bring up the concept of white fragility to white people who haven’t read the book or have no interest in reading any book about racism, and you get a lot of, well, fragility. For easy reference, watch the June 2020 interview DiAngelo did with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show. A seemingly interested Fallon allows DiAngelo to explain that all she is trying to do is ask white people to act with humility and grace and address their own internalized white supremacy. The YouTube video’s 27,000 downvotes sets up the 14,000 comments by fragile white people, accusing DiAngleo of racism herself. “The left: Let’s solve racism with more racism” (John Spinelli) “If ‘self-hatred’ was a person, it’d be Robin DiAngelo” (Jack) “This is what happens when you make a career out of gaslighting.” (SWJobson) Each comment perfectly proves DiAngelo’s central thesis about white fragility. Since “fragility” is feminized in our culture, there’s a macho pushback against it. The term “fragility” literally causes men to become fragile.

The “anti-woke” crowd is pretty good with staying on point. From “Drain the swamp!” to “Stop the steal,” it feels like the right has a high-power Madison Avenue team coining their slogans. What if the left had their own progressive Don Draper, instead of the Antifa Darren Stevens is who pens confrontational taglines on cardboard signs? (How about MCAB? Many Cops Are Bastards! Or what about BLMT? Black Lives Matter, Too!) I mean, whatever intern came up with “Stop Asian Hate” should be run out of the slogan business. “What have you got on your resume? Stop Asian hate. So just who do Asians hate and why should they stop? Come back kid when you’ve got something that makes sense.”

I generally loathe advertising, but we’re in a rut here. It’s time to rebrand white fragility. Maybe “I’m Not A Racist Freak Out Syndrome.” Or how about, “I’m Not A Racist But Those People Scare Me Dysphoria.” I don’t know. I’m a sociologist, not a marketing director. We got close to it with “Pro Choice,” but they beat our pants off with “Pro Life.” There’s gotta be better verbiage that doesn’t drive every Karen and Tucker into a “That’s reverse racism!!” spasm-fest.

The reality is these issues are more complex than a handy slogan could capture. They are nuanced and contextual and all the things that scare superficial thinkers that still think “pro-black” means “anti-white.” In my trainings, we get into the weeds, but it takes me an hour just to define the terms. You can’t get all the bullet points of my training on internalized white supremacy on a street banner let alone a bumpersticker.

So let’s pass the beanie and take up a collection to hire a radical marketing genius to help make America not horrible again.

If you’d like to continue this conversation, you can find me here: www.randyblazak.com