The Problem with Whiteness: a Christmas Message

by Mona Shaw

Note:  I have friends (decent white men all) who are troubled by a college course titled, "The Problem with Whiteness."  They believe the title is "race-baiting" and discriminating against white people on the basis of race.  This is my response.

Fred (not his real name) says he’s not comparing apples and oranges.  He insists there is a moral and actual equivalent between a white man robbed by a Black thinking all Black men are criminals, and a person of color thinking all white people are racist. I.e. he says one is as bad as the other.  That, frankly, blows my mind out of the stratosphere.

First, let me point out, there is empirical data that shows Black men are far less likely to rob someone than white men.  So, the only reason for that assumption can be racism.  (That, and the fact that Hollywood, etc. have so prolifically portrayed the criminal as Black and more recently middle-eastern).

On the other hand, people of color have endured more than 400 years of abject torture, persecution, and oppression on U.S. soil.  They have endured not just wage slavery, but actual chattel slavery, been slaughtered and forced onto reservations, covered in Small Pox blankets, kidnapped, beaten, and murdered to this day for simply not being white.  After 250 years of chattel slavery (which really didn’t end until 1945), they’ve been though cross-burnings, churches bombed, lynching, Jim Crow, their children kidnapped, forced sterilization, job discrimination (which didn’t become illegal until the 1970s), police murder and brutality, mass incarceration, and medical experiments that would make a Nazi wince.  (E.g. the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, in which Black men were intentionally infected with syphilis to study treatment of the disease. The study was conducted without the benefit of patients' informed consent and didn’t end until I was 21-years-old.)  Even in 2015, you can be at a prayer meeting in church and have someone walk in shoot you dead just because you are Black. The reason we have Black Lives Matter is that too damned many still don’t believe that black lives matter.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, but let’s talk about the “good” white people.  Those who believe racism is wrong, those who agree there is still white supremacy out there. (Both assumptions leave me responding, “Duh,” by the way.) 

White people who perpetuate racism aren’t only those who see people of color as inferior or wish them ill. 

White people who perpetuate racism aren’t only those who see people of color as inferior or wish them ill. 

White people who perpetuate racism aren’t only those who see people of color as inferior or wish them ill.  (I repeated this on purpose.)

Now there have been a few white people who have put their bodies on the line to resist the madness of racism, embarrassingly few, but there have been some.  From the early abolitionists to the Quakers who ran the Underground Railroad, to voter registers and marchers in the 1960s.  White people, too, have stood up and even lost their lives trying to change things.  I pray every day to be more like these white people.

But the clear majority of white people did nothing.  We watched it happen and did nothing.  We returned slaves to their masters, because that was the law.  We called the Freedom Riders “trouble makers” who were hurting their cause.  We put up with segregated housing and schools and never challenged it any meaningful way.  Even most of the “non-racist” white people didn’t like Martin Luther King, Jr. until he was murdered.  He was “too radical” and going about it the wrong way.  He hated white people.  Yeah, a lot of “good” people said that.  You didn’t see most “good” white people at anything resembling a civil rights march.

Even though the evidence is clear, many “good” people doubt there is racism in incarceration and want more proof.  (There is a ton of proof, if people care to read it.)  Few of us go to Ferguson or Standing Rock or help others go.  I can probably count on both hands the number of people I know who’ve ever bothered to even write their legislators about any of this.

We don’t quit our jobs when a boss says something racist.  We rarely even confront that boss, except behind his/her back.  We laugh at racist jokes because we “don’t really mean anything by that,” and almost never challenge those jokes.  We drive on roads, ride on trains, and walking through buildings (include the White House) built by slaves and let that fact sink into our souls.  We eat a melon picked by Latinos paid a $1.00/hour and never give that a thought.

Only a tiny minority of us even have several people close to us who are not white.  Talking to your co-worker or being pleasant to store clerk you see most days doesn’t count.  A close friend is someone you’re most apt to go to the movies with, someone you celebrate holidays with, someone who’s slept at your house and you’ve slept at theirs. Someone you know will want to say something at your funeral.

That’s the problem with whiteness.  We think we can know about racism by our “gut.”  We want people of color to act as if there is a level playing field, when there clearly is not.  We say the damnedest, dumbest things like “Why can they say the “n” word, but I can’t.” Or, "I never owned any slaves."

We feel little to no obligation to educate ourselves about it.  We can’t even seriously ask the question, “Why do people of color see this differently?”  What’s our theory about that?  Is every person of color (or white people who agree with them) only seeking attention, trying to get something for nothing, trying to divide us, or playing victim?  Is that your theory?  Because that’s more than a little wacky.  What would be the point of any of that?  Are we projecting, perhaps?

We get pissed at people of color when they don’t teach us, and we get pissed at them when they try.  We have the arrogance to criticize how, where, and or when the say it.  We approach the issue like consumers, “Give us a list, and let us decide what we like.”  When we do on rare occasion show up at a resistance effort, we think we have the right to tell the affected group how to do it.  And when we create movies about racism, we always have some white savior who saves the day.  “Gone with the Wind” was a patently racist movie, some of us are surprised that Black people don’t like it, because Mammy was so cool.  Pro-tip:  To the tiny degree that they have, people of color won own their rights, white people didn’t do it for them.  It's a good thing to learn this.

So, when a person of color thinks I’m racist (it does happen), I don’t say, “How dare you?”  I say, “I don’t blame you.” or "Why wouldn't you?"   Because there more than likely was something racist in something I said or did.  Of course, that would never be my intent.  With every fiber of my being I want everything I do to resist racism not perpetuate it.  But, my intentions (while I think they matter) aren’t nearly as important as my impact. And, I’m white.  I was raised in white culture and exposed to a plethora of racism.  I’m not that special.  There’s simply no reason for me to believe that none of that affected my thinking, assumptions, or perceptions, not to mention my lack of sensitivity about how something I may say or do affects others. Rather than be offended, I have learned to be grateful for having this brought to my attention.

The problem with whiteness is that white people don’t see they’ve been spared the ravages of racism inflicted upon people of color.  They refuse to see the obvious privilege in that and take it for granted. They, outrageously, try to equate some social slight or misunderstanding with the terror of being a person of color in American culture.  It's hard to see racism when you're white, and not seeing the problem with whiteness is the problem with whiteness.

P.S.  Jesus wasn't white.  I'm pretty sure he saw the problem with whiteness.

RIP Fidel

by Mona Shaw

I heard Castro speak in August, 1995.  It was the most powerfully, stirring speech I have ever heard in my life.  Hands down.  No contest.  I cheered at its end until I was hoarse.  He spoke of everything in which I believe with my whole heart, things I have always wanted for the world.

Still, Fidel, after all, was only a man.  I was in Havana that summer as part of a volunteer humanitarian project.  Yes, I was disillusioned.  People were poorer than I expected them to be.  Then again, that was mostly because of the U.S. Blockade.  There was a capitalism paranoia that made a black market necessary for people to get by.  All right, it was nowhere near the communist paranoia we have here, but it did exist. 

I didn’t like that I couldn’t get ice in a drink.  Beverages were often luke-warm, unless you got them at a refrigerated stand.  An air-conditioned room was rare.  I was always wet with my own perspiration.  This, however, made the fact that our showers didn’t have hot running water only slightly bothersome.  I think toilet paper being rationed bothered Americans the most.  (Ironically, toilet paper is a chronic need for the poor in the U.S., because you can’t get it with Food Stamps.)

While clothes lines strung between pillars at palatial mansions (now multi-family housing) disturbed some in my group, I was utterly charmed at the sight.

The best rum was only $2.00 a fifth, and the cigarettes were out-of-this-world good.  I proved this when I’d give one I’d smuggled home to a friend who doubted me.  They would take one drag and say, “Oh. My. God!”  (And only 50-cents a pack.)  Everyone smokes in Cuba, everywhere.  By the time my group left, we all did too.  The former smokers fell first.

Yes, I was disillusioned.  My travel wasn’t restricted, and I ambled around freely meeting people.  By far, the overwhelming number worshiped Castro.  Some did not.  Some yearned to come to America where they would have a better life of things wrapped up in one word, “freedom.”  They believed their government lied to them about America.  They knew better. They watched us on t.v.  They said things to me like this.

“I have never seen a homeless person in my life! So, I know it’s a lie that you have homeless people in America.  I have never believed that was true!”

“I work as a maid.  I can only have a 2-bedroom apartment for me and my two sons.  I know if I lived in America I could have a 3-bedroom house with a garage and a new car!”

“I don’t believe candidates for president need more than a million dollars to get elected.  That’s just preposterous!”

“Your country is rich.  I know you don’t have to pay for healthcare.  I don’t believe they send people bills for that. That’s insane.”

I hung out with Jorge who took me to a meeting where the neighborhood was to decide who would live in a new apartment building they had just built.

“Sofia works hard and cooked for the workers during construction.  She has three children!” one woman shouted.

“Enrique worked every day for twelve hours a day.  He has earned a place for him and his new wife!”  shouted another.

I also heard a stump speech by a candidate for province governor in elections we’re told they don’t have.  It was contentious and spirited.  The speaker was good. But not as good as Fidel.

I marched with about two million others in an international parade to protest the U.S. blockade.  I marched under an enormous Rainbow Flag held up by myself and dozens of Lesbian and Gay Cubans.  El Presidente saluted us when we walked by the reviewing stand.  It was a moment long-time coming after the period of re-education camps for gay people that had recently been closed.  Sodomy laws imprisoning gay people were still legal in the U.S. and would remain legal for another nine years.

There were no statues of Castro, but statues of poet Jose Marti were so ubiquitous that, as a joke, we would say, “Let’s meet by the statue of Jose Marti.”

It’s simply wrong to deny that Castro committed many human atrocities to those who resisted his government.  He did.  Nothing that every American president in my lifetime hasn’t done, but they were still atrocious.

Still higher education and healthcare and housing and food were not denied to a single Cuban citizen.  Something my own country has not managed to do in 240 years.

So, rest in peace, Fidel.  You were far from perfect, but you did do good.  I know the Miami Cubans still hold a grudge because they couldn’t remain the wealthy elite, but you enriched my life for sure.  Hasta la Victoria, siempre.

Studies Have Shown...

by Mona Shaw

“Studies have shown…” or “Academic research has demonstrated satisfactorily for a long, long time…” are common clauses that leave many believing the statement that follows the clause is a fact. 

It ain’t necessarily so.  Few bother to ask to have the study cited or have ever read any of these studies, or--when they do exist--to examine their methodology or their study sample, etc.  If we like the speaker’s credentials, we just accept it.

Beginning in 2003, I began to check out some assumptions that I’d formerly just accepted as a given.  I had heard some so many times, that I assumed they must be true.  Even so, I began to wonder and decided if I was going to repeat them, I wanted to know something about the studies upon which these assumptions were based.

Assumptions I’ve researched include:

Teenage pregnancies are up.

Receiving welfare keeps people on welfare for generations.

People with poor credit ratings are more apt to steal at work.

Poor people don’t vote.

Sexual assailants don’t benefit from therapy.

Poor people are more apt to be evangelical Christians.

Working class people are more apt to be racist.

It turns out these statements are false or misleading.

1.  Teen pregnancies are at an all-time low and have been decreasing for decades.

2.  Only 25% of those who grow up on public assistance collect public assistance as adults.

3.  There’s never been a study on the correlation between credit ratings and stealing on the job.  This is a myth that Auditing and Credit Rating firms began spreading to sell their products to businesses.

4. More poor people vote than any other voting bloc.  While it’s true the higher one’s income, the more one is apt to vote, when you factor in income per percentage of population, the hard numbers paint a different picture.

Let’s say 127,000,000 people vote in a POTUS election.  When adjusted by their percentage in population you get this.

59,000,000 people with incomes under than $30k/year voted. (50% of the populations at a 41% voter rate.)

10,500,000 people with incomes more than $100k/year voted (6% of the populations at 60% turnout)

57,000,000 people between comes of $30k and 100k voted) (42% of the populations at 50% turnout.)

When you extrapolate the very poor and the very rich you get this.

Just over 1,000,000 who earned more than $250k voted (1% of the populations at 80%)

5,500,000 of those earning less than 12k/year voted (30% of 14% of the population)

It’s difficult to know the truth about why poorer people are ignored, but they are sizeable voting blocks that could easily tip any election.

5.  While poor people are slightly more apt to be evangelical Christians, the margins aren’t that big, and they are in the minority among poor by far. In fact, those earning more than 50k/year are more apt to be evangelical Christians than those who earn less.  Only 25% of those under 30K are ECs, 24% (30-50K), 29% (50-99%) and 13% (100k and above.) 

Given that large evangelical churches are much more intense in their outreach to the poor (e.g. the Salvation Army and Southern Baptists), it’s surprising these numbers don’t skew more to the poor, but they don’t.

6.  In general offenders benefit greatly from therapy, and few reoffend.  While pedophiles don’t do as well, and cannot be “cured,” some do benefit. Just go look it up.

7.  Other than Archie Bunker, are working class and people more apt to be racist?  Again, there is no scientific study that I can find that has established this.  There are a few that begin with this assumption and attempt to analyze the basis of racial bias among lower-income classes.  In these it is usually acknowledged that where there is conflict for scarce resources, group boundaries are reinforced to increase survivability, and the most convenient method to identify oneself and others is through somatic markers, particularly skin color.  Political economists argue that it is issues of wealth and class that separate communities; that racism is simply the proxy.

Certainly, there is strong racial bias among some poor, but do we know it is less than among the elite?  While the elite have more techniques for camouflaging their bias, do they act on racism less or even feel less superior based on race?  There is nothing out there that analyzes racial bias among the affluent, which certainly exists and is far more dangerous.  Institutional racism is a control device invented by those in power to increase wealth and control workers.  The poor did not invent and do not have the power to execute it or perpetuate it.

It’s also important to note than lower-income people are far more likely to have mixed race families and inter-marry than the affluent.  They are also more likely to work in close proximity with people of other races and socialize in work environments.

I probably should foot-note this, but I’d rather not.  We need to question and study more.  That would be my point.

A Short List of Things I've Been Told When I Challenge the Misogyny of Liberal or Left-wing Men

by Mona Shaw

The contrast between the response between Donald Trump's and Bill Clinton's sexual assaults reminded me of this.

It's fun for someone of my politics to take on the likes of Trump.  I get only praise and support for the most part.  This has never been the case when I object to the same behaviors by liberal or progressive men.  In fact, the reactions have been so brutal and painful that I've been cowed into silence more often than I care to admit.

Here's a partial list.

1,  How dare you try to hurt such a good man?

2.  Why should I believe you?

3.  You’re too worked up to be believable.

4.  You’re too calm to be believable.

5.  You’re accusations are too articulate to be believable.

6.  You’re accusations are too clumsy to be believable.

7.  Your story just doesn’t ring true.

8.  No one is perfect.

9.  We don’t know both sides of the story.

10.  Why didn’t you bring this up sooner/later/someplace else?

11.  Why can’t you forgive?

12.  It was a long time ago.

13.  Why can’t you let it go?

14.  Think of the good he’s doing.

15.  Just because he did it doesn’t mean you have to say it.

16.  Just because he’s an asshole doesn’t mean he’s not a good man.

17.  You’re creating divisiveness.

18.  We ALL need to come together now.

19.  If we go after every offensive person, we’ll have no one left.

20.  There are a lot of assholes in the world.  We can’t confront them all.

21.  If you know what’s good for you, you won’t open this can of worms.

22.  He’s mean to men too.

23.  Put on your big girl pants and suck it up.

24.  There are worse things in the world.

25.  You’re throwing away your credibility.

26.  You could be doing so much good instead of obsessing about this.

27.  Worse has been done to me, and I look passed it.

28.  You’re making good people uncomfortable.

29.  You’re making people take sides.

30.  He’s never done that to me.

31.  I’ve never seen him do that.

32.  Think about the greater good.

33.  You’re just bitter.

34.  I’m not getting into a personal matter.

35.  Why can’t you just ignore him?

36.  It isn’t just about you.

37.  Take the high road.

38.  You’re destroying the party, movement, action, etc.

39. You handled this wrong.

40.  You’re hurting the people with him who are there for good reasons.

41.  We’ve all been hurt.

42.  You’re just trying to stir up trouble.

43.  I don't believe for a minute that any man has gotten by with abusing YOU.

44.  You just want attention.

45.  You’re just feeling sorry for yourself.

46.  Why can’t you move on?

47.  You just love creating controversy.

48.  I have my own life.  I can’t get involved.

49.  Do you want some right-wing tea partiers in charge?

50.  You don’t know how to pick your battles.

51.  There are bigger, more important issues than this man’s abuse.

  

52.  Are you going to pay my bills if I tell the truth?

53.  I can’t help you.  I have to get along with these people.

54.  Why can’t you love people regardless of their flaws?

55.  Who do you think you are?

Cotton Socks Are Good Enough for any Working Man's Wife

by Mona Shaw

“Herbert Hoover said, ‘Cotton socks are good enough for any working man’s wife,’ That’s all I needed to know about the man,” my granddad told me.

It’s the “little” slights that wear one down. Someone, something persuades us to let it go. “Pick your battles.”  

But, each time you say nothing, a piece of your soul dies, and larger and larger parts of yourself believe the lies that you and your kind are less worthy. You even repeat their jokes or slurs for their approval. Eventually you collude with your own oppressor.  A hundred times a day you hear things like:

“Don’t worry about the poor,” they don’t vote.

“I have a high credit rating, and they still discriminate against me as a lesbian.”

“She dresses like she shops at Walmart.”

“I didn’t buy a $400,000 house, so people could build houses next to me worth $100,000.”

“The poor wouldn’t be stressed if they just got a job.”

“No offense, but I prefer to socialize with people in my own economic stratum.  We have more in common.”

“We don’t care what Joe Six-pack thinks.  He’s not supporting this university.”

“I was stunned and repulsed.  They were using pots and pans for serving dishes.”

“It’s only $500.  Anyone I know has shoes worth more than that.”

“My father, the bank president, says we should do this.”

“He claims to be poor, but he was eating a Dove bar.”

Or, the time a director of the UI Labor Center told her own secretary, “If you want a better salary, get an education like I did.”

And all the jokes: about hard hats, red necks, polyester clothes, trailer parks, fake wood paneling, welfare, hair-styles, fake fingernails, dirty fingernails, subsidized housing, Jello or mayonnaise salads, cheap beer or cheap perfume, raggedy-ass cars, velvet paintings, country music, pressboard or plastic furniture, Jesus nightlights, dime-store jewelry, lunch meat, ice-berg lettuce, Jerry Springer or Maury Povich guests, and cat clocks with rhinestone eyes and a wagging tail, etc.

Let’s not even get started on dialects, speech-patterns or grammar.

It is bottomless, the reservoir containing all the quotidian and ubiquitous ways to render the underclass inferior and unworthy.

So, it came as no surprise to me when Hillary Clinton was praised by “progressives” for a recent speech in which she defended people of color by stating many Black people were well-off.  She called Trump’s assertions about poverty in communities of color as bigotry toward those communities.

No one in the mainstream media or politics (including Trump, perhaps especially Trump) thought to counter with the fact that being poor should not be an insult. She suggested that while there is no shame in being a person of color that to consider someone impoverished was shaming them.  She completely ignored that people of color are, indeed, far more likely to be poor.

In America there is no shame as pervasive as the shame of being poor. Racism can still get one killed by a cop, but the tragedy of the death will still be gauged by the economic status of the victim.  “And he was a counselor.”  “She was a teacher.”

It doesn’t matter that racism catalyzes every instance of poverty, including that poverty suffered by white people.  The ruling class can’t maintain an underclass to work for poverty wages without methods to control them.  Racism is their most effective whip.  No race in the underclass realizes that enough.  Far too many have bought the lies that white poor people really are just inferior or that people of color are getting something for nothing.

Martin Luther King, jr. saw through this divide and conquer strategy, and he was in the process of addressing and organizing all poor people when he was murdered.  History shows that effectively organizing poor people and workers will get you killed faster than anything else.  Even the big unions won’t do that anymore.

The poor are inferior in every way in America.  Class bigotry is almost considered good manners.  It demonstrates refinement and good taste.

It’s really telling that Hillary Clinton’s reaction to the Trump speech was to defend affluent people of color rather than show compassion for the suffering of those banished to poverty.

It was also telling that the Democratic National Convention was a parade of Horatio Alger stories, the one who overcame, who grabbed her bootstraps and made something of herself (not poor, no more). 

It serves the American agenda.  If she saw poor people as equal, if she admitted that not every little girl or boy can be president or even earn a living wage, then poor people might deserve things like housing, food, or healthcare.  But in today’s America, where we can’t do everything for everyone, we know who will be left out.  And, it’s not the woman in the $12,000 jacket or any of her friends.  Cotton socks are good enough for any working man’s wife.

Of course, getting rid of Hillary won’t solve the problem.  She’s a snob, but everyone who runs for president in America is a snob.  Hillary is just the current spokesmodel for the status quo. 

It doesn’t matter who you vote for.  It matters if you continue to collude with the lie.  Not everyone can make it in America.  That’s a wholesale lie.  Our forefather’s never intended for that to be the case, and no one in power--or seeking power--wants that now. Change, when it comes, will come from the bottom up.  It’s time for decent Americans to cry, “Foul,” no matter where or how they encounter class bigotry.

Mona Shaw is a low-income Iowa grandmother of no particular importance and has no credentials whatsoever.  

A Song from the Underbelly: How I Stopped Worrying about Trump

I’m suffering from serious fear fatigue this morning.

Something is going to get me.  I know it.  It might be Trump pushing “the button.”  It might be the Russians stealing the election.  It might be the rising seas from Climate Change.  It might be an asteroid that comes to close the planet.  It might be some red neck who shoots me on the street for entertainment.  Maybe the economy will collapse, or we might have an earthquake in Iowa.  It is possible. Then there are the pandemics: from Ebola to Zika to that yet-to-be named deadly flu or an infection impervious to antibiotics.  This doesn’t include all the mercury and arsenic that’s in all of the food we eat.

Scores of people aren’t dying from anything of these things right now.  But, they might.  And the likelihood of all that rests on how I vote in the 2016 presidential election.

Now, if I had ever had any institutional power--ever--I might believe that how I fill in a circle on a ballot matters so much.  But, I haven’t, and I don’t.

I’m going to stop being terrified of Trump being elected.  I’m wiping that right off the list.  There, its’ gone.  Why?

First, he can’t do any of the things people are terrified he’ll do.  He can’t build that wall.  Mexico won’t pay for it. 

Next, he can’t deport all the Mexican from the U.S.  It’s logistically impossible.  There are too many of them.  God knows Obama has tried.  ICE has never been busier than during the Obama administration.  Clinton will follow that program.  The same number of Mexicans will be departed regardless, i.e. as many as we can find and round up.

He can’t even ban Muslims from entering the country without a constitutional challenge that he would certainly get.  Can he kill Muslims?  Sure.  But he’ll be hard-pressed to kill more than million or so that have been killed by the past two administrations.  And Clinton has promised to kill lots more in Syria.  I wonder, if we asked, who Syria wants to be president.

Is Trump crazier than bat shit?  Oh, God, yes.  But we’ve dealt with that before too.  E.g. Reagan had advanced Alzheimer’s and Wilson was a total vegetable while still in office. It was dealt with.  Hell, Truman dropped atomic bombs just to see what they’d do.  How insane was that?

Could he appoint some creepy Supreme Court justices?  Yes, he could.  But we’ve survived that before (See Bush II.), and we would again.  Let’s say somehow, the worst thing happened.  Let’s say Roe v Wade was overturned.  That would not make abortion illegal across the land.  Some states would make it illegal.  Women would have to travel to a state in which abortion was legal.  Yes, this will cause a harsher burden for poor women, but only the price of a bus ticket.  It’s not as if there is federal funding for women to get abortions now.  Or, did you forget the Hyde amendment?  Let’s be honest.  This isn’t a problem for poor women as much as it is an inconvenience for affluent ones.  Plus, these court decisions have a way of getting overturned.  See: Plessy v Ferguson, Bowers v Hardwick, et al.

Please. Please take a survey of all the women who are struggling economically.  Ask them their greatest fear.  They won’t say, “I may not be able to afford an abortion.”  (But academic and professional “feminists” have never been much interested in their opinion.) 

This brings me to another observation.  Clinton supporters (or big shot Republicans) don’t seem to be afraid of the status quo continuing.  And, there are some very real things to fear.  The War on Terror will continue, children will still be burned to death by U.S. drones.  Tens of thousands will still die on our own soil because they can’t afford the medical care they need. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Still, somehow, it’s become my moral obligation to just accept those things.  Collateral damage.  There have always been these things.  Nothing can be done.  At least not right now.

Then. I notice something else.  The people doing all the dying now aren’t usually the same people who are so afraid of Trump.  Then again, they’ll probably do okay with the status quo.  It’s sort of working for them.  They probably won’t bury someone they love next year who’s been killed in war or from lack of medical care.  Collateral damage is a bad thing to poor people thing, comfortable people don’t understand why that royally pisses some of us off.

The privileged equivocate these deaths.  They do it ALL THE TIME.  They NEVER say, “Yes, I know innocent people will die, but...”  Not in so many words.  They always sanitize the truth and talk about future organizing or lamentable foreign policy or something that makes killing these people sound not so bad. 

I suspect it’s because, you don’t lose much sleep over these folks. They’re not their folks.  But now the Trump specter has left them fearing for their own hides, and THAT’S scary.

They try to wiggle out of this with ridiculous spin and obfuscation.  They make up things that have no basis in reality like, “It’s a privileged position to not vote against Trump.”  Or, “It’s not about you.”  (No, it’s about them.)  I am sorry, but these are such an utter crock.  Marginalized people are going to die regardless.  We know that.  We’re not fooled.  You’re only able to sell that to comfortable “liberals.”  We know better, and that makes you mad.  It’s disgusting that you try to blame us for our deaths and continue to expect us sacrifice our lives for your comfort.

We didn’t create Trump.  You did.  You did it by using us as cannon fodder in your wars for profit and by colluding with and creating an economic system that makes it less and less likely we will survive.  From NAFTA TO GATT to the repeal of Glass-Stegall to shredding the social safety nets to putting us in prison so the rich can get richer, to bailing out Wall Street, etc., etc., etc.  You’ve been doing this on a fast-track since the first Clinton regime.  You’re not going to reverse that trajectory, and we know it.  Some of us are so sick of you that we’re voting for Trump.  It’s true, our Trump supporters may be the less aware of us, but we’re more aware than you are in any case.  You created this mess.  You did, and now you’re guilt-tripping us about it.

Still, I think about voting for Hillary.  I’ll admit it.  I do.  Even Chomsky says I should.  And, then, I feel nauseated.  Not figuratively, literally.  I have to lie down and stay very still for several minutes, or I’ll throw up.  I’ve—literally—had to buy heartburn medicine twice this month.  Because, because, because I know I’m voting for someone who will kill people I love.  I don’t think most of you internalize that “Sophie’s Choice.”  You certainly don’t show explicit empathy or compassion for it.

We really aren’t stupid, you know.  We know Trump isn’t our savior for the most part.  The minority of those who don’t will soon figure it out.  We’re survivors and quick learners.

I’m simply saying I’m exhausted of hearing about your current bogey men.  I’m going to figure out what I’m going to do on election day in my own way with information that makes sense to me.  I’m going to keep advocating for common people in every way, every time I notice something that hurts them.  I’m not going to stop doing that.  In between elections—and during them, for that matter—I’m going to entertain any action I can take to dismantle the Empire.

I trust my people.  We will figure out what to do, and we will do it.  It will take too long, but we will do it.  So, please, stop trying to get us to vote for your candidate by scaring us or rubbing in that we don’t matter.  I’m sick of being afraid.

The Sins of the Left

by Mona Shaw

There is no question that if Anita Hill had made the same allegations against a “liberal” nominee (say Stephen Breyer) to the Supreme Court, she would have not have been believed by even the same “feminists” who pushed her to make her experiences public.

There isn’t much I’d rather not do than write about this. To do so submerges me in days of pain while I think of women betrayed by “liberals” and “left-wing” activists.  Women who suffer at the hands of those on the “left” who dare to try to expose that abuse are far more often than not brutalized more by those who should have supported them.

Few will bother to read this.  Fewer will care enough to modify their behavior at all.  That’s a depressing truth that I don’t enjoy revisiting.

However, there is a tether here that goes to the core of misogyny.  It needs to be cut.  I.e., until we acknowledge this, the body count will go higher and hope for all women will remain lost.  Plus, the women we've casually thrown under the bus are human beings who matter.

Anita Hill provided a political payoff.  Most women don’t have that currency.  Moreover, the allegiance to class superiority is as dangerous to that woman as her abuser.  If a man is publicly identified as a champion of women’s rights, he can essentially do whatever he wants to women with very little risk to himself.

Anita Hill

The casualties are endless.  The betrayal leaves life-long agony in its wake.  Still, the “left” is just as inclined, if not more so, to cover it up.

One case is that of Anna Mae Aquash, an incredibly brave spirit and devoted AIM member.  Anna Mae was raped and murdered by fellow activists in 1975.  At first AIM blamed her murder on the FBI, plausible since the FBI is known to kill human rights activists.  And, it was likely the FBI that planted the false accusation that Anna Mae was an FBI informant.  Eventually two AIM members were convicted of her murder.

Anna Mae Aquash

However, darling of the left Leonard Pelletier, who many have said interrogated Anna Mae while holding a gun her mouth and knew of her murder during the time he was blaming the FBI, has never been charged in her death. This is excused with statements like, "Well we'll never know, and he is in prison for something he didn't do.  Let's just let sleeping dogs lie."

Sue Daniels

Susan Daniels was murdered by a fellow activist and former lover in 2004.  Daniels was a valiant peace activist whose stellar resume of activism included being arrested during a School of the Americas protest. It wasn’t only that popular activist Niklan Jones-Lezama murdered her.  For months his stalking behavior had left Daniels in fear of such an outcome, but was ignored and accused of “over-reacting” when she said so.  Even after her death, many insisted it was a set-up by the FBI.  "Sure, Niklan had some issues. but he was a kind and compassionate man."

It took 23 years for the anti-war activist Ira Einhorn to be brought to justice after he murdered his girlfriend Holly Maddux in 1977.  Many were aware that Einhorn treated Holly abusively, but dismissed at as a good man under great stress. 

Left-wing or progressive men, of course, don’t always kill women.  Most just torment and use them and destroy the lives of any women who tries to stand up to them. 

Brandon Darby a charismatic activist who was eventually exposed in 2008 as an FBI agent was given a pass for horrific misogynistic abuse. Later, Lisa Fithian wrote in a blog in 2010.

"There are many people in the activist community who have crossed Brandon’s path and have been hurt, demoralized, alienated, frightened, or run off by him. Those of us who were lied to or lied about, spied on, bullied, must deal with the trauma of his abusive behavior. We must also come to terms with the behavior of those who supported and enabled Brandon. And, as a community, we must deal with those parts of ourselves that were seduced, manipulated, and marginalized by Brandon so that we can defend each other, our political work, and ourselves."

When “leaders” lose people from the fold through a chronically revolving door, it should be regarded as a red flag.  Usually it's not.  These men are given passes because “no one is perfect. I prefer to focus on the good he does."  The abuser's accusations against those who leave or are forced to leave the “flock,” if not believed outright, are given undue credence, no matter how lumpy the rug becomes from sweeping people under it.

It’s characteristic for these men to go through women like Kleenex as sexual partners.  People will giggle about how many women had to be told about him when he went to jail or to the hospital, etc.

When a group of the women in leadership challenged Brian Darby’s sexual exploitation.  He gave a shameful, but common, response “I like to fuck women, so what.”

You can’t go to any leftist discussion group and not see blasts of misogyny.  I was recently threatened with being kicked to the curb when I suggested that “sleeping with underage girls,” was not only not a joke; it was rape.  “He didn’t mean anything by that.  You’ve gone too far.  Women like you give feminism a bad name.  I’m so sick of identity politics.”

Perhaps the most pernicious acts of all are those committed by those who want to be “fair” or “stay out of it.”  Fears of community reprisal or even looked at askance will leave those who should be the helpers refusing to get involved. The pain of that for woman abandoned is unmitigated.

I can’t join groups anymore.  I just can’t.  I’ve given up trying to find one that will hold their “leaders” to the very standards they espouse. 

Let’s face it most “progressives” would not have risked life and limb to hide Anne Frank’s family.  Most don’t want to risk losing cocktail party invitations.  Betrayal of these women isn’t simply lying about her to cover up wrong doing.  It’s expecting her to meet you in an out-of-the-way cafe so you won’t be seen with her.  It’s coming up with a contrived excuse for not supporting her, e.g. “She’s not qualified” or “I’m not comfortable with how she brought this forward. She's just not a good poster child for this issue.”

There is a bottomless reservoir of conscious-numbing salve used by those who just don’t want to get any of the pain on them.  A lot of people like to quote Martin Luther King that character is shown by what you do in times of controversy.  It’s just not something they want to do.  People like to say they’ve done the best they can, but only if their “best” won’t cost them anything.

Our enemy isn’t the right wing.  Our enemy is our delusion that we’re any better than any of them. That log in our own eye requires our attention now.