Stir up the melting pot, the bottom's burning.

(this was written in spring 2010 as the second half of my final paper for Gender Class and Race at MassArt, when I gave up on connecting things back to the original topic and just started ranting.)

In the headlines these days is the Arizona lawmakers’ efforts to allow police to stop and ask for documentation from anyone who looks suspiciously like an illegal immigrant (i.e. Mexican.) There has been public outrage, yet those interested in maintaining power and dominance are still able to get laws passed which allow for the oppression and exploitation of non-whites. It is a minority of self-interested, stubborn, ill-informed, racially competitive, whites, fueled by fear, driving forward liberty-encroaching legislation, in the name of protecting our people from some dark, exotic Other. While it is a determined minority of whites who are fearfully responding to a perceived wave of ethnicity set to take over “Our Country,” it is the less-rabid majority of whites who allow this force to gain traction. Many whites have allowed their latent racial prejudice, normally suppressed by ideals of American equality and/or the desire to be a “good person,” to be riled up by extremist fear mongering.

Though perhaps unsupportive of the more destructive policies, activities, and ideologies pushed forward by the forces of elite capitalist greed, in a democracy, those who sit idly by, who prefer to be uninformed about those issues that don’t have an immediate effect on their own lives, are complicit through their indifference in allowing self-interested sociopaths to strengthen their grip on the reins of U.S. government institutions and global markets, and to exploit the Earth and its most disadvantaged populations for the expansion of corporate and personal wealth and power. Corporate elites profit immensely from the presence of a large, under-employed underclass, which increases competition in the labor market and thus keeps down wages.

Ethnic differences can be manipulated into disputes when a multi-ethnic underclass is forced to compete for work. These disputes help to divert attention away from the questionable practices of the Friendly, Happy, Job-Creating, Faceless, Unaccountable, Yet for some reason Human-Rights-Entitled Corporation™ and how those practices may have seriously contributed to the population’s economic woes, and turn public attention toward the dramatic conflict of the border-hopping, undocumented, big-hat-wearing, siesta-taking, sub-minimum-wage working, medicinal herb cultivating, bean-loving, tax-free discount parking-lot-rentable home maid and/or unlicensed construction service-providing, family-supporting, American-dreaming, hard-working cabrònes y putas que no habla mucho Inglés under attack by the Tea-Partying, illegal-immigrant-detecting, they-took-r-jobs-shouting, fence-building, reggaeton-hating, selectively FREEDOM!-loving, down-trickling, crony-funding, small-government-empire-expanding, outsourced, unemployed, victimized, patriotic, Officially English-Speakin’, back-to-the-border ass-kicking service providing, beer-drinking, American-Flag-NASCAR-Hat-wearing, what country this is-announcing, overtaxed, tax-evading, pitifully nearly-trust-fund-less, stolen-country-return-wanting, Wal*Mart-shopping, Kraft “Cheeze”-eating, textbook blasphemy-eliminating, high-fructose-corn-syrup-guzzling, super-sized, carnivorous, doublespeak talking point-reciting, aerial-Qur’aan-reader-reporting, any non-bible or non-tabloid reading-reporting, bootstrap up-pulling, Real Americans, ready to trade liberty and privacy for surveillance, checkpoints, internet activity monitoring, and military police to defend the Vaterland against scary emotions and angry brown people. Real Americans who can’t meet up with some other Real Americans in a state-maintained, public commons without needing to apply SPF45 before commencing the loud expression of their extreme displeasure because of the government’s decision to spend money on trying to help everybody, the color of the people the government helps, and because the fact that the President does not require sunscreen proves his status as a Secret Muslim.

So what I’ve been trying to get at here is that while your common garden-variety White American Racist certainly isn’t doing much to uplift the conditions of oppression, criminality, incarceration, and poverty facing many racial minorities in America, this blatant racism does relatively little to truly affect the situation of minorities. Blatant racists are really only taken seriously by other blatant racists, so it’s best if they continue spewing their lunacy out loud for now so we can tell who they are. Eventually they will in-breed themselves to sterility. While we wait for that day, a subtler, liberally denied and suppressed, racial prejudice still remains a serious issue that will still take much time and struggle to overcome. Elements of white supremacy still linger in the modern white American psyche. This historically shameful meme inspires many whites to either attempt suppression of their prejudice and rejection of the morally-reprehensible deeds carried out in the name of the white race, or much more dangerously, they will quietly utilize their prejudice as a method of instilling in themselves confidence and a feeling of superiority. I call this group the most dangerous type of racist because of their ability to be perceived as a sane and rational person by society, recognizing that their views are bad or shameful, while still harboring animosity or prejudice that will affect any interaction with minority races to some degree. It is most dangerous for the secret racist to become involved in law to any degree. Secretly racist cops, judges, lawyers, and juries are more likely to suspect, convict, and harshly punish someone they hold racial prejudice against, but without the obvious signals of the blatant racist, minority victims of legal racism are helpless to have decisions overturned, or even be sure that they have been victims of racism. For example, if a blatantly racist judge called a black man a racist slur and sentenced him to 35 years in jail for bicycle theft as alleged by a 93-year-old eyewitness with cataracts. Even another blatant racist might have trouble finding that ruling sound, and such overt lunacy must be uprooted from positions of power.

Blatant racists have harmed, and continue to harm minority populations in the U.S. but follow an archaic tribal philosophy that denies them the potential of being taken seriously by most of society. Anti-racist/non-racist whites experience disgust at the actions perpetrated in the name of the white race, and are either disgusted by those who harbor racist sentiment, or are ashamed of the traces of prejudice buried deep within their own psyche. Non/Anti-racist whites haven’t been able to do a whole lot (with any sort of speed) to solve racism, other than their active commitment to not participate in perpetuating racism. The secret racists who may harbor animosity against racial minorities, but not expose their crackpottery through lunatic hate-speech are the most dangerous of all, particularly in positions of power because of their propensity to let their prejudice out through subtle action rather than confrontational words.

Yes, white racism and oppression of minorities is a major cause of the racial disparity in prison populations, but it is certainly not the exclusive cause or even the root cause. It’s hard to argue with the statements that money is the root of all evil, or that money is a measurement of power over others. It is similarly difficult to argue against the statement that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It has become clear to me that money is the root of white racism. White European colonizing corporations required racism to justify enslaving the African workforce required to sow the seeds of a new nation. Following the abolition of slavery African-American labor continued to be exploited for the gain of white capitalists and corporations, and continues to this day in the forms of prison labor, and the increased competition for low-paying, low-skill jobs among the underclass. Corporate interests control major media outlets and the majority of our elected officials. They have accumulated so much money/power that they have become like black holes of money and power, accumulating faster and faster as they expand. The corporations benefit from the creation of conflict from increased availability of cheap, competitive labor, profiteering off of the manufacture of equipment required to fight an engineered endless war, profiteering off of the reconstruction process, and profiteering off of the siphoning off of the natural resources (such as oil) of countries who were reluctant to give it up before we started dropping bombs. Corporations have acquired so much wealth/power that it seems they could hire enough lobbyists to get the entire government on their side, and to most skeptical observers, it appears that they already have. Corporate interests take a far greater precedence than those of the American citizenry, as evidenced by Obama’s sweetheart bailouts and bonuses for major automotive, financial, and health insurance corporations, without the regulation demanded by the people required to prevent the destructive practices that got them into trouble in the first place. And don’t think I’m picking on Obama for being a “Socialist”, he’s a corporatist elitist shill who’s really good at convincing compassionate/liberal people to believe in him. He seems to have done some nice things for downtrodden Americans, like the reduction of taxes for the poor, but it’s been clear to me since the media first fell in love with Obama that he had something shady up his sleeve, or rather something shady propping him up. He has almost nothing in common with black Americans, yet is hailed as the great “First ‘Black’ President” He’s wealthy, highly-educated, an international traveler as a child, raised by his white mother and grandparents. Barrack Obama does look somewhat black, know how to play basketball, has likely been called a racist name, and has African DNA from a father he barely knew. That is the extent of similarities between Barack Obama and the majority of the African-American population. White Americans have enslaved none of his ancestors. His family has not been downtrodden at the hands of the corporate, elitist system as the hands that built up a nation; he has been born into a comfortable and fortunate life and has benefitted from his alignment with elite corporate interests. GW Bush wasn’t a whole lot different; he was just playing to a different industry. GW’s oil buddies and defense contractors made out like bandits out of the whole Afghanistan, Iraq, and endless war on an emotion sorts of things. The Democrats and Republicans are really just two flavors of the same corporate elite-controlled party, designed in such a way that most people feel like they belong on one side or the other. Democrats theoretically represent ideologies of personal/social freedom, and economic restriction, while Republicans supposedly stand for economic freedom, but with personal/social restriction. These two groups are designed to split people down the middle so that they feel they must vote for one of the two Major Party candidates to ensure that the other loses despite the facts that once elected, campaign promises to constituents get broken while promises secretly made to contributors seem to come out. The 2-party system is inherently corrupting, and if we ever hope to overcome the corporate greed-driven policies of manipulation and influence over American minds through media control (the same media which gives many white Americans their first impressions of minorities) and political control. Racism isn’t going to go away on its own, even if there were no more big evil corporations, but if the 2-party corporate elite regime is allowed to remain in power, corporate power will only continue to grow, and with it the size of the gap separating the underclass from the corporate elite. Corporations will continue to manipulate ethnic differences for financial gain for as long as they are allowed to. Corporate power can only be defeated when it loses its influence over government.