Some people at the Lexington, Kentucky July 4th Festival yesterday were selling t-shirts with a giant “Yup, I’m a Racist” logo across the front (h/t: ChrisBoese via Twitter). Reporter Greg Skilling of the Louisville Examiner, headed over there with a video camera to investigate (video is 7:44):
There’s not much to say here except that this is yet another installment in the ongoing series “White People, Behaving Badly.” And, of course, to point out the obvious, we’re so not post-racial. I fear that H.L. Mencken was right when he said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”
Man, that was painful. I hate to type this, but it seems like white people are stuck on ignorance and cluelessness (not all but most). What’s worse is that they try to explain it and excuse it. This video is overflowing with whiteness. I mean wearing a T-shirt that says “Yup, I’m a Racist”, but hate being called a racist…Man!
There’s been a lot of stuff like that down here in Texas pretty much since President Obama was elected…I’ve even seen bumper stickers that say, “Impeach Obama” and stickers with open vulgarity. The racism down here is pretty open and with little or no shame, so whites, at least in this general area, aren’t running around with a concern of “being tired of being called a racist” on one hand and then asserting their racism with the other schism. An example of open the racism is down here, is with an apartment complex where the residents are majority African and over policed by white cops–a Black resident said to a white cop, “You just doing your job and catching all the ni**gers, I know” and the cop said, “Yep, just doing my job” and they both laughed it off–though different types of laughter–one of privilege and dominance and the other of a type of pain coupled with “and your a damn idiot”–laughter from two completely different viewpoints and experiences.
But on the socialist paranoia–it always cracks me up. It’s just too much. My friends who are socialist and now living in a capitalist nation say the only people living a true “socialist” life in the U.S. are the politicians. The U.S. will never go socialist or anything close to it.
But with that, I think I’ve shared this on this website somewhere before…but it’s the front page of the Pacific Northwest Magazine from a few years back that highlights both capitalism and socialism for anybody interested…a wise person recently reminded me that even “Liberals” in the U.S. are conservative and the U.S. has never been a liberal place…and probably never will be…:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw06032007/
And in terms of the Republican’s position on Obama and their claims of socialism, etc., I think they are confused–especially with relation to the health care plan…. I think there are issues with both parties and their political memories, which seem to be highly selective in nature…. While I’m not down with the Republican party at all, wanted to attach this article Ben Stein wrote fairly recently on the Republicans and a healthcare plan that looked a bit more “socialist” than President Obama’s plan…. Here’s the article for anybody interested:
http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-giving-nixon-his-due-on-health-care-reform/19414702