To borrow from the inimitable Amy Winehouse.
It's 60 days and counting and I am still in a state of simmering apoplexy. What kind of nation have we become that this ignorant, lying philistine with his concubine faux-wife represents our collective American selves? What does that make us?
What kind of Democrats have we become that white liberals believe reading J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy is revelatory? (Or for that matter that the existence of a Barack Obama was chimerical.) I and the rest of my siblings grew up among these north-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line crackers and have listened aplenty to them, and as far as I'm concerned they are my fellow Americans worthy of civility and entitled to their dignity, but I sure don't owe them any apologies. Now solid research shows that working class white folks are dying of despair and I'm supposed to have enough magnimony left in me to care?
It's always been abundantly clear to me that the USA cuts way too much slack (an informal way of saying "privilege," which has now become too weaponized a word) to white people. Period. That only when a phenomena significantly harms white people is it recognized as mass suffering as opposed to moral defect or criminality. (1980's crack epidemic vs. 2010's opioid epidemic, anyone?) But frankly, judging from some of Congress' rationale for gutting the ACA I'm not sure the "significant harm to white people" bar is holding either.
And yes, when I'm not as inflamed as I am in the Age of Trump, I am well aware that class and other variables determine collective and individual fates. But, I am tired and the harm in communities of color (and yes, it's another fashionably weaponized word, but sometimes you need shorthand) continues as a crisis and I am nowhere near the mediation stage.
It's 60 days and counting and I am still in a state of simmering apoplexy. What kind of nation have we become that this ignorant, lying philistine with his concubine faux-wife represents our collective American selves? What does that make us?
What kind of Democrats have we become that white liberals believe reading J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy is revelatory? (Or for that matter that the existence of a Barack Obama was chimerical.) I and the rest of my siblings grew up among these north-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line crackers and have listened aplenty to them, and as far as I'm concerned they are my fellow Americans worthy of civility and entitled to their dignity, but I sure don't owe them any apologies. Now solid research shows that working class white folks are dying of despair and I'm supposed to have enough magnimony left in me to care?
It's always been abundantly clear to me that the USA cuts way too much slack (an informal way of saying "privilege," which has now become too weaponized a word) to white people. Period. That only when a phenomena significantly harms white people is it recognized as mass suffering as opposed to moral defect or criminality. (1980's crack epidemic vs. 2010's opioid epidemic, anyone?) But frankly, judging from some of Congress' rationale for gutting the ACA I'm not sure the "significant harm to white people" bar is holding either.
And yes, when I'm not as inflamed as I am in the Age of Trump, I am well aware that class and other variables determine collective and individual fates. But, I am tired and the harm in communities of color (and yes, it's another fashionably weaponized word, but sometimes you need shorthand) continues as a crisis and I am nowhere near the mediation stage.
