Oakland highlights

Paul Henry Rosenberg rad at gte.net
Fri Jan 8 08:43:43 PST 1999


Chuck Grimes wrote:


> No, boys and girls Clinton isn't black to the black community. Clinton
> is black to a white community. That is, the white community of all the
> constituents who voted for the Right and Christian thing to do. Look
> who has systematically taken Clinton to task. The small
> white time little tyrants who rule the new south, the late great
> states of the west, the tight fisted midwestern bankers of the farm
> belt, and the old Dixiecrats who turned in their hoods for a hair
> piece and a bible.
>
> ...<SNIP>...
>
> No. The only thing that makes Clinton look black to these whitewing
> christians, is the real thing. The big, bad, ugly sort of racism that
> moves a primordial fear and loathing. These guys have that jones and it
> goes bone deep. It twists up their insides so they can't really make
> sense when they try and hide it. This thing inside they can't get rid
> of, has them so fucked up, they just fall down and piss all over
> themselves, like the sick little dogs they are. This is that White soul
> of mythic proportion that drove slavery, civil war, jim crow, lynchings,
> dogs, night sticks and church burnings--and evoked all those long dark
> riffs on the guitar and harmonica. These fastidious and
> concerned gentlement are the real face of all that. And that is why
> Clinton is supported in the black community. It isn't about Clinton. It
> is about who is lynching him, and why.
>
> Chuck Grimes,
>
> I keep thinking about the phrase, n-word lover. You're a n-word lover.
> That's the treason at issue. Wasn't it Baldwin who took that crime and
> savored its mysteries?

This sure makes us feel good to know that we are not they, Chuck. Unfortunately, "that White soul of mythic proportion" sounds terribly essentialistic.

More to the point, how do you explain Lee Atwaters playing the blues?

No, I'm afraid you're onto something, but you've only taken the first cut. You're trying to make out this monolithic force of racism, but the fact is it isn't monolithic, it's terribly fragmented, just like the identities trying to protect themselves tangled up in its net.

It's that fragmentation and entanglement that's most characteristic of what's going on right now -- and it applies to the blacks who support Clinton as well as the whites who hate him. We all know that blacks have gotten virtually nothing but more blame, more prison, and more death (Ricky Ray Rector was only the first) from Clinton, it's obvious that they're as fragmented and entangled as the white right is.

Are we any less fragmented or entangled than anyone else these days?

Don't make me laugh!

That's Chris Rock's job.

-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net

"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"



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