On 2010-02-09, at 1:09 AM, Joseph Catron wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 12:42 AM, Joanna <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> The problem is that when the tea baggers talk about their America, they mean
>> their WHITE America.
>>
>
> Sure, but is this really such an alien phenomenon? I can't count the number
> of white liberals of the Manhattanite sort who define New York in their own
> image - and, in fact, often seem woefully ignorant that anyone else lives
> here...Anyway, the question I'm awkwardly driving at here is this: Should we use
> such myopia, with all its implications of race and class, as an excuse to
> avoid meaningfully engaging with the people who are mired in it?
=========================
Even the most "insensitive" white liberals, however, aren't pressing for Obama's birth certificate, and support a party in which blacks and other minorities are heavily represented. The white conservative base of the Republican party formed and grew in reaction to the demands of blacks, women, gays and, more recently, immigrants, for civil rights. It is hostile to social spending which it sees as a transfer from hard-working white taxpayers to undeserving ghetto dwellers. It's xenophobia is also reflected in it's enthusiastic support for US imperialist wars abroad, massive defence spending, and the torture and denial of due process to Islamist suspects. Poor white conservatives ultimately act against their own interests because they are fearful and resentful, not because they haven't been exposed to good ideas. You'd be quickly sniffed out as a "socialist" and dismissed before the pleasantries were over. I don't think anyone should be discouraged from engaging with others, but confronted with such deep-seated prejudices you'd probably have better luck trying to persuade Bostonians to root for the Yankees.
The suggestion to reach out to white conservative American workers is not a new one and is harmless enough in itself, but I also think it also feeds into the anti-liberal animus of many US leftists, not necessarily including yourself, and serves as a pretext to avoid contact with the base of the viscerally detested Democratic party, where political activity, IMO, would be much more usefully concentrated. In this way, it is a recipe for political abstention masked as a formula for political engagement.