No racist! No racist! You're the racist!
The term "racist" picked up a negative connotation sometime in the last century. I think the Third Reich ran it into the ground, first bragging of being "blond beasts," then incorporating the concept of racial purity into its legal code to give it an official veneer, and then the heaps of corpses. After that, nobody wanted to be called a racist, especially if they were.
In America, racists talk about their "customs," their "heritage," their "history," to excuse everything from separate drinking fountains to public statuary to murder. Lately they have resorted to projection. (I'm not a racist. You know who is? Barack Obama, because he keeps talking about race and making white people feel bad and then they get angry...) It's an offshoot of the "outside agitators" trope: Our people were real happy until Communists/Yankees/Union troops put ideas in their heads and stirred up trouble. You always wonder if they really believe it.
But the mark of the racist is indelible: He perceives the world instinctively in racial terms. The Nazis rejected modern physics because Einstein was a Jew. The United States imprisoned without trial thousands of Americans whose Japanese ancestry made them inherently disloyal. Judge Gonzalo Curiel couldn't be impartial in the Trump University fraud case because his parents were born in Mexico. Congresswomen Omar and Tlaib should "go back to their own countries."
A new level of stupid was reached when Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified about the Trump-Zelensky shakedown call. Vindman, the NSC officer in charge of Ukrainian affairs, listened to the call in his official capacity and because he is fluent in Ukrainian (but can he understand Trumpese?). After he testified to the House Intelligence Committee, the Trumpanzees began poo-flinging because Vindman, a decorated veteran of the Iraq war, was born in Ukraine -- or as Brian Kilmeade puts it, he "has an affinity to the Ukrainian people." You just can't trust immigrants, Purple Heart or no. Twenty years of military service? He was just waiting for his chance to betray the president by telling the truth. Also, I heard he might be a Jew...
Today the Speaker laid out the procedures for now-inevitable impeachment, so expect a lot more of this. When the law and the facts are against you, pound the ethnicity.
In America, racists talk about their "customs," their "heritage," their "history," to excuse everything from separate drinking fountains to public statuary to murder. Lately they have resorted to projection. (I'm not a racist. You know who is? Barack Obama, because he keeps talking about race and making white people feel bad and then they get angry...) It's an offshoot of the "outside agitators" trope: Our people were real happy until Communists/Yankees/Union troops put ideas in their heads and stirred up trouble. You always wonder if they really believe it.
But the mark of the racist is indelible: He perceives the world instinctively in racial terms. The Nazis rejected modern physics because Einstein was a Jew. The United States imprisoned without trial thousands of Americans whose Japanese ancestry made them inherently disloyal. Judge Gonzalo Curiel couldn't be impartial in the Trump University fraud case because his parents were born in Mexico. Congresswomen Omar and Tlaib should "go back to their own countries."
A new level of stupid was reached when Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified about the Trump-Zelensky shakedown call. Vindman, the NSC officer in charge of Ukrainian affairs, listened to the call in his official capacity and because he is fluent in Ukrainian (but can he understand Trumpese?). After he testified to the House Intelligence Committee, the Trumpanzees began poo-flinging because Vindman, a decorated veteran of the Iraq war, was born in Ukraine -- or as Brian Kilmeade puts it, he "has an affinity to the Ukrainian people." You just can't trust immigrants, Purple Heart or no. Twenty years of military service? He was just waiting for his chance to betray the president by telling the truth. Also, I heard he might be a Jew...
Today the Speaker laid out the procedures for now-inevitable impeachment, so expect a lot more of this. When the law and the facts are against you, pound the ethnicity.
posted by Buttermilk Sky at 10:56 AM
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