Now that the election is over, we can vent humorously about Bush rushing out of the White House to escape having to do the nation's worst job any longer. The nation has been under a great deal of pressure, and with conditions like national unemployment and poor retail sales making that pressure grow, any relief is desirable.
Relief can come in many forms, as veteran reporter Helen Thomas notes in a recent article. In it, she calls the election of Obama by a racially diverse nation "a shining victory of tolerance over racial prejudice." Such victories have been rare enough in our nation's history. Too rare. But I myself have seen the signs that racial hatred, while still very evident, is weakening. It isn't going to go terminal in my lifetime, but just maybe I can hope that my grandkids will see to its demise with a stake through its ugly heart.
But is this hatred really dying, or is it merely changing its shape? Columnist Mary MacElveen launches her J'accuse! at the Republican Party's heavy reliance upon "hateful and inane messages" issued by party media minions like Coulter and Limbaugh. MacElveen notes Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney "stoked the fires of hate and divisiveness" and aimed their calumny at those deemed "non-American" and "too liberal". Too many Americans responded to their calls of divisiveness and separation. It's as if there is this internal need for some to always have someone or something to hate.
So who now makes up the population of the liberal non-Americans? It can't be a racial thing anymore, as the Southern Strategy has apparently run its course. Willie Horton just isn't working anymore, not with so many relationships involving couples of different racial parentage. Based on the fact that three of the more populous states passed measures eliminating the rights of gay Americans to suffer the slings and arrows of modern marital bliss within the boundaries of said states, it's clear to me that the new racism is sexual identity-ism.
Considering the history of Black Americans, one would think that they would be sensitive to efforts to limit the civil rights of others, intended to impose a second-class status upon them. Yet instead of standing up for civil rights as others did for them, 70% of Blacks in California voted to restrict them. No one expressed mortification over this development better than F. Damion Barela of Studio City, CA, who told Associated Press Writer Paul Elias, "I'm disappointed in the Californians who voted for this. To them I say, 'Shame on you because you should know what this feels like.'"
Article comments
1 - Lisa Solod Warren
Good job, Realist. I have long wondered what the hell difference it makes to anyone whether gays get the same civil rights as anyone else. Except, of course, anyone who really cares about true equality.
Marriage is first a civil union, then a church one, if people so choose. I will never understand, as I said on another post, why people are so obsessed with what goes on in others' bedrooms. I suspect most people wouldn't know whether someone was gay or "married" or not. But still the discrimination persists. My sister and her partner have been together for years, own a home together, and, thankfully my sister's partner's job permits my sister to be covered under her partner's health insurance. The whole obsessiveness by the religious fanatics with homosexuality stinks, though, and makes no sense.
2 - jamminsue
Washington State, Seattle especially, is a good place for Gays to go if they need to exit California. There are laws in place to protect Gay people, and the City is a big employer of Gays. I am ashamed to be "from" California; and glad it's "from" rather than "belong."
Worse, is the ban on gay people adopting children. That is a real shame.
My Mom, a conservative born in the 1930's once said "Love is so precious that when it is found, should be cherished and nurtured." I have been married to the same man for 30 years, and do not feel that gay couples threaten me or our society. I do feel that religious fundamentalists do threaten my life and those around me, no matter their color or religion, as those fundamentalists will find me or another to be of those that are "out" and thusly shunned.
3 - Jet
I had a lover who died in a wreck and I was barred by his family (who blamed me for "turning him" from not only seeing him in the hospital, but also from attending his funeral later.
Trust me there are rights that only a marriage grants to couples.
4 - Cannonshop
Some of your article, Realist, SOME of it, I have to find myself agreeing with-but not all, or even MOST of it.
First off on the skyrocketing firearms sales-one thing we learned in the Brady years, was that a rifle that was worth about seven hundered dollars the day before Brady passed, became worth over a grand the day after-seriously, the Brady Law made a lot of dealers who were on the margins very profitable while it went on. I expect that I'll make two to three times as much selling a certain recent purchase after January 20th, than I paid..retail today. People think about these things. They also think about Los Angeles 1992.
Second half of that, is that you presume Gays aren't gun-people, that they share your views on the issue.
This is a stupid assumption.
Third, your subtext in that comment seems to presume that gun-people hate Blacks, Gays, and Feminists. This is incredibly stupid, wrong, and likely one of the main reasons that otherwise civil-liberty leaning folks on the right won't march on the side of Gay rights.
You're mistaking the paintjob for the man, we expect Obama to be a typical Chicago Politician, and Chicago's got some of the most restrictive, and least rational, firearms laws in the country. YOu'd see the same thing if it was Chuck Schumer set to occupy the Oval Office-only you'd also see a run on components and handloading gear, cache materials, and survivalist paraphenalia. Oh, and a boom in business for manual-distributors like Paladin Press.
It's the POLITICS, sir.
On to the meat of your argument (and the bits I happen to agree with):
People will be bigoted and tribal. This isn't a new thing, and it's not going to go away. What goes away is the "acceptable target" of bigotry and tribalism, the acceptable "Other" that the shallow-brained masses can direct their hate,frustration, and disappointment toward.
It turns out that in the Black community in California, the memo "These guys are on our side" didn't get circulated widely in the South Central neighbourhood, or Watts, or the Latino neighbourhoods that are highly and heavily catholic (a church that, in its doctrine, considers being Gay to be a sin in and of itself.)
This is called "Unintended consequences" and maybe ought to be a lesson there-if someone's your ally, they're not ALWAYS your ally, and expecting them to reciprocate your aid is ignoring the aftermath of the death of Dr. King-to wit, all those marches were helped, participated in, and aided by Jewish organizations-the thank-you from the SPLC was its support of the Palestinian Cause and Pan-Islamic goals against Israel.
The ASSUMPTION was that "They're minorities, they know what it's like"-the FACT is, "They know what it's like, but they don't Empathize."
Prop 8 passed because a whole lot of people who had other priorities that day went to the polls, and saw no reason for it NOT to pass.
Hopefully, a Federal court or SCOTUS challenge can overturn this turd, but that's a thin, thin, hope.
5 - bliffle
"we expect Obama to be a typical Chicago Politician,..."
Putting the knock on Chicago, city of big shoulders, hog butcher for the world..
CHICAGO
HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
6 - Clavos
That's a very good poem, as any high school graduate can parrot to you.
Sandburg wrote it nearly a 100 years ago, in 1916.
It doesn't describe the Chicago of today, and certainly not its politics.
7 - Clavos
My union with my wife, 37 years of it, is only a civil union.
We were married by a notary public here in Miami in June of 1971. We've never had a church ceremony; we're both atheists, and the civil ceremony bestowed all the rights of church-married couples on us.
No one has ever questioned the nature of our union.
8 - Lisa Solod Warren
The word "marriage" needs to be struck from the discourse completely. EVERYONE who goes to join as a couple must get a paper from the state and sign it in front of witnesses. Then, IF one wishes to "marry" in the church one can. I was married by a judge the first time and a rabbi the second. If civil unions are legalized, as they should be, between whomever wishes to get them, as they should be, that will settle the question of civil rights for all. Again, those who wish a church (or other religious institution) wedding may find one and do so.
That is how the discourage needs to go. Get the word Marriage out and perhaps we can get this thing settle.
9 - Lisa Solod Warren
I think a compromise will have to be found.
10 - Christopher Rose
Arch Conservative is having a compulsory holiday until 5 December, so his comments - and any responses to them - have been deleted.
11 - jamminsue
#10 - Wow.
12 - bliffle
Well Clav, isn't it a little...dainty... to complain about Obamas Chicago politics?
13 - Clavos
I think you may have misunderstood my comment, bliffle.
I was saying that the Chicago of today is nothing like what it was in Sandburg's day; it's not nearly as vibrant and vital, and its politics (not Obama's) have never recovered from Daley pere's malevolent reign.
Would that the city in the picture painted by Sandburg were still extant.
14 - Glenn Contrarian
Realist -
Very good article. We've made great strides against racial prejudice, but we've only just begun when it comes to sexual-preference bias.
I often speak of my youth when I was a bit of a racist - and I was homophobic as well. I remember listening to politicians on the radio saying that we should lock up all the gays - and especially the HIV-positive ones - for the protection of the population from the spread of AIDS. I was very ignorant then (of course, many conservatives will argue that I haven't changed).
In the military I worked next to quite a few gays. I watched the prejudice against them...and as I was approaching retirement I grew angrier and angrier at the injustice. These were sailors like any other! They did their duty! But I didn't speak up for them against the command. I didn't dare risk my career. Was I a coward? Yes. But that's part of a long, long story.
For all those who face homophobes out there, here's a few questions that may help:
* Every country in NATO accepts gays in the military except for America and Turkey. Even Israel does...and we all know the quality of their armed forces.
* If God had meant for homosexuality to be a sin, then would He have allowed for there to be hermaphrodites, chimerism, androgen sensitivity syndrome, et cetera? Ask that to religious zealots and watch them waffle for an answer. I am Christian, but I strongly believe the homophobia in the Bible had to have been added cultural influence.
* For those who think they can 'turn' a homosexual, ask him (if it's a man) if he's attracted to other men or can EVER be attracted to other men. He'll say "NO!" Then ask him why he expects that he can change the attraction felt by a man who IS attracted to men but is NOT attracted to women. He'll fumble for words, fall back on his religious doctrine...but he won't be able to give a logical answer.
It took me a long time watching much injustice to really comprehend the magnitude of the error of homophobia. I understand now. They are deserving of the same life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness as am I. I say let them marry and raise a family. Is that really so bad?
15 - Brenna
The new president-elect is a sign that we as a people have made a conscious effort to overcome old ideals in favor of a new society order that includes people from every social caste. The new movie Cadillac Records (comes out of Dec 5,) shows how slow progress is. Its about the creation of Chess Records in Chicago in the 1950s and the rise in popularity of blues music. The blues introduced people to a culture that they were alienated from and was a social spark for progress. Nothing like we've accomplished now. No matter what happens in the next few years, at least we as a people can say that we've at least tried to overcome outdated attitudes towards others to work toward a brighter future for everyone.
16 - Cannonshop
Brenna, I hate to point it out, but somebody has to-the Presidency is not about Race. Obama's legitimacy has to hang on something more relevant than his skin colour, because he's just interviewed and been accepted to the job that bears the fun of being to blame for everything that goes wrong after he takes the oath. If it's about his skin colour, then we're ALL screwed, because that's tantamount to hiring your manager based on how he or she looks in a suit and tie.
I REALLY hope we didn't just hire a guy because he looks a little different. It puts the lie to his ability to do the actual job, and if it IS the reason, and he fucks up, that makes it that much harder for someone else who looks a little different getting considered.
If he WAS voted in because he's "black", and he then screws up? well, that's going to give the Racists out there more ammo to use next time on someone else who might actually be qualified.