We can’t get the South Dakota Republican establishment to criticize Donald Trump for offering aid and comfort to white supremacists. But at least we can count on them to speak up against the marginalized members of their party.
Terry LaFleur, who failed to submit enough valid signatures to run for governor as a Republican, chose Easter Monday to promulgate racism by asking on Facebook, “Why is it okay for Every race to be proud of their heritage except for white people?”
Now LaFleur wasn’t really asking—people who post that question are just trying to excuse their own prejudices and insularity. But if anyone wants an answer to LaFleur’s rhetorical question, it’s simple: “White Pride” is a slogan used by Klansmen and other racist members of the historically privileged class to perpetuate their oppression of other races. “Racial Pride” is not a two-way street amidst a cultural power differential. “White Pride” really means “Privilege Pride,” and that privilege is wrong. LaFleur’s cry is as wrong as white people dressing in blackface or in stereotypical Indian garb. LaFleur’s cry is as wrong as shouting “Blue Lives Matter!” back at “Black Lives Matter” protestors, since it seeks to reinforce the unjust use of power against a disempowered minority.
And, to his credit, SDGOP spin blogger Pat Powers appears to agree:
When candidates for Governor post memes like this, we can be glad they want to represent a different political party [Pat Powers, “Kind of Glad that LaFleur Didn’t Make the Ballot, and Is Now Running in the Constitution Party,” Dakota War College, 2018.04.02].
It’s nice to see Powers join me in critiquing LaFleur’s brand of racism. Powers only errs in referring to LaFleur as an “outlier.” We know, from SDGOP Senators Tapio and Novstrup to SDGOP leader Lederman to the Republican Party leader who occupies the White House, prejudice is not a bug in the Republican Party; it’s a feature.
As pointed out, there is only so much room for white hate. With the likes of Little Al Novstrup, Tapioca and Iowa boy, Lederman, they pretty much have that ballroom taken. Hard to dance when these robed fellows take the floor.
I caught a lot of flack the last time we talked about this, but I can’t help myself. This double standard is one reason we will never be free of racism. As long as people of one race have different “rules” than people of another race, we are not equal. Here is what I think happens: people who want to be offended, or who want to be super-progressive, or who want to teach us all something, will assign their own meaning to other people’s words in order to make their point, and then will be offended by their own misinterpretation.
If a person who isn’t white says they are proud to be the race they are, these mouthpieces will pipe up and say “Way to go, minority person! You should be proud of your heritage! You should be proud of your ancestors! You should rise in the face of adversity and wear your pride like a badge of honor!”
If a person who is white says they are proud to be the race that they are, the mouthpieces will shame them and say things like, “You are racist! Your pride is offensive! You are scum! You aren’t allowed to be proud of your heritage or ancestors or ethnicity.”
I think people who are racist are not good people. I think people who treat people differently based on their race are not good people. I think slavery is bad, and it’s a terrible shame that it ever happened in this country and in pretty much every other country throughout history. I also think it’s silly for somebody to be proud of the color of their skin, whether white or black or brown or tan or anything else, because they were simply born that way; being “proud” of something you had no control over doesn’t make any sense to me.
However, I think the mouthpieces that get worked up about this are projecting their own issues onto others. If somebody says they are proud to be their race, so long as that race is not caucasian, the speaker is assumed to have socially-acceptable pride in some positive characteristics of his or her people. Conversely, if somebody says they are proud to be their race, and that race is caucasion, the speaker is assumed to have socially-unacceptable pride in the negative characteristics of his or her people. That’s baloney, in my opinion.
I understand that lots of people in this country want to be the Word Police and tell everyone else what they should or shouldn’t say, but assuming all whites mean negative things when they say they are proud of their race, and then assuming all folks who aren’t white mean positive things when they say they are proud of theirs, is just silly pandering. You might think you are standing up to vile racists, but you are really perpetuating race differences and treating people differently based on the color of their skin. That’s backwards; that’s not progress.
When Cory says “White Pride means Privilege Pride,” what he is saying is that “white people have done nothing good to be proud of, only bad things to be ashamed of. You should not feel proud, you should be quiet and be ashamed.” I disagree. I think we should judge people by their actions, not their skin color.
But, as I said at the beginning, plenty of people will add their own meaning to my comments and then blame me for that skewed meaning that they don’t like. Millions of people also purchased the Pet Rock, and millions of people voted for Donald Trump, and millions of people think daylight savings time impacts how much sun we get, so I don’t mind being in a different group than most of those kinds of folks anyway.
I was able to follow you until yer second sentence, Ryan. And I got a headache. Do you get paid by the word?
mike, here we go again. I’ve had to apologize to you more than once for hurting your sensitive little feelings after you repeatedly pick on my comments, so why even bother? Why start this? One of two things is true: 1) You really can’t comprehend my writing; or 2) You pretend not to be able to because you think your ignorance is an insult to me in some way. I don’t know which is more sad for you. Commas are short pauses; periods are longer pauses. Semicolons are tricky for some folks, I admit it, but golly – grammar is really not rocket science!
I’ve heard great things about Dora the Explorer books. My daughter loves them. Maybe start there and then ramp it up to adult conversations when you can muscle through the whole Subject-Verb-Object idea.
Yeah, whatever you said, But, do you get paid by the word? Simple yes or no. Less is more.
I actually get paid quite well for my writing, mike, but no, it is not per-word. I read and comment on this blog for the intelligent discourse, not for profit. Do you get paid per incomplete sentence attempted, or per stereotype supported?
Watch closely, Ry, buddy. No. Less is more.
Racist, racist, racist! Everybody is racist! So long as you all make “racism” an issue there will never be a time we are past it. It is YOU that cry and scream racism on a daily basis. It is YOU who tolerate and excuse blatant racism from other sources yet cry when someone says something that may be poorly worded but not racist except by YOUR voice.
Racism is wrong but what is worse is those who turn their back of ALL OTHER occurrences and not just those by white people.
Ryan, I think the goal of a color-blind society is the ideal. The reality that you ignore in your world view, though you pay lip service to it, is the history of racism in our country and its continued pervasive nature to this day. Furthermore, the economic and social effects of historical racism play a role in the struggles that confront many minorities on a daily basis in our country.
The “double standard” that you describe is without any context. You are expecting minorities that have been discriminated against for generations and who have not reached parity in terms of economic condition and opportunity as well as social and other societal parameters to act as if we have achieved a post-racial world. On the other hand, white privilege continues to be an unfortunate factor in our great country. Thus, acknowledging racism and bigotry still are alive and well in this country means acknowledging a different responsibility for those of us in the majority.
In my view, there is nothing wrong with having an appreciation for one’s heritage as long as that heritage is not used as an excuse to keep open old racial wounds. When heritage is simply used as a subterfuge for white supremacy, obviously that cannot be accepted. Trump has fostered an atmosphere that emboldens the racist elements of society and he has utterly failed to confront these forces of bigotry.
In sum, your world view might be fine if we actually lived in a post-racial society. Since we plainly don’t, our societal norms must take into account past and current racism.
Sweep it under the rug, OlsdSarg?
Yer CIC today referred to former Potus Obama as “crooked Obama.” When the head of the nation is as blatantly racist as the POS in the WH, there is no sweeping it under the rug.
Darin, great post. Well said. I agree with everything you said, except about my ignoring the reality of racism still being a problem. I absolutely agree it is still a problem, and white people who want to demean anybody because of their race are idiots. I also said I think it’s silly for anybody to be proud of their skin color at all. However I disagree with Cory’s premise that “white pride” equals support for white superiority any more or less than “native pride” means native superiority.
Cory said, “prejudice is not a bug in the Republican Party; it’s a feature.”
Absolutely. Racist gerrymandering and voter suppression are the #1&2 parts of that GOP feature.
I am immensely proud of many of my forebears, who happen to all be white, somewhat embarrassed of others, and deeply wish some hadn’t made it out of childhood. There were some terrible people in my family tree.
I never think of that as “white pride”, because it’s not about their race; it’s about their personhood. I can do that because I’m in the privileged class, to an extent limited by gender.
I am embarrassed, at best, by white privilege, as I learn about more and more people of other races and women who were great inventors, thinkers, leaders, etc., but knowledge of their accomplishments was stifled by the white power structure. You know the saying, the powerful write history.
It’s interesting and educational to observe the responses of those in the most privileged class as that position weakens. When a Muslim person commits an act, it’s construed to apply to all Muslims. The same is true for an Arab, Asian, African, Latinx, woman, etc. Now that white men, as a group, are being blamed for America’s domestic terrorist attacks the backlash is Rapid and Outraged. Hmmmm?
Debbo, I think you mistakenly assume that all white men are prejudiced against people who aren’t white males. It sounds like you also think white men should be treated differently than people who aren’t white males. You obviously justify your prejudices by telling yourself that white men deserve it, but that’s the same self-serving crap racists around the world use to feel good about being racist. You appear to be a hypocrite.
The best recent account of white privilege, and it’s generations long impact is here.
https://www.feld.com/archives/2018/03/book-waking-up-white.html
This family book reading & review nail it, and it’s close to home. Note the home lending map. Note the statistics and the generation-long results from the GI Bill, of which many, perhaps most of us are 2d or 3d generation beneficiaries. Watch the grand summary by the author in the article’s linked, embedded TED talk. The author admits, before her epiphany to being a liberal bigot; ‘they just needed to learn to be like me, have my values’.
We learn our cultural bigotry at the youngest age. A young parent holds the hand of a young child preparing to cross a busy city street, and points to the pedestrian signal instructing, ‘we go with the white man’. Why white? all other go signals are green, everywhere. Why a man? why not a woman, gender neutral, or another symbol.
John, you want it to be about race just as most of those who refuse to see the truth look for reasons other than the obvious reasons. It is not “white privilege” it is cultural failure.
I was just on a web site https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22White%22,%22sort%22:%22desc%22%7D where it lists the poverty rates broken down by race. Well at least it does white, black, Hispanic and “other”. I don’t like the “other” label, never have.
The chart is from 2016 and shows in the United States the percentage of Americans below the poverty rate: White 9%, Black 22%, Hispanic 20% other 13%. So if we look at the simple numbers it does appear that for some reason more Blacks are below the poverty level than other races.
So if we use these numbers to determine “white privilege” lets see which states are the most racist and those that are not! Well! It turns out that those Klansmen from Main are the most racist with 87% of blacks being under the poverty level and Maryland is the least racist with only 11% of blacks below the poverty level.
If you break it down by Hispanics Mississippi is more racist against Hispanics than they are against Blacks.
South Dakota doesn’t look real good as they are racist and use their white privilege against “others” and Hispanics the most but this may be unfair because the I am assuming the “other” in this case is Native Americans.
Here is something sad, the child poverty rate is 4% higher than the over all poverty rate and I don’t think it is because of “white privilege” because kids can be all colors yet there is always this difference.
No, I don’t think “white privilege” is the cause or you would find statistical differences between the states and I am pretty sure no matter where you looked in the world, even in areas where there are few whites, such as Asia, there are still poor people and there will be cultural commonalities that demonstrate what the ignorant call “white privilege” is actually failure in different cultures.
The consensus from every race is that whites have more privileges than they do. The only race that disagrees with this is ….. well, you can guess. That’s enough proof that white privilege is real.
Let’s narrow this down to something a lily white state like South Dakota can better relate to. Male Privilege. It’s real, too.
Comments, ladies?
Porter, “consensus” is not science. “consensus” is opinion. “consensus” is a judgment. You are judging others based upon your unscientific opinion.
Please provide some “proof” of white privilege. Something like a “study” or a peer reviewed paper.
Privilege is too subjective to be thrown around like people do on this blog. I don’t think privilege is skin-color based, or at least not to the extent some of you people pretend it is.
A poor white trash dude who works at Hardy’s does not have a leg-up on a wealthy immigrant from China or anywhere else. A Brazilian with a Master’s Degree will see more open doors than a white farmer’s daughter who got pregnant at age 16 and dropped out of high school.
Privilege is a consequence of money and local population demographics. Tell a white guy to move to Laredo, Texas and see what his “privilege” gets him in a city with a population of 95% hispanic folks. Tell a poor white guy who runs the fryers at Perkins to roll into Beverly Hills and start shooting the breeze with the billionaires, and see how that “white privilege” goes out the window real quick. Tell a rich white guy to stroll down any street in Harlem, Compton, or downtown Detroit. I’m willing to guess he would not be welcomed with open arms and would have fewer “privileges” than the people who match the racial and economic average of the local population.
Privilege is not subjective. It is a real feature of our society. Some people get to enjoy it; some people suffer under the opposite of privilege.
Ryan, it doesn’t matter how many separate anecdotes you relate to express instances when privilege was not apparent. Statistical evidence is overwhelming and your denials and red herrings have no effect on that, except to apparently make you feel better. So go ahead, tell stories as much as you like. It’s certainly not the first time racism amd white privilege have been responded to in this way, and it certainly won’t be the last.
Who does LeFleur think he is, asking Why like that?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/12/why-this-leading-white-nationalist-is-urging-iowa-voters-to-back-donald-trump/?utm_term=.757cf808b192
thanks,
Jerry
From the white supremacist who supported Trump, in Jerry’s link:
That’s the racism, the white privilege, at the heart of Trump’s base. America for whites only, no one from s***h*** countries or s***h*** religions. Thank you for that stinging example, Jerry, of what’s wrong with LaFleur’s racist statement and Trump’s America.
Debbo: “Statistical evidence is overwhelming” boy does that sound like the same global warming crap.
Look at the stats. Stats do not prove white privilege, race privilege or sex privilege. The stats do “overwhelmingly” prove cultural evidence.
Once again: The more you all run around and make crap up, accuse anyone who has a differing opinion of being racist, the more people ignore what you have to say. It is all becoming a boring drone. . .
Debbo, I disagree with you completely. My “anecdotes” were useful in showing that “White Privilege” is really a combination of wealth and demographic privilege. I disagree with you that correlation equals causation. I don’t deny privilege – I admit fully it exists. However, I don’t over-simplify complex topics like this by suggesting the interactions of hundreds of millions of people of different races, religions, nationalities, genders, social statuses, economic conditions, education levels, and political affiliations can be boiled down to white versus non-white. All I ever see you post is anti-male and anti-white propaganda baloney. You seem to be sexist and racist. Consider me happy to disagree with you about pretty much everything.
Near as I can tell, OldSquid and Ryan are complaining because their widdle feelers got hurt.
Just because calling people on racism and misogyny doesn’t meet with yer approval, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Compare the racist, misogynist in the WH with the former occupant and you will have the opportunity to see how you should treat POC and women compared to racist, Misogynist Drumpf.
Obama treated everyone the same and never said a bad word about any of his enemies, unlike the swine occuoying 1600 Pennsylvania Ave today.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/4/5/17199810/school-discipline-race-racism-gao
Black kids far more likely to face punishment than, oh dare I say, other races including pastey white.
Nothing racist about it, right?
mfi, you make no sense…again. I’m not complaining about anything, first of all.
Second, I didn’t post my comments because I have hurt little feelers. There is nothing Cory can post that hurts my feelers, and no commenters here can hurt them, either, because I’m an adult. If I remember correctly, you are the one with the oft hurt feelers.
Third, nobody is talking about trump (drumpf, to you) or obama (jesus, to you). You might as well just come on here and say “I agree with Cory, Debbo, and the democratic party line, regardless of the issue. I do not have independent thought.”
Fourth, despite your cherry-picked statistic, I stand by my opinion that privilege is much more a factor of location and wealth than race. Do some research or study criminal justice and you’ll see that socio-economics plays a larger role in criminal and civil punishment than race. But, of course, obama never said that on record, so why would you believe it, right?
Okay, try this boys. Look at photos of state legislatures– pick any state. Or governors, judges, the executive suite of any Fortune 1000 company, sheriffs, police chiefs, religious denominational leaders, wealthiest 1000 Americans, military officers, university professors, prisoner populations, on and on, ad nauseam. That’s the overwhelming statistical evidence.
Ryan, ““White Privilege” is really a combination of wealth and demographic privilege.”
YES! And that construes to white people because of their privilege. Good grief.
Mike and Roger and Cory, I lack your patience and admire you for it. Sigh. That’s why you’re often more persuasive than I.