Alt-Right Idea, Wrong Approach
I’d like to begin today by stating clearly, and in no uncertain terms, that racism, hatred, exploitation, and white supremacy in general are reprehensible. I feel I need to preface this post before ya’ll get the wrong idea about me. I’m originally from South Florida, which was part of the Confederacy during the Civil War, while my grandparents lived in North Carolina, and I absolutely did grow up around a hell of a lot of racism. But that isn’t who I am today nor was it at any point in my past.
To be completely honest, this is a post I’ve been avoiding writing for some time. It is such a dark subject matter to address, and the intellectual outcomes of this writing aren’t what you’re going to want to hear when it comes to these subjects.
That being said, if you really want to put an end to racism, exploitation, slavery, and hate, then it helps to actually understand the premise of the situation in better detail. This means there are a lot of inconvenient truths to swallow about not just a “them” mentality but also ourselves. It’s easy to point fingers at others to condemn, but we get up in arms when it turns out we’re also at fault for the thing we so despise.
So let’s begin with a simple statement, one that will make every reader (except white supremacists) recoil in horror:
White supremacists are actually correct.
Before you wander off or fire up the comments section to tell me off, please hear me out in this post. The reasoning behind that statement isn’t what you (or a white supremacist) is going to expect – and in fact, doesn’t make them look good in the bigger picture. So bare with me, please.
Charlottesville, Virginia
Let’s summarize what is happening here. A bunch of white supremacists from different groups come together in Charlottesville, Virginia under the premise of “Unite the Right”. My understanding is that a Confederate monument was being protested to be taken down – one side saying it has no place being up as it glorifies a screwed up past, and the other being the white supremacists who feel it should remain. A fight ensues among both sides and all hell breaks loose.
The main problem here is that for all the good intentions of the tolerant protestors – equality, no racism, etc… their premise is and always has been that the ideals of the Confederacy aren’t those of these United States in modern times.
I beg to differ.
When we look back on history, and specifically the Civil War, we were taught that it was about slavery and the right to own slaves. That the Confederacy seceded and fought, while the Union (North) was against slavery.
This is a total fabrication at best, and an example of how easily we’re misled.
The honest truth of the matter is that both sides were fighting for slavery. The Confederacy was fighting for overt slavery while the Union was fighting for covert slavery. Because the north merely changed the semantics of the process, and people are on the whole really dumb, everyone saw the overt “freeing of slaves” and totally missed the covert slavery institutions taking their place.
Back in those days, it was common to have slave traders, slaves working on plantations, indentured servitude (which England was fond of – sending prisoners to the Americas to work off their debts). Essentially, it boils down to more powerful societies exploiting weaker peoples and societies for their continued gain and dominance.
This was the overt slave trade, exploitation and white supremacy at work. When you’re on top of the world, why bother trying to hide it?
Well, there’s a reason why: Because public opinion of the practice and attitudes was shifting, and it’s hard to continue those practices when the population are against it.
But how, then, do you keep all the benefits of slavery, exploitation, and white supremacy without wearing it on your sleeve?
Enter modern times.
Modern Slavery
And now we get to the heart of the matter, the reason I was so remiss to write this post. Slavery, white supremacy, hatred, exploitation, imperialism… none of that went away at the end of the Civil War. It was merely rebranded as something else, and the method by which was made palatable to the public who accepted it.
Let’s begin this section with a simple premise:
Capitalism in and of itself is bad. That isn’t to say Communism is good either, but when you operate on a system that requires “haves” and “have nots”, therein is an incentive to exploit the have nots, and an incentive to make sure they remain have nots so that you can continue to benefit from it.
It is in your best interest under Capitalism to make sure there are far more disenfranchised and kept “under heel” at a disadvantage for your own personal gain.
You see it in the minimum wage, or even “right to work” states. You see it in how the legal system effectively screws over and actively targets poor people and minorities to catch them in an inescapable circling of the drain leading to jail-time.
You see it in the for-profit prisons, their 95% occupancy clauses, and their exploitation of inmates for “work release” to business and corporations.
You see it in the society disproportionately stacked against minorities, immigrants and actively sabotaging them in order to supply that legal slavery and keep minorities and the poor at a marked disadvantage so that a bunch of rich white people can continue to benefit.
Worse off, the people behind this are in plain sight; They are your senators, congress, and Government. Backed by places like ALEC, an extreme right-wing group helping to craft the very laws that perpetuate this slavery, exploitation and disenfranchisement. They are the major corporations like Nike, Nestle, and Apple. They are GEO and CCA – for profit prisons.
While you’re busy targeting the white-supremacists on the streets and fighting to take the monuments down, and ban the Confederate battle flag from being flown under the guise of “It is not representative of the United States”, you’ve missed the fact that it actually is representative.
Or more aptly, your representatives.
Welcome to America
Tearing down statues and banning flags, or petitioning to get Dukes of Hazard off the air is probably the most ignorant thing any of us can do. Because if you’re so against the Confederate Battle flag and Confederate Monuments, under the guise of it not representing our moral compass in this country, the only person that’s lying is ourselves. In which case, if the symbolism such monuments and flags represent are reprehensible to you, and you insist on removing them, then I have a simple suggestion:
The whole damned country is operating on this reprehensible behavior as a foundation, not just in the past, but in the present day – while an oblivious population rallies against a moral indignation and history.
History, I might add, is an easy target because it can’t fight back. History cannot defend itself, and so is a great empowerment exercise for those who want to pretend to care about these issues.
We can turn a blind eye toward the actual racism, slavery, and exploitation happening today all over the country and worldwide as a norm, while protesting the statues and flags (symbolism).
If you want to stop racism, slavery and exploitation – leave the monuments and symbolism alone. That’s not your biggest problem. It’s not the racists in the streets you have to worry about, it’s the ones running corporations and your governments – local, state and federal.
Turn your attention to the real problem at hand if you want to solve it.
Because those Alt-Right folks showing up and protesting/rioting… those are just the symptoms of a country that has clearly shown them that that is exactly how the real world works.
Of course they have this notion of white supremacy… because it’s fucking true under the Red, White and Blue.
That doesn’t make it right, and that doesn’t make it any less appalling or reprehensible. But it’s the truth, and that truth is damned ugly.
The sooner we face that ugly truth, and the sooner we can go after the real culprits to change this fucked up system and country, the faster we’ll actually eliminate racism, slavery and exploitation.
Until then, you’re all just chasing red herrings.
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