Systemic Racist & Sexist Discrimination Has Always Defined the U.S.
Have you ever noticed the wild pendulum swings that occur every time the mere mention of, or baby steps toward, equal rights in the U.S. begin to gain a foothold?
In 2008 citizens voted in our nation’s first-ever black President.
Most of us were ecstatic. Many others were dumbfounded and/or enraged.
The backlash was immediate and pronounced. Racists lost their minds. The number of hate groups increased exponentially.
The GOP top brass gathered on election night and agreed to fight every single policy President Obama liked, including policies that GOP representatives had written, sponsored and co-sponsored. (To name just one of them, The Affordable Care Act– nicknamed Obamacare–was fashioned after Romneycare in Massachusetts.)
In 2015, marriage quality became the law of the land.
Immediately, counter forces did everything in their power to deny marriage licenses to same sex couples; some bakers tried to refuse service to same-sex couples.
When Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, the backlash was so harsh and immediate that African Americans found themselves living in equally dire conditions. And he was assassinated by a racist, white supremacist southern sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth.
We’re still waiting for the Equal Rights Amendment to pass.
Heck, we have a hard time these days even getting GOP representatives to renew the Violence Against Woman Act (VAWA). http://feministing.com/2013/01/03/the-vawa-has-expired-for-first-time-since-1994/ (It eventually passed later in 2013.)
One of Trump’s first comments as President was that he wanted to do away with the VAWA. (Of course he does. He’s a self-proclaimed serial womanizer and abuser: “You have to treat women like shit. Grab ’em by the p***y…)
https://www.thecut.com/2016/10/trump-only-some-women-want-to-be-treated-with-respect.html
The Lily Ledbetter Equal Pay Law was passed, but enforcement has been anemic because by the time a women discovers she has been paid less than her male counterparts in the same job, the statute of limitations has usually passed.
White women have systematically been paid at least 22% less (the disparity is even higher for women of color) than their male counterparts, and women’s jobs are historically lower-paying than men’s even when the amount of focus and physical labor involved is greater and more demanding (domestic workers, day care attendants, teachers, nurses, nurturing/mothering, the list goes on and on!)
The teeth that were in the Voting Rights Act have been removed so racists can keep people of color from voting.
The so-called justice system imprisons people of color far more often than it does white people for the same crimes. (Imprisoned people don’t get to vote. That’s part of the reason for long prison terms for non-violent offenses. Keep people of color out of the voting booths.)
These aren’t isolated incidents. These are systemic cancers that have been in place since the founding of our nation.
Remember? At first, only white men with property were allowed to vote.
People of color and all women were owned like beasts of burden and had no rights.
They couldn’t vote, appear in a court of law as witnesses, or seek redress for their circumstances.
White men could beat, starve, rape and abuse non-whites and women at will.
I’m presently reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy.
From the Amazon book description: ““We were eight years in power” was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election…”
[of Donald Trump and his racist administration].
Coates’ book is a beautifully written, unsettling read.
If you can’t understand where marginalized Americans are coming from when they say the system is stacked against us, this is the book to read.
White men in power already understand it and use the system that’s in place to deny equal rights and opportunity to the rest of us.
We need to read this book from cover to cover and come up with a plan to counteract the corrupt resolve to keep us down with an ambitious resolve to end the systemic violence and marginalization that has been happening for our entire history.
The American Dream is a myth for most people. Every time there’s a step forward, there is a backlash fomented by the white men who will not willingly give even an inch when it comes to the systematic subjugation their fellow non-male, non-white fellow citizens.
And here’s the kicker. Now the systemic marginalization and subjugation is targeting even white men who make less than megabucks. The middle class is shrinking at an alarming rate as oligarchs, plutocrats and corporations direct the politicians in their pockets to pass laws that redistribute poor and middle class wealth upward to the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans.
They won’t be happy until they subjugate us so completely that they can put us over a barrel and have their way with us in the same way they took advantage of us when they owned us…
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