Why I can't accept that it isn't about race

[thefuturemesozoic]

I know what a whole lot of people are wanting to say to me. Whatever their concerns are, they have nothing to do with race. They are not racists, and they are tired of people saying otherwise. They don't have a racial bone in their body. They find it insulting that people ask them to consider the possibility that they have racial biases that they might not be aware of. Instead, they feel that we should consider the possibility that it isn't about race after all. Nevertheless, I'll explain why I find it difficult to take this argument seriously.

I have seen people express concern over the implications of the COVID lock-downs. Within a short period of time, schools were closed, businesses were ordered to shut down. They feel like people have submitted to authority without a fight. They worry that, if people felt discouraged from using cash because of concerns over COVID, then the stage was being set for a cashless society where all of their financial transactions were traceable by the government. They didn't want the government to be getting up in their business and having the ability to snoop into their financial transactions. And then I see the same people saying that, if a police officer asks someone to do something, then they should just comply. If a police officer stops a black person over their tail light being out and then wants to search their car, then what would be the point of making a fuss over the 4th amendment? If you're not doing anything wrong, you maintain your composure at all times, and you don't project the appearance of being nervous, then you have nothing to hide and nothing to worry about, so no reason to object to being searched. So, in this context, people don't seem to have the principled concern about government overreach that they have in the former context.

And then, for some people, there is capitalism and there is socialism, and, on the whole, capitalism has done more for the world than socialism has. I presume that, for them, capitalism is synonymous with Ayn Rand's vision of the way the world ought to work, with individuals pursuing their self-interest, corporations concerned only with maximizing profits for their shareholders, and the government staying out of the way. When people start to decide that the government should regulate corporations or act to promote the general welfare in some way, then that is socialism. They will say that, fundamentally, the world doesn't owe anything to anyone, that corporations are entitled to do as they see fit in order to maximize profits and are not obligated to take any particular customer's needs into account, and that decisions made by corporate managers should not be questioned. And then Quaker Oats makes the decision to rebrand Aunt Jemima, presumably deciding that doing so would be beneficial to their shareholders, and now many Conservatives are outraged. They do not want to see Aunt Jemima being rebranded and are seemingly making the argument that corporations should be taking their opinions into account, rather than relentlessly pursuing the bottom line.

And then I see Conservatives expressing a general frustration at people becoming offended by things. They feel that black and indigenous people should have a thick skin and not allow themselves to become offended by things that other people say or do. And then the same Conservatives felt angry at Colin Kaepernick deciding to kneel during the National Anthem, that they are sick of people trying to tell them that his actions were not disrespectful since it is not up to them to decide whether his actions are disrespectful or not. If a veteran says that he is being disrespected, then he is being disrespected. His feelings have inherent validity, and others do not get to tell him how to feel. I feel that what is being said here, intentionally or not, is that black people have an obligation to take white peoples' feelings into account when deciding how to protest, but not the reverse.

And now Texas Republicans are trying to recruit an "army" of poll watchers who have the "courage" to go into minority areas of Houston and watch for fraud. In terms of voter fraud, there are a few things that we know about the 2020 election. Donald Trump filed over 60 lawsuits in court and lost nearly all of them, his lawyers being unable to present evidence that could stand up in court. Some of his own appointees stated that there was no evidence of wide-spread fraud that would have altered the result of the election. In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton spent 22,000 hours looking for voter fraud and found 16 minor cases in Harris County where a voter registered with the wrong address. So why do we need to have an "army" of thousands of volunteers? If their job is to stand by and observe, then why do they need to have "courage?" If there is a concern that fraud might occur, then why would minority areas be singled out as places where it might occur?

I have trouble seeing contemporary Republican concerns as something other than a continuation of the concerns that have existed since the time of reconstruction, that lazy blacks were going to vote to redistribute wealth from hard-working white tax-payers in order to benefit themselves. For more on this, I would recommend reading How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America, by Heather Cox Richardson. Republicans would be quick to point out that Lincoln was a Republican, that he freed the slaves, and that it was Democrats who had the concerns that I mentioned, not Republicans. But this argument ignores the ways in which political parties can change over time. To give a recent example, Trump broke from the pro-trade policies of the Republican establishment and picked up votes from many working-class whites who previously voted for Democrats. Nixon's "southern strategy" was intended to win southern whites over to the Republican Party. Voters and politicians alike have sometimes decided that their previous political party no longer represents them. If Lincoln were running for President today, one must ask which political party he would have aligned himself with.