Page 78 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 78
šolsko polje, letnik xxviii, številka 3–4
val. This is what makes him so dangerous, because he does, in effect, have
immeasurable power to do significant damage to the country, and to the
world. As intellectuals, we lure ourselves into celebrating our own critical
reading of Trump, thinking each article we write for an academic journal
will turn the tide against Trump, while at the same time making an uncon-
scious double move to normalize Trump’s antics because they make such
great fodder for our critiques. In doing so we unwittingly provide a smoke-
screen that hides the necessity of major revolutionary struggle.
How does this relate to race relations?
The civil rights gains that people of color have made during the 1960s,
have infuriated white folks who have been conditioned to hate the un-
employed (they’re simply “lazy” and get free food stamps paid for by their
hard-earned taxes) and immigrants, especially immigrants from south of
the border (the “murderers” and “rapists” that Trump wants to keep be-
hind his giant wall). When Obama was elected president, this became the
last straw for the white nationalists. The white nationalists believe that it
is progressive factions of “the mainstream liberal progressive” media, and
the political elite that are responsible for exposing the role that white priv-
ilege plays in the country. They blame these institutions for putting white
people under siege, and some, remarkably, consider themselves as the new
oppressed because people of color and their white allies are demanding
resistance to white supremacy, patriarchy and homophobia. When Ba-
rack Obama served two terms as president, racism in the United States
expanded into new species of vile. Personally, I’ve received hate mail from
white nationalists for my activism, and for being married to a Chinese na-
tional who now resides as a permanent resident with me in California,
and some of my colleagues—professors of color—have been verbally as-
saulted in public spaces. Before you think I am unsympathetic to the pov-
erty of white people, I’d like to share with you some work that is about to
be published in which I try to capture sympathetically the grievous eco-
nomic plight of the white worker—which is real—all too real?
Yes, of course.
Here is what I wrote:
The U.S. was shaken out of electoral somnolence, as more Trump sup-
porters than expected crawled out of the woodwork to vote, foment-
ing a Whitelash of extraordinary proportions. They came from former
railroad towns where the Rust Belt meets Appalachia, from dirt poor
white neighborhoods adjacent to petrochemical processing refineries,
76
val. This is what makes him so dangerous, because he does, in effect, have
immeasurable power to do significant damage to the country, and to the
world. As intellectuals, we lure ourselves into celebrating our own critical
reading of Trump, thinking each article we write for an academic journal
will turn the tide against Trump, while at the same time making an uncon-
scious double move to normalize Trump’s antics because they make such
great fodder for our critiques. In doing so we unwittingly provide a smoke-
screen that hides the necessity of major revolutionary struggle.
How does this relate to race relations?
The civil rights gains that people of color have made during the 1960s,
have infuriated white folks who have been conditioned to hate the un-
employed (they’re simply “lazy” and get free food stamps paid for by their
hard-earned taxes) and immigrants, especially immigrants from south of
the border (the “murderers” and “rapists” that Trump wants to keep be-
hind his giant wall). When Obama was elected president, this became the
last straw for the white nationalists. The white nationalists believe that it
is progressive factions of “the mainstream liberal progressive” media, and
the political elite that are responsible for exposing the role that white priv-
ilege plays in the country. They blame these institutions for putting white
people under siege, and some, remarkably, consider themselves as the new
oppressed because people of color and their white allies are demanding
resistance to white supremacy, patriarchy and homophobia. When Ba-
rack Obama served two terms as president, racism in the United States
expanded into new species of vile. Personally, I’ve received hate mail from
white nationalists for my activism, and for being married to a Chinese na-
tional who now resides as a permanent resident with me in California,
and some of my colleagues—professors of color—have been verbally as-
saulted in public spaces. Before you think I am unsympathetic to the pov-
erty of white people, I’d like to share with you some work that is about to
be published in which I try to capture sympathetically the grievous eco-
nomic plight of the white worker—which is real—all too real?
Yes, of course.
Here is what I wrote:
The U.S. was shaken out of electoral somnolence, as more Trump sup-
porters than expected crawled out of the woodwork to vote, foment-
ing a Whitelash of extraordinary proportions. They came from former
railroad towns where the Rust Belt meets Appalachia, from dirt poor
white neighborhoods adjacent to petrochemical processing refineries,
76
