the essence of the problem, and Trump is but a symptom

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/%e2%80%98the-lowest-white-man%e2%80%99/ar-BBIfJ7w

Yep. Excellent column, and very true.

I don't think every Trump voter is racist, but the more I talk to 'em, the more of 'em I think the ones who aren't are pretty rare. They just don't know it. They think because they're polite to black people and don't use the n-word, that's all there is to it. Racism isn't all about active hate... a lot of it just to refusing to acknowledge the way things are, or taking it as a threat when black people stand up for themselves, or shrugging off Nazis as "free speech," or valuing a damn flag or statue over other people's feeling a part of this nation, or wanting some stupid wall or some religious ban. There's a lot of stuff some white people just don't want to face. And it's not feeling "white guilt" -- you don't have to feel "guilt" to acknowledge that a lot of horrible shit went on, and still goes on.

Trump has played on people's xenophobia and exploited it in a very ugly, un-American way, and a lot of his supporters are simply too weak to face that it's been done. They don't want to admit their motivations because then they'd have to see themselves as they are. And I don't blame 'em for avoiding that, because I can see 'em, and it ain't pretty.

I remember as a kid how middle class families only owned one car, and there was a pecking order as to what kind of car your family drove. It was stupid, but it was true to the American character which likes winners and success. So if the owner of the little printing shop bought a caddy, he was letting the world know he was successful. All the GM cars had a certain unspoken status.....Chevy and fords were the common man's car, and caddys and towncars were for the better people.

I remember looking for our first house in a pretty good size city when we chose a house in a mixed economic and racial neighborhood. The realtor wanted to know what junior high I attended, and like cars and houses, there were desirable schools which people wanted to attend. My wife came from a small agricultural town which had a railroad track go through town and literally they talked about being on the wrong side of the tracks.

So if you are driving a ford falcon, your kids are not going to that good school, and your house has a blue tarp keeping the water out, it becomes real important to be higher on this status list than a muslim, mexican, or black.

I simply do not know how to extract this primitive tribal behavior except by laws which enforce our constitution, and therein lies the political response of the Dixiecrats who in the late forties absolutely wanted no part of diversity and racial equality because if the Oligarchs want to continue picking the pockets of the middle class and poor, and needed them happy knowing that America had a caste system not based on merit and where a person could rise to success, but a caste system based on race.

The President must be reading our forum. He was kind enough to confirm today what was discussed in this thread. I am disgusted that anybody after his latest statement would support this monster. The funny thing is that the usual suspects want to portray a reaction to nazis is to have our hair on fire. We killed Nazis in WWII, yet we have our hair on fire when identifying the President's racist views......perfect confirmation of what I have been saying for 13 years on the PNJ and here. Shameful lack of morality.

My wife is convinced that not all trump supporters are racist, but after reading her facebook, she is pretty sure its about 90%. As I looked at the lily white nursing home in Birmingham, and thought back to 1950 Birmingham and the injustice of the times, we were lulled into a sense that things have changed......mostly black employees taking care of white elderly......how much really has changed, and is not Donald Trump being elected confirmation that racism never went anywhere.......and sixty years later the black folks are caring for the white folk, and the attitude of superiority is thick.

2seaoat wrote:The President must be reading our forum.  He was kind enough to confirm today what was discussed in this thread.  I am disgusted that anybody after his latest statement would support this monster.  The funny thing is that the usual suspects want to portray a reaction to nazis is to have our hair on fire.  We killed Nazis in WWII, yet we have our hair on fire when identifying the President's racist views......perfect confirmation of what I have been saying for 13 years on the PNJ and here.  Shameful lack of morality.

I too think he is reading this forum. In fact I think he reads my comments. Like the recent one where I said only shithole states like Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and the deep south voted for fake 45. Thus his echoing my shithole comment. Not that I really think fake 45 reads this forum but I'm sure now that one of those Russian troll factory bots that you can see on our who is online map is. After reading it reported to Czar Putin and Putin instructed his puppet in our White House to use the word shithole.

2seaoat wrote:My wife is convinced that not all trump supporters are racist, but after reading her facebook, she is pretty sure its about 90%.  As I looked at the lily white nursing home in Birmingham, and thought back to 1950 Birmingham and the injustice of the times, we were lulled into a sense that things have changed......mostly black employees taking care of white elderly......how much really has changed, and is not Donald Trump being elected confirmation that racism never went anywhere.......and sixty years later the black folks are caring for the white folk, and the attitude of superiority is thick.

When my daughter was with a local hospital, she had patients who didn't want to be cared for by a person of color.

I have seen some rather stupid people make judgments about brilliant people, but because they are brown or black they are considered inferior. I did mentoring for the Illinois math and science academy which took the top math and science students in high school and let them live in dorms during high school with other brilliant students. It was fun as I used them to build in the early 2000s a database and application. My brightest kid was a black kid from the south side of Chicago whose parents were physicians. He told story after story of being mistreated either because he was prejudged, or people got piszed when he showed them up in school or in a social context. I saw a young Cuban at Borg Warner work up from a bore grinder to being the plant manager and had a thousand people reporting to him......time after time he was prejudged and underestimated. However, in America cream will rise. I sometimes think the economic stagnation of the old confederacy is directly connected to the failure to have urban areas acting as melting pots for immigration which allows the innate intelligence pool to be improved. In breeding for two hundred years compared to the success of the melting pot and allowing people not to be prejudged, but rise to their talents.

Floridatexan wrote:

2seaoat wrote:My wife is convinced that not all trump supporters are racist, but after reading her facebook, she is pretty sure its about 90%.  As I looked at the lily white nursing home in Birmingham, and thought back to 1950 Birmingham and the injustice of the times, we were lulled into a sense that things have changed......mostly black employees taking care of white elderly......how much really has changed, and is not Donald Trump being elected confirmation that racism never went anywhere.......and sixty years later the black folks are caring for the white folk, and the attitude of superiority is thick.

When my daughter was with a local hospital, she had patients who didn't want to be cared for by a person of color.  

Reminds me of an incident when I was a kid. I was at a public pool and some woman in the pool started screaming. Everyone thought she was having some sort of a fit and they helped her out of the pool. Seems she panicked when she saw a couple of black people dip into the pool. She was from South Africa, one of the deepest darkest shitholes in the in the world back in those days. And so it goes.