Sometimes I just shake my head in dismay. As I have asserted many times in my writings here and elsewhere, one of the great divides in this country--a divide that resonates throughout our political culture--is the force of memory and history. At our best, Black and Brown folks, our Native American brothers, Jewish folk, and others who have suffered under power are deeply historical. We are history. We live history. We embody the past and the present whether we want to or not. We are politicized by virtue of our identity relative to the American polity whether we want to be or not.
There are others who are historical while simultaneously being ahistorical. The neo-Secessionists, the Palin crowd, original intent, nostalgia possessed Right wing are awash in history but their historical prism is one of the good old days. Their lens is myopic. Redemption reigns supreme amidst a memory of a benign Leave it to Beaver infused past--never mind that Jim Crow, as well as restrictive housing covenants and segregation made possible Wally and the Beave's idyllically white childhood. These types talk about history and allude to it. Yet, they are not "historical" people. Conservatives of this stripe are more akin to a particular type of Whiteness that abuses history while practicing selective historical amnesia. As others such as Baldwin and Ellison have said far more sharply, America is a country of amnesiacs where European ethnics could come, forget their origins, and reinvent themselves as White Americans by both hating and distancing themselves from people of color.
Notice once more the importance of the distinction between "Whiteness" and "white people."
The ugliness of White (Conservative) Nationalism is striking in its hold on much of Red State America. The whiteness of the Republican, Right wing, echo chamber is possessed of xenophobia and racism. In total, they should simply own their values as such. The folks who would compare ACORN to the Klan (for a frightening jolt of reality peruse the comments on the Breitbart site) are one step above common bigots. Perhaps they would not hold the rope of the lynching, but these types would buy the postcards, wear their Sunday finery, and buy a bit (or two) of Sam Hose's body as a collectible to pass down to their children and grandchildren.
The piece in question from the popular Conservative website Breitbart's Big Government follows.
Thought: Will Black Conservatives write in and complain about this nonsense? Will they boycott Breitbart's sponsors? Will well-meaning, decent, and intelligent White Conservatives wash their hands of Breitbart's Big Government?
Truly disgusting, yet a powerful barometer of the White backlash that fuels the Right wing populism of the present (and past):
by Michael Zak
Last week, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a crime syndicate dedicated to tightening the Democratic Party’s grip on America, dissolved its national structure. Too much of ACORN’s corruption had been exposed to public scrutiny for it to run its vote fraud and extortion rackets effectively. So, ACORN activists will have to soldier on in state-level organizations, such as New York Communities for Change and New England United for Justice in Massachusetts.
ACORN does indeed operate like the Mafia, but it more closely resembles another organization that began as an affiliate of the Democratic Party, the Ku Klux Klan. Aside from intimidating some bank executives, ACORN does not engage in violence, but like the KKK it has vote fraud as a top priority.
There have been two distinct organizations known as the Ku Klux Klan. The modern-day KKK, with whom most people are familiar, was spawned in 1915 by the Hollywood epic Birth of a Nation, premiered at the White House by a Democrat president, Woodrow Wilson. Cross-burning and other rituals were actually inspired by the movie. The Klan came to dominate the Democratic Party so thoroughly that the 1924 Democratic National Convention was known as the “Klanbake.”
It is not so much this Klan 2.0 that ACORN parallels as the original version. Established in 1866, Klan 1.0 was an affiliate of the Democratic Party during the Reconstruction era. Named for “kuklos,” the Greek word for “circle,” the Ku Klux Klan waged war against the Republican Party in the former Confederate states. Goofy titles for its commanders such as Wizard and Cyclops were intended to disguise the fact that the KKK was a paramilitary organization. In some areas, leadership of the Ku Klux Klan and the Democratic Party were indistinguishable.
Democrats used the Klan to suppress their political opposition, with vote fraud and intimidation and violence. Klansmen aimed at African-Americans, nearly all Republicans in those days, and at white Republicans who tried to help them. Once threatened by the KKK, Republicans could in many cases save their lives only by publicly swearing allegiance to the Democratic Party. According to a southern governor, “Few Republicans dare sleep in their houses at night.”
“The suppression of enough GOP votes could ensure a Democratic victory,” wrote one historian. “There’s no question that Klansmen closely watched the polls” – easy to do before the secret ballot was introduced in the United States in the 1880s. All too often, Republican ballots were not even counted.
Like ACORN, the Ku Klux Klan operated with impunity until Republican politicians and journalists sounded an alarm. In 1869, Nathan Bedford Forrest, the KKK’s Grand Dragon, ordered the Klan disbanded. Why? The national organization was getting too much attention, so Klansmen would have to soldier on in state-level organizations, such as the Red Shirts in South Carolina and the Men of Justice in Alabama. Nonetheless, most members of these spin-off groups considered themselves to be Klansmen.
A congressional investigation reported that “the operations of the Klan are executed in the night and are invariably directed against members of the Republican Party.”
In 1871, the Republican-controlled 41st Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, and a Republican president, Ulysses Grant, signed it. Until overturned by the Supreme Court twelve years later, the law effectively banned the KKK. Federal troops crushed Klan uprisings in South Carolina and Louisiana, while hundreds of Klansmen were convicted in federal court. Law enforcement played a role in eliminating the Ku Klux Klan, but primarily the Klan disappeared because after Democrat regimes replaced the Reconstruction state governments there was no need for Democrats to suppress Republican opposition by covert means when government authorities could do so openly.
Back then, Klansmen had to contend with a Republican administration, but now, with a Democrat in the White House, ACORNistas know that the federal government is on their side. With Eric Holder’s Justice Department condoning polling place thuggery [pictured] and other illicit activity against the GOP, there is less incentive for Democrats to suppress Republican opposition by covert means when government authorities are doing so openly.
The Democrat-controlled 111th Congress has made ACORN spin-off groups eligible for billions of taxpayer dollars. Once an insurgency, community organizers are now part of the establishment. To the victors go the spoils.
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
“Black and Brown folks, our Native American brothers, Jewish folk, and others who have suffered under power………We are politicized by virtue of our identity relative to the American polity whether we want to be or not.”
A more preposterous fabrication and romanticizing of a disposition has never been written. Yeah, those powerful Irish folks who conspired to keep the whole African continent behind the curve. Or was it the reconstruction era Scotsmen???
“historical people” – “selective historical amnesia” – “European ethnics could come, forget their origins, and reinvent themselves as White Americans by both hating and distancing themselves from people of color.”
Wow! What an imagination! I have never seen such a case of projection in my life!!! You REALLY detest white people. How can you look in the mirror? Anyone who really believes this stuff has to be consumed with hatred.
Chauncey, you insist on selective revisionism. You always chose to cite sources that claim to know history. But upon closer scrutiny your sources have no credibility.
You link to Theodore Allen’s work "The Invention of the White Race". Allen was an uneducated college dropout and a self declared life long card carrying communist. His currency was animosity in a culture of complaint. To expect him to have any first hand knowledge of his subjects much less a viable trustworthy perspective is ridiculous.
Allen actually believed that a system of racial privileges for white workers was "deliberately instituted" in order to define and establish the "white race" as a social control formation.” Wow…whites sure are smart. Allen is the poster child for a "white" Uncle Tom.
Breitbart’s expose’ on A.C.O.R.N. is perfect. The mafia and the K.K.K. could take lessons from A.C.O.R.N. on how to bamboozle the American people through the U.S. govt to fund their racket. The mafia could only dream.
The fact that you frame the current revival of traditional conservative values & right wing populism as “White backlash” just shows how out of touch you are with the heart and soul of all that is America. Chauncey, "white" America loves you!!!! Keep posting & exposing your hate. Peace
On this KKK/ACORN matter. Wow, for someone who is so invested in the uplift of black people, and has a colored child and wife I would think you would bristle at any mention of the Klan--a group that would also lynch race mixers such as yourself--and any spurious historical analogies made between them--a group that killed tens of thousands of black people (and small numbers of Jews and Catholics as well) and ACORN. Regardless of what you think of ACORN how can a reasoning person see any similarities?
Well then again, I assume you are reasonable which you clearly are not.
But then again, you probably approve of if not admire the KKK as one of the oldest American civil society organizations in this country--which they are by the way. But then again, you may know that fact as you would have marched proudly with them during the early part of the 20th century.
Why don't you come on by my main site so we can play a bit? I am sure you will find quite a few folks who would engage you in conversation.
Well my new found friend, why are you are so quick to attack me and associate me, with no evidence, to the K.K.K. I have written nothing that would even remotely give you the idea that I am a racist. I have been very specific to explain that I believe that all cultures are not equal, yet you insist on ignoring that and accusing me of being a racist. I wonder how I would be perceived if I were to associate you with modern day African cannibals?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUqLuQnKF5M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgpZrPpNfJ8&feature=related
I know you are not a cannibal. Cannibals aren’t exclusive to Africa. I hope and believe that you would find this behavior revolting and counter productive to promoting a healthy society. But it is a common stereotype. Much like the white supremist phantom you make up every time you accuse me. Yes, I know you would like me to be that white boogie man. Try to find it in your heart to give me the same credit I give you. If I were to judge you by the worst among you, I would be wrong. You are not the worst….close, but not the worst.
Why have you ignored the premise of my argument with prevarications that default to white hate?
I am so aware of your tactiscs. You and the main body of “black” theorists and antagonists in American believes that capitalism should be called “white capitalism” and that it is a “white economic system”. They have successfully indoctrinated a whole generation of Americans of African descent into believing that capitalism is a “white” system connected the dots in their minds rendering them nonfunctional in that same merit based capitalist system. You are a communist that proselytizes young American blacks into your community of hate by preaching your silly Liberation/Marxist/X/Du Bois victim mantra, and what ever other hate du jour happens to fit your mood.
You know the subversive agenda of A.C.O.R.N. is to breed anti-white socialism into the community to bring down capitalism. Obama being the most famous member of that alumni.
Your racist mantra doesn’t work with those of us with pure hearts that love all races and creeds as long as they promote healthy cultures and equality for all people.
You believe the eradication of (predominantly white) capitalist governments and “white capitalism” globally would enable real emancipation for the black world and parity for African Americans. (I guess building their own country’s, wealth and healthy cultures doesn’t work????)
Clarence J Munford says: “Civilizational historicism posits race, instead of class, religion or culture, as the key historical construct. Race is conceived as a historical artifact, not a biological hypothesis.” Yes, you and I are who we are because of what we look like, not because of character or how we think or live……..nice. MLK would be proud of Munford.
Chauncey, for you, every piece of history, every event, every invention, every battle, every accomplishment is filtered through and then tainted by your hatred for white people.
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2906
The only way this can have a satisfactory end for you is to redistribute the wealth of the world and subjugate “whites” into slavery to “blacks”. I take who you are into consideration every time I read your hate fluff.
I leave you with this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7ajmoLdhVQ
“Clarence J Munford says: “Civilizational historicism posits race, instead of class, religion or culture, as the key historical construct. Race is conceived as a historical artifact, not a biological hypothesis.”
Yes, according to Munford, you and I are who we are because of what we look like, not because of character or how we think or live……..nice. MLK would be proud of Munford.