Via commentor LAMH, Toni Morrison, in the New Yorker, on “Making America White Again“:
This is a serious project. All immigrants to the United States know (and knew) that if they want to become real, authentic Americans they must reduce their fealty to their native country and regard it as secondary, subordinate, in order to emphasize their whiteness. Unlike any nation in Europe, the United States holds whiteness as the unifying force. Here, for many people, the definition of “Americanness” is color.
Under slave laws, the necessity for color rankings was obvious, but in America today, post-civil-rights legislation, white people’s conviction of their natural superiority is being lost. Rapidly lost. There are “people of color” everywhere, threatening to erase this long-understood definition of America. And what then? Another black President? A predominantly black Senate? Three black Supreme Court Justices? The threat is frightening.
In order to limit the possibility of this untenable change, and restore whiteness to its former status as a marker of national identity, a number of white Americans are sacrificing themselves. They have begun to do things they clearly don’t really want to be doing, and, to do so, they are (1) abandoning their sense of human dignity and (2) risking the appearance of cowardice. Much as they may hate their behavior, and know full well how craven it is, they are willing to kill small children attending Sunday school and slaughter churchgoers who invite a white boy to pray. Embarrassing as the obvious display of cowardice must be, they are willing to set fire to churches, and to start firing in them while the members are at prayer. And, shameful as such demonstrations of weakness are, they are willing to shoot black children in the street….
It may be hard to feel pity for the men who are making these bizarre sacrifices in the name of white power and supremacy. Personal debasement is not easy for white people (especially for white men), but to retain the conviction of their superiority to others—especially to black people—they are willing to risk contempt, and to be reviled by the mature, the sophisticated, and the strong. If it weren’t so ignorant and pitiful, one could mourn this collapse of dignity in service to an evil cause…
British visitor Bim Adewunmi, at Buzzfeed, “What Is America So Afraid Of?“:
… I’ve travelled in a few states in America this year, and helped by a British accent, have been able to strike up conversations with strangers with increased ease. I’ve spoken to immigrants and the children of immigrants, taxi drivers and waiters, undocumented people, middle class people, wealthy ones, and the working poor. I have eavesdropped on too many conversations to count, taking notes as rapidly as my fingers would go, and I have pressed people to explain themselves and their way of life more fully to me.
And they have opened up and told me. Immigration was a problem for a good number: They were worried America would be hit by a deluge of needy, open hands, and that those hands would also be criminal (that came up even when I was talking about the death of Prince in Minneapolis). In Las Vegas, I spoke to a Hungarian-American who told me that African-Americans would likely never receive a fair shake in their country, because their country was simply incapable of it. He also said America was going the way of all empires (hint: the direction ain’t “up”). In Cleveland, two separate middle-aged white men joshed with me about Brexit (they thought we had fucked up), and fretted about a Trump presidency, and what that might mean for women and racial minorities. A day after those conversations, I watched a man carrying a gun almost as tall as he was walk in ever tighter circles around a public square in Cleveland, chin jutting forward, practically asking to be challenged. In New Orleans, I spoke to a young black woman, a hotel worker, who told me her hometown was a “working poor” city, before telling me about her health benefits. In our freewheeling conversation, we touched on Black Lives Matter and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. In Philadelphia, a young black man told me he was Bernie or bust, and he was tired of compromising. In Queens, a Cypriot American laughed as he explained to me and my friends how certain European identities are tangled in ways that are not easy to unravel. People were scared, and that manifested as either a widening of their arms, or a defensive shutdown. The fight-or-flight urge had been flattened to just “fight”. And sometimes, it just looked like lashing out…
Rembert Browne, in NYMag, on “How Trump Made Hate Intersectional“:
… Barack Obama faced incessant bigotry for the duration of his two landmark terms, but the focus on his blackness (and his perceived ties to Islam) masked an additional threat he posed — one that is steeped in racism but isn’t just about skin color. Barack Obama is the embodiment of two things: what happens when a maligned group successfully plays catch-up, and what happens when a space that’s always been whites-only suddenly has its party crashed.