The "n-word" in the "W-place"
by David Benjamin
BROOKLYN - One of the stubbornest taboos among mainstream media - and their Internet parasites - forbids frank discussion of the lingering racism that courses through American society, pumped from its heart in the nostalgic Confederacy. No respectable source dares suggest it, but the fact is this: the Tea Party was born in a shudder of disgust after the voters accidentally put a nigger in the White House.
(Of course, they will never call him by that term. The forces of liberalism, the watchdogs of academia and the leaders of the Fourth Estate, by banning the so-called "n-word" - even deploring its literary, historic and artistic uses - have established an easy litmus test for bigots to prove they don't hate black and brown people as virulently as they actually do hate black and brown people. All they need do to show that they are without sin is to purge one word from their vocabulary.)
Evidence of racism pervading the Tea Party is manifest and blatant in the "birther" delusion, in the Nuremberg laws sprawling forth from Arizona, in efforts to repeal the 14th Amendment, in Senator Rand Paul's bland assertion that non-white people can be justly excluded from any retail business for no other reason than the proprietors' personal objection to letting darkies set foot on the premises, in the universal whiteness of Tea Party membership, in Glenn Beck's switcheroo charge that "Who? Me? No! Barack Obama is the racist one!", and in the coded language Tea Patriots use to mask their bigotry - even as they call the president "the Kenyan usurper" and wave effigies depicting him as a duded-up primate with demon horns, Hitler whiskers and Ubangi lips.
The Tea Party's evasions almost make me nostalgic for characters like George Lincoln Rockwell, the neo-Nazi who always referred to the Reverend Dr. King as "Martin Luther Coon." Grotesque? Sure, but you always knew where George stood!
It's no coincidence that the Tea Party's ascent followed swiftly the election of America's first black president. Until Obama actually won in '08, America's legion of chronic racists were in denial that he might prevail. Right up 'til Election Day, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the vast talk-radio echo chamber- who are the only news sources America's bigoted yahoos will tolerate - had been promising that the unthinkable could not befall the nation.
When it befell, when the uppity Obama cakewalked right up and insisted on being sworn into the previously all-Aryan presidency, Chief Justice Roberts wasn't the only tongue-tied white man in America. Millions blanched. A great upswell of closeted white supremacists, fed with a fortune in corporate wealth funneled through astroturf fronts like FreedomWorks, became the Tea Party and fell in step behind the sanitized heirs of George Lincoln Rockwell - Dick Armey, the Koch brothers, Sarah Palin.
Tea Party apologists insist that other causes - policy issues - inspired their "spontaneous" movement. What policy issues?
Big government? By launching two endless wars, creating the Dept. of Homeland Security, passing the largest unfunded entitlement (Medicare prescription aid) in history, initiating unprecedented intrusions into public schools (No Child Left Behind), and providing a no-strings $700 billion handout to Wall Street, the previous (white, Southern) administration bloated government beyond any bounds previously imagined. Yet, no Tea Party rose up to condemn the George W. Bush "government takeover."
The deficit? The (white Southern) Bush administration, in its first two years, wiped out the first balanced budget since 1957, eventually turning a $46 billion surplus into a $1 trillion deficit. But no Tea Party objected to Dubya's bungled and wasteful private wars, or the reversal of the nation's fiscal fortunes. The deficit was no problem for white people 'til Bush wrapped it in red tape and dropped it into Barack Obama's black lap.
Taxes? Gimme a break. Obama cut taxes for everyone.
Health care? Richard Nixon had a health care plan more liberal than the one we got from Obama. The thinking enemies of reform were always the insurance giants. Two years ago, they noticed a whole lot of insecure honkies appalled by the sight of an Abyssinian in the Oval Office. By now, bigots know they can't just up and start hollering, "Get that minstrel out of my White House." So, voila! The insurance companies - with Justice Roberts and the Supremes singing backup - launched "public service" websites, to launder the millions that underwrote the Tea Party, that veiled its hatred and fear in 18th-century symbolism and shouted, "Take Our Country Back."
(From whom? Well, if you have to ask...)
How do I know this? How am I so sure that so many Tea Patiots are Jim Crow nostalgics, and not just well-meaning " fiscal conservatives?"
OK, here's how: I return often to America's "Heartland." This year, my senator - Russ Feingold - was beaten by an empty suit whose only platform was "I am not a politician." In 18 years, Feingold typified the best of Wisconsin politics. Politically independent, legislatively adept, fiscally prudent, high in principles and low on money, he should have been a lifelong fixture in the Senate regardless of times and mores. But in three previous elections, he barely won because about a fifth of the voters in my home state quietly owe their first loyalty to Christianity, pigmentation and the missionary position. For them, Feingold was disqualified at birth. Voting for him was inconceivable, because Russ Feingold - doubly damned and dubiously human - is a big-city Jew.
Those who habitually ignored all else about him and rejected Feingold solely for his racial impurity are the same ones who embrace the Tea Party, Glenn Beck and Rush, just as once they embraced Father Coughlin, Joe McCarthy and Rockwell. They are America's implacable fifth of self-deluded racists. A grand, larger-than-life hate-lister who preceded Obama in the Oval Office liked to call them the "great silent majority."
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