Some thoughts — way before the election results there was this horrible feeling that an underlying, seething, racism, sexism and anti-"other" was sitting there propelling on these angry people. It seemed so much that white men were defending their legacy, their privilege, their right to be the rulers of the world that whether Trump won, or not, they were being unleashed.
So much felt like the battles that took place during the 60's when black people rose up in a significant way to say — no you can no longer treat us this way — we have a right to determine our own futures. "One Man, One Vote".
The white governments of the south said, no you do not. We get to do that. We have always done that. We are the only ones who get to do that. And it was the white men who beat people up, shot and lynched and did what ever they could to maintain their power.
Black people built the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and held elections and showed that the poor, the sharecroppers, the "people" were ready to take on the powers of their state. Throughout the country there was much support. Unions backed the organizing. Liberals backed the movement. The fight against racial injustice in the South was an important cause.
Then the MFDP went to Atlantic City and the whole thing crashed down. The Southern Black Movement was threatening the white power structure of the Democratic Party. The white, male, leaders said no way are you telling us what to do. Our power cannot be lessened. We make the decisions about who is part of our power structure not a bunch of poor black folks from Mississippi. Of course we never did win the whole thing and they did get to keep a great deal of their power. But there were some breaks in the totality of it all.
Then on came the women's movement. Threatened an even larger group of white men and probably all men. Because that struggle took place within every family, every home, every movement, every place where women and men functioned together. And once again there was an effect. There were some changes. Women even got a little bit of the right to determine what should happen with their own bodies. But of course this pissed off the powerful white men once again. They were told we do have the right to make the important decisions in our lives and in this world.
Of course the white men were still able to maintain their controls over most of the decisions. There were cracks and they always resented those. They had lost the totality of their power and could never accept that. Then came 9/11. What ignominy. The US was successfully attacked by a group of non-whites. What an outrage to the white males who believed that only they had the right to attack others, who believed in their own invulnerability. So they unleashed their attacks on many non-white populations to show that white power is the greatest. Their power is not supreme even though they wreck incredible havoc on much of the rest of the world and the white males still feel threatened.
In 2008 along comes a black man who becomes president. How much more can the white male power structure take? Even though he does play by all their rules and gives them almost everything they want he is definitely not one of them. They say — "We have lost our country". That he was elected for two terms does not matter. He has taken the country from them.
This year, the final straw, the final put down, a woman running for president. She is, in many ways, just what the white male power structure wants. She is a tough fighter of wars. She is a good friend to bankers and CEO's. She too plays by "their" rules. But a woman is more than can be tolerated. Women must be attacked. Women must be demeaned. Women must be put in their place. This takes place in the crudest, out-there way. She must be stopped. Those threatened white men eat it up. They love it. They get to take it all out on the uppity women, those outrageous blacks who need to be shot to know who is the boss, on those people coming north across the border who take the jobs that no one else wants to do, but especially on all those non-white people who attacked our country and now want to come here and destroy some more.
Where were all the white, progressive men, who should have been saying loudly that this campaign of vicious attacks on women was unacceptable? Where were all the progressives who should have been standing before their city governments saying that killing black people was unacceptable? Where were all whose families had been immigrants saying "yes we welcome you"?
Copyright © Eugene Turitz
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