Re: [Salon] A useful complement to Matt Taibbi's much more longwinded pieces

Yes. I think this is the same with many of us who are in mixed marriages.

From: Salon <salon-bounces@listserve.com> On Behalf Of SCOTT MCCONNELL via Salon
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 9:06 AM
To: Helena Cobban <hcobban@gmail.com>
Cc: salon@committeefortherepublic.org
Subject: Re: [Salon] A useful complement to Matt Taibbi's much more longwinded pieces

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-wokeness-almost-over/

I wrote the above a month ago— it is skeptical about the idea that “peoples of color” are all as in to anti-whiteness as some of the people cited here. Really not sure. But as someone married to someone who is “of color” I’d say that their support for the anti cop anti white agenda is about zero.

On Jan 12, 2022, at 11:34 AM, Helena Cobban via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:

This, from Indi Samarajiva, a very clear-eyed observer of the US scene

https://indi.ca/why-americans-cant-just-abandon-red-states/

Why Americans Can't Just Abandon Red States

Most minorities live there

It's tempting to say 'fuck the red states', but the red states are full of colored people. Colored people existing is, in fact, the problem, and it's not limited to red states.

As Bree Newsome Bass says, and says again:

<Screen Shot 2022-01-12 at 11.31.18 AM.png>

Blue State Rebels

When analyzing who participated in the January 6th insurrection, Robert Pape et al found that "the key county characteristic is that the counties with insurrectionists lost the most non-Hispanic White population."

White Americans (who choose to identify as such, you don't have to) know that demographics are changing and that they'll be a minority within decades at most. And so they rage, rage, against the dying of the White. This is why they're so angry about 'wokeness'. They want to hit the snooze button on this new reality and get back under the sheets.

The United States Constitution was designed to cement rule by rich, white, men, and they're not going without a fight. This isn't even the first fight. First the Civil War, then the Civil Rights Movement fought for the gift shop ideals of America, and each time the slave plantation struck back. First with Jim Crow and now with whatever the fuck this is.

Almost unfortunately, today is not like the last Civil War (though it's basically the same issue). The rebels are not in some demarcated 'red' area, they're in fact more likely to be from counties Biden won. You can't call the blue state cops or federal army on them. They are the cops and the army. The attack on the House literally came from inside the house.

As the University Of Chicago report says, "the common expectation that the insurrectionists are drawn from the reddest parts of the country is flawed."

Red State Unionists

At the same time, the minorities most about to be crushed by this shit are trapped within red states. This is by constitutional design, going back to the first few decades of Virginian rule because slaves were counted in the census but of course couldn't vote.

America's Electoral College does the same thing with minority voters in Texas and the South, and ruthless gerrymandering and voter suppression does the rest. Their bodies count but their lives don't matter.

The overwhelming answer to Black Lives Matter movement has been "no they fucking don't". Even from the Democrats, they've just gotten Juneteenth as a holiday and more money and war materiel given to the police.

And then 'blue state' liberals scoff at the red states as dumb and irredeemable even though that's where the most affected (and motivated) people live. It's not just their political system. American society itself has been gerrymandered, and minorities have been mentally segregated and left behind.

Civil War (If You're Lucky)

As Pape et al discuss, the great tension is from 'purple' areas where minority presence is growing.

And honestly, I understand this. When my family lived in the Washington DC sprawl, I went to visit. I remember going to Best Buy and hearing someone speaking in Spanish. I vividly remember thinking "What the fuck? This is America" and I'm a brown person.

In a microcosm, this is the tension winding America up, and while I resolved it by not being a dick and getting used to it, many people cannot. The Republican Party is quite open about this, talking about immigrants as potential Democrats. Their strategy is quite transparently about keeping America white.

Democrats, on the other hand, approach racism as some personal idiocy when in fact it's a very powerful strategy. Racism is a feature, not a bug of democracy, just look all around the world. A majority can decide to just fuck over a minority, most simply by denying them citizenship at all. This has been the democratic model since the Greeks.

Now, at this point in the article I would outline a kumbaya solution but I don't fucking know. It's like watching a wave crash onto shore. You can understand that physics well enough, but can't do anything to stop it. America's racial tension and bloody release is as regular as the tide going in and out, and your house is built on sand.

All I can say is that America's problem is whiteness, not Red and Blue, and whiteness is everywhere. It even infects the supposed defenders of democracy, who write off the Red States where most minorities live. By so easily conceding that part of the country, they also lose the 'purple' areas in which they live.

As Newsome Bass also says:

<Screen Shot 2022-01-12 at 11.33.02 AM.png>

In this way another Civil War is actually a good-case scenario America. It implies that you even hold the Blue States. It implies that the federal government isn't taken over and fights for the rights of people in Red States at all. The worst case scenario—which America is on track for—is that a house divided simply falls from within.

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Helena Cobban

She/her/they | Honoring the lives & legacies of the Nacotchtanks & Piscataways in whose lands I live

Follow my writings here

CEO, Just World Books | President and CEO, Just World Educational

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