Nick Sandmann and the problem of “microaggression”

I have to say enough is enough of this “revisionism” in favor of Nick Sandmann and the rest of that all-male, almost all-white (was there an Asian present? I didn’t see any blacks or Hispanics in that mob) from the Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky. Let’s be upfront about what we are “discussing” here: A tiny black fringe group was holding a “demonstration” at the Lincoln Memorial protesting racism in the era of Trump (an easy thing to do) when a group of privileged (i.e. from the high-end part of town) white teenagers, some of them wearing MAGA hats (which feel like they’re made of tissue paper; so much for the “great” part) decided to “engage” in a “conversation” with them. They didn’t do much to suggest that “Christianity” had much to do with their “upbringing.” I watched the longer video and any reasonable person would be hard-pressed to describe their behavior as anything but what one would expect from a group of privileged, arrogant, bigoted “kids” whose history and social studies classes seemed to lack providing insight into this country’s racial past. The very insular nature of their school obviously didn’t help in infusing a sense of “commonality” amongst their fellow humans, and the fact that they were bused all the way from Kentucky to attend an anti-abortion rally (apparently an annual event) suggests that the school has a very narrow perspective on the world.

The real “controversy” of course is not the juvenile bullying behavior of these “Christian” teens—not surprising since most of them seemed to be Trump supporters—but the actions of one MAGA hat-wearing “boy,” Nick Sandmann. A small group of Native Americans was nearby, and one of them, tribal elder Nathan Phillips, for some reason thought he could “defuse” the situation that could have been avoided if the teens had just been instructed to ignore the admittedly stupid but otherwise harmless Hebrew Israelites harangue, apparently touched off by the hypocrisy inherent in MAGA hats being present at the Lincoln Memorial (at the 1996 Republican Convention, Robert Dole told anyone present who didn’t believe in the party of Lincoln knew where the exits were). Phillips got in the middle of the greatly disparately-sized groups and started pounding on a drum, believing that it would be a distraction. Instead, the teens just made fun of Phillips, engaging in racist caricaturing before chanting their school “fight” song, obviously not meant to be suggest that they had any sensitivity to the social issues involved. And there was Sandmann, who decided to do a face-plant with Phillips, who had said or done nothing at except beat on his drum.

Sandmann’s arrogant, smirking face should not be confused with his coached, self-serving interview on NBC. I believe Phillip’s account of the going’s on because they more closely match the images. Why anyone would be “confused” about how to interpret events even after viewing all of the video evidence is mystifying. At the end of the day, what we have here are white teens from socially and economically privileged backgrounds who will have suffered at worst momentary embarrassment, and the representatives of two minority groups who will go back to being mostly marginalized. The fact that the local bishop “apologized” to the Sandmann, and his parents play to sue the media for “libel” again shows the arrogance and conceit of white America, especially those on the privileged side of the street.

As if there isn’t enough justification to condemn the behavior of Sandmann and his classmates, there is the matter of “microaggression” in evidence. Microaggression is defined as “a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority.” Of course there was nothing “subtle” about the behavior the teens in question, but that of MAGA hat-wearing Sandmann is certainly subject to “interpretation.” His in-your-face smirking signaled a white power play, of what you do is meaningless—you are nothing to me.

As a person who “looks ‘Mexican’” I am all too familiar with the concept of microaggression, and frankly from all sides and angles. I am a native-born citizen have a university degree, I served seven years in the Army, have worked almost every day of my life, yet I experience microaggressions every day, from any race, gender, education and socio/economic level. Fear, paranoia, stereotyping, prejudice—the expression of these can be endless, from one’s facial expression, to “red flag” fear of “car prowling,” security people being notified because you don’t look like you “belong,” deliberate rudeness meant to discomfit, people asking you if you have any drugs to sell (since “Mexicans” are assumed to be drug dealers), rules being changed because they didn’t accounted for people “like you,” people being physically intimidating because it is “OK” to beat people like you up who “don’t belong,” people telling ugly jokes that they say are not “racist” because other people don’t think they are “racist," people just “checking up” on you because “people like you” can’t be trusted, or selectively redefining what "normal" behavior is.

I could go on and on with this; we live in a country where superficiality is as important as substance--we only need to observe on Fox News that blonde, long-legged "beautiful" people are as cruel and contemptible as any. But the point is that Sandmann was showing (despite his and his apologists’ denials) “aggression” toward a man who was posing no “threat” to his privileged position in society—and not only that, he was confirming this position by his arrogant defiance of racial and social justice.

Female voters are not a “monolithic” group, despite media myths

Donald Trump’s “trial balloon” offer of a three-year DACA and TPS extension began deflating even before its release because no one (except Ann Coulter and others on the mindless-right) is fooled by its purpose: to get what he wants without really giving anything all. Besides just kicking the can down the road with the inevitable result of it being used again as blackmail by Republicans, an “extension” won’t protect Dreamers from a Supreme Court challenge, only a law passed by Congress and signed by the president will. 

That wasn’t the only thing going on. We have a rehash of the Women’s March in Washington DC and elsewhere, and as opposed to the “millions” that supposedly showed up in its initial incarnation, this time it was more like “thousands.” This year’s march in DC faced questions of credibility and breaches in morality when it was learned that some of its sponsors had ties to Louis Farrakhan, whose Nation of Islam has been accused of anti-Semitic and just plain anti-white demagoguery. But even those white women who showed up for whom this was no concern could not claim to represent all women, in fact they could only claim to represent those who saw the march more as a social event to get out and be seen—maybe even get yourself in a picture in a media report. I mean, what else did you think you “accomplished”? Especially after two years of Trump? Nothing.

What we have seen is many video clips in the past two years in “surprising” numbers is white women engaging in deliberate acts of racist confrontation with Hispanics and blacks in otherwise commonplace situations. Elizabeth Gillespie McCrae's recent book Mothers of Massive Resistance chronicles the sad truth that white women have often been the "foot soldiers" in the war against integration and in support of active discrimination. Even “educated” white women were guilty of racist paranoia; a recent story tells of a blond female sorority sister at the University of Oklahoma making a blackface video of herself. We’ve seen white female teachers being disciplined or fired for posting racist commentary on social media. We saw two white women drive off a cliff in California with their “adopted” black children in an apparent murder-suicide. Yet these incidents are treated as just oddities, not evidence of that not all women share the same “nature.” In personal political and social ideology we don’t need to watch Fox News and it collection of Blond Barbie Bigots before seeing the saliva drooling out of Jeanine Pirro’s mouth every time she goes off on one of her lunatic rants to know that women are not a "monolithic" block of voters.

Women are always prepared to give themselves the benefit of the doubt or a second chance to “prove” themselves. I admit that after I read director James Gunn’s comments that got him fired by Disney, it was clear that the studio really didn’t have any choice.  And there are certainly different ways for a person’s views to “evolve”; Trump went from accusing Pat Buchanan of being “Hitler” in 1999 to embracing his xenophobic and white nationalist views today. However, claiming that one’s views have “evolved” can simply be a matter of cynical opportunism. NBC made that mistake of believing in the “monolithic” nature of women in believing that Megyn Kelly was capable of “evolving” when they hired her from Fox News. Her defense of whites doing the “blackface” as not racist proved that she hadn’t really “evolved” at all.  

But it could be worse, especially when those doing the “evolving” are presidential wannabes. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard made anti-gay remarks in the past, but now she says her views have “evolved.” But she is unapologetic about meetings with Syria’s dictator, and she is hinting that she agrees with Trump’s border stand. Jake Tapper on CNN questioned another presidential hopeful,  Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand,  about why her border views—similar to Trump’s back in 2006—could not also be labeled as racist. Gillibrand hypocritically claimed that her views have “evolved.” Funny, but she didn’t allow Al Franken to “evolve” from a few incidents of high school-level sexual pranks, the kind that were staples on 80s teen comedies that didn’t cause “outrage” back then. And then you have Elizabeth Warren, hypocritically claiming to be “part” Native American, attempting to hijack the “native” part without having had to experience the racism part. So far, these are our “evolving” choices.

Trying to run on a gender politics agenda, or being seen as doing so, will be a huge mistake in 2020 if the half-dozen or so women expected be on the campaign trail choose to go that path, and they might be tempted to given a recent Harris poll that shows that 41 percent of Democratic women think it is important to have at least on woman on the ticket. But that won’t prevent the kind of disaster we saw in 2016. Hillary Clinton’s biggest mistake in 2016 was not learning anything from the primary challenge from Bernie Sanders, and deliberately alienating that segment of the electorate that most supported him. Clinton refused to recognize that both Sanders and Trump were different sides of the same coin, and most white working class voters (particularly men) were receptive to their message—and most stupidly, she didn’t realize that many of those voters would have preferred to vote for a ticket either with Sanders or someone very much like him rather than Trump as a matter of conscious (or guilt). Instead of choosing a running mate who spoke to the concerns of that segment of the electorate, she chose the (no offense) vanilla Tim Kaine, who was certainly no populist orator, which is what Clinton needed to keep white working class voters in the Rust Belt states in line. Why did she do this? Because her egotism and gender “entitlement” was so great that she could not tolerate anyone casting even a tiny shadow over her megalomania.

  

If these Democratic female presidential wannabes make the same mistakes as Clinton did, or go out of their way to alienate white working class male voters as Clinton did (rather the opposite of what she attempted in 2008, when she employed racist code language to entice these same voters against Barack Obama) we may very well see the same result. The belief that women—or more specifically, white women—are as “monolithic” a group as the black voting block is evidence of self-obsession and a complete loss of reality.  Let’s not forget one pertinent fact: 53 percent of white women voted for Trump in 2016; despite all the assumptions of a great “shift,” in the 2018 midterms the needle barely moved, with 50 percent of white women voting Republican. That tiny shift just might be enough in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania which Democrats cannot afford to lose again, but then again it might be within the “margin of error” and not signify a shift at all. Whoever the Democratic nominee is, that person has to speak to the concerns of working class people and prevent them from being conned again by someone who has never worked an honest day in his life.

Please Lord deliver us from the Patriots

Back in the day, the Dallas Cowboys were “America’s Team” not because they were the favorite of every NFL fan, but because they were the favorite of bandwagon fans who either didn’t have a team or had a lousy team. And why was that? A lot of other teams were perennially successful, and often even more successful (people tend to forget that Dallas went through a dead period during the 80s). What made people gravitate toward the team was the way they were marketed, and as some of us old enough to remember, that marketing strategy had something to do with the exposed bosoms of their cheerleader squad. I remember as a youth growing up in small town Wisconsin, the local bookstores sold posters of the Cowboy cheerleaders. Back then, the Packers were in the beginning stages of their 25-year term in football purgatory, and few were “outraged” about an out-of-town team selling itself in such a way far from home. Furthermore, the Cowboys only won two Super Bowls in their first 30 years of existence, so they were not exactly raining on anyone’s Super Bowl dreams.

Of course the Cowboys mostly suck now, and the New England Patriots would seem to be their natural successor to the mantel of “America’s Team.” But the Patriots aren’t selling anything except the desire to see them get beat, by anyone. True football fans are sick of seeing the Patriots in the Super Bowl practically every year for close to two decades now, with the same Brady and the same Belichick. Fans want to see something “different” for a change, and if the Devil’s handiwork sends them once again to the Super Bowl, we can only pray hard that the Lord deliver us from another Patriot title, especially when they don’t even deserve to be there. This weekend both the home teams lost their respective conference championship games, and both with the aid of official interference. An obvious pass interference that even a blind man could see that was not called prevented the Saints from being in position to win the NFC title late in regulation, before losing in OT. A phantom roughing the passer penalty and the nullification of Brady’s third interception with less than two minutes to play erased a dramatic come-from-behind victory by the Chiefs after they had fallen behind 14-0 at halftime in the AFC title game.

What is left for us is that the Los Angeles Rams behind Jared Goff can find the same kind of magic that the Eagles did with a backup quarterback last year. Unfortunately it seems somewhat unlikely that no matter how much praying goes on, Goff doesn’t seem to be the kind of quarterback who would inspire much hope to pull it off. But miracles do happen, and let us hope that the Lord hears our prayers to deliver us from those damned Patriots.