🫥

 The life of blacks in my hometown was a complete void to me. Not a mystery, or an enigma. They simply didn’t exist. I saw them, from time to time. But they were separated from me by law and custom. I didn’t have a class with a black person in it until I was 16. And after three years I went to college. I think there were fewer blacks in my four years in college, three years in graduate school, three years in law school, and four years in seminary (yeah, it looks completely nuts when you put it like that), than in three years of high school. At least that’s the way I remember it.

I’m watching “experts” on MTP describe the 19th century (while referring to the 21st) and the use of propaganda in America. Propaganda thrived in America without AI (the topic on MTP). Including the propaganda that blacks should lead separate, but equal, lives.

So much of the language about authoritarianism and Trump makes me think of the invisibility of blacks in my childhood. Because so much of the concern is how Trump wants to affect the lives of whites. What non-whites in this country have known as the norm throughout American history is suddenly a frightening prospect when it might apply to whites. To, of course, affluent whites. Economic class is as much a source of invisibility in American culture as race is. Poor whites matter little more than non-whites do; maybe even less.

We have rendered whole populations invisible, denied them access to public fora and denied them voice or value. My earliest political memories are of anti-war activists quoting (I found out later) Ike Eisenhower, and being ridiculed for outlandish ideas I know consider, if anything, a bit quaint. But if you listen carefully you can recognize the same form (not, though, substance) in the critique/complaints of MAGA. When I was a boy I wore a burr haircut or a flattop. One way of rebelling was long hair (like classic Jesus long) on men. Rednecks and “country boys” (even those I grew up around, who drove pickups that never left the ride and wore cowboy hats that never saw the rain) wore very short hair. When “hippies” turned into yuppies, country boys grew their hair long and picked up electric guitars and continued ‘60’s rock as Rick turned into disco into punk into New Wave into…

The forms transferred, if not the substance.

Of course, civil rights upset a lot of apple carts which we all assumed was permanent.  I’m waiting now for the “N” word to resurface, because we’re already seeing discussion of repealing Brown v Board, which means declaring “separate but equal” perfectly legitimate, and completely unwinding the idea in law that race is a pernicious category. All because the status quo had to snap back (what, you bought that bullshit that America was actually a liberal, or just center-left, country? Please.), and it did so with a vengeance. But also with the cultural norms established by the radicals of the ‘60’s.

So some things changed; just not the fundamentals.

We rendered all the non-white non-hetero males visible, and now the fringes who want all of that to be invisible again (ending no-fault divorce, same sex marriage, etc.). I’d boldly say we’re not going back, but the Supremes seem to think their name makes them supreme in authority, and I don’t see Congress stepping up to do much as make them subject to the oversight of even the President. Much less exercising their clear Constitutional authority to remind the 9 who holds the whip hand.

In the meantime :

Veteran's microphone cut off when he discusses Blacks' role in establishing Memorial Day https://t.co/iRVs2akqyb via @beaconjournal

— James LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) June 3, 2021

Gotta keep them invisible 🫥.