Consequences of a Brown Planet

The commenter on the panel on Diane Rehm this morning said it:  Sanders can't win large numbers of votes in states with large numbers of African Americans in them.  Sanders' support is largely young and white, and that is a racial as well as generational divide.  Those who are "fed up" and white should matter; and the panel is going on to casually talk about voters who like Sanders, and like Trump, and they never notice because it's not about race because it's never about race.

In very local news this morning, the largest school district in the state (and one of the largest in the country) is working on renaming schools named for Confederate generals and the President of the Confederacy.  A former local TV reporter who now works as a "consultant" was even quoted (on tape) saying that the school board had created racial tension by raising this issue and working to rename these schools.  Of course, when whites are aggrieved, racial tensions are created.  As long as they are happy, racial tensions are illegitimate.

I heard this argument 50 years ago; it hasn't gone away.

I don't blame Sanders for this, not directly.  But he dismissed the South because it didn't vote for him; and who in the South didn't vote for him most of all?  Non-white voters; and even to label them that broadly is to set "white" as normative.  But it's not about race because it's never about race.

We built this country on racism.  People came here because they chose to, but people came here from Africa because we forced them to; and dependent upon that system, we wrote it into our Constitution.  we removed it less than 100 years later, but the foundation was laid, the damage was done.  It is still our hidden wound; it is still our original sin.  And, as predicted, our minorities are becoming majorities.

And even our "liberals" aren't handling that very well.  Even millennials are easily prompted on comment boards to rail against "racism" that they perceive is being stirred up where there wasn't any racial tension before.  Because it's not about race, because it's never about race.  And when it is about race, it's because you're doing something wrong; to white people.