Racism Withers But Will it Die?

Racism has been defeated in key battles in US history, but the war seemingly never ends.  The Civil War was a pre-action to Lincoln’s presidency, where the South believed Lincoln would free the enslaved people.  So Confederacy attacked first. The North eventually won and over 600,000 Americans died.  This was a gigantic backlash to the idea of expanding rights and freedoms to a minority group that had no rights in a nation that prided itself on the promise of such rights.We outlawed slavery, but the backlash of lynchings, the KKK and Jim Crow laws were soon to follow.  Improvement, sure.  Freedom, technically, but still abject murderous sanctioned terror.   Then black leaders fought and died for Civil Rights and these laws more fully enfranchised black citizens. But we can’t leave out the racist Governors blocking school entrances and church bombings and Emmett Till.   Despite racism surviving to this day, barriers have been valiantly removed, however gradually.  Police violence has been addressed with body cams.  We move forward as a result of addressing racism. And yet racism goes underground to reemerge later with certain catalysts. More on that later.We have progressed so dramatically since our inception that it is that it's no longer acceptable to use racist language and to discriminate.  And yet, the hatred and racism that have animated so much of our history remains, suppressed, waiting for opportunistic public figures to use this force to animate their purposes.You can't say the N-word, so our former President uses dog-whistle statements to signal to his racist and closet-racist followers that he too doesn't want a black woman President. He uses stochastic terrorism instead of lynch mobs.He created Birtherism,questioning Obama's citizenship all those years ago.  Because they can't say the N-word.  And he can't terrorize them with the KKK.  So he uses the only tool available, innuendo. He questions her identity.  He makes up this farce about her 'becoming' black.  Because he can't debate her on policy.   He doesn't have her breadth of experience or her Juris Doctorate degree.  So these are the tools he uses to manipulate the base into being angry and staying animated about the election.  Because this is what he does.  Because racism and grievance fuel his candidacy.Interestingly, Trump seems to both stoke and provide an outlet for this racist energy.  He is the catalyst for racism as much as any leader we've had.  As much as David Duke.  At least Duke admitted he was a KKK member. Racism at times seems to be hanging by a thread and yet an agitator like Trump feeds it and its purveyors.   The neo-Nazis, the white supremacist gangs, the attack on the Capitol, Birtherism, the Central Park 5, Charlottesville, ‘stand back and stand by’: these are the bullet points of Trump's disgusting legacy of hate, his perpetuation of racist stereotypes and his using racism for notoriety and for the furtherance of his political goals.He is the backlash to racial progress embodied.  He is the David Duke of our time, just dressed as PT Barnum.  His is the Neo-Confederacy and it is such a Lost Cause.  We will not go backward.  And yet racism dies hard.  Maybe because grievance dies hard.  What is it that keeps these resentments alive?  What makes people gather together against another group?  What makes them believe lies and misinformation?  What makes that enterprise entertaining and sustaining?  How is it that people gain identity by hating another group? Are these the vagaries of an atomized modernity with its technological trappings?I keep saying we are progressing, and yet it appears racism isn't going anywhere.  Neither are sexism, homophobia or transphobia.Conversely,Obama's inauguration and Presidency were among the major cultural moments of our history, regardless of the scorecard one might give his policies.  Profoundly, Obama became President of a nation where black men and women were once enslaved and owned.  Our culture changed that day, if in subtle ways. And yet those same seeds of progress were the impetus for a tremendous and destructive backlash that culminated in a Trump presidency and the violent attempt to overturn an election by a would-be dictator.Soon, I believe we will have a female black president.  I wonder if this event, added to the Obama Presidency will start a process by which we clear this racist angst.  Will we become colorblind via exposure therapy, as it were?  Will she have an effective presidency and lead us to devalue our racism and sexism?  Will hearts and minds change?  Will she address the underlying economic issues that have people feeling vulnerable?Or do these isms die hard because they hijack our Amygdala, which doesn't get enough exercise fighting bears and Neanderthals?  I can't say.  But I sadly see racism as a thread that stretches back to before our nation's inception and seems to always have more left on the spool, despite our best efforts.  And yet, we progress. This is a public episode. 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