What Really Scares White Folk, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #275 | @MDWorld
May 21, 2012 Mike Gold 6 Comments
If you happen to not be white, you probably don’t hang out at old white men’s bars. I’m not suggesting you start; even though these guys are getting along in age, your instincts are correct and, besides, some of these guys have guns.
Bleeding-heart anarchist that I am, I find myself almost pitying these guys. I turn sixty-two this August, and by and large we’re talking about guys a lot older them me. They never thought they’d live this long; many thought they wouldn’t make it out of Korea. They’ve been spending their social security years totally bewildered by this strange new world. They can’t keep up. Hell, they can’t keep it up either, and that pisses ‘em off even more.
Look at their world. Video pocket computers. Police-state airports. Rap music. Women in the military. Gays in the military. Videogame freaks in the military. A black President. A Latina on the Supreme Court. American buildings and American airplanes getting blown up in America. Twitter. Titties and cuss words running rampant on teevee. Banks painlessly losing over three billion dollars betting on somebody else’s failures.
And now they’re being told that, around the time the last of them dies, the white race will be in the minority. George Lincoln Rockwell was right, damn it. And they just nod their heads as they gaze into their beers. The only white power they’ve got left is Viagra.
Sadly, they do not understand how numbers work. Few seem to; certainly few in the media. This will be the first year we will have more non-white births in America than white births. This presumes all non-white people belong to the same race, or at the very least are on the same e-mail list. This is ridiculous, but they’re still bent out of shape. They’ve been waiting for this news ever since Malcolm X told them to watch their white asses.
For these guys, it’s game over.
Today, “all white people” includes the Irish, eastern Europeans, Italians, Slavs and Germans. At one time or another all of them suffered massive discrimination from the establishment classes, and immigration was severely restricted for most. Indeed, any American of eastern or southern European descent who is up in arms about illegal immigration and has the audacity to say “I’m in favor of legal immigration, just like what my people did” had better take a damn hard look at their family tree: the Immigration Act of 1924 severely restricted the number of Jews, Italians, Slavs and other Southern and Eastern Europeans, even refugees fleeing Nazi tyranny. Franklin Delano Jewsavelt (a still-common American Nazi phrasing) denied permission to entire boatloads of Jews, who were forced to turn back to Deutschland to face certain, horrible death. Better they should have jumped in the ocean.
Damn hypocrites. I guess I don’t feel all that much pity after all.
This is America. Unless you look like the guy on the other side of the buffalo, you are part of a mongrel nation. I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood; today it’s Pakistani and Indian – the original Indians. Things change. The only constant in the American story is cultural evolution.
Deal with it.
The photo above is of Joe Danno, proprietor of Chicago’s Bucket O’Suds, the model for GrimJack’s Munden’s Bar. Joe in no way reflected the type of person detailed in the narrative, and both Joe and the Bucket are sadly long gone. It was the hangout for musicians, disc jockeys, poets, writers, artists, cartoonists, comics, lawyers, motorcyclists, jazz fans, and other misfit extraterrestrials – including John Ostrander, Kim Yale, and The Author.
Cranky bleeding-heart anarchist Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com, every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, replayed three times during the week (check the website above for times) and available On Demand at the same place, so listen to it already! He also joins Martha Thomases and Michael Davis as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com, where he pontificates on matters of four-color.
Rick Oliver
May 21, 2012 - 9:44 am
Without all those damn immigrants cranking out non-white babies, we wouldn’t have much of a workforce to pay taxes 20 years from now, and thereby support all us old white guys in our last gasp years…if we live that long.
Mike Gold
May 21, 2012 - 11:08 am
Well, keep that cheery thought, Rick!
Jonathan (the other one)
May 21, 2012 - 11:53 am
Actually, even if you do look like the guy on the other side of the buffalo, you’re likely to have been caught up in the “mongrelization” craze – for instance, quite a large number of people in the Blackfoot nation number escaped black slaves (and freed blacks, for that matter) among their ancestors. (My mother-in-law, whose skin is so dark she’s faced discrimination from other blacks, is also a card-carrying member of the Blackfoot.)
I’m still waiting for the day when this world’s ethnicities have interbred to the point that all this “race” silliness is regarded in the same light as the “four humours” or the reading of entrails.
Mike Gold
May 21, 2012 - 3:32 pm
We’re getting closer all the time, JTOO. Of course, now with DNA testing, we can also slice that onion a lot thinner.
I await the day when we’ll have those DNA printouts encoded onto our mandatory federal ID card — what we presently call “State Drivers License” — so that, with one swipe of the iPhone, the authorities can tell your ethnicity and infer your national roots. This will be done, as the mayor and police commissioner of New York City are presently saying, to protect us from the threat of crime and terrorism.
If you haven’t done anything wrong — like, be in favor of building a mosque in your community — you have nothing to worry about.
Reg
May 22, 2012 - 4:26 pm
Big bruh Mikey,
Seems that the fear isn’t just an old folk’s game. I really can relate to this brother’s excellent commentary…
http://foolscrusade.blogspot.com/2012/05/geek-racism-reaction-based-on.html
Mike Gold
May 22, 2012 - 5:29 pm
He and I must go to different conventions. I appreciate that shows are disproportionately non-black, but I’ve been impressed by the COMPARATIVE lessening of racial distinctions at shows I regularly attend (C2E2, Baltimore Comic Con, San Diego Comic Con, New York Comic Con, MoCCA). No panecea to the issue here; I said comparative and I meant just that. There was a two-day show in the Bronx, second annual I believe, the weekend before last. Lots a black and Asian geeks out there at the above noted shows, and I see more cross-racial socialization at those above shows than I do in the real world.
Perhaps we only differ by degrees. Odin knows there’s an enormous amount of work needed to raise everybody’s comfort zone, and we all need to dedicate ourselves to that process.
But he’s totally wrong about the NHL.
R. Maheras
May 22, 2012 - 9:29 pm
The majority of “racism” I run across isn’t anything like racism of old. As a matter of fact, as the quotation marks I use around the term suggest, I’m not sure it’s racism at all.
As anyone who doesn’t live alone in a shack in the mountains can plainly see if they are paying attention at all to the throngs of people surrounding them, common in this melting pot society are what I call “culture clusters.” They may exist in neighborhoods, on college campuses, in nightclubs, at the beach, or anywhere people congregate. There may be a racial element to the clusters, but it is by no means the only driving force behind the grouping. The clusters consist of people who simply feel more comfortable around people “more like themselves” when their societal guard is relaxed.
The clusters may be politically-driven, theology-driven, racially-driven, gender-driven, interest-driven, profession-driven, etc., or a combination of one or more of the above.
But, not surprisingly, there are sometimes “culture clusters” within a “culture cluster,” and I think that probably accounts for much of the “racism” that Brandon talks about in his column.
Of course, that doesn’t mean old-fashioned racism doesn’t exist in the U.S., all it means is that sometimes that snake one recoils from isn’t venomous at all.
Martha Thomases
May 23, 2012 - 4:52 am
Or sometimes the snake looks harmless, but is just as deadly. You don’t really know until you’re the victim.
Martha Thomases
May 23, 2012 - 5:39 am
And also (with a h/t to Art’s Tumblr account) this: http://www.good.is/post/america-is-dying-slowly-talking-about-hip-hop-after-trayvon-martin/
R. Maheras
May 23, 2012 - 8:11 am
Martha — Yeah, but since about 85 percent of snakes are non-venomous, and many of the ones that are give people fair warning before they strike, most people recoil from snakes for nothing.
The fact is, perpetual fear of “racism” is, in itself, one of the fundamental tenets of real racism: Fear of someone who is different than you.
R. Maheras
May 23, 2012 - 8:25 am
Regarding “culture clusters,” I was at a smallish “rough cut” screening of a major Hollywood motion picture not too long ago, and while sitting there with the people I knew — a form of professional “culture cluster” — I looked over my shoulder at two men talking behind me. I don’t know exactly why, but I immediately suspected they were talent agents. And, being the type of person I am, it took me about two seconds to ask them point blank if they were. One of them answered something like, “Yes, how did you know?” We got to talking and it turned out that, as far as they knew, they were the only two agents in the room. In short, they represented another example of a professional “culture cluster” in a relatively small setting.
Martha Thomases
May 23, 2012 - 9:10 am
It’s not my fault your metaphor doesn’t hold up.
It’s real easy for white people to say racism is no longer a problem. It is less easy when your children get stopped and frisked — or shot — for walking down the sidewalk while black.
R. Maheras
May 23, 2012 - 11:24 am
I never said racism was “no longer a problem” in the United States. All I said is that it is nowhere near the problem it once was, and anyone who thinks that it is is either ignoring U.S. history or ignorant of it.
In this day and age, having an extreme view about racism — regardless of which etnic or racial camp one is in, or on which side of the fence one is sitting — serves no useful purpose if one’s goal is truly bringing everyone together.
Martha Thomases
May 23, 2012 - 11:38 am
nd I’m saying that what constitutes an “extreme
Jew”” varies depending on which end of the racism one is on.
Reg
May 23, 2012 - 1:28 pm
“I’m saying that what constitutes an “extreme
Jew”” varies depending on which end of the racism one is on.”
Just try reading through the comments section for any news site that has Trayvon Martin or President Obama as lead topics…or to Martha’s point…to find empirical evidence that the more things change, the more they seem to unfortunately stay the same.
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/12/31/hate-crimes-against-jews-on-th
Martha Thomses
May 23, 2012 - 1:55 pm
Rats. That’s what I get for typing on my phone. I meant “extreme VIEW”
Reg
May 23, 2012 - 2:21 pm
LOL. Doesn’t mean you were wrong.
But yeah, I thought that could have been a funny auto correct coinky-dink or a another instance of incisive commentary.
😛
R. Maheras
May 23, 2012 - 5:03 pm
I know a number of you lived through late 1960s and earlier, and I simply don’t see how anyone who did could possibly think things today are “the same,” or even worse.
That’s not true of so many levels, I don’t even know where to start.
All I can say is if you honestly believe that, you must have been living in some alternate universe. It was bad during the 1960s, real, REAL bad. There were racially-motivated beatings, stabbings and murders happening dozens of times every day in cities across America. The Austin High School in my old neighborhood was a frickin’ war zone. Much of the west side of Chicago went up in flames and STILL hasn’t recovered to this very day. And this was in the “progressive” northern part of the United States. Down south it was far worse. Ditto for out west in the Golden State. A black friend of mine said that when he moved to southern California from Texas (Texas, mind you!) in the late 1960s to live with his father, he was exposed to far more racism than he’d ever experienced back in the Lone Star State.
Racism the same in the U.S. as it used to be? No frickin’ way.
Mike Gold
May 23, 2012 - 7:26 pm
Yes, Russ, things have changed. Some — many — for the better. No way we would have elected a black man president. No way would we have allowed same-sex marriage. Or had women, let alone a Latina, on the Supreme Court.
But not all change has been for the better. Thanks to an ill-advised “politically correct” movement, people have learned how to mask their feelings in social-neutral language and action; we know what not to do to avoid being branded as racist, sexist, and anti-gay. So nobody knows where anybody stands… or where that next bullet is coming from.
As Chicagoans, Russ, we both know something about verbal finesse. Finesse can hide all sorts of hatred. Unfortunately, the real problem isn’t overt activity. It’s our unconscious presumptions that are at the root of discrimination. The only cure for that is socialization, particularly in schools. Sadly, class distinctions, religious and home schooling and vouchers work against that, and unconscious stereotyping is likely to continue… reduced, but alive.
R. Maheras
May 24, 2012 - 10:06 am
Mike — Yeah, there’s still a ways to go, but in addition to being a realist, I’m also an optimist — mainly because I try to look at everything through a macro historical lens.
Rick Oliver
May 24, 2012 - 11:00 am
As long as there are easily identifiable groups of “others” on which we can blame our problems, we will probably continue to do so. It’s much easier to have an all encompassing sense of social responsibility when everyone in your society is just like you
Mike Gold
May 24, 2012 - 11:04 am
Just like ME?
Frightening thought.
Rick Oliver
May 24, 2012 - 11:37 am
Look at some of the countries that score the highest on just about every index of quality of life: the population of Norway is 95% “Norwegian”; the population of Switzerland is 93% European; the population of Denmark is 87% Scandinavian; the population of Ireland is 95% white and 87% “Irish”. It’s much easier to agree on what’s important and consequently get the government to agree on what’s important when everybody belongs to the same “culture cluster”.
Mike Gold
May 24, 2012 - 12:00 pm
Yeah, there’s no doubt in my mind tribalism is at the core of human evil. Look at Yugoslavia, a nation that several Republicans think still exists. Once Tito died and the joint was broken up, everybody reverted to tribalism and horror ensued. Iraq, same thing. And we don’t have enough bandwidth to do even a half-assed job of covering post-colonial Africa.
The problem here on these shores is that when it comes to tribalism, we Americans are really bad at it. We suffer from the same DNA-compulsion, but we have no roots to root. I mean, jeez: South Dakotans pick on North Dakotans, North Side Chicagoans are disgusted by South Side Chicagoans, New Yorkers believe they are superior to everybody else, and Johnny Winter hates everybody. Sure, we have our little religious wars here in the States, but rarely does anybody pick up arms over it. And a good race riot is hard to come by these days: when was the last one? Rodney King? O.J. killed for our sins?
We should all unite as Americans and members of a mongrel society in opposition to the genuine threat in North America: those fuckin’ Newfies!