I was born and raised in the tri-state area that is Washington, D.C. I’ve not only grown up around whites like Jim Webb, I have family members who talk and think just like him. Former Senator Webb went on Fox News Sunday and asked if he could speak about Donald Trump. After he criticized his Republican opponent, he volunteered this bit:
“”This kind of divisive, inflammatory rhetoric by people who want to be commander-in-chief is not helpful, and we have seen from the liberal side as well this kind of rhetoric as it goes to Southern white cultures,” the former Virginia senator said, apparently referring to recent debates over the Confederate flag.
“We need to be inclusive and recognize that we have problems and that we can come together to solve them,” Webb said. “But don’t be throwing these bombs to our cultural groups.”
“Unfortunately, I think you’re seeing it from both sides, which is why I mention the situation with Donald Trump with respect to Mexican-Americans,” Webb said. “We’re seeing an issue which should have been resolved and now is resolved, flying the Confederate battle flag in public places, morphing into something different.”
Webb then said he had talked about the issue with a close friend of his who happens to be African-American.”
It is no accident that our nation is where it is with respect to vestiges of a civil war one side decidedly won, but the other decidedly has reclaimed over the last century and a half. It is no accident that history is taught the way it is in our schools, our textbooks are as threadbare as they are, customs still alive all throughout the nation, and human and civil rights accorded the way they are in specific individual states.
States’ Rights are what has kept the confederacy and racism alive. Jim Webb is right about one thing, there is such a thing as Democrats who believe in the validity and legitimacy of the “Southern white culture.” Those are the same Democrats who will avoid talking about racism. Those are the Democrats who will avoid pointing the finger at racists, even when there is general agreement that we going through a hyper-racist cycle. Those are the same Democrats who kept President Obama from pitching in during Election 2014. They not only exist, but they are a prominent part of the party elite.
The North hasn’t won and unless the face of Congress changes radically, it is about to lose.
More about what Americans believe in my next post.
As usual, stuffed shirt, over the hill, self-absorbed politicians always forget about the younger generations in our country. Historically, it’s always been to their peril. Having reached adulthood in the early 70s, I can attest the radical changes that rapidly burned through the previous decade. Fortunately for the vast majority of us, Millennials are America’s most ethnically and racially diverse cohort ever. Among Millennials ages 13 to 29: 18.5% are Hispanic; 14.2% are Black; 4.3% are Asian; 3.2% are Mixed Race or Other; and 59.8%, are Caucasian. Millennials have been noted for their high levels of tolerance and desire for self expression and individuality. Large swaths of this cohort group no longer watch conventional television and perhaps have never obtained their news via traditional newspapers and periodicals. Silently, but en masse, this group effects changes quite easily with little concern of those who legislatively represent them.
With all of that stated, I have little doubt the southern whites, race baiting, and systemic institutionalized racism struggles on its last legs. One more generation promises to fully dismantle any legacy hold of racism in America. There will be those left behind, but that will be their choice.
The problem with Caucasian millenials is that they are no less racist than the Boomers… We must – must – reform education.