Cliven Bundy – the freeloading rancher who hates America – always seemed to be a fairly despicable, self-interested person. Despite this, Fox News and right-leaning conservatives desperately celebrated him as a brave insurgent fighting government overreach. Because that’s what propaganda machines do: claw at hot-button issues and warp them for messaging purposes until they are disfigured beyond recognition.
However, once Bundy revealed his racist side, saying (among other things) that black Americans were “better off as slaves,” conservative supporters such as Sean Hannity ran for the hills as the outrage and scorn for Bundy reached viral proportions.
Now, Bundy deserves to be shunned and his message repudiated.
However, here’s the rub: Bundy is the least repugnant, least dangerous kind of racist in America today. Yes, Bundy’s words are wildly offensive and utterly disgusting, but the man is an ignorant fool who doesn’t have the sense to hide, much less understand, his hate.
Nor does he have the power to channel that hate into damaging policies or public opinions which could actually harm those minority groups who find themselves as targets of racism or bigotry, be they blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Jews, gays, Native Americans …
As we heap viral scorn upon Bundy, as we recommend and upvote and share and like and Tweet articles about what that guy Bundy said!, we should pause and consider those who truly need the spotlight shined brightly upon their racism, their bigotry: those who hide in plain sight.
These are the real Clive Bundys: those who push for voter I.D. laws, limited voting hours, restricted access to polls in urban areas, gerrymandered districts meant to limit minority electoral reaches.
These are the real Clive Bundys: those who champion illegal spying programs on Muslim communities in the name of national security, those who cheer Stop & Frisk techniques or racial profiling in the name crime reduction, those who oppose immigration reform in the name of economic security.
These are the real Clive Bundys: those who cut taxes for Wall Street millionaires while cutting school lunch subsidies for kindergarten students in the Bronx; those who grant corporate welfare to multi-billion-dollar companies while cutting food stamps; those who claim that corporations (meaning white, male CEOs) are human while ignoring the humanity of millions of under-served Americans.
These are the real Clive Bundys: those who celebrate racial slurs masquerading as sports mascots, those who call black athletes “thugs” for showing strength, those who support the NCAA keeping student-athletes enslaved in a work-for-no-pay scheme.
These are the real Clive Bundys: those who salivate when we drone innocent Yemeni citizens, those whose eyes widen at the prospect of bombing Iran, those who don’t consider Palestinians a people victimized in an asymmetrical conflict.
We all know the big players here. The Scott Walkers and Ray Kellys and Mitt Romneys and Dan Snyders and Michelle Bachmanns of the world.
Who we don’t know as well as Cliven Bundy are the city council commissioners, the state senators, the lobbyists, the think-tank wonks, and the corporate CEOs who do what Bundy cannot: perpetuate an uneven playing field based where white Americans receive preferential treatment.
Hank Aaron got it right recently when he said that the only difference between racists 40 years ago and racists today is that “back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts.”
Back then they had hoods. Today they hide behind biblical morality, political policies, free-market principles, and libertarian values. Today they hide behind their desks and clipboards and microphones, shaking your hand and feigning to care.
When deep within, they are nothing more than well-educated, well-dressed, well-funded Cliven Bundys.
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David Harris-Gershon is author of the memoir What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?, just out from Oneworld Publications.
Follow him on Twitter @David_EHG.
Excellent point. Well said.
Then let us clean house, do some self-examination, and generous teshuvah to undo the accumulated harm of lantzmen such as ex-NBA Pres. David Stern and NBA Pres. Silver, who enabled the foul bigotry of another lantzman, Mr. Donald Sterling (ne Tokowitz). Mr. Sterling paid out huge fines to the U.S. Department of Justice for pervasive racially discriminatory practices as a multimillionaire landlord on several occasions. He carried on with a non-Caucasian mistress and continued to donate to his shul as a “macher”, with no objections from these men. He only took the heat when he became “bad for business.”
These are “small potatoes” that we condemn at no cost. How about a racist apparatus that makes lives miserable for millions of people everyday, And does hate speech everyday:
Israel.
Oh, I see, that’s another story say the loud voices at ADL, et al., that flavor of “inward looking” is out of bounds- not fit for television quotes…. Um hmm. I get it.
Whistlin’ past the graveyard.
Great points! Our job is to educate and break through the lies that these new fascists tell – and that’s right, I said the ‘other’ f word.. Please get out your dictionaries and look up fascism. First comes the ‘ free trade’ then comes the overt fascism. THE U.S. has been moving towards fascism since the end of WW2 after we had set up the military industrial complex. In fact, We have always had this inclination, it has only been people’s movements that have stopped them before. Now is the time for the movement to end corporate governance of the U.S. and the world. Possible? With the Creator, everything is possible!!
Yes, with the creator it is possible. But only when we know where to look for the creator t – within us.
Refreshing article, refreshing responses, refreshing to see that thoughtful, conscientious spirituality is alive, well, and thriving. Racism is disgusting, and the strategy of racists who hide their racism so that they can more effectively frame and carry out racist policies is despicable. It might be good to remember that there is also a wide gap in respect for the dignity and civil rights of not-poor white Americans and quite poor white Americans. If you don’t have money and education, you don’t have power. You are easily manipulated. A favorite book is “Brother to a Dragonfly.” Worth a read. Since Citizens United vs. FEC and now McCutcheon vs. FEC, it seems that the image of “American democracy” is increasingly becoming a front for what is fast becoming a plutocracy: a sort of modern global feudal system led by American power and the force to back it up.
Racism was always the policy. Even the federal govt mas providing funding for white suburbans only until at least 1978. There were no programs or articles in most daily newspaper about how widespread racism was and how it work. No television programs either to explain the subject and if there had been it would had been repeated numerous times. Many people will not watch things that they do not want to see or that might be upsetting. Not that they had the chance. Many people do not think they are racists they just act that way without having to think why they are doing so. Better schools for my kids is alright, but your kids that is not my problem attitude. You had the same chance to get ahead as I did!! No many people did not have anything close to any equal chance.Most whites deal with white employers and most other white people most of the the time. Racism and class is used effectively to keep the people poor and that true of low wages for poor whites too that the rest of us know you can not provide for yourself let alone a family on low wages. That is part of how things work. I have mine do not ask me details in how I got it! Whites never had to learn about how racism worked. Not that many where interested in learning either. Only benefiting!