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Civil rights
Aug. 30th, 2010 09:25 amYou know, I was pretty isolated in Seattle during CheeseCon. There just wasn't much time to check the news, and keeping track of the new fascism is never my start-of-the-day routine. In fact, truth be told, I let you folks follow that stuff, then I follow your links.
But I do have something to say. Glen Beck leading a rally at the Lincoln Monument trying to "reclaim" the Civil Rights movement for the (white) right? This is a Mein Kampf-level attempt at re-writing history. Tactically its probably best if the response to this is counter-protest, organizing, and writing; but morally... those folks should have been met with baseball bats and boots, just like when the Nazi skins try to march.
There's been an inevitable, historical line to this, with the Right trying to "reclaim" Lincoln and MLK, but this really is a moral (and political) outrage, something that opens a new frontier in the cultural war, something that all good people need to speak out against.
Right wing white people did not make the civil rights movement. I mean, duh. They opposed it every step of the way. Black people made the Civil Rights Movement -- with the help of many other folks, to be sure -- but black people did the main organizing, theorizing, and dying for the cause. The fact that I feel the need to type this in 2010 makes me wanna puke.
Some white folks can't understand why some black people get upset when progressive white-dominated movements take the mantle of "Civil Rights Movement" as their own. From gay marriage to raw milk... and now to neo-fascism, folks want to take that mantle because the decades of bravery, strategy, martyrdom, and, in the end, tangible victories, are a still-pure example of organizing, well-regarded, (if not necessarily fully understood) by almost everyone. While it's easy to join a chorus of condemnation against Glen Beck on this, one should also ask whether it would be possible for Beck to take this step without "progressive" white-led groups setting the table for him by doing it themselves.
It's understandable that people, naively or cynically, want to be associated with the Civil Rights Movement. But if your group is mostly white people, you can't take it. It is just not yours to take.
( Here is a good Leonard Pitts column if you need background.)
But I do have something to say. Glen Beck leading a rally at the Lincoln Monument trying to "reclaim" the Civil Rights movement for the (white) right? This is a Mein Kampf-level attempt at re-writing history. Tactically its probably best if the response to this is counter-protest, organizing, and writing; but morally... those folks should have been met with baseball bats and boots, just like when the Nazi skins try to march.
There's been an inevitable, historical line to this, with the Right trying to "reclaim" Lincoln and MLK, but this really is a moral (and political) outrage, something that opens a new frontier in the cultural war, something that all good people need to speak out against.
Right wing white people did not make the civil rights movement. I mean, duh. They opposed it every step of the way. Black people made the Civil Rights Movement -- with the help of many other folks, to be sure -- but black people did the main organizing, theorizing, and dying for the cause. The fact that I feel the need to type this in 2010 makes me wanna puke.
Some white folks can't understand why some black people get upset when progressive white-dominated movements take the mantle of "Civil Rights Movement" as their own. From gay marriage to raw milk... and now to neo-fascism, folks want to take that mantle because the decades of bravery, strategy, martyrdom, and, in the end, tangible victories, are a still-pure example of organizing, well-regarded, (if not necessarily fully understood) by almost everyone. While it's easy to join a chorus of condemnation against Glen Beck on this, one should also ask whether it would be possible for Beck to take this step without "progressive" white-led groups setting the table for him by doing it themselves.
It's understandable that people, naively or cynically, want to be associated with the Civil Rights Movement. But if your group is mostly white people, you can't take it. It is just not yours to take.
( Here is a good Leonard Pitts column if you need background.)
