Moving from mere racism to new terror-tory

I've never been comfortable with the idea that all White folx are racists and although I understand why people (usually Black) make that claim, it has long made me uncomfortable. My discomfort arises from the heavy-handedness of the assessment. I prefer a more nuanced view, so let me offer this instead: maybe all White people aren't automatically racist, but they sure do all have the keys to that particular vehicle and it's just a matter of time until they use the keys handed to them at birth, to get in and run one of us over.

The traditional definition of racism focuses  on antagonism directed at a person or group. But as many have come to realize, we all - people of all colors - have negative feelings (sometimes going so far as to have antagonistic feelings) towards other groups. It is entirely normal to hold negative views, if not exactly healthy. Racism, however, goes several steps further.

Discriminating judgments (where 'to discriminate' is to differentiate or recognize a distinction between/among) are what we use to make thousands of decisions every day. Where that discrimination becomes problematic is where we fail to see the harm our over-generalizations may be causing or worse, when we actively seek to inflict harm with those over-generalizations. It's one thing to fear bees because you were once stung by a bee; or  snakes because some are poisonous but it is another thing entirely to make broad generalizations about Black men because of something that one Black man did to you four years ago, or Hispanic people because of something some ijit said after he got off a golden elevator. 

Racism is necessary differentiation taken to irrational or harm-causing extreme; it is the weaponization of normal sifting and categorizing processes and the application of power to those processes in ways that have lasting consequences for those upon whom the judgments land. 

The critical shortcoming of current dictionary definitions of ~ism and ~ists is that those definitions ignore the power dynamic. Racism doesn't work without power. To be racist one has to have access to the power to encode one's beliefs in law or policy that inflicts harm (see Stephen Miller) or to bring the forces of state down upon others (see BBQ Becky and others who call the police on random Black people trying to exist), or to pick up a gun and kill dozens on account of race or nationality (see this weekend's TX shooter).

So no, #NotAllWhitePeople are racist, but all White people can be racist at any time. This weekend's back to back mass shootings offer incontrovertible proof of this. 

There are people - mostly White - who complain at the overuse of the word 'racist'. They are in fact, quite tired of being called racists. Welp, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, smells like a duck, it ain't tofurkey. I acknowledge folks' frustration, but perhaps if their behaviors didn't so clearly line them up alongside the ~ism, we wouldn't need to use the word quite so much? How 'bout that? Or how about this: let's stop talking about racism and start talking about genocidal impulses and ethnic cleansing. Cuz it sure looks like that's where we're heading.

That the resident of the House of White (Supremacy) is a racist and that his condition is chronic, is self-evident. The real trouble we now face is that he's giving voice to the voiceless and gumption to the gumptionless. Again, this weekend serves as a terrifying case in point.    
When DJT says that, "No human being would want to live there" of Baltimore, a city that is home to thousands of African Americans, he is setting the stage for genocidal violence. When he claims that migrants fleeing instability - much of it caused by our meddlings in their electoral processes I might add - is an "infestation", he is setting the stage for genocidal violence. When he uses terms typically reserved to describe animals to describe people of color, he is setting the stage for genocidal violence. When he leads chants of "Send her back!", he is setting the stage for genocidal violence. This is not hyperbole. The events of this first weekend of August 2019 are your proof. 

We are well beyond "racism" at this point. So far beyond it that the question of who is and who ain't really doesn't matter any more. It is no longer about whether it's racist to say the things he says, or whether it's racist-adjacent to concur with those views. We are in entirely different territory today. Terror-tory perhaps? 

We can certainly continue to pretend that the president's ~ism is a figment of the left's collective imagination, but to what end? Oh yes, the psychic comfort of those who share his views and the politicians who seek their votes. But when his words seem to be moving others to genocidal action? Yeah, your psychic comfort is sh*t and it's time to start telling the damn truth. 

What is this truth you ask?

The truth is that in American culture, the empathy gap between White and non-White is wide. That empathy gap once gave rise to Native genocide, and then to an African genocide, to Chinese exclusion, to Japanese American internment, to a Muslim exclusion (ban) and now to Hispanic genocide at the border. #TellTheTruth

The truth is that what happened in Texas is an outgrowth of that empathy gap which is giving rise to disaffected young White men bent on ethnic cleansing. #TellTheTruth

The truth is that some of  y'all ain't trying to make America great again, you're trying to make it a terrorist state again. When the other is not human, this is all too possible. #TellTheTruth

The truth is that y'all ain't worried about economic woes, you never were. You want to get back to brutalizing POC without challenge. You want to get back to the days of Sunday lynching and nobody paying. #TellTheTruth

The only thing Trump's people are interested in making America again is proudly racist. That's why can't one of those people call out White nationalism without choking. They're busy trying to reach for a bygone era, an era when non-White people knew their damn place and that place wasn't in the halls of power. Oh they deny, deny, deny, but their denials aren't plausible.

Lashing out when one can't have one's way is the quintessence of White fragility, but the actions of this past weekend demonstrate clearly that fragility ain't fragile at all, it's insecurity seeking cover in toxic masculinity.