On racism and cowardice
I don't think I'd surprise anyone reading this by positing that, at heart, all racists are pathetic cowards. Instead of doing the hard and frightening work of improving themselves and fixing what's wrong with them, they take the coward's way out and blame the Other for their lot in life. But what I have witnessed just this week beggars belief.
As you all know, an out-of-control cargo ship hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge at the entry to Baltimore Harbor and collapsed it. If anything should be treated as a tragedy and not politicised, that would be it.
But, within minutes of the accident, the usual suspects came out with their dark conspiracies. Lara Logan went on her podcast fulminating that "sources" told her it was a terrorist attack. On Twitter, people said that the Mossad was the culprit, getting back at the US for its abstention in the UN ceasefire vote. And on and on.
But the most entertaining and illustrative turn was how many people were blaming diversity, equity, and inclusion programs for the disaster. The acronym "DEI" dominated the social media discourse. The elected mayor of Baltimore was called the "DEI mayor". Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was blamed for the tragedy for being concerned more about DEI than the nation's infrastructure. Pictures of the Black elected Maryland officials were plastered, with varying statements of "this is what DEI gets you."
Cowards. Pathetic little beta cuck cowards.
Be a man. Say what you mean to say. Say that word with the hard "r" at the end. Say it with your whole chest. Show the world that you say what you mean and mean what you say. If DEI is such a threat, now is no time to cavil behind social niceties. Say n---er, like you want to say it.
You notice I don't spell out the word. One, because it's a vile and disgusting word. Two, because it's not my place to say it. And three because I'm not a racist coward.
It's the same phenomenon with people who spit out the word "Zionist" with vitriol. You can rest assured that what they actually want to say are anti-semitic slurs. They want to say words which begin with "k", or "y", or "h". But, again, being the cowards that they are, they hide behind a euphemism. They don't have the courage of their convictions and lay out what they mean in plain language.
The reason for this is obvious: using racist epithets is likely to, at the very least, get you hoisted online. Saying those words in the real world is likely to get your ass a whuppin'.
Yesterday on Counter Social, a Jewish site member posted a video in which Steven Spielberg raised the alarm about anti-semitism. Another user blocked her for that. This person wasn't concerned with the perniciousness of Zionism. If you block someone for posting a video against anti-semitism, you can bullshit yourself and others all you want, but at the end of the day you're filled with hatred.
But they're all cowards. They can't just come out and say "I hate Blacks, and want them all strung up", or "I hate Jews, and want them all gassed". Even in our polarized times, that sort of discourse is anathema. They hide behind weasel words, thinking that will absolve them of opprobrium. But we see them. We know them. They wear the white hood, and they wear the red armband, no matter how much they try to obfuscate and dissemble. Again, racists are small little people who blame others because their lives haven't turned out as they think they deserve. They can't look into themselves, because then they'd see that they are exactly where they merit based upon their actions up to that point. And changing is more frightening than blaming external forces. So we are treated to screeds against DEI or critical race theory. It's the only somewhat-socially acceptable way for them to let their racist flags fly.
However, the good news is that they know they need to perform this rhetorical subterfuge. They know they can't be latter-day Orval Faubuses. And that's a very good thing. It robs them of impact. Mealy mouthed constructions get you mocked. They twist themselves into pretzels trying to avoid the offending terms to the point where all they spew is meaningless pabulum. They are yesterday's men and women. And they know it.