Some EFFECTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY

by Ruth A. Sheets

The various news media are crammed these days with reports of gun violence.  Sometimes it is the drive-by shooting, sometimes domestic violence, other times it’s a revenge killing that just happens to take out some innocent bystanders.  During May, it has been the mass killings by teen adult males who somehow believe they have the right to take as many lives as they can with assault weapons they are now old enough to buy legally.   

The police are not equal to the task of solving these crimes for a variety of reasons.  Unfortunately, most of the victims all over the country are people of color.  No matter how we cut it, it appears, to police, the lives of people of color just aren’t as valuable as white lives, even if it is not a conscious response.

Many Americans feel white supremacy is behind the inability of legislators to vote on even basic gun regulation that something between 70 and 90% of the American people want, even the white ones.  However, the white mostly “conservative” men in power don’t seem to care what the people want.  Why should they care?  If people are bombarded day after day with gun violence which Republicans in power know they will do nothing about, people won’t be paying attention to their rights being washed down the drain by those white mostly male Republicans. 

Republicans are now predominantly white, many, white supremacists even if they haven’t used the term directly.  Their actions clearly demonstrate their dismissal of people of color and women.  I contend it is just another proof that Republican white men (and some white women), are perpetually scared. 

Republican white supremacists (probably a redundant phrase) fear they might not always have the privilege they won't even acknowledge they have.  They are afraid everyone else will know what everyone already knows, that they are no smarter, wiser, more worthy than women or men of other "racial" groups.  Terrifying! 

Throughout history, at least since the late 15th century, we have societies that let white men believe in their own superiority and women and people of color have been forced to maintain and amplify that falsehood.

Over the years, white supremacists have regularly targeted issues important to holding their “superior” status.  I can’t help but wonder if to distract from those issues, they have figured out they can encourage some violence (wars and crime) to keep folks from paying attention.  Right now, it’s massive numbers of guns on the street, thinking young boys and men of color will be so busy defending their honor and territories they won’t notice anything else and the media will be overwhelmed with it.  When privileged teen adult white men shoot down a mass of people of color, or religious groups the supremacists don’t like, or kids, everyone’s attention is focused on the wrong hand.  The media continues to ignore or make irrelevant the other issues, the “real” ones that white Republican men (and the women who want to be them) care about

• Forcing women to remain pregnant no matter what will keep women of all colors from moving up in the business and political worlds.  Those men don’t want to compete with competent women.  And, forcing pregnancy on poor women and women of color will keep them struggling just to survive.
• Voting should be just for white folks, Republican ones of course.  Despite the Constitution, voting for everyone else should be made a hardship they won’t want to endure.
• The media are mostly controlled by rich white people (or white male wannabees).  They pick and choose whose voices will be heard and their false equivalencies keep the Republican white male minority voice heard above everyone else’s with little or no ability of others to respond to what those privileged white Republican men are saying, and what they are saying is not good for most Americans.
• White business crime is on the upswing and is bringing white men a lot of money they can ultimately use to keep themselves in power.
• Asylum-seekers who have a legal right to seek refuge in our country are being forced by Republican judges to stay in Mexico where they are prey for a wide range of criminals.  They have put in place Title 42 which is supposedly to keep COVID from spreading.  It’s real purpose now is to keep people of color from entering our country, in the words of white supremacists, “coming here to replace us.” 

 So, here we are back to the intense fear white “conservative” men are experiencing.  What does it mean to be replaced?  Scared white maledom has incorporated all kinds of groups they would not have considered acknowledging as white a century or two ago:  Irish, Polish, Russian, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Eastern Europeans.  White Cubans in Florida and Texas have been added (Ted Cruz, for example).  Is there a limit to who can be called “white?”  Are Republican men so worried they can’t find some other groups they can indoctrinate with their fear and hatred to initiate as white?

 Maybe to save our nation, it is time we ween Republican men (and the women who love them) off the milk of superiority.  They need to stand on their own feet, not always being held up by those they despise and believe are inferior to themselves.  Then, we who are not Conservative white men need to stop letting them lean on us so much by accepting blame for things they have done.  We cover for them all the time, even voting for them if they are loud and insulting enough, if they promise pie in the sky.

We accept responsibility for the home that is not perfectly kept and make excuses for jobs that pay less than what men are paid.  We step back so their feelings won't be hurt or they won’t strike out and hurt us.  We go along when they tell us the 2nd amendment means anyone has the right to own and carry a gun wherever they want to carry it.  We tell them their sports are more valuable and exciting than women's sports and don’t speak up when they claim that Black athletes have physical but not mental talents, and so on, day after day, century after century.  When will we tell them we have had enough?

We give up on our right to vote when those white supremacists tell us we don’t have the correct ID or signature or can’t get water or food from anyone or for anyone while standing in hot hours-long voting lines, lines those white supremacists would never permit in their own neighborhoods.  When will we, en masse demand automatic voting the moment we turn 18 and keep it until we die?

We allow ourselves to be shamed or villainized if we choose to abort a fetus for whatever reason even if abortion is the best or only option to make our life livable.  We let males who will never be pregnant and faced with a life or death decision related to that pregnancy, decide whether or not a woman can have an abortion and even when life begins.  That is simply nuts!  Their next forced imposition will be ending contraception.  When will we tell them “no” and mean it? 

We passively give permission for police to treat men of color worse than they would treat their dog and let them abuse peaceful protesters while letting white supremacy protests go on without interference.  When will we demand better, more just policing, removing from their positions the white supremacists who currently hold prominent places in most police departments

We have let those scared white supremacists dictate which books can be in our libraries, even if they haven’t read them and even though we are all supposed to have the right to free speech.  It seems only Republican white men and the women who wannabe them want to decide what is free speech and what is taught in school and what will make their fragile white children uncomfortable.  When will we tell them, “educators and librarians are the ones who will make those decisions and just being white does not give you an uneducated say?”

It is going to be hard for us to make meaningful changes.  That does not mean we shouldn’t be trying every day in everything we do.  Our voices need to ring out every day everywhere we are, even in the voting booth, even if it bothers others (you know those delicate white supremacists get upset).  We are quickly losing our rights, even rights listed or implied in the Constitution because those scared white supremacists are discovering that they aren’t as special as they think they are and don’t like it.  

For the sake of this society, for our children, and for our planet, we had better be about the work immediately.  We don’t have all day!