In the post civil rights era, it is obligatory that every white racist has a "best black friend".
The Republican Party keeps a database of such "trot out in case of emergency negroes" who are human chaff for their white supremacist, anti-black, anti-brown, anti-poor, policies. Clarence Thomas fulfills this role on an elite and institutional level.
Many individual white folks, on both sides of the political divide, in a society that is highly segregated along racial lines (75 percent of white Americans do not have one non-white friend) somehow manage to have a "best black friend" as well. This phantom black friend is not present in their day-to-day lives; he or she is just summoned when self-serving questions about racism or racial propriety are introduced.
White supremacist mass murderer and terrorist Dylann Roof also has a best black friend. His name is Christon Scriven.
He recently spoke to the BBC where he made the following assertion about Dylann Roof:
"Everybody's making him out to be racist but here I am in front of you today as a Black man and telling you that I look at him no different today than what I looked him last week because he never said anything racist to me..."We discussed this in an earlier post. Human beings of all colors have the capacity to deny the facts--especially when it involves someone dear and close to them having been arrested for a heinous crime.
But, given Dylann Roof's white supremacist manifesto, penchant for wearing the flags of Rhodesia and Apartheid era South Africa, telling racists jokes, and posing with Confederate flags, it is hard to believe that he was not also emitting such noxious signals of white supremacy while in the company of his "best black friend" Christon Scriven
And perhaps just as disturbing, Dylann Roof told Christon Scriven about his plans to commit mass murder at a local college. Guess what? Criston did not tell the police.
The Culture of Cruelty has warped the ethics, morality, and values of young people on both sides of the colorline. The neoliberal nightmare and the Culture of Disposability is their world: they have never known any other one.
14 comments:
Scriven follows in the footsteps of a long line of "token blacks" like Uncle Tom, Herman Cain, and Ben Carson whose function is to bamboozle, to provide a public relations prophylaxis. But one has to especially feel sorry for this kid whose mind is warped to the point of masochism.
Speaking of Carson, he actually came out and called the attack racially motivated.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7635778
That stating the obvious as if it were profound is seen as an act of bravery speaks volumes as to how prevalent white supremacy still is in our age.
So much for his presidential aspirations.
Yeah, he's done now.
Also, it'll be interesting to see the response from the bigoted right wing base now that more of their leaders are calling for their beloved symbol of hatred to be thrown off the state capitol grounds.
They're going to have to own their racism out in the open now.
The character Uncle Tom from the Beecher Stowe book was anything but an "Uncle Tom".. Our negative view of this character is due to Southern propaganda, in reality the character in the book was a pretty upstanding, self respecting Black man. Everything else you said was on point.
http://www.blackpast.org/perspectives/uncle-tom-revisited-rescuing-real-character-caricature
I'm going to be charitable and suggest that this young man is another black youth who is the product of a poor public education and low elf esteem.
Keep in mind that generations of Republican politicians in the South have as their mandate the underfunding of public schools. This young man, so devoid of critical thinking, is the product of such a system.
I think I knew that about Uncle Tom at one time and forgot. We should put in a good word for Clarence Thomas too since he was the swing vote which allowed Texas to refuse to put the confederate flag on license plates. Otherwise he's a strict radical rightist.
Wm. Faulkner examined this phenomenon in his "Satoris" saga (c. 1927--1929, with various revisions), whereas the Confederate loser's best (and only) friend is his ex-slave Ringo.
Worth a read if you're into understanding "Southern Pride" (a nice euphemism for "psychotic vendetta").
American individuality. "well, it didn't happen to me, so..." Who else has absorbed the American propaganda from religion, to consumerism, to the supposed "American dream" that never bears fruit, to the argument that racism is over, as well as poor blacks?
It can't be helped, as any sense of self identity, language, culture, was long ago beaten out of blacks that arrived here, and replaced with all things American. Our culture stops at America and who wants to begin their existence as a subjugated people? So we've absorbed what it means to be American and all that we are told we should, even as that very identity, was intended, shaped even, to devalue us as compared to our fellow citizens.
Where American, Greeks, Italian, Polish, indian, Latino, German, Irish, Chinese, Japanese, etc. have their historical culture, their native identities, their folklore to define them, most of us can't even identify what part of the African continent we originated from. Let alone, identify the language and culture that was lost in the interim. There are enclaves of mini-representations of their culture and homeland in every state of the union, where they can celebrate themselves as a people.
What we have are symbols of oppression, or the struggle to fight it, and the results of social engineering, and the few realizations of the "dream" that many cannot reach.
Colonial intervention from nearly every Caucasian country, makes it so that even if we tried to define a historical culture to be proud of, the results would be inauthentic. Its continued intervention, till this day, makes it so that it much of it cannot be held up to any measure of modern civilization. Every where we turn we are bombarded with how much of a failure our race is and we have little if anything to refute this when they start throwing statistics around, except the knowledge that our failure is a result of their actions, their greed, their inability to let go of the resources of Africa, their refusal to see us gain any noticeable measure of success, without their guidance, not our race.
This kid is the result of a culture born out of what it means to be black in America, and that has always been less than anyone on equal footing. It is no wonder his cognitive dissonance, in light of evidence to the contrary is so deeply ingrained,
Does that Negro have on eyeliner? Seriously my crystal ball says that kid is next to homeless and bouncing from white friends couch to white friends couch. He sounds like he's singing for his supper.
If his friend is not a racist after killing these 9 people then i'm Billie Holiday's white Granddaughter & Obama's long lost sister!
Even then, how bad does this kids life have to be before he hangs out with a guy like roof.
If Uncle Ruckus not the realest character ever invented? Or imitated from perennial practice...
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