Racism is the deal, the real deal.
Very carefully, in South Dakota, one would think, far from the deep American South, I was carefully nurtured in racism during the 40s and 50s of the last century. To their last dying breathe, unfortunately, both of my parents were both racist and anti-Semitic, due to their gross ignorance of both black and brown people, and Arabs and Jews. Just look at the South Dakota record on the Lakota people if you don’t believe me. The Standing Rock Water Protectors, for example?
The N word rolled easily off my tongue, even though I was totally clueless as to what it meant. It was just what everyone said and I happily parroted them.
To be sure, at the same time, my mother had an innate dislike of the Teutonic race so I was also taught to mock the goose step and the Heil Hitler salute!
And, my own dislike of housewifely skills stems from an equal desire to mock the model of the ideal German hausfrau, meticulously clean and martial in her pursuit of dust and dirt and grime. My evil mama encouraged me in this direction, even though she herself was a model housewife. I do have the basic skills of housewifery — when I choose to use them.
Therefore, though I reverently love the great Germanic composers Bach, Beethoven, etc., and other aspects of German civilization, such as Martin’s Luther’s Grand Reformation in its finer moments, there lurks in my soul an impish desire to mock the likes of and pretensions of Herr Drumpf, now Trump.
Also to discover and remember that Großvater Frederick Drumpf was a draft dodger who fled to America to discover what riches could be made in gambling and prostitution in the Wild American West — and Alaska. Having made his wealth, he was not allowed back into Germany permanently because of his draft dodging, which definitely raises the value of Germanic culture in my eyes. Großvater Drump was summarily deported from Germany — just as his gross grandson Donald seeks to deport Latinos and Muslims, many of whom have not been draft dodgers like Großvater Drumpf and his son and gross grandson Donald.
And i have, within my own soul, wrestled and wrestled with my own innate racism and ethnic prejudices, not winning many battles, but at least attaining a significant understanding of the deeper meaning of Black Lives Matter and a deeper understanding of how pervasive racism is in America, in its Constitution, its police forces, the true meaning of the Second Amendment in regard to slave patrol militias, the whole foul American ball of wax.
Every day, in every way, I become more and more aware of the role that pure and simple and evil racism played in the 2016 selection of Donald Trump as president, from the racist Electoral College, to racist voter suppression, shell games with voter registration sites as well as polling places, racist suppression of early voting, the toxic Kris Kobach, the strange events in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Unite the Right Rally, August 11-12, 2017, months after the dreadful results of 8 November 2016.
Our nation must cease to play racist poker and we need to rip the Joker out of the deck.