White Rage

White Rage

Adult nonfiction IT
"...White rage is not about visible violence, but rather it
works its way through the courts, the legislatures, and a range of
government bureaucracies. It wreaks havoc subtly, almost
imperceptibly. Too imperceptibly, certainly for a nation consistently
drawn to the spectacular--to what it can see. It's not the Klan.
White rage doesn't have to wear sheets, burn crosses, or take to the
streets. Working the halls of power, it can achieve its ends far more
effectively, far more destructively."
In her White Rage Carol Anderson (quoted above) comprehensively
describes this pernicious emotion and its tragic consequences. Whites
aren't triggered by the mere presence of blacks. We kidnapped them to
do the backbreaking work we didn't want to do, justifying the inhumane
conditions under which we owned them like we'd own horses by othering
them. We were fine with them as long as they stayed "in their place,"
especially if it suited our economic interests. Amazingly, though,
even under the most dire conditions they managed to assert their full
humanity and work toward freedom and equality for themselves and their
beloved children and to reject the subservient molds we tried to keep
them in. It was those "uppity," highly motivated, aspirational Blacks
who triggered our rage. Whenever, amazingly, against all odds, they
made progress toward full and equal citizenship we worked overtime to
return to the status quo.
Anderson supports her theory by delving deeply into five points
in history, some more current than we'd like to think. She starts off
with the period following the Civil War. Abraham Luncoln had blamed
that war on the Blacks, "But for your race among us, there could not
be war," conveniently forgetting that they hadn't come over
voluntarily to stir things up. Emancipation made slave holding whites
outraged over the loss of their "property." Attempts to gain rights
for freedmen added fuel to the flames. White vigilente groups like
the KKK wreaked horrific violence and intimidation. The Black Codes
restored slavery in all but name. And a myopia was started in which
seeing racism as the violent acts of mobs deflected attention from the
far more powerful and insidious systematic repression.
When World War I rolled around, with a lot of White men "over
there," industries in the North, hit by the double whammy of the need
to step up war time production and the dearth of workers, began
actively and very successfully courting Southern Blacks. Decent wages
for work and education for their children, not to mention escape from
a place where lynchings were considered entertainment and raping a
Black woman a White male rite of passage, were very powerful
inventives. But the Whites who had become well off by exploiting
Black sharecroppers were not happy campers.
"White reaction, with its veneer of legality and respectability,
answered, rising up to stop African Americans from controlling their
own destiny. Soon the South was blanketed with ant-enticement
statutes reminiscent of the Black Codes that again leveled exorbitant
licensing fees and chain-gang prison sentences for those 'luring'
blacks away from their employers..."
Here's one from my childhood. Racial and educational inequality
had become so blantant that even the Supreme Court couldn't ignore
it. Their Brown decision angered and frightened the Whites who
envisioned a slippery slope. If Black kids attended school with their
children it would lead to interracial dating, marriage, and sex of the
consensual nature (as opposed to White on Black rape which had been
condoned for centuries) producing mixed race children who would dilute
the "superior" White genetic stock. While enraged White housewives
screaming at little Black children captured public and press
attention, governmental and judicial maneuverings delayed enforcement
of and eventually castrated that ruling. It was not just in the
South, BTW, unless you consider Massachusetts a Southern state.
The hard won Civil Rights of the 60s (my teen years) led
government to pronounce the arrival of a color blind, equal
opportunity society. Whites, angered by politicians' portrayals of
Cadillac driving, steal chomping, Black welfare queens (conveniently
forgetting that the majority of recipients were, hello, Whites) began
to feel that their rights were being trampled on. And then there was
that fear that Black thugs were trying to bust out of their ghettos
and bring their drugs and crime into decent (read White)
neighborhoods. Even though more Whites than Blacks actually abused
substances, presidential wars on drugs, enforced by zero tolerance,
cops in schools, the myth of the remorseless teen super predator, and
manditory minimum sentences, left far too many Blacks serving
draconian prison sentences.
Here's what's very current. A lot of people were enraged when
American voters actually put a Black man in charge of our nation.
There are people working overtime to make sure that doesn't happen
again. Voter ID laws (ostensibly to prevent fraud which is actually
very rare), gerrymandering, the purging of voter lists right before
elections, and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act are eliminating
with surgical precision the people who potentially would vote for
Blacks.
Like a number of other books we looked at recently, White Rage
sends a crucial message to those of us who are White. Racism isn't
all the KKK and that obnoxious relative you have to chow down with on
holidays. Its most potent form is the systems of oppression that
allow us to use laws and governments to oppress and brutalize Blacks
from behind a veneer of civility. We must do all we can to dismantle
it, as I'm trying to do by bringing this fine book to your attention.
Read it, get very angry, and do something.
On a purrrsonal note, I now have Tobago's papers. She's actually 3.
I adopted her on her birthday. She's making incredible progress. She
curls up beside me now. She gives every indication of being happy.
And she even is confident enough to venture outside of her room to
check out more of the house. This afternoon she will have her first
visit to Veazie Vet. We'll see how that goes.
I had a wonderful Christmas. This year Eugene and I met up with all
our kids at Amber and Brian's to open all our gifts together and eat
breakfast. It was so much like the old times except without all those
tiny toy parts (think Legos and Polly Pockets) to pick up. Spending
precious time with the most important people in my life and coming
home to a sweet cat who was overjoyed to see me were what really made
my Christmas this year.
A great big shout out goes out to my family, our new member, and the
best little cat in the world who is sorely missed even in the midst of
celebration.
jules hathaway




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