The Trouble With White People

On May 28, 2009 Dennis Miller appeared on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox. O'Reilly asked Miller a question unrelated to the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the supreme court by President Obama. Despite the fact that O'Reilly wasn't referring to Sotomayor, Miller launched into an offensive, stereotype filled "joke" by putting a flower between his teeth and saying that he would be able to answer the question better if he were a Latina woman. Here's a link to Miller's "performance."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fNMgv0sUPc. Clearly, Miller is referring to Sotomayor's comment that, in some cases, she would like to think that as a Latina woman she could make better decisions from the bench than a white male. She made these comments referring to cases of discrimination against minorities that might come before her. She also went on to say that many times in the past (Brown vs. the Board of Education for one) White male judges have done just fine. So in context she was simply stating that her life experience offers her a viewpoint that may be unique to others. Now Miller's "joke" got me to thinking about the trouble with white people.

After 230 plus years of running this country, a lot of white folks seem to be running scared. They are afraid of a black president, of a latina supreme court justice, of minorities taking over sports (damn that Tiger Woods). In short, they seem to fear that their way of life may be passing them by. Well, in a word, good.

Let's look at the history of white people in this country. We came over by boat and nearly extinguished the indigenous people we found here. Seriously, when was the last time you met a native american? The settlers came here, feigned a desire to live peacefully with the indians then continually broke treaties, took their land, introduced them to alcohol, and damn near ran them into the pacific ocean. How did we try to make up for this? We gave them reservations. Reservations. Places where indians live in poverty, with no hope, and an alarmingly high suicide rate. Nowadays, we might throw in a casino. Swell.

So, after taking the country from the indians we doubled down on the oppression of other races by our involvement in the slave trade. Why did we need slaves? Well to build up the country we stole of course. Who do we want to pick that cotton? To serve us tea? Why black people of course. And after the civil war when Lincoln "freed" the slaves what was waiting for them? Supposedly 40 acres and a mule and the right to count as 1/3 of a person. Hell, we only came through on the second part and that was after lying about the 40 acres. We then followed up with "Jim Crow" laws in the south. Laws which led to continual oppression of black people by voter suppression, lynchings, and a life of poverty. It wasn't until the 1960s and the civil rights movement that we even started moving towards equality. Think of that, only 40 years ago the south practiced segregation. There are plenty of people who lived through that time. I know we younger white people think that if it happened before we were born that it doesn't count, but those are people's grandparents who suffered through that awful period.

And what of our European lily white brothers? Well, there's the holocaust, apartheid, and the colonization of India just to name a few. While were at it, let's not forget the australians and their treatment of the aborigines. To paraphrase George Carlin, "white people are the human erasers, see a color and try to get rid of it."

So we, like Dennis Miller are scared. Our eraser has worn down to the nub, there's a black guy in the white house, and now the supreme court is being infiltrated by the third non-white person in it's history. Gloom, despair and agony on we. God forbid, we may have to learn how to talk to those who don't look like us.

Sumo-Pop (pale pasty honkey, in case you wondered)
June 1, 2009