Y’all need to chill with the hateful rhetoric
Over the last 75 years, you, white conservatives, have overwhelmingly given your support to the Republican Party. If we look as far back as the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) campaign in 1945, Republican presidential candidates lost the white vote only once to Lyndon Baynes Johnson (LBJ) in 1964 — during the Civil Rights Era. It was a time when many Southern Democrats jumped ship to the Republican Party because they were subverted by the overwhelming Democratic support for the equal rights of non-white people — particularly Black people.
For reference: Trump won the white vote 54%-39% in 2016. Romney won it 55%-38% in 2012, McCain won it 55%-43% and Bush won it 58%-41% in 2004.
After losing the white vote to LBJ and in response to the Civil Rights Act, Nixonian Republicans and the Dixiecrats employed the use of the “Southern Strategy,” playing on white conservative racial anxieties by using minorities as strawmen. At the time, they politicized racist tropes using coded language that employed rhetoric that had been used by hate groups such as the KKK for a half-decade. Now, that same divisive strategy is still in use today because you, white conservatives, bought it hook, line, and sinker.
The strategy has played so well for conservatives of every type who have found ways to exploit it for their own gain. They’ve monetized hate and created an industry that continues to grow.
Now the Southern Strategy has come full circle. For the first time in history you, white conservatives, are being told in actual terms that you will no longer be the majority in the future and you’re freaking out. So much so that many of you are coming for your own by way of attacking allies to the racial justice movement instead of hearing them out. Yes, your worst fears from decades of programming are becoming a reality. It’s culminated into what white nationalists refer to as “White Extinction Anxiety.” A bullshit term that they have successfully monetized and profited from while being outright white supremacists in the continued fight against equality.
Not only are you buying it, you’re ignoring its effects at the peril of civil society.
Of course, we know that your sense of vulnerability has only been heightened by the rhetoric of Donald Trump. Therefore, you deemed him your savior as he played on all the things that make you feel insecure about what your ranking in society will be in the future. Many of you voted for him based on this premise — the foundations of nearly all racist beliefs in America. You fear being treated like minorities are treated in American society. Scary, huh?
The truth is, all anyone wants is to be treated as equals. Not payback.
What is clear to many of us is, you voted for Trump to stop racial progress and cement your place on the social ladder, thus, preserving your political influence and cultural power. You voted for him to try and continue holding dominion over non-white people; the antithesis to the freedoms we are owed.
I remind you, like it or not, this is progress you can neither stop nor avoid.
The only thing anyone wants out of the racial justice movement is to elevate poor and marginalized communities out of poverty by providing equal access to the levers of power that allow one to escape the throes of oppression and political hardship. That’s it. That’s what racial justice means on a holistic level.
And it includes the poor white people you, white conservatives, typically ignore.
The division and chaos of modern conservatism is the culmination of decades of work. It’s about playing one group against another while attempting to pander to all of us. Conservatism has gone so far right that it has embraced white nationalism and that alone behooves every minority to flee in disgust and/or fear. Pay attention to how they talk to, and about, Black, Indigenous, Latinos, and other people of color.
They want you, the white conservative, to hate and fear us for no reason.
If you find yourself looking down your noses at non-white people for the color of their skin or the spelling of their name, I’m here to tell you that you are part of a huge problem that we want to squash. I’m asking you to think twice before blindly supporting the outright hatred that has become the heart and soul of the Republican party and modern-day conservatism. This is about so much more than the culture wars they’ve created around race.
It’s about equality, justice, and peace for EVERYONE.
For the record, neo-liberalism and modern conservatism are one and the same. The only difference is one is more discrete than the other. If you’re a conservative reading this, don’t think anti-racists aren’t aware of it. We see it. But y’all, white conservatives, need to lighten up, stop being so hateful, and start seeing what Republicans are doing too. Because you’re letting them get away with it. We will never be able to come together and share in our commonalities as long as hate stands in the way of any meaningful discussion.
It needs to stop.
