I have a dream!
…that one day, folks will stop playing the race card …card.
…that one day, accusations of racism will be judged on the merits of the actual claims and not simply taken up as plot points in a well-known narrative.
…that one day some folks really will stop crying racism whenever convenient. …and that other folks will stop dismissing cries of racism whenever convenient.
I have a dream that professional bigots will no longer find an audience ready to believe that ‘racism’ needs a prefix and ‘reverse’ really needs a place to hang out.
In this dream no prominent figure would be so foolish as to suggest that the best way to end racism would be for people to stop complaining of racism when it happens. Should such a figure step forward, she would be banished to the Hell of many guffaws, which is admittedly happening, now but in this dream she does it without the golden parachute for a job well abandoned and a history of throwing her own allies under the bus.
In this dream my hero Sally the Smart Swan shows up and puts putrid pundits in their place, saying; “knock it off you damned head; stop talking!” She waves her wand and war ceases to be about peace, taking from people no longer counts as providing them jobs, and kindness no longer leaves a bruise. (Some folks still fuck for virginity, that was always a good idea.) Then a pack of wild jackalope buy the world a coke and sing in perfect harmony. …everyone except me, I’m off-key of course, and my pants are down.
I did mention this was a dream.
In any event, I have a dream that one day recursion will not simply mean a political u-turn back to old Jim and his Crows. Or that people who send us on such a trip will not loudly proclaim their commitment to values they clearly don’t hold.
I have a dream that concerns about opportunistic anti-racism will not serve the goals of opportunistic anti-anti-racism. It’s a funky dream to be sure, and somewhere in this dream the Great Double Negative will descend from the sky and pronounce its wisdom to all! “Yea verily!” it will say (because the Great Double Negative talks like that). “Tis true, a not well knotted becomes a do, and a tangled web it weaves for me and you!” And the crowd will cock their heads slightly and look confused (because no-one talks like that anymore, if anyone ever did), and they will shout up at the Great Double Negative; “Get to the point you damned personification!” The the Great Double Negative will say; “If you consistently oppose anti-racism, there is a point when we might be justified in suggesting you are yourself a racist!” And “Oh” said the crown, surprised thatactually made sense, and “no” said the echo-chamber hoping they could bend a yea into a nay and no-one would notice.
I have a dream that anti-war speeches will not be out of place at the funeral of a peace activist.
I have a dream that people who say liberals are communists are fascists, and the Holocaust starts with compassion will be recognized for their comedic genius, because no-one would be so foolish as to take that as serious political commentary.
I have a dream that people who attack others will not play the victim when they draw return fire, and that those seeking to defend such people will read their words before telling the rest of us all about it.
I have a dream in which helping people is not confused with enslaving them, in which those defending privilege do not call others ‘elitist’ in a folksy voice, in which poverty is not blamed on efforts to end it, and in which greed is not celebrated as the source of all that is good and gooey.
I have a dream in which not being racist does NOT mean you wait for others to use racial epithets first, and in which the word ‘satire’ does not absolve one of all guilt.
I have a dream in which professional bigots will not count as ‘conservatives’, ‘patriots’, “Christians”, or even ‘entertainers’. I have a dream in which such people are dismissed for the living caricatures that they are.
I have a dream in which those actively working to stop African-Americans from voting, lower wages, and take away all forms of public support do not assume the voice of civil rights leaders and lecture others on dreams they clearly do not themselves share.
This is not a dream without enemies; it’s a dream in which those enemies do not include quite so many clowns. In fact it’s a dream full of tougher questions and better arguments, but it’s a dream in which the other side doesn’t stand every important value on its head and their professed politics comes a lot closer to an honest engagement with the rest of us. But that’s all just a dream of course. In the real world, all of this continues as before, and amazingly with straight-faces all around.
And lotsa people have their pants on the floor.
***
Sarah Palin appears here (I’m sorry) by way of The Hollywood Reporter. The American Headache Institute comes to us courtesy of HKS, who assures me that this is where Sarah can be found. I think she might be the director.
