On White Politics versus White Supremacy

Let’s chat about “white politics” for a moment.

I don’t mean white supremacist or white nationalist politics. If I did, I would have said “racist politics”, instead. I mean white politics in the same way that people mean when they say white feminism.

That is, a politics that is focused and concerned and inside a silo built by white Privilege and focused on the perceived needs and concerns of white people. Even more so: white, straight, Cis, able bodied people of means.

Now, just like when we talk about great feminists of the second wave, there are people who do good and have strong ideas and great popularity and are doing it for good reasons.

Folks who “buck the system”, have that maverick brand or stand out as being the thorn in the side of the Establishment.

But not too much, of course, since they are in that establishment.

One name comes to mind pretty much immediately here, given the last year. Another pops in after a bit of thought. I am sure many of you will find more interest as things go forward.

Bernie Sanders is the most obvious of current choices. He is a guy who is trying to shift the so-called Liberal wing to the left. He has a focus on class and wealth politics that is very appealing to Millenials and X’ers disaffected with the consistent harm done by Boomers, he has the gravitas and effective stability in office to accomplish stuff, and he has grasped a movement of these young, overwhelmingly white and intensely loyal voters who see his promises as the new dawn of progressive effort.

He also unwittingly colluded with a foreign power and so did many of his most loyal followers, focused on the task of undermining and teaching a lesson to the Liberal (more truly described as centrist) wing of the electorate and the Establishment about their internal problems.

Enough so that the election was swung towards the orange iDJiT in the key areas.

This isn’t about the failures of the election, though, on any side — the centrist, progressive, and radical wings of white liberal thought all failed.

All of them. Despite being more popular on a national level as a whole, they went down under the weight of white politics versus white nationalism.

We can see that now more clearly than we could before in part because of the revelations that the liberal wing got played by a foreign power and the lack of technical capability on the part of the Establishment.

Yet we were also done in by our collective certainty, which was palpable as early as August, that the dumpster fire wouldn’t happen.

I am saying, though, that the basis for this is White Politics. Because that is what we had to work with, and it wasn’t just Bernie. It was Stein, as well.

White politics do not lift others up. White politics do not stop not fighting when the fight is over. White politics are focused on money and things. White politics use things like BLM for support or ignore them.

White politics is the argument that free college is good for everyone, but when examples are given, all of them are for those of means. White politics is the argument that money will solve the problems of police brutality and barely restrained anger at not being able to trust authorities.

White politics is looking at four able bodied people beating on a disabled person while venting their rage about the election results and the white Supremacist supporters of the orange iDJiT and thinking “dammit, why did they have to be black!?”

Then, white politics is thinking through that and concluding that ending poverty is the way to fix that.

White politics is about class, wealth, and money. It brings in the issues of human rights that are closest to whiteness first — feminism (white), for example, is easy to bring in.

Racism isn’t. Transphobia isn’t.

Homophobia is, as long as Teh Gayz don’t bitch too much, and only of late. Hell, this last election, a lot of folks harped on the actions of a previous Liberal wing President (centrist who co-opted the right’s talking points).

Forgetting that there wasn’t as strong and tested a power back then.

White politics cannot win against White Nationalism, though. Or White Supremacy.

Because white politics are easily glossed over and suborned and laughed at and criticized. It is white folks getting together and the whiners are the ones that lost.

Sure enough, the last two months have been whiners trying to argue this all just white people being white people and fighting about class, wealth, and money and no, the rest of that stuff is just ancillary, good for a filler piece in a column inch need or a two minute talking head beat on you cable news channel of choice.

White politics is why the Liberal — no, scratch that. The liberal (small letter because ya’ll forgot human fucking rights are not bought) wing lost because of White Politics.

Because white politics thinks that money is the cure, is the solution. That once we get taxes back to the era of Truman and Eisenhower, we can start building the great society because everyone will have the money to afford it and those rich fat cats won’t have the power they have now.

white people arguing over money.

White Politics must die now. They belong to two centuries before this one. They belong to a time when white people fought wars so vast they encompassed the entire world and shattered colonial empires that had forced themselves on non-white people who died for them.

White politics are no longer what serve us, or meet our needs.

When there was talk of holding new elections, I always said the same thing:

Sure, as long as no one who ran in the last one can run this time. HRC supporters liked it because that meant no Bernie. Bernie supporters liked it because that meant no HRC.

I laughed at all of them. I said it because it meant that maybe someone who wasn’t interested in white politics would get a chance.

Because what I want to do is stop trying to play white politics, and instead play Oppression Politics, where the focus, the goal, and the ideas are built on opposing oppression of all kinds, all at once, to include money shit, but only as a secondary element, because in the end, the money won’t change the violence, and until we do, the money will just go back to where it is now.