ON THE VIRG: August 2009

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Tim Wise on the Creation of Whiteness (It Ain't Tide What Done It) & Comments By James T. & Judge C.

This is a clip from The Pathology of Privilege: Racism, White Denial & the Costs of Inequality, the newly released video from the Media Education Foundation. The video is of a speech given by Tim Wise at Mt. Holyoke College, October 1, 2007.

"How refreshing a preacher (in form) with a relevant message. But I am skeptical that Virginia and the South invented racism. May have employed it as argued but racism is a versatile and ancient tool for the manipulation of the masses that draws upon a fundamental human characteristic – the ability to draw and redraw the line between “us” and “them”. Them can be based on color, culture, religion, costume, school, geography - you name it. It is a genetic characteristic reflecting we are social animals that require cooperation to provide for ourselves and to compete with others as well.

In the same vein, while the Southern elite were motivated by the economics (as always) of slavery, poor Southerner’s fought for their states (not the confederacy – itself a temporary alliance for the expediency of conducting the war) for the same reason Lee did and the same reason young men by the millions died in the first world war, a war fought between competing empires seeking nothing more than advantage for its own capitalist and elites in the exploitation of world markets and resources, that being they were born on the opposite side of boarders. A young man who died for France could if born a hundred yards further to the West have just as well died for Germany; the abstract concept of patriotism; us vs. them. Racism was needed to justify and legitimate slavery, it was not necessary to motive people to the war and many who fought for their southern state were not believers in racism or slavery. It was enough to be a Virginian or an Georgian…which tells one enough about the problem with a believer rather than a thinker.

It is characteristic that the Machiavellian elite professes and calls upon the mythology of the masses; their beliefs, prejudices and patriotism. But they usually have more practical considerations in mind. They are thinkers and the masses they manipulate and exploit are believers. It is ever present and plainly visible everyday in the political processes all around us and throughout time. The most fundamental corruption of our society and people has been a relapse into being believers, turning on a cultural heritage marked by skepticism. A generation ago, a politician thumping a bible would be looked upon with high suspicion." James T. Bruce

"True re the origins of racism. Look at Shakepeare's racist remarks in Othello." Judge C.

"It is also important to point out that Brabanzio seems to view allowing those of a different race “access” to their society would lead to a slippery slope, as he states on one of the important quotes from "Othello" by Shakespeare, “For if such actions may have passage free, / bondslaves and pagans shall our statesmen be” (I.iii.98).

Nicole Smith Myriad Articles, http://www.articlemyriad.com/188.htm.

And so here we are gentlemen just as predicted.?" James T. again