A Note to White Folks: You're Embarrassing Me

This is nothing new. It started in my family. Like when my father told me he wanted to go to the fights "to see the Nigger get beat." And then my mother tried to persuade me to not listen to black R&B. Thankfully, my grandmother had sense enough not to hate anyone.

And then all of the people in my neighborhood moved out when Black folks started moving in. Within a year, all of the homes in my neighborhood were occupied by someone different from the ones who had lived there the year previous.

This was embarrassing to me.

It never stopped. It has never stopped. You know the history.

They keep following the wrong leaders. They swallow any bullshit crackpot theory thrown at them. They believe Fox News is fair and balanced. They really do.

See, most of them are boomers or around that age one way or the other. They're standing up at town meetings this week and shouting what amounts to, "We want everything that's bad for us and the country. Oh, and by the way, I want to see the Nigger get beat."

Maybe you're not old enough to remember a Bob Dylan song, revolutionary in it's time. When many civil rights activists and sympathizers were busy hating the perpetrators, Dylan sang:

A South politician preaches to the poor white man,

"You got more than the blacks, don't complain.

You're better than them, you been born with white skin," they explain.

And the Negro's name

Is used it is plain

For the politician's gain

As he rises to fame

And the poor white remains

On the caboose of the train

But it ain't him to blame

He's only a pawn in their game.

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid,

And the marshals and cops get the same,

But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool.

He's taught in his school

From the start by the rule

That the laws are with him

To protect his white skin

To keep up his hate

So he never thinks straight

'Bout the shape that he's in

But it ain't him to blame

He's only a pawn in their game.

So when you see those folks standing up at town hall meetings, put your anger where it belongs, and direct your boot square in the ass of insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, the rest of the health care system and their mouthpieces, both in and out of Congress.

Still. Why do white people continue to embarrass me? They might as well hit themselves in their own heads with their own hammers...or hammers provided by those whom they follow. Hard.

I know we elected an African-American to be president. But it has just made these people come back that much harder. I know we outnumber them.

I just wish they'd stop embarrassing me.

Comments

[Greg Masson]

Tom,

Thank you for sharing your embarrassment. Question for you: Seeing you are embarrassed by "white people", why do you live in Portland Oregon (very white)? Why not move to Detroit or Memphis? That way you would be in a much more diverse environment and would not have to put up with so many pesky white people.

Really, why don't you live in a minority environment? You have the choice.

[suegar]

Hey! not all boomers and not all white folks! There are lots of us dfh's in our sixties who still believe and have taught our wonderful kids to believe in the power of compassion, respect and peace.

[MoeRon]

Why be embarrassed? Why hold yourself responsible for the actions of others whose only similarity is that they have the same skin color you do?

[Freesia2]

Because it's not quite that simple. Because of the complexity of family relationships, because Christmas rolls around once a year, because they gave you life, and so you find yourself still entwined with them and duking it out another round. For all the other good and worthwhile things they are otherwise. But try your might you can't make that bad part go away.

Yet you keep trying. Or you stare them down. Or you holler back. Or you put on your Obama tshirt and dare them with your eyes to say a word. And in that, from time to time, comes real conversation and real truth and that thing that Obama himself calls "appealing to our better angels". You have a brief glimpse of an angel and you appeal to it. Because the alternative is to walk away and in doing that you walk away from your entire childhood and the part of you that is still living in their hearts.

It's not simple. What it is is infuriating. And sad. And also worth fighting for.

[TRYKER]

Even in the face of extensive knowledge of what whites have done in the history of this country alone (forget India, Africa et al) they either know no shame or they are s-o-o-o ashamed they are just posturing and trying to save face. They guess the best defense for their guilty position is to put on the offense and bully their way through life.
They're addicted to the adrenalin of the fight and get that "first drink" hit every day on talk radio and FOX. Once the "first drink" hits, it sets up a craving...for more fight.
What a "dummy" position they've been suckered into...and they came cheap! A 2 minute radio rant is enough to "set them up." Easiest sheeple in the country to lead into a heavy cost to THEMSELVES...are they crazy? Their taxes are going to the rich, just as fast as ours. Hello
How embarrassing, how alien, how unAmerican...really.
Where did it say this country was not worth our best efforts, but our worst? That's a lie.
For us though, being embarrassed has become fruitless and burdensome, a shackle we should throw off with sustained vigor and LOUDNESS - if we must. What the hell, have to break the chain, call them by their real names and stop them.
Why do they hate America? Ask them often.

[MelissaBe]

Thank you, Mr. D'Antoni for speaking the truth!!! As a daughter of the "baby boomer" generation, I just am so disgusted with the behavior of these "tea-bagger-birther" loud mouths. Disgusted and absolutely embarrassed. Do these people stop to think: "What am I teaching our children and grandchildren by acting like this?" They are in the minority and have lost or have never learned the concepts of "Civil Society" and "Civil Discourse."

These "protesters" who are acting like spoiled rotten 10 year olds would be the first to notice and complain about mannerisms of an African American person or another "other" and shake their heads in disappointment about the "decline of society" (because they are the authority on how people should act, of course).

I have a few people like this in my extended family and all I can do is pray for them and pray for the people that they marginalize with their stereotypes, racism, and outright hatred of other human beings... and many call themselves Christians? What did Christ say about hypocrites?

[Beegood]

thanks for posting the lyrics to the Dylan Song, funny how true it still rings. actually, it's not funny.

[moonflowerjewelry]

some people will cut off their nose to spite their face, and that is what the less well off republicans don't realize that they are doing... they'll holler about the taxes their rich counterparts pay, and they'll find a way to blame the black president when the corporations get what they paid for: no health care and a completely privatized education system that they can't afford for their children. the step after that will be a completely privatized police force as well as fire departments.
pawns, serfs...
i'll quote my favorite line from John Lennon's "Working Class Hero"
'you think you're so clever and classless and free, but you're still f@@@ing peasants as far as I can see;

[Freesia2]

Oh Tom. You speak for me.

I don't think my family, who don't live nearby, have attended any of those rallies. But I'm sure they sympathize. They've read "the birth certificate" no doubt and Fox doesn't tell them that the Republic of Kenya didn't exist on August 4, 1961. But you know what? I doubt it would matter if Fox told the truth for once.

I cringed my whole childhood. Chocolate candies with white centers were referred to as "n*#ger toes" and a friendship with a black person led to screaming matches and "you're such a disappointment!" and people swapping "n*#ger" jokes over the biscuits and I just wanted to run.

My immediate family are better than they were, by far, and even liked Obama personally but wouldn't vote for policy reasons - I'd like to believe that anyway. But the extended family? Nope.

I don't understand. I never will. But like you I blame the fat cats and the overfed white southern politicians and the local schools and - yes - the southern baptist churches who ought to be the first in line to tell them to grow up and grow a pair and grow a soul and a pair of eyeballs and use them to read and think for themselves.

So depressing.

[JohnPlayerSpecial]

Thank you, Tom! I have been feeling the same way lately. I told my wife earlier today that I am becoming embarrassed to be a Southern white male. I began thinking way back in the '60's that this nonsense would soon fade away, but it has only gotten stronger! It has reached a point at which that the words Christian, conservative, evangelical, and Republican all make me retch. There is nothing on cable news anymore except lying. When Jon Stewart was voted the most trusted newsman recently, I can so easily see why!

http://www.e-tabitha.com/

[Siobhan11]

Sometimes I get upset by comments that assume all people who go to church are "the religoius right". Your coment is the first time i realized it must be hard to be a southern white male and have people assume you think or behave a typical way.

Take care. Glad you commented so I would realize labeling affects all sorts of people.