Old Colored Man Part-2
By Patrick Hall
No one tried to mandate cultural sensitivity, which today’s pretentious Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion quacks don’t see as another form of censorship and intimidation. It is anathema to our first amendment rights. We all knew intuitively that shutting people up doesn’t build anything, much less authentic tolerance or trust. DEI advocates forlorn search to root out any perceived racism, bigotry, gender aggression, or implicit race bias that wasn’t on our radar. We didn’t make it a point of searching for nor ceasing upon any opportunity to feel grievously offended. We didn’t go running to the Federal government or a braggadocios Civil rights attorney for every redress.
Yes, it was tough, and not the method picked by contemporary purveyors of identity politics, racially sensitive Democrats, and various species of “identitarians.” But it worked! Quite honestly, it is the single reason why today, in my 72nd year, I tend to trust Conservatives or just plain PC/Woke adverse Americans. Conversely, your average culturally sensitive, pure of racial epitaphs neo-liberal and too often Democrat, I’m more cautious.
I have to be blunt. I don’t trust liberals or most Democrats at all. I probably need to work on my trust issues more. It is one of my lesser angels.
Many Democrats and most liberals, I have learned over the years, only like black people, Latinos, and other designated oppressed groups as “ideas.” In most cases, these same liberals live as far away as they can from their supposed “beautiful diversity mosaic.” They don’t have to send their children to inner city schools nor put up with the noise and inappropriate civic behavior, which is a permanent feature in less affluent urban areas. Now, don’t get me wrong. I think it is a person’s right, plus a good thing, to want to live in the best neighborhoods, where criminality is not so omnipresent. And certainly, all of us want to afford our children the best schools possible. My problem with liberal Democrats is that they will quickly lecture you on cultural tolerance and not point out detrimental behaviors in many urban communities. However, they conveniently don’t live near discord. They adopt a peculiar Bonhoefferian “grace on the cheap” posture in their pontifications concerning race and cultural diversity (i.e., Tribalism or Balkanization with a Smiling Face).
From Calexico and Turlock, California, to Brownsville and Lubbock, Texas, where I have lived and worked, the people who were the biggest supporters of open borders and illegal immigration were those who didn’t have to live with the results of their altruism. They were extremely magnanimous because it cost them very little.
In retrospect, this is one of the many reasons why many of us voted for a non-politician like Donald Trump. We were just fatigued with your typical say-everything-just-right politician that infests both the Democrat and Republican Parties. The polite, risk-averse, and phony social filters weren’t there with Trump. In short, Donald Trump reminds me a lot of the guys I grew up with in the 1950s and 60s. Yes, he’s rough around the edges, in your face, and a somewhat chafing individual. He was and remains to this day an extremely confident, if not “purposely,” a horribly annoying individual. But he got the job done for the economy and constructively engaged both friends and enemies worldwide. This starkly contrasts the weak, fragile, cognitive mess now occupying the White House.
I also must admit for a billionaire rich guy, he was a bit more plebeian in his polemics, especially when compared to the latent condescending patrician attitudes of Progressive Liberal Democrats. But Trump is not a racist. Nor is he a Hitler protégé because he dared use the phrase “law and order.” To many Americans of the Democratic persuasion, Trump’s law and order comments made him a Nazi in training, or at the very least, an unabashed evangelist in the Church of White supremacy. At least, that is what Joe Biden was particularly anxious to point out during his inaugural address. Also, Biden’s terse remarks at Morehouse College last year, when he inferred that those of us who opposed the so-called Voting Right legislation were Bull Conner and/or white segregationist clones.
Calling people you politically disagree with a racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, transphobic, climate-denying-anti-science-Islamophobe, etc., are familiar tools within the Democrat political arsenal. Expressing concern about the chaos at the Southern Border is not driven by racism or fear of the “Browning of America!” Many Hispanic Americans I have known in places like Brownsville and Southern California share the same uneasiness.
I also find it ironic that in the current news cycle, Biden and many in the political class are more concerned about protecting the integrity and sovereignty of the Ukrainian border while ours is left wide open.
These accusations by the cultural left, and many within the Democratic Party, say more about the impenetrable “identity prism” they view everything through. However, projection is a favorite, if not a belabored, tool of the Progressives, Liberals, Democrats, and unfortunately, far too many controlled-opposition-Republicans like Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Mitt Romney (R-UT).
Many on the cultural left, which includes the Prelate of subreption, dissembling, projection, and heart-warming Doublespeak, Barack Hussein Obama, have drunk deeply from the well of identity politics. As a one-time Progressive Liberal Democrat now in my fifth decade of sobriety, it is sad to see that many well-meaning Americans have succumbed to this cultural toxin.
No one tried to mandate cultural sensitivity, which today’s pretentious Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion quacks don’t see as another form of censorship and intimidation. It is anathema to our first amendment rights. We all knew intuitively that shutting people up doesn’t build anything, much less authentic tolerance or trust. DEI advocates forlorn search to root out any perceived racism, bigotry, gender aggression, or implicit race bias that wasn’t on our radar. We didn’t make it a point of searching for nor ceasing upon any opportunity to feel grievously offended. We didn’t go running to the Federal government or a braggadocios Civil rights attorney for every redress.
Yes, it was tough, and not the method picked by contemporary purveyors of identity politics, racially sensitive Democrats, and various species of “identitarians.” But it worked! Quite honestly, it is the single reason why today, in my 72nd year, I tend to trust Conservatives or just plain PC/Woke adverse Americans. Conversely, your average culturally sensitive, pure of racial epitaphs neo-liberal and too often Democrat, I’m more cautious.
I have to be blunt. I don’t trust liberals or most Democrats at all. I probably need to work on my trust issues more. It is one of my lesser angels.
Many Democrats and most liberals, I have learned over the years, only like black people, Latinos, and other designated oppressed groups as “ideas.” In most cases, these same liberals live as far away as they can from their supposed “beautiful diversity mosaic.” They don’t have to send their children to inner city schools nor put up with the noise and inappropriate civic behavior, which is a permanent feature in less affluent urban areas. Now, don’t get me wrong. I think it is a person’s right, plus a good thing, to want to live in the best neighborhoods, where criminality is not so omnipresent. And certainly, all of us want to afford our children the best schools possible. My problem with liberal Democrats is that they will quickly lecture you on cultural tolerance and not point out detrimental behaviors in many urban communities. However, they conveniently don’t live near discord. They adopt a peculiar Bonhoefferian “grace on the cheap” posture in their pontifications concerning race and cultural diversity (i.e., Tribalism or Balkanization with a Smiling Face).
From Calexico and Turlock, California, to Brownsville and Lubbock, Texas, where I have lived and worked, the people who were the biggest supporters of open borders and illegal immigration were those who didn’t have to live with the results of their altruism. They were extremely magnanimous because it cost them very little.
In retrospect, this is one of the many reasons why many of us voted for a non-politician like Donald Trump. We were just fatigued with your typical say-everything-just-right politician that infests both the Democrat and Republican Parties. The polite, risk-averse, and phony social filters weren’t there with Trump. In short, Donald Trump reminds me a lot of the guys I grew up with in the 1950s and 60s. Yes, he’s rough around the edges, in your face, and a somewhat chafing individual. He was and remains to this day an extremely confident, if not “purposely,” a horribly annoying individual. But he got the job done for the economy and constructively engaged both friends and enemies worldwide. This starkly contrasts the weak, fragile, cognitive mess now occupying the White House.
I also must admit for a billionaire rich guy, he was a bit more plebeian in his polemics, especially when compared to the latent condescending patrician attitudes of Progressive Liberal Democrats. But Trump is not a racist. Nor is he a Hitler protégé because he dared use the phrase “law and order.” To many Americans of the Democratic persuasion, Trump’s law and order comments made him a Nazi in training, or at the very least, an unabashed evangelist in the Church of White supremacy. At least, that is what Joe Biden was particularly anxious to point out during his inaugural address. Also, Biden’s terse remarks at Morehouse College last year, when he inferred that those of us who opposed the so-called Voting Right legislation were Bull Conner and/or white segregationist clones.
Calling people you politically disagree with a racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, transphobic, climate-denying-anti-science-Islamophobe, etc., are familiar tools within the Democrat political arsenal. Expressing concern about the chaos at the Southern Border is not driven by racism or fear of the “Browning of America!” Many Hispanic Americans I have known in places like Brownsville and Southern California share the same uneasiness.
I also find it ironic that in the current news cycle, Biden and many in the political class are more concerned about protecting the integrity and sovereignty of the Ukrainian border while ours is left wide open.
These accusations by the cultural left, and many within the Democratic Party, say more about the impenetrable “identity prism” they view everything through. However, projection is a favorite, if not a belabored, tool of the Progressives, Liberals, Democrats, and unfortunately, far too many controlled-opposition-Republicans like Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Mitt Romney (R-UT).
Many on the cultural left, which includes the Prelate of subreption, dissembling, projection, and heart-warming Doublespeak, Barack Hussein Obama, have drunk deeply from the well of identity politics. As a one-time Progressive Liberal Democrat now in my fifth decade of sobriety, it is sad to see that many well-meaning Americans have succumbed to this cultural toxin.
Patrick is a retired University Library Director. He is a graduate of Canisius College and the University of Washington, where he earned Masters's Degrees in Religious Studies Education, Urban Anthropology, and Library and Information Science. Mr. Hall has also completed additional coursework at the University of Buffalo, Seattle University, and St. John Fishers College of Rochester, New York. He has been published in several national publications such as Commonweal, America, Conservative Review, Headway, National Catholic Reporter, Freedom's Journal Magazine, and American Libraries. He has published in peer-reviewed publications, the Journal of Academic Librarianship, and the Internet Reference Services Quarterly. From 1997 until his retirement in January 2014, he served on the Advisory Board of Urban Library Journal, a CUNY Publication.
Posted in Opinion
Tagged with Patrick Hall, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Civil Rights, Woke, Democrats, Liberals, tribalism, racist, transphobia, The Left, #freedomsjournalmagazine, Freedoms Journal Institute
Tagged with Patrick Hall, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Civil Rights, Woke, Democrats, Liberals, tribalism, racist, transphobia, The Left, #freedomsjournalmagazine, Freedoms Journal Institute
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