That's a funny one, isn't it?
I bring up race because, on Sunday morning, I got a nice view of what I can only refer to as economic racism.
In most regards, it was a typical Sunday & a typical 16 hour workday. Because we're so horrendously short staffed, as always, I was elected to chauffeur clients to & from the hospital.
As I was leaving the hospital for one of my return voyages, I passed The Light Of Life Mission, which runs a soup kitchen on the North Side of Pittsburgh. The soup kitchen wasn't open yet so there was a long line of folks waiting to go in for breakfast.
All of them were African American.
At the other end of the same block, there was an upscale coffee shop with a group of about 8-10 men standing around, outfitted in full Lance Armstrong style biker gear, holding their lattes & whipped fruit drinks & their super expensive mountain bikes. No doubt preparing for their morning bike jaunt around the city.
All of them were white.
While geographically these two groups were only a block apart, in reality it was like they existed in different solar systems.
Now, as much as I'm disillusioned with American politics, I don't find that President Obama is much different than every other president that I've known in my life. In many regards, he appears to be a step above the rest of them.
Granted the pickings are slim. First there was Ronnie "I'm hurtling into dementia" Reagan, who was followed by George H.W. (He's a Wimp) Bush, who was followed by Bill "I enjoy a good vaginal cigar" Clinton, who was followed by my personal favorite, George "I couldn't form a coherent thought if my life depended on it" Bush.
Yet, the right wing seems to literally seethe with hatred whenever Obama's name is mentioned. I've personally heard him referred to as "a nigger" more times than I can count.
I mean, this is what folk like Rush Limbaugh & Bill O'Reilly really mean when they say "it's no longer OUR country," isn't it?
It's no longer whiteys country.
Of course, that's utter bullshit. The real reins of power, the money, will obviously always remain in white hands. At least in America, where the mass of low rent bottom feeders weep bitter tears at the plight of the super rich while folk that they are really only a few lost paychecks away from joining can be portrayed, in their minds, as "leeches."
It's an interesting society we have here. With a few spins of the propaganda wheel, huge masses of people can be convinced to gleefully slit their own throats.
Unless you're a complete idiot, you know the economy wasn't collapsed by a few "leeches" with bad mortgages. It was the wonderfully patriotic super rich Wall Street dickwads who bundled those mortgages for investment, publicly stamped them with a AAA rating while privately guffawing at their utter worthlessness, and then made money on them hand over fist over knuckle over eyeball. And then, when their worthlessness became apparent, they emptied out the national piggy bank to cover their economic raping of the rest of us.
While I still don't have much faith in President Obama, I do sit in awe of the rich & powerful. They, quite obviously, recognized the racism that dots the underbelly of America like a cancer. In many ways, it appears that the simple act of selecting a black president would, in the end, be the best bit of smokescreen they could ever muster for their crimes.
Because, as every white boy & girl in America knows, it's always the nigger who did it.
Right?
