You’re behaving like an a**. This brand of leadership is the sort we need to be rid of.
If you haven't heard about what the governor of Texas has been up to, here's a quick summary: Governor Abbott has been sending bus loads of migrant people seeking asylum to different US sanctuary cities - the governors of Arizona and Florida are doing this too, with some people being transported by plane. These places include: Washington DC, New York, and Chicago. The last group of people Abbott tricked into getting on a bus in early October, he had dropped at Vice President Harris's home.
His short sighted attempt to use fellow human beings - including children - to make a point or further a personal need to antagonize some of his political colleagues, has actually proved helpful to some of the people he's busing out of state. What angers me though, is the obvious intent behind his actions and the lack of accountability for his callousness. Make no mistake, Governor Abbott's actions are fueled by racism and cruelty and he's been allowed to act this way unchecked.
When I write or speak about race, I make an effort to not reduce a person's identity to a name or category. I don't want to draw final conclusions about another based on the limited information I have of them. As I confront racism and whiteness, I want balance, to remain open so that I can learn and grow. I try to meet people where they are and take the stance that everyone is doing the best they can with what they've got and expect that we can all do better. I've found it more effective to directly engage with a problem rather than fight with problematic people. In the past, making assumptions, raging, spouting hostility, and attempting to force change hasn't gotten me anywhere in this sort of discussion.
Sometimes, my preferred way just doesn't work. Today, I just can't push down or reflect calmly about how this Governor's actions struck me. Heck, it's about 20 days after his last act of cruelty and I'm still angry. What's happening here, it's f**king shameful and it reflects the bigger problem we all have to deal with - whiteness.
And yes. This is absolutely about race. This is the caucastic foolery that white people learn is ok. Whiteness has shown time and again what it's about and when someone or something shows you what it is, believe it.
Playing with the agency, lives, and well-being of other people as if they are somehow less than the position of human. Thinking that we can put our wants, needs, and/or preferences above the very humanity of another person - this is what whiteness tells us. It's the piece of white socialization that says to white people, our humanness, comfort, safety, and worth are more important than anyone else's.
Here's another way it's connected to race - why did the Governor choose to send people to the Vice President's house? Could it be that she is a black woman? I don't see him feeling free to send the people he's choosing to treat as less than human, to another white dude's house.
White superiority is endemic in the US. It is one of our most potent social ills. When our leaders continue to enact racism so openly without consequence, I am fearful that we won't be able to overcome it. I'm angry because Governor Abbott is just one of those in our country enacting cruelty, enforcing white dominance, embracing inhuman acts, and using their position of power to perpetuate racial hate and inequity.
I'm angry because we have the knowledge and resources to overcome racism, we seem to simply be lacking the white will to get it done. Please, my fellow white people, let's do more to hold racist, white, cruelty accountable.
Don't know how you can do this, right now? It's voting season. Vote411.org a one stop shop to view what races you're helping to decide, learn about the candidates, find your polling places, and figure out your voter registration status. Please choose wisely, friends.
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