Racism Resurgence: Neeson and Northam

Agnes Moorehead on "The Wild Wild West"
(I couldn't find a picture of her on "The Lone Ranger")

When I was a kid, I remember watching a rerun of The Lone Ranger TV series with Agnes Moorehead guest-starring as a ranch owner who hated all Indians because her family had been massacred by an Apache war party. After saving Tonto from Agnes' wrath, the Lone Ranger set her straight about her hatred. I said to my mother, "I don't understand. I would feel the same way as Agnes Moorehead if my family had been killed by Indians. I'd hate all of them." My mother explained that you shouldn't judge an entire race of people by the actions of some, even if it those actions hurt you very badly. I was only about 10 at the time, but the lesson stuck with me.

A Scene from Trump's America

While riding the bus home from work yesterday, I encountered an ugly interaction. I was seated at the back. The bus was remaining at a stop for a long time. Then I saw that the driver had lowered the ramp and an elderly black woman with one of those walkers with wheels was getting on. All of the seats in the handicapped section were filled and she upbraided the ungentlemanly occupants in a distinct Jamaican accent. "This is for the handicapped," she shouted. "Please one of you get up and let a poor, helpless old lady sit down." She sounded far from helpless. I had stopped paying attention and went back to my book (The Swans of Fifth Avenue on my Kindle app on my I-phone). But then another voice began shouting as loudly as the black woman's, hurling racist invective. "Who do you think you are, you old hag?" was coming from a tall white guy in his late 30s or early 40s. Evidently, the black woman had shamed him into getting up because he standing across from her. The woman called him an idiot. He answered with slurs on her race and accent, "Look in the mirror. You notice there are no people like you in this neighborhood. You're not wanted here. Go back to your shithole country where you came from. Trump was right about Haiti and those other shitholes."

Backlash to the Past

Recent events point to a backlash against the progress American society has made in terms of accepting nontraditional families and gender roles.

Despite the growing support for marriage equality, there have been a series of gaybashing incidents in NYC. A cute Cheerios commercial featuring an interracial family has received numerous racist comments on YouTube (so many in fact that YouTube had to shut down the comment section). Fox commentators Lou Dobbs and Eric Erikson went on a sexist rant in reaction to a study showing 40 percent of American households had a main female breadwinner. Both said this was the end of civilization, against science, and that it was not reflecting nature where males are dominant and females are submissive. Megyn Kelly, who I normally loathe, took both misogynistic morons to task. "Who died and made you scientist-in-chief?" she asked Erickson. Greta von Susteren wrote on her blog (I hesitate to call it a blog, it's more like a tweet):

"Have these men lost their minds? (and these are my colleagues??!! oh brother… maybe I need to have a little chat with them) (next thing they will have a segment to discuss eliminating women’s right to vote?)"