Note 1: I originally wrote this essay in December 2016, right after Trump won the presidential election. In light of recent events, it's worth revisiting this topic and lamenting how relevant it still is.
Note 2: Not all Trump fans are racists. This is an open letter to Trump supporters who are proud to call themselves racists.
Dear Racist,
I come in peace. Hear me out.
I’m a white, blonde-haired, blue eyed male, born and raised in small Texas towns where racism was so common and casual, children, like me, took it for granted. I was raised in a trailer… by a racist, surrounded by racists. I used to be with you, but I’m not anymore, because I joined the military after high school and got stationed overseas for seven years where I learned some perspective-changing facts about the world in that time.
Watching American television will give you the impression America is more racist than anywhere else, but that’s just because America’s problems get more air time. America’s racism isn’t exceptional. Everyone in the world is a little racist, because stereotypes are exaggerations of facts. So every racist is a little bit right, but since everybody is doing something wrong, your enemies are equally justified in their criticisms of you too.
None of us are perfect, and most of us aren’t that bad. We’re all trying to do what’s right, even if our concept of right/wrong is deplorable. We all suck at being good, because life didn’t come with an instruction book. Every race is struggling, but we’re in this together. We’re literally family, and this is the only one we’ve got. The only way we can make the most of our life, is together.
After learning these truths, I met two white supremacists in my travels who I became good friends with. I debated boycotting them from my friend list, but I compared them to everyone else I knew, and realized if I refused to associate with anyone who believed and did things I think are stupid, then I couldn’t be friends with anyone. Nobody could. We’re all too different and too big of fuck ups. The bottom line is, we’re on the same team.
We also have a common enemy. Nobody’s life sucks because other races are bad. Everyone’s lives suck because of poverty. Think about this next sentence for as long as you stay racist: Every bad stereotype races create for themselves, are symptoms of poverty.
Poor, white rural people voted en mass for Trump, because they’re living in trailers, eating generic food and still can’t afford to save money. They’re working at grueling, low paying jobs, and when they turn on the television after a hard day’s work, they see Black Lives Matters protesters rioting and killing police, complaining about being stereotyped as dangerous. To exhausted, white Americans who have never been to a black ghetto, this looks like proof African Americans are bad.
The bigger picture is, ghettos will make anyone angry and desperate. Just look what it did to Eminem. America's ghettos are full of every race acting like caged rats. The only reason inner city violence is epidemic, is because ghettos are economic dead zones, just like rural America.
White country folk cope with poverty by drinking, using drugs, fighting, petty theft and broken marriages. If you think that’s prejudice of me to say, then you should be more upset at the country music stars who sing all your favorite songs about those topics. And you should be upset at rappers who sing about the same topics for the same reasons.
Black intercity gangsters, white country folk, and anyone else who lives in poverty, suffer the same symptoms. They just haven't talked to each other enough to realize they have the same problems.
Black on black shootings are evidence of one thing only: that resources are damn scarce in the ghetto. It’s wrong for black people to hate cops for all the same reasons it’s wrong for white people to hate blacks. The only reason life sucks, and it feels like we’re at war, is because in a capitalist economy, business is war, and war is hell.
If everybody had the necessities of life guaranteed, we would all just get on with our lives. If Trump kicks out all the illegal immigrants and builds walls around every ghetto, it won’t change the fact that you’re drowning in debt and can’t afford to put real food on the table for your children. Your life will still suck for all the same reasons, which have nothing to do with other races. The group of people most responsible for your suffering is the 1%.
There’s no reason for us to be fighting among ourselves. The only reason we are, is because capitalists convinced us to. This is as true today as it was 250 years ago. The concept that Africans are inferior, was invented by plantation owners, who may have been white, but they didn’t invent slavery because white people are evil. They did it because they were rich, and had become so addicted to money and privilege, they’d do anything to get more.
Today, most of the anti-immigrant, anti-Black Lives Matter rhetoric on television comes from Fox News, which is owned by a billionaire, who isn’t above lying to his fans and sowing racial discord to boost ratings so he can make more money selling commercials to advertisers and gold to the audience he’s convinced to prepare for the end of the world.
Racism doesn’t help anybody. It wastes the owner’s life fuming over the actions of scapegoats, and it fails to address the root of the problem, which ensures its continued existence. Trump’s victory wasn’t a win for the Alt-Right. Trump is a pied piper leading us all to a rich man’s paradise, which looks like Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle.
The most powerful thing the Alt-Right could do in 2017 to solve the root of their problems, is join the Black Lives Matter movement, on the condition they stop scapegoating cops and work solely towards holding the 1% accountable for poverty. I'd like to see that happen, but I'd be shocked if it did.
If you want to live in Whitopia, your only option is to build a private city. That sounds almost as crazy as the KKK and BLM becoming BFFs, but a lot of fringe groups have made their own intentional communities. The Alt-Right already has a close-knit, well connected online social network. You already have established leaders who have organized rallies before. Start talking about having a "Rally to Preserve Racial Purity" where your charismatic leaders give rousing speeches and then pass around a collection plate. Then buy half the land in Utah, build a wall around it and get on with your life while the rest of America drowns in its impure blood lines. I don't expect you to take that idea seriously either, but if you can't stop a tidal wave, and you won't leave, then building a wall around you is your only hope of surviving the flood.
The other option is to admit that you already have friends from different races. You've been getting along with other races all along. They may have some ticks that bug you, but you've got family members you're ashamed of too. Life is going to be full of people of different colors. That's how it's always been, and that's how it's always going to be.
Racism is nothing more than a recipe for an anxiety attack. The moment you stop taking the pill, is the moment you get to stop living in an apocalyptic war that doesn't exist. Life is better when you let go.
For what it's worth,
The Wise Sloth