If not now, when? — Liberal Street Fighter
Why are we here? How have we become so disconnected, so inured to each other? Why don’t we talk about class, about race, about the divisions that are so apparent to anybody who is honest? We pretend … the world is some of fantasy we project. Yet somtimes, somebody shatters the image:
“I hate the way they portray us in the media.
“If you see a black family it says they are looting if you see a white family it says they are looking for food.
“And you know that it’s been 5 days because most of the people are black and even for me to complain … I would be a hypocrite because I would turn away from the TV because it’s too hard to watch. I’ve even been shopping before giving a donation and so right now I’m calling my business manager what is the biggest amount I can give.
“And just to imagine if I was down there, those are my people down there. So anybody out there who wants to help with the set up, the way that America is set up to help … The poor, the black people, the less well off as slow as possible. I mean, Red Cross is doing everything they can.
“We already realize a lot of the people that could help are at war now fighting another way and they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us.”
(Mike Meyers tries to get back on prompter, reads from script and then camera cuts back to Kanye. He pauses before
Kanye West: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
When are we going to confront this, talk about it, DEAL WITH IT?
White people dig their toes into the ground. Black people get uncomfortable and circumspect, until frustration breaks free. This question is America’s original sin. … when are we going to treat ALL American citizens as equally important?
Race is the most obvious division, but class is at work too. We LOATHE the poor. We blame them for their plight, and we blame them more when they don’t act with some projected sense of moral rectitude. We love our fantasies of wise slave mamies counseling conflicted debutantes, brave street tramps dropping pearls of wisdom on conflicted students. The wise crazy homeless black man is a weird cultural icon.
It’s past time, as we confront a disaster that rippes bare all of these divisions we tried to pretend weren’t there, for us to have this vital conversation. It’s past time for the left, so long AWOL from the vital questions, to press CLASS WARFARE, for it has already underway. The lower classes, the poor and the black and the red and the brown are already under assault. When are we going to TALK ABOUT this, and why has the public debate become so debased that it take a rapper on a benefit concert to make us confront the ROTTING ELEPHANT in the room?