Whether the Issue is Gun Control or Inequality, It Always Comes Back to Race/Racism

I was trying to define wherein lies the fervor of the supporters of the NRA and the gun lobby.  It isn’t their love of guns.  It isn’t even that they’re right wing.  It’s that they fear being attacked, or more broadly, being overwhelmed by Black men and more recently Hispanics.

It always comes back to race and racism.  They say they need arms for self-defense.  Who do they see as potentially attacking them?  

Other whites, even white robbers?  Hardly.  They fear being attacked by Black men.  Nowadays they also fear the Hispanic “invasion.”   The fear of the black boogyman is alive and well in the United States.  And their fear of losing their special status as white Americans is increasing each year as we approach the day when whites will be in the minority.  Hence their hatred of Hispanics.

Right wing militias may say that they fear government oppression.  But what is that oppression?  Its essence is being placed on an equal footing with people of color.  You’ll never find a Black man or other person of color in a right-wing militia.  It’s not that there aren’t right-wing people of color; it’s that militias are nativist, white supremacist, anti-semitic.

America does not want to admit that racism has a presence in virtually all sectors of our society.  But it does.  Some strains may be more subtle, some more violent.  But racism, in all its forms, infects the national discussion of many issues.  

And it is racism that continues the propagation of inequality in our democratic nation.  For example, whether the issue is education, health care, or welfare, it is racism that causes the antagonism of conservatives to efforts to create more equal opportunity for the poor, which they view as being primarily Blacks and Hispanics  

(Note, however, that this is in fact just barely true.  While Blacks and Hispanics do have a much higher poverty rate, there were more white people living in poverty (17 million) in 2017 than either Blacks (9 million) or Hispanics (10.8 million).  Combined they accounted for just 51% of people living in poverty.  Also, minorities have historically accounted for no more of the welfare caseload than Whites.)

This racial antagonism explains why conservatives who were so deficit conscious when Obama was president and fought against programs to help the poor became so un-deficit conscious when they took control and spent money on the things that they considered important … like tax breaks for the rich and defense.  Their deficit talk during the Obama years was just a smoke screen for their racism.

Until we get over racism (see my post, “We Need a National Discussion on Race and Racism”) our country will be divided and hobbled.  We will never be truly great in the sense our country was meant to be great by our Founders.  We are far from meeting their aspirations.

In fact, we are less great now under Trump than we have been since the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the vote and the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  Seen in this light, Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again,” is highly ironic.  For it is Trump himself who has denigrated not just the office of President but America’s inner strength and standing in the world.