“Alt-right” synonymous with “bigot?”

It is the new phrase that came out of the 2016 election cycle; “alt-right.” As in not the standard issue conservative who leans toward the Republican party, but an alternate version.
 

TRUMP: Election opened nasty can of worms

Of course, what makes them alternative is that their racial hang-ups are a little more intense. In fact, they are the base of these people having anything resembling a political philosophy.

IF WE WANTED to be purely honest, we’d simply say they’re bigots. But the “alt-right” term comes from those people who want to legitimize any sense that one’s racial sentiments ought to be permitted to be a basis for government policy.

And also don’t want anything resembling use of the term “cracker” to refer to themselves.

Now I know there are some people who are getting upset these days with the perception that the Republican Party has been overtaken by bigots. They want to think there’s some moralistic overtone to the conservative thought process by which they have become the political party for white people.

They want to argue that not every person who cast a vote for Donald Trump’s presidential bid did so for racial reasons. In short, they’re willing to talk a lot of smack to avoid the very real fact of modern-day politics.

PEOPLE WHO VOTED for Trump either really do have the ridiculous notion that white people are being discriminated against because they’re no longer permitted to discriminate against people not like themselves. Or, they’re more than willing to look the other way when it comes to being around the bigots of our society.

Perhaps to them the notion of being around non-white people with some authority is more offensive than being around white people who are willing to use physical force to maintain their sense of place in the world.

I have one person I knew back in college who, on Facebook recently, said we ought to refuse to use the term “alt-right” and replace it with “all white.” It would be more accurate, she says, if we didn’t try to make the term “alt-white” sound respectable.

How far will alt-right rewrite history?

Yet this is going to be the very focus of much of the rhetoric we’re going to hear in coming years. There are people who must take seriously notion expressed by author George Orwell (as in “1984”) that “history is written by the winners.”

THEY PROBABLY THINK this past election cycle was a “war” in which they’re trying to take back the country from all of society’s undesirables – as in the ones whom the deplorables think are truly disgusting because of their repulsive sensibilities about life!

In that context, “alt-right” is merely a part of rewriting history. And not seeing the incredibly obvious in that photograph playing big on the Internet these days with Vice President-elect Mike Pence in front and a whole slew of white people filling the room.

It is a way where we can go back to the old way of thinking of things, in which a “Martin Luther King, Jr.” was a borderline-Communist agitator for spouting out nonsense about equality and non-violence who tried falsely to portray himself as a Christian.

Let’s not forget that some people do have a twisted sense of their Christian religious faith – I still remember once covering a Ku Klux Klan rally outside the Statehouse in Springfield, Ill., where their “pastor” led everybody in a prayer for God to strike the Earth with a plague that would wipe out all the non-white people.

NOT EXACTLY IN line with any serious religious teachings I have ever heard.

Yet these are the individuals who are being given some credence. Who are being treated as though they have something essential for our society to hear. And whose hostile rhetoric somehow bears a legitimacy to what else is being said.

So how should we truly think of these people? What terms should we use to describe them with a sense of honesty?

There are times when I watch the old “All in the Family” reruns on television and think that actor Carroll O’Connor’s “Archie Bunker” character bears relevance to what is happening today. Which makes me wonder if actor Sherman Hemsley’s “George Jefferson” is who many of us will turn to for the proper retort!

  -30-

Was it a ‘George Jefferson’ impersonation? Or just inarticulate talk?

What should we think of the fact that mayoral hopeful Willie Wilson tried to say he’s not a prejudiced person by allegedly using a phrase that some people consider to be a racial slur?

As in “whitey.” The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week on the City Club of Chicago forum at which Wilson spoke, and is to have said, “to the whiteys here, I’m letting you know I ain’t prejudiced.”

WILSON TRIED TO pressure the Sun-Times into taking back that quote, but the newspaper (to its credit) refused to do so. For what it’s worth, John Kass of the Chicago Tribune wrote in his Sunday newspaper column that Wilson privately admitted to him that he said “whitey” and was sorry if anyone was offended.

But I’m wondering just what kind of person would really be offended at use of the word “whitey.” It comes across as so buffoonish to think that is really a slur. In fact, I suspect the only people who are offended by the phrase are certain white people whose own speech is laced with racial and ethnic slurs but who take offense at anything aimed at themselves.

Some people have recalled the Richard M. Daley moment of his first successful mayoral campaign where he is alleged to have used the phrase “white mayor” to describe what he thought the city of Chicago needed in order for government to be successful.

He tried using the same defense that Wilson is now using – perhaps his dialect just isn’t clear to certain ears. Then again, some people freak out whenever they hear a black public official of any type say “axed” when trying to say “asked.”

WILSON’S SPEECH IS laced with a tinge of southern drawl, and it is clear he’s not exaggerating when he says he has only a seventh grade education. Just like Daley (who was a DePaul law school graduate) never overcame the speech patterns picked up by growing up amongst Bridgeport neighborhood immigrants for whom English might not have been the first language.

As in it’s our fault for not understanding what the candidate was trying to say.

Although when I first heard about Wilson’s alleged “whitey” moment, my mind flipped back to George Jefferson, as in the character created by actor Sherman Helmsley to be the primary foil of bigoted Archie Bunker on the “All in the Family” program.

Those of us of a certain age remember Helmsley’s constant barking of “honky” at any white person who managed to annoy him – and George was easily offended by just about everybody who came into his sight.

THAT WAS DONE for laughs, and I have to admit to having the same reaction to Wilson’s so-called moment of rhetorical nonsense. It’s too ridiculous to take seriously!

Just as I don’t think this will hurt Wilson’s campaign in any significant way. The kind of people who will take offense are the kind who weren’t going to vote for him under any circumstances.

The rest of the electorate got its chuckle.

It also reminds me of the “All in the Family” episode where George Jefferson tried running for political office himself, spouting out high-minded ideals of public service while his real intention was to get to approve a city permit for his “cleaning store” to knock out the flower shop located next door.

I’D HATE TO think the Wilson campaign that talks high and mighty about representing the interests of all Chicago has equally selfish purposes in mind!

Besides, the part of Wilson’s quote that bothers me isn’t the “whitey” reference. It’s the part where he says, “I ain’t prejudiced” that riles me up.

Many people may speak more informally than they would read or write something – some like Gov. Bruce Rauner apparently do it on purpose, thinking it makes them appear to be more like the masses. That upsets me more than anything Wilson might have done.

But even someone who only went to school through the seventh grade should have learned that “ain’t” ain’t a word.

  -30-