Political Correctness, Segregation, and Capitalism PART 3

PC CULTURE: PART 2 So, what was happening in the households of the other half of the white population? They were making racist jokes and reaffirming their own racial identities. They were telling stories that perpetuated stringently held stereotypes that proved to them that people of color were different and less than white people. They were convincing themselves that people of color were the source of their own poverty and joblessness or the reason they weren’t as rich as their friends or in-laws. They were making fun of white liberals because we were too stupid to see the truth. And, though PC culture seemed to say otherwise, the persistence of white supremacy inherent and enduring in our educational and judicial systems confirmed these racist beliefs. Communities of color were plagued with crime. Students of color did poorly in schools. White remained the standard for leadership, intellect, prosperity and beauty. The system of oppression remained invisible, so its effects were mistaken for its causes.

Because explicit racism was no longer accepted in mainstream white spaces, white liberals made the perilous mistake of believing that racism no longer existed. Maybe, we told ourselves, there was still a small minority of racists, but they were old and wouldn’t be around much longer. Never did we question this even as we continued to see inequities and unjust laws. We simply would not allow ourselves to believe that racism was still the problem it had always been. We were stubbornly blind because to view white supremacy for what it was meant self-evaluation.

While white liberals were basking in the apparent freedom of this new PC culture and the flattering identity we had given ourselves, racists were walking on eggshells and a powerful, dangerous resentment was growing among them for the need to keep silent about the white supremacist ideology that they firmly believed as fact, an ideology that, despite pervasive PC culture, was still reinforced in our society in ever subtler forms: selective and biased news coverage, selective and biased policing of drug use and sales, selective and biased casting in TV and film…

For people of color, nothing had changed. They were still assaulted by systemic, legal racism. They were still assaulted directly by racist white conservatives. They were still assaulted indirectly by white liberals. And Blacks were vocal about it: from writers June Jordan and Lucille Clifton to musicians NWA and Rage Against the Machine. White liberals refused to listen, or refused to understand the urgency. We refused to act even as we watched Rodney King beaten and his assailants acquitted.