White Shame
Torch-bearing "Unite the Right" bigots showing their true colors. "How does legitimate white pride look?" Tony Peterson, one of the people I most respect, posted this question on Facebook twelve hours ago. It's generated a great deal of conversation in that forum, to which I contributed one short response: "White pride" is for those who don't know or, worse, ignore history. White shame is where pale-skinned Americans like me need to start. I posted an essay yesterday about how integral racism has been to the history of the Americas, with a line traceable to the first European explorers and colonists to set foot in the New World. Today's essay draws on much more recent history: specifically, the direct line of racist policies that runs from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump. Modern racism begins in the 1960s with the passage of civil rights legislation during the Johnson Administration. That's when, for the first time since Rec...