Saturday, April 24, 2010

Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black.

Imagine if they tore down homes in historically poor and black neighborhoods to build giant interstates to make it easier for privileged whites to avoid them.

Imagine if those historically disadvantaged people started making educational strides in the public schools and they shut those schools down to better facilitate more spending in the privileged white areas, cutting a big "U" shape in a hillside school district to keep the privileged children from having to mingle with poor.

Imagine if our chamber of commerce and the head of our local university applauded such measures and egged them on.

Imagine if our state leaders built campaign platforms on the basis of it being unfair that the privileged should have to pay for such institutionalized luxuries.

And then do what the title says.

Wise: Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

2 comments:

Iamhoosier said...

Nice catch, Jeff.

G Coyle said...

Sort of scary to imagine, but good for the collective soul. Thanks.