Politics is the Last Place to Expect Heteroglossia; a Polemic

A Non-White Caucasian Speaks

Anyone who imagines that kneeling during the Star Spangled Banner is Un-American is grossly mistaken. He or she, however, has just as much right to be wrong and express his wrong-headedness as every one of the NFL players do to kneel during the National Anthem. I used to not stand during it at sports arenas because it had far too much in common with scenes I remembered from Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. This is not to denigrate Patriotism, only a means to realign our sense of what Patriotism is, what acting patriotic might look like.

I know what the flag means, what it symbolizes, what respect for it is; as I do for what was once a more organically defended politicized tradition in active democracy, something we have abandoned longer ago than too many of us are willing to admit or maybe just able to recognize. I wonder how many of those who call “UnAmerican” the NFL players who kneel during the National Anthem have read the essays of Madison, Hamilton and John Jay defending ratification of the Constitution by the new State of New York (The Federalist Papers), or any of the letters in correspondence between Madison and Jefferson, or carefully, which means more than superficially skimming, the Bill of Rights or the Constitution itself, or any speech of Lincoln, particularly those of the Lincoln/Douglas debates, or any of the speeches of The Reverend Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.? Have any of these knee-jerk conservatives examined just how easily they have aligned themselves with Power and Money to the detriment of themselves, their families and their futures, that is, ours? I do wonder, but not mockingly so; yet, I do suspect that there will be hundreds of thousands–or maybe just tens of thousands–who will find offense to take and will take it whole when confronted by an idea of Patriotism that is not accompanied by chest beating or vociferously engaged mono-syllabic taunts or haranguing. . . but then, these are probably those who imagine that saying Blue Lives Matter as a reflex to anyone saying Black Lives Matter is appropriate–and that’s just it; to say Blue Lives Matter in response to someone saying Black Lives Matter smacks more of reflex and received idea than it does organic support for police officers in the difficult job they do, as thanklessly as it often transpires. This reflex represents just that ping-pong I have been saying for decades now that we love to play in America, moreover, in any socio-political forum, ever where the discussion is rational and not overly emotional or violent. Tit for tat, anyone?

Saying all lives matter whenever someone says black lives matter, is beside the point, but perhaps just as much as when anyone who supports Black Lives Matter thinks the movement can be more successful in its goals by severing itself from its larger continuum, and that can be restrictive to the history of black struggle, social, political or economic. Anyone who supports BLM and in any way enacts or pronounces a policy of ethnic/racial isolationism is doomed, which does not mean that the movement in its struggle must be multiracial in its leadership. I refer to “ethnic” above because the very term African-American has been a rhetorical attempt to enter the politics of ethnicity, which is what really makes up Whiteness in America–the monolith of whiteness that some African-American counterpoints frame as a reference for White People are too overarching in their attempts to understand the politics that make up people who are often Caucasian without being White, or have been the former without having been the latter for much of our history. There are still too many Caucasians who have never shared in the benefits of, nor the preclusions from, whatever White has meant traditionally, thus what White has historically meant in America. Any attempt by anyone anywhere any-when to make a monolith of Whiteness in America is doomed to failure, that is, a failure of analysis, a failure in adequate and appropriate critique. Could this be why the media allows the marketing of the idea of Whiteness to take on this failure, so to undermine any attempt to understand race and racism by setting race in a false pretext? Thus undermining all contexts of analysis and discussion? Likewise, any discussion of racism in its institutional legacy that does not address class and poverty as adjunct to any discussion of class is also limited and limiting.

I applaud all efforts to protest Power and Monied Elites and their hegemony that manipulates social energies; I appreciate this protest coming from anyone, or any people, however the latter may choose to define themselves; and the applause extends to anyone who enacts opposition to the influence that Power and Monied Elites have on the Media and Government administrators. The influence of these Elites extends to governmental authority that Power and Money back, paying back Power and Money is what subsumes most governmental policies.

Black Lives Matter does not need me to say it is valid, that it has valence, that it needs respect, that I cannot be against it because human life/lives matter and black lives are human lives. These facts obligate me to lend support, if only in verbal ascension; how can I disagree with the statement black lives matter. To offer anything that even smacks as contrary, a ‘but’ put out for whatever reason, only neurosis can explain.

Yes, I do want to say Of course, black lives matter; the “of course” is a recognition of a metaphysical veracity, not a rhetorical subtraction; it is a pronouncement of  the universality of this ethical construction, but fully understanding that this is not an epistemological truth yet, although it is a Truth, the capital ‘T” necessitated in capturing it as an Absolute and Transcendental evaluation: yes, black lives matter is true in all places for all people for all time. But we have come to mistrust, distrust, attack, even, such universalized assertions; this has become part of our current problem in addressing or mis-addressing our current social conditions.