"During their school’s NCAA Tournament game against Kansas State University today, members of the Southern Mississippi University band chanted, “Where’s your green card?” at a Puerto Rican Kansas State player. Kansas State guard Angel Rodriguez, who was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and played high school basketball in Miami, Florida, was fouled while shooting during the first half of today’s game in Pittsburgh."
I am biting my tongue to control the release of a barrage of vicious words that this story invokes. This is so disgusting and yet so consistent with the “dark side of populism” (to quote McCain) that we have seen and heard in these last few years. There is a part of me that wants to hate. We are reminded to hate the act, but not the hater, a human just like us. I keep telling myself that to surrender to the meanest and darkest instinct would only be a victory for racists like the So Miss band& its fans. They wanted to get a rise out of Mr. Rodriguez. They clearly did not. It is easy to paint the entire school as supportive of these actions, they are not.
And still the anger rises in me. Why should I respond in any way except to acknowledge Rodriguez’s victory over the chants? He Scored 13 points and K-State won.
I am oh so tired of the pride with which morons continue to parade their vicious fears and prejudice in arena after arena after arena. In Mississippi, recent polls showed that 51% of the Repub electorate believes that Obama is a Muslim. Mississippians don’t repeat the lie for political ends, they repeat it because they believe it to be true. The lie repeated so often it has become accepted wisdom. Mississippians hear it all the time, in their churches, at their lunch counters, and from their friends, neighbors, and political leadership. In this political season, thugs on the political right have felt compelled to, even empowered to attack women, gays, and in through barely camouflaged ways the first African American President of the United States. He is a Muslim, they say. He is not an American Citizen they say. He is a Commie, Socialist they say, without noting that in practical terms he cannot be both a devout, or even closeted Muslim, and also a Communist.
It is often said that the racism practiced today, is of the most subtle kind. Often what sounds like racism is actually, a deep hatred for the poor, for example. That seems to be an acceptable version of hatred. They talk of a food stamp nation without acknowledging the deep sense of corruption of the elites that created this environment. Some suggest that being poor is a life choice. They say charity should provide, but challenge the Government’s efforts to do that as enabling the laziness of the economic class that requires it.
I am all so sick of it, really disgusted by the arrogance, the superiority, the lack of shame or remorse. Apologies come at the end of an advertiser boycott. Morality never ends the picture. NEVER.
I want to say: F*** You, Rush Limbaugh and really to all of them. What can you say to the members of the So Miss state band with their ignorant ill-informed chants. Or Representative Bachman with her deep and hateful fear of homosexuals. What can we say to the thugs that root for the death of those with no insurance, and cheer for the execution of hundreds in Texas? The Republican right seeks to further empower a small class of financial elites on the backs of working men and women. They despise the poor even as they feed off their misery, hoarding their wealth. What can we say to those with no ears for those living in real pain, in a state of real deprivation all around them? Rick Santorum has felt comfortable, happy even to rant and rave, spouting a patriarchal misogynist view of women’s role in society. What can be said to him?
How can we be both militant and loving as Dr. King might have suggested to us were he still alive? Today is not a good day for those thoughts. These people disgust me. I am in ways no better than them and so maybe in no position to condemn, but I really despise them.
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