WTF, AMERIKKKA???

 

I knew we had a supremely racist country stained with a bigoted past whose foundation was laid on the backs of slaves. Even still, the presidential candidacy of an Illinois Senator in 2008 gave us hope. Barack Obama ran his campaign of hope on the slogan, “Yes We Can” and won the presidency as the nation’s first African American to hold that office. And if that weren’t a monumental step forward for America, he was successful and earned a second term. My pride in America, faith in her Constitution and hope for our future was at an all-time high.

But there was a severe backlash across the largely red states in this country. The innate racism, a systemic issue affecting the heart of our democracy and tearing at the fabric of our union, reared its ugly head in response to eight years under a black progressive president. A crescendo from white Amerikkka, especially in “the Heartland” and “Bible Belt,” the poorest and least educated of our neighbors, built into a red wave which overtook our democracy and became MAGA World and Trumpism (aka The Cult of Trump). An outcry from the lower and middle class, that started with The Tea Party movement a year into Obama rule, bolstered by neo-Nazi and Confederate-loving rednecks, grew into a roar of the alt-right until neo-conservatism was overtaken by fascism and a sense of false national pride. Like post-World War I Germans, Christian Nationalists cried for the fatherland and a new white messiah to save it from the hoard of brown immigrants (“vermin,” just like the Jews had been to Germans). There was also a rise in anti-semitism JUST LIKE in Germany and in 1920’s Amerikkka. Yes, the height of the Ku Klux Klan in the good ol’ US of A!

That backlash is what got us a pornstar-fucking, reality TV star and fake billionaire playboy as president in 2016. The alt-right MAGA cult was now the ruling class. We saw what it unleashed immediately. The Klan’s hoods came off. They marched, unhooded, through the streets of Charlottesville in 2017, leading to violence. They even stormed our fucking Capitol waving Nazi and Confederate flags in 2021! UN-REAL!

Racism reared its ugly head in a very real way. Thank you, MAGAts.

The nation barely survived COVID, racial unrest, growing economic disparity, culture warfare and recession during the Dark Years of 45 and MAGA rule. But we booted his impeached ass out of office and replaced him with another rich, white dude and career politician. We threw a bunch of his cult-loving insurrectionist traitors into prison. We thought we had moved on.

Enter Kamala Harris. She was thrust into the political spotlight in what “the cult” saw as another coup. It wasn’t. It was a necessity. The old, white patriarchy—yeah, the ones who brought us slavery, America’s original sin—needed to be dismantled. The bi-racial woman of color seemed just the person to do that…finally.

Only racist, white Amerikkka wasn’t ready. The only thing worse than an African-American male candidate, apparently, IS A FEMALE. Ask Hilary Clinton.

The misogyny in this vast Republic of 330 million is very deeply rooted. The Christian Nationalists, whose archaic views take a very narrow and fundamental view of the Bible, hold women in shackles very much like their extremist cousins in the Middle East. I prefer to call these American terrorists the Christian Taliban because of their extremist views on women and their desperate need for theocracy. There’s a reason June Cleaver archetypes were so popular in 1950’s American culture. From this worldview, women should “know their place.” Or as 1 Corinthians 14:34 instructs, “Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.” The shariah law of the Taliban demands it.

We saw the Harris/Walz campaign end Tuesday night in utter defeat. It wasn’t the first time a woman dared to shatter that last glass ceiling and begin to dismantle the patriarchy, propped up by centuries of white aristocracy (aka privilege). Hopefully, it won’t be the last. And her campaign of joy and hope, Obama at the forefront in the final month, fell on deaf ears.

But white Amerikkka spoke loudly. They said yes to a black male BUT HELL NO TO A WOMAN!

The first Trump administration rolled back women’s rights 50 years. White, Christian Amerikkka thought that didn’t go far enough. They want the Christian Taliban to roll them back 100 years to women’s suffrage, as outlined in their manifesto, Project 2025.

At least Hitler put his name to Mein Kampf and never distanced himself from his own playbook. Tim Walz tried to warn us. You don’t draw up a 900-page-plus playbook just to shelve it! You also don’t name its authors to your Presidential Transition Team, while publicly denying you even know these people. C’mon, mini Hitler, own up to your work! You are named more than 500 TIMES in its pages!

ITS MESSAGE: Women, know your place and keep silent!

Amerikkka shouted that from the top of the ballot box Tuesday.

SYSTEMIC, STRUCTURAL SEXISM (In America)

It's funny that the European countries we were beholden to and where most of us immigrated from are so much further advanced than we are when it comes to equality and social policies. Even Mexico, to our South, and Spanish-controlled Florida in the 1800's had abolished slavery when the trade was at it's peak in our country. And ever since racial equality has been a thing and gender equality (and insert social justice or policy issue here), the Europeans, namely British and French have been way ahead of us, Great Britain's Slavery Abolition Act of 1834 following France by some 40 years. Spain, who brought slavery to this continent, signed a pact with the U.K. in 1817 to abolish the slave trade. And even though we got on board in 1865 after the Civil War tore this country apart, slaves still weren't free. After a short period of "reconstruction," the South still persisted with the "new slavery," sharecropping, and Jim Crow Laws. It took the civil unrest of the 1960's to finally end the systemic racism and oppression of African Americans, a cancer that hasn't been totally eradicated from our culture.

Women's suffrage was a popular civil rights movement some four decades earlier. Still, women don't enjoy the same freedoms, bodily autonomy or adequate compensation for similar work as men.

This is one reason we need more female representation in the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches of U.S. Government. How can we call this a "representative democracy," a republic, when our Legislative branch is dominated and controlled by old, white men? The disparity was called out in an April committee meeting on Capitol Hill by Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA).

Pool/Getty Images (Google)

In a Young Turks video from April that garnered 2.4 million views, Rep. Porter goes head-to-head with a Heritage Foundation official, Dr. Burke, at this hearing. "Only about 28% of members of Congress are women. The median age of the Senate is 65 and the median age in the House is 58...so, on average, lots of older people, lots of older men," as she points out that policies protecting women's rights, especially single mothers, are never prioritized. These policies, specifically early childhood education, "won't benefit many members, most, the average member of Congress...even when their kids were young, most members leaned most heavily on their wives, and I say wives because most members are men...Too many in Congress don't get it because they didn't have to live it," Rep. Porter said.

She calls out "the familiar policy pattern" in Congress to invest in things they understand. "The collective body of older, richer men in Congress OVER-invest in things they understand (emphasis hers)." She claims policies to benefit single mothers don't personally benefit the average member of Congress and so they don't try to understand the problem as it never affected them personally, so they don't invest public dollars to support things like early childhood education.

STRUCTURAL SEXISM
Rep. Porter continued to call out her male colleagues for ignoring the plight of women, in general, and single mothers, in particular. She identified the ongoing inequality in public policy a result of "structural sexism."

"When we say that structural sexism continues to permeate this body...and our policies, that's what we're talking about. We're not imagining it." She claims that policies to benefit women are what "always ends up on the cutting room floor in legislation." She intends to make structural sexism go away with more progressive policies. "Women can and must contribute to our economy if we're going to have a globally competitive economy." Rep. Porter hopes that her colleagues will be moved to take action by "this single mom asking them to care, on behalf of all the other parents of young children who are struggling in this country." She claims to be the only single mother in Congress. She asked the committee, "What about the 10 million single moms? Where do they fit?"

She concluded by saying, "I'm sharing my story because my story doesn't get heard in Congress...Our whole perspective here is warped by the fact that this body is so disproportionately UN-representative of the American people's experience."

Springer Link says, "Structural sexism refers to discriminatory beliefs or practices on the basis of sex and gender that are entrenched in societal frameworks and which result in fairly predictable disparities in social outcomes related to power, resources, and opportunities. [It] also functions to normalize and legitimate such beliefs, practices, and inequalities of conditions and outcomes."

An October 2022 study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports, "Structural sexism manifests via norms that constrict women’s social participation, including at work." Furthermore, "Intimate partner violence (IPV) is underpinned by structural sexism, patriarchal norms, and unequal gender power dynamics."

FSU Assistant Professor Patricia Homan developed a new structural sexism approach to the study of gender inequality and health.  Her approach, published 2019 in the American Sociological Review, goes beyond sexist mistreatment by individuals to examine how the degree of systematic gender inequality in power and resources — i.e. structural sexism — in a society can impact people’s health. This was the same focus as the above-referenced NIH study. Both point to the effects on children and society, not just women. "Structural sexism can be evident in major social institutions, such as the government and the economy, in interpersonal interactions and relationships, such as marriages and in individuals’ beliefs and identities." The effects in government were pointed out quite well by Rep. Porter. Professor Homan came to the same conclusion about more progressive policies to reduce it's impact. “The first thing we need to realize is that gender inequality in the United States is not only a human rights issue, but also a public health problem,” she said. “Therefore, gender equity policy is health policy.”

WHY DO I CARE?
You might wonder why I began with the issue of slavery and racism. Well, because one led to the other as a systemic societal issue, one that persists today. We will never eradicate racism, but we can educate. The same applies to any social issue, including gender inequality.

I have raised two daughters, one who just celebrated her 20th birthday, the other turns 23 in a few days. Both of them were adopted, my youngest daughter is African-American. That is why I liken the race and gender inequality issues. She faces them both and suffers micro-aggressions on the daily, even in progressive parts of Colorado. That's why I care deeply about these issues, but specifically the sexism that is so deeply entrenched into the fabric of our culture.

My daughters both have a problem with this patriarchal society, as do I. We finally have a woman of color in the White House, but it'll still be many, many years before one is elected to the highest office. As Rep. Porter points out, my daughters, especially my youngest, are so under-represented in Congress and at all levels of government, that it's no wonder.

Screen captured image from a YouTube video posted by Graduate School of Social Work - DU, titled "Power Privilege and Oppression," uploaded six years ago

The history of humankind, as we've been taught for eons, was pushed and pedaled by the patriarchy. They have controlled the narrative, from the time of the ancient sages until the present. We've been force fed a whitewashed, male-dominated version of human history. Why did it take until 2016's "Hidden Figures" film with Tom Hanks for most of us to learn that black women were behind our successful lunar missions at NASA??? Their stories, by and large, are untold in the history books. Harriet Tubman was one of the exceptions in history class, and not the rule. How many female heroins does the Bible exalt? Exactly, very few. The Judeo-Christian worldview for all of time has been one of patriarchy. God, the giver of life, has always been portrayed as an old, white man. Why does God possess a gender? And why would we assume his race? Jesus was born of a Virgin Middle Eastern woman OF COLOR! He was a man of color. Seems kind of silly that we've been pedaled a patriarchal view even in Sunday School.

I've fought hard against these stereotypes and have encouraged my girls, likewise. They grew up to be feminists just by their observations of the world. I merely joined them when they were old enough to make these judgments about society for themselves. And because I don't want them to suffer the inequality of old, nor for their potential daughters to grow up in a patriarchal society, I've pushed for more gender equality and been an outspoken advocate of same...for my daughters and granddaughters benefit. Men have ruled the narrative--the church, government and history--for quite long enough.

"White people are scared to death right now, particularly white males. They are scared to death they are going to lose their power in the future, and they are," says renowned race relations teacher Jane Elliott. "If you want to be treated well in the future, treat people well in the present."