White Haters?
By Mary Hannington
A wise man said.
This supposedly beleaguered minority
(White males are about one-third of the
population) makes up 80 percent of the
Congress, four-fifths of tenured university
faculty, nine-tenths of the Senate
and 92 percent of the Forbes 400.
Tell me who's angry!
I say the problem with affirmative action
seems to me like way too much affirmative
talk and way too little action!
June M. Jordon - Jim Crow the Sequel, 2000
A fiscal conservative friend, who voted Obama and is now unhappy, forwarded a video of a hearing where a hospital administrator in Florida complained of having to cover the cost of two illegal aliens each of whom had been provided by the hospital with 1.5 million dollars in care.
She asks what is the answer?
There are a lot of sides to these debates. One of the questions ought to be how does ONE patient end up costing 1.5 million dollars?
Depending on the state, Federal funds are available to cover the costs of medical treatments for the poor. Medicaid, which often covers these services, is being cut back in many state budgets and in some cases what is breaking the bank is the wealthy that are receiving Medicaid benefits by using Medicaid planners to protect hundreds of thousands of dollars while they stop paying for insurance and use these Medicaid funds instead. Without getting into statistics and number crunching our healthcare system is in serious trouble, but to blame all our troubles on illegal aliens is absurd.
This friend's senator, the lovely Tom Tancredo has proposed that we export all the illegal Hispanics at a cost of $200 billion dollars and in the meantime he also proposes we deprive them of emergency medical care, so if they get hit by a car... Does anyone REALLY think this is a logical idea?
Unlike some conservatives I don't see the illegal alien as a threat. I'm happy to pay more taxes to help those less fortunate than I, the poor and the illegal. My compassionate conservative friends and I realize that there is a need for social services, but our ways of helping out may differ.
As problematic as Medicaid and Medicare are and we need reforms there, I don't believe that keeping our nation's health care in the hands of capitalists is working either and a handful of illegal aliens is the least of my concerns.
Imagine for a moment if our police forces were privatized and only those that could afford it were protected from crime? People are dying and going bankrupt because they can't afford care.
It's dangerous to point to one race of people and make them a scapegoat for this country's problems. I am utterly sickened by Tancredo and the kind of conservative thinking contained in this speech. Please listen to the whole thing, I had to walk away from it several times, but let it sink in.
American Renaissance Center: Race and Conservatives
Note: Researchers have noted that those in all societies, who are lower on the economic ladder score lower on IQ tests and that as African Americans have risen further up the ladder the gap Taylor mentions has closed. For more information on science and race Color Blind Study
Tom Tancredo too warns me to beware "the siren song of multiculturalism"
In fact, I live in a racially mixed neighborhood and I would love Mr. Taylor and Mr. Tancredo to explain to me how it is that we aren't ripping each other to shreds? Because according to Mr. Taylor black people have been taught to hate us and areas of multiculturalism are hot beds of violence because liberal whites have instilled the idea in blacks that we have cheated them.
As if hauling Africans into this country in chains and owning them like livestock was just a little fucking oopsy on our part.
It's true that a new African American neighbor's daughters were at first frightened by a group of white neighbors charging towards them like some crazed KKK members, but they were later pleased to learn the group was only a "flash mob" (google it) brought to together via cel phone to scare off someone who was in the process of stealing their mother's car.
In fact, I have lived here for 23 years and not once has a black man or woman ever treated me hatefully. It was a black man and a doctor (certainly smarter than I), who sponsored me for the Detroit Athletic Club that once denied membership to its architect, Albert Kahn because he was a Jew. Imagine that?
That's right kids I live in a topsy turvy world where we DON'T see each other as different.
In fact, the mixing of black and white in this city is becoming even MORE prevalent and one can go to area bars and see young friends of all races sitting at tables together and OMFG, getting along.
In fact, I go to majority white suburban neighborhoods and I do hear hate. Not "indifference" as Taylor suggests. I hear this one all the time "The blacks have ruined the city of Detroit."
There were a mere 357 (out of 37,798 in the Metro area) Non-Hispanic White households in the city of Detroit reporting an income of over $200,000 in the 2000 Census. This compared to 2,565 Black households in the central city with an income over $200,000. This is what is left after about 40% of that wealthier black population also moved out of the city. In a population of approximately 835,000 with the majority of its wealthiest residence removed, success isn't going to come easy.
Perhaps Detroit's ruin is more the fault of those that took their money and ran.
My neighborhood has incomes from the likes of judges down to lowly waitresses, we are all hard working and we chose to live amongst each other. In the poorer mostly African-American neighborhoods surrounding us I meet the same type of hard working people. For the most part they want to work too, but those lower income jobs are now harder to find. In my neighborhood, a plastics engineer is now working as a carpenter and in their neighborhood, an assembly line worker has found work as a car wash attendent. The difference is survival, feeding a family on a skilled worker's salary is easier than it is for someone working at minimum wage.
It's why I hear hate in the screams of "Why should I pay for this?" when folks discuss social services like health care. Because I see the despair on a man's face when he finds out Medicaid won't cover his Mother's and Grandmother's blood tests and I know he can barely afford to put food on the table.
I have studied religion and philosophy - Zen Buddhist thought and the Tao are things I drink from often. Maybe I am some aberrant child of the sixties that wishes for a world of harmony that can never exist. These words were written hundreds of year before christ was born - so I'm not the only one.
When rich speculators prosper
while farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn -
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.
Lao Tzu - The Tao te Ching
During the eight years of Bush’s reign reading this passage would make me weep. My partner and resident Guru has studied history, the founding fathers, the philosophers and the poets and has come to the same conclusions.
At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth...
Teddy Roosevelt
We both believe that in lifting everyone up, we all are better. At different points in our life we have walked away from lucrative careers because the greed and ego was not to our liking.
You have asked me what is the answer?
My answer is you are asking the wrong questions.
To be continued...
